Westminstenders: The Negotiations Continue - The DUP ones

[RedToothBrush]

Tomorrow is the Queen’s Speech. In honour of that the start of this thread is written in its honour:

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Immigration is bad. Except for that good immigration.
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Brexit means Brexit
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Pilot scheme.
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Money for –the DUP-- NI
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Brexit means Brexit
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The Internet is Bad. Newspapers are good.
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Brexit means Brexit.
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Britain wave your flag.
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(The Queen’s turns over the page to read the back of the A4 sheet, only to find it blank)

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40376673

Robert Peston‏Verified account @Peston 17h17 hours ago

What happens when we can't rely on EU countries to vote with us. We're on our own now

'Chagos legal status sent to international court by UN'

"Most EU countries abstained from the vote, which BBC diplomatic correspondent James Landale described as an "embarrassing diplomatic defeat" for the UK.

He said it signalled that Britain's diplomatic clout had waned after the vote for Brexit."

The UK is full of hubris.

It's really only the size of a pimple on an elephant's backside in the broad scheme of things.

But onwards and upwards. Pride comes before a fall.

Someone mentioned upthread about Brits coming back from Spain etc. Last year dead ringers was on in the weeks following the referendum and they did a great skit of those property programmes where they look for a place in the sun, except this time Janice and Paul on the costa del sol were now looking at a semi in Hull. It made me chortle, I'll see if I can find it online somewhere.

Also, prompted by the Remainiacs podcast, they were discussing the idea of if Brexit goes ahead and everything goes to complete shit, Brits might have to go abroad to look for work, like they did in the 70s/80s and that people get so obsessed about immigrants etc it doesn't occur to them that the opposite situation would happen. I'm too young to know anything about this. Did large numbers of people go abroad or was it not really a thing? Happy to be enlightened/corrected on this.

Ed Miliband @ edmiliband
1/ In 2007, on flooding, and foot and mouth, COBRA played a critical role. It is inexplicable to me that COBRA has not been convened...
2/ COBRA should be co-ordinating the process of cladding inspection, evacuation, management and rehousing...
3/That COBRA appears not to have even met suggests a total failure of grip at the heart of government.

No Es I would perhaps think it suggests two other things:
1/ They don't really give a shit about people caught up in this
2/ This a loose thread that if pull on it too hard will start to look like the UK version of how everyone in the Trump Administration is heavily tied to Russia. In the UK's case it will be everyone connected to companies councils contract out to.

My Spidey sense is starting to really tingle on this one.

Math - to go back to your earlier point about bribery in construction. It may happen but in my experience it is far more likely to be overstretched and under resourced employers. For example, a tender would usually specify standards for materials. The contractors would tender on this basis.

If the tenders are over budget, there will be a value engineering exercise in which some reductions in standards are agreed to keep the cost down without properly considering knock on effects because there isn't the time or budget to do so.

ArtisanJam Are there no inspections conducted during construction?
Where I live you can't even put in new windows without a permit from the city. An inspector will review the plans and materials, and return to see that all has been done according to specs.

For any renovation of any kind you need to submit plans for approval and you can expect a city inspector to visit unannounced to check that all is going according to plan while your construction is under way.

In the last 18 months three high rises have been built locally, with rigorous inspection of all projects from planning to final construction. Extra inspectors were hired to deal with what is expected to be ongoing high rise development for the next 5 years.

How does a local authority make sure that a developer isn't taking the piss with their tender, knowing full well the actual cost is going to be higher?

Apparently Rydon were involved in renovations to the high rises in Camden that are now under scrutiny - is it possible that they substituted materials that did not meet code on a widespread basis?

Sos - glad you are back with us

It's important to remember that our status outside Schengen means that we currently have limited access to certain EU info and databases, so will in some cases the impact will be limited. Or we can confidently negotiate bilateral arrangements because a) we already have similar in place and b) the EU will want continued access to our data. E.g. the Eurodac data on refugees

Actually, as the opposition, Labour may as well just sit on the fence, and watch the Tories explode. Once that happens, the tide will probably be turned well away from "Leave", and they can swoop in and pick up the pieces.

If it is a deliberate strategy, then it looks more and more like it might turn out to be a very clever one (for all the outrage generated among former Labour voters like me ).

While I think brexit remains important to a lot of people, other things are now more important and this is true of both remainers and leavers.

I suspect that decreasing activity on the leave side is evidence of (a) political priorities moving on and (b) opinions gradually changing. Few will come out and admit to changing their mind, but by 2019 I suspect you'll have trouble finding people who admit to voting leave.

There is a wrinkle to the Irish situation that many here are probably unaware of, namely that the Fine Gael government of Leo Varadkar is a minority government, depending on the rest of the Dail including first and foremost Fianna Fail, to remain in 'power'. So far so good for FG. Brexit and in particular the fate of the GFA, and the border issue, could possibly shake up Irish political alignments in a significant way.

However, if as seems very likely, the GFA will be scrapped (it must be if the UK insists its line in the sand is the jurisdiction of the ECHR and the ECJ) then nationalists in NI and many people in Ireland will not just shrug and accept this.

In particular, Sinn Fein, which contests all elections in Ireland and takes its seats, will be in a position to put pressure on Fianna Fail to live up to its Republican roots. In turn, FG must pay attention to Fianna Fail or risk an election. FG would have to be very certain of either an outright win or a solid coalition before risking that. SF may become the tail that wags several dogs in Ireland, depending on how much the situation in NI looks like returning to the old days of Orange triumphalism, 'Croppies lie down', etc.

The risk to FF of being outflanked by SF and rendered indistinguishable from FG (or 100% demonstrated to be indistinguishable from FG) when it comes to policy on NI will be a major factor in FF decisions because the association of FF with the more Republican tone and sympathy has always resulted in votes even from people with only a very slight idea of who the Croppies were.

Because with each passing hour - let alone week - it's becoming painfully clear that the UKs position is EU deal, or no deal. Whatever the UK wants is an irrelevance because it's in no position to demand anything. [LH]

This has always been the case and it is astounding that this has not yet dawned on the government.

SwedishEdith
I showed the YouTube clip to DD3 who did AP Econ (micro and macro) last year in high school and asked her to rate Loathsome's performance vs Krugman and she sat slack jawed and speechless. Moulton similarly.

Debt as a moral argument?

She suspected that Krugman is 100% correct, that the problem in the UK is a toxic political discourse - 'none of this is at all about fiscal responsibility. It's all about exploiting the current situation to pursue an ideological goal of a smaller state'. (And I suspect the same goes for Brexit).

Estonia?

Her verdict - 'With friends like Loathsome and Moulton, who needs enemies?'

(Krugman made mincemeat of the pair of them.)

Math: there are building control requirements and inspections but these are often carried out by a consultant employed by the developer. They're not done by the council and are usually prearranged on large builds.

Architects and cost consultants are supposed to have a grip of design and cost (natch!) but if they're not properly managed it can spiral easily. It is seen less in construction than in the big it projects but there are very few large organisations here who manage their contracts really well, especially after the cuts in the public sector.

Fox/henhouse.

What could possibly go wrong...

Harrybiscuit Yes, they did. The sitcom Auf Wiedersehen Pet, that launched the careers of Kevin Whately, Jimmy Nail, Timothy Spall, among others, was based on this.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AufWiedersehen,Pett*

My uncle was a plasterer and used to go abroad for work.

Sorry: working link here:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/AufWiedersehen,Pet

Morning all. Especially sos, hope you are on the mend.

I heard Hillary Benn on Radio 4 this morning. He was talking about how Labours manifesto said Labour wanted to retain the benefits of the Single Market and Customs union.

He seemed to be in favour of staying in the customs union but couldn't be drawn on Jeremy Corbyn's opinion.

with only a very slight idea of who the Croppies were
Reference for Croppies:. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croppy
So SF and labour and remaining in the EU, could be the beneficiaries, interesting on FF, math

My Spidey sense is starting to really tingle on this one
Agree with you and Ed red. But class legal action may be the way this one is headed. Right now COBRA should be looking to save more tenants' lives this year. I am really concerned about school fire safety. There are lots of dodgy new 'academy' new builds. Scottish new schools have severely compromised buildings too. I'd want COBRA to be going after all tower blocks and schools, now.

Camden, at least when I lived near there, was a luvvverly labour council. That's why they've taken the action they have, and vice versa in kensington.

Where I live you can't even put in new windows without a permit from the city
HSE rules have been decimated in Britain, over the last 30 years math. Without the vigorous tort (?) law which maintains a lot of H&S in the US through civil legal actions, dangerous fire traps are a healthy money stream for english property empires.

Frances Ryan @DrFrancesRyan
Grenfell victims given bigger homes ‘could be hit by bedroom tax’, say the DWP in actual parody of Tory Britain. www.scotsman.com/news/grenfell-victims-given-bigger-homes-could-be-hit-by-bedroom-tax-1-4484689/amp

Marina Hyde on the looming Tory leadership nails all the candidates and kingmakers.

IDS a man who’d be intellectually outgunned by any of the runners at Royal Ascot

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/23/boris-johnson-david-davis-bra-size-conservative?CMP=sharebtnn_tw

looming leadership contest

I really hope that the increase in enthusiasm for a soft brexit marks the beginning of the end for brexit.

Because, forgive me if I'm wrong, but if we retain membership of the single market and customs union we will still have to pay around 80% of what we do now to the EU, accept freedom of movement and won't be able to make independent trade deals... We also won't have a voice in the European Parliament but will still have to abide by many of the rules - without having a say on them.

So in many instances, we carry on as we are, but with even less power than we have now.

Which, whilst if we must brexit I will be hoping and praying for as soft a brexit as possible, means a soft brexit is A Stupid Fucking Idea.

The only advantage it has is that hard brexit is a Cataclysmically Stupid Fucking Idea.

Dear god what a clusterfuck.

And it seems to me that it's being done to appease a relatively small albeit vocal group...

I know many leave voters but actually I can only think of one who is particularly passionate about leaving - I don't think the rest would be overfussed one way or the other.

I also think it's important to be clear that although a soft brexit is more palatable, this does not mean that voters want brexit at all.

They give sane Leavers a rather bad name.
The sane Leavers seem to have been absent from these threads recently.

clash

Soft Brexit is an utterly stupid idea. The only thing more foolish is a hard Brexit. Really hope the whole thing gets kicked into touch soon.

And, more seriously, post Brexit plans to reduce building and fire safety standards were being discussed on day of Grenfell fire

http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2017/06/22/building-regulations-red-tape-initiative-grenfell-tower/

I agree with the feeling there is a bigger picture here that needs to be investigated. I suspect that's why May called for a public inquiry so quickly - it kicks the shit into the long grass.

Welcome back, sos