Westministenders: Hey Hey we're the Monkies.

[RedToothBrush]

Welcome to the Listening Parliament.

Have you noticed it yet?

The Three Monkeys of See No Evil, Hear No Evil and Speak No Evil have been in a bit of a fight with didn’t fair well. Its funny how politicians of all shades and levels are desperate to prove just how good they at listening and how they see the problems.

Its quite incredible to think that officials elected to serve the public are even in this position where they are having suddenly think about how they show they are listening. It rather shows up that they have been accustomed to telling the public what to think and what to believe.

What they are still to work out, is that in saying they are listening, they also have to demonstrate they are listening and be credible.

The trouble is, that even though some of the monkeys have been killed off, we still have a lot of monkeys in parliament. 'Monkey say, Monkey do' actions still lurk. Politicians who imitate others without understanding the consequences.

There is no point in listening if you are only listening to one group and don’t understand the consequences of simply repeating the words of others.

Politicians saying they are listening when you can find dozens of incidents where they have said completely the opposition, without having the gumption to explain they have changed their position and without having the grace to explain the evidence that has lead them to change that position rather undermines the idea they are listening.

U-Turns are not a bad thing. U-Turns can show that you were making an error but were wise enough to admit that and why you were wrong. U-Turns are bad when you fail to acknowledge your failings and only do it to chase votes. This is where cynicism creeps in and lack of trust in politicians occurs.

Listening also requires actions to reflect words. There is no good in saying one thing, if your actions don’t reflect that. This is where the Listening Parliament is already failing. And I’m sure we will see it more.

Above all, listening is only part of a conversation. A politician is supposed to be accountable. They are supposed to have their eyes open to evil, not deaf to it and not unwilling to speak inconvenient truths where they recognise the evil.

Any politician who tells you they listen needs to back it up somehow. They need to demonstrate and justify their positions accurately. If they don’t they aren’t listening properly.

Isn’t it funny how it was in Hartlepool that the monkey got hung for being a Frenchman? No one was there to explain differently.

Yep...
Fuck me I'm depressed

I was depressed reading that there is a 'Special deal' that May and Trump have apparently cooked up. I can't see it being special for the UK. I can see it being Special for Trump's interests.

At what stage is there going to be a recognition that 'the will of the people' has changed? Which will be as much due to demographics as people changing their minds.

Here is something to give you hope and strength.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Made earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not yield.

These words have been by my bedside all through my battles with illness and has got me through against all odds. Hope it inspires you all.
Tennyson, ulleysus

Excuse spelling, only now awake lol!

German industry has warned Britain not to rely on its help in securing a good Brexit deal

From one of Bigchocs posts.

David Davies really is s complete numpty. He's like a sheep playing chicken with a car.
Utterly convinced the car will move (and drive itself off a cliff) because hitting the sheep will damage its bumper.

If anyone really thinks that the act of selling off swathes of the NHS to American health insurance companies is reversible in a way that Brexit isn't is deluding themselves. Both would involve spending vast sums of money to end up in a place that's worse than where you started.

I have to agree with you eeeeeow. What the Tories are doing is not a simple case of underfunding, which can be turned around by chucking some more money in later. It is a concerted effort to dismantle the whole basis of the NHS and public sector as we know it.

To be honest I think there is a lot of violent agreement going on in this thread and we are all on the same side. I just think we need to be a bit more ambitious than embracing the first person who looks sceptical about the Brexit unicorns no matter what else they may be doing. I am not saying I have the answer, but I think we have a real opportunity to turn the tide on brexit and austerity at the moment.

Also depressed this morning. Reading Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood about life in Weimar Berlin and these words really resonated. I think America is sleep walking into a far right nightmare.

‘ The Nazis may write like schoolboys, but they’re capable of anything. That’s just why they’re so dangerous. People laugh at them, right up to the last moment . . .’"

The last year has beaten the ambition out of me, tbh. Right now I'd settle for Britain staying vaguely functional and not turning into a far right wet dream and on a personal level, keeping my job, house and pension. Small things.

Nick Cohen in The Observer on Brexit reality and how waiting for Labour to take advantage is like Waiting for Godot.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/09/brexit-salvations-illusory?CMP=sharebtnn_tw

The supposedly omnipotent German car manufacturers did not stop Angela Merkel imposing sanctions on Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, even though sanctions hurt sales. Germanyy^, like the rest of Europe, like Britain itself, had an interest in stopping the rebirth of Russian imperialism and that came first.

Unlike May who will tie herself to Trump and co, if it will mean trade deals.

One Whitehall source sounded as weary as Cassandra as he described how ministers ignored the warnings of the civil service that EU countries meant it when they said we could not leave the single market and retain the benefits of being in the single market. “They think it’s just a negotiating tactic,” he told me. “They think they will buckle because EU countries export more to us than we export to them. They don’t understand or want to understand.”

This ought to be the moment when the opposition exposes a chaotic and purblind government. If Corbyn’s decision to go absent without leave during the referendum campaign did not convince you he wanted out of the EU because it stood in the way of the creation of socialism in one country, surely the feebleness of Labour opposition’s will convince you that no fight back is coming

Maybe it’s just the summer weather, but I catch the scent of public attitudes shifting. But real change will require opposition politicians stepping forward and providing principled leadership. At present, there’s more chance of Godot apologising for keeping us waiting than that sight greeting us.

It's a month since the election result and that unexpected hope we felt isn't being realised. This is like the US where each time Trump crosses another red line you think people will say 'enough'. Yet they never do and new norms are established.

Ulysses ?

Isn't that the one that starts about meting and doling unequal laws unto a savage race ?

And match'd with an aging wife ?

I'm also cheering myself up by reading Naomi Klein's 'No is Not Enough' which also sent me to 'The Shock Doctrine'.

I began wondering if Hunt is just waiting for the event that will give them the shock factor/green light to hand over the NHS to US Healthcare.

I'm encouraged by the way Grenfell was seen as a failure of capitalism and not a reason for more of it. But discouraged by how that initial impact is being weakened by undermining the community. A highly educated colleague told me that the tenants had refused a sprinkler system because it was too much disruption. When I said that wasn't true, she began talking about the ethnicity of the tenants. She reads the Mail.

And now Vince Cable saying it out loud:

Brexit may not happen

It's not inconceivable that such an ambitious project as Brexit could fail under it's own weight. In the same way the UK simply could not (and never could have) run Apollo and put men on the moon.

In fact, "not being able to do" something has been the refuge of politicians when faced with projects they don't want anyway.

"We want a universal income scheme !"

But that's, just not possible

"We want to leave the EU !"

But that's, just not possible

And recent events how shown what is possible when politically expedient. DUP

David Allen Green in response to Cable's comment.

David Allen Green @ davidallengreen
Gosh.

I once thought this too; I now think I was wrong. The "mandate" of the referendum result will not easily be exorcised.

However difficult the task of Brexit, the "Mandate" will be there, looming, pushing.

A near-irresistiable force, almost-immovabe object.

It does not matter how difficult (impossible) Brexit is, until the "mandate" is (somehow) exorcised, then Brexit must (somehow) continue.

(The verb "to exorcise" must be the correct one for referendum mandates.)

Fwiw, I think the referendum "mandate" can only be exorcised by parliament reasserting supremacy, and not by another god-awful referendum.

Where have all the grown ups gone.

Paul Haine @ paul_haine
The only reason Brexit will happen is because the UK will be too embarrassed to ever admit failing at it.

Patrick h. Lauke @ patrickhlauke
it's the ultimate "you know you're british when..."
"i ordered the wrong thing but left it too long to say anything, so i'll just eat it now even though it's not what i wanted..." type thing

Kat Ellis @ katellis37
Like when you trip in the steet then adopt some weird gait as if it's what you intended to do all along.

Isn't this just the truth. Add in the particular egos of Brexiteer leaders...

The "mandate" of the referendum result will not easily be exorcised.

I am beginning to see this too and it depresses the hell out of me. My hope now is the grown ups will grow some and the anti Brexit clamour will become too loud and overpower the 'mandate'. clings on to the rafters

Selling off chunks of the NHS will accelerate massively if DD's form of Brexit happens, because the UK will be dependent on the goodwill of Trump - who tantrums if he doesn't get all he wants.

The UK would be adrift from its normal trade, its income cut and seriously vulnerable to predators of all types.

Without Brexit, the creeping privatization of the NHS would continue at the same pace unless stopped and reversed by a Labour govt - remember NuLabour were as bad as the Tories for this

NHS privatision is unpopular, but if the country is sent into sufficiently deep economic crisis, the previously unacceptable becomes the norm.

A labour govt that comes in post-Brexit may be faced with a disastrous black hole in the accounts, that would soon lead to the IMF being called in and very stringent terms

Look at other countries where the economy has really crashed, to see what happens:

• Selling off the family / national silver - i.e. any national assets that foreign companies want to buy, not just the nhs
• Cutting public services: heath, care, any subsidised transport / infrastructure which doesn't help business
• Cutting public section pay
• Cutting public service pensions, including for current pensioners

Oh dear, I've not been on MN for the past 24 hours. I'll reiterate that I am not a Tory or a supporter - BigChoc's amputation analogy seemed to sum up the rock and hard place situation we find ourselves in.

Remember that under TTIP (which it would appear that Trump and May think they can copy & paste with all safeguards for UK industry/public sector taken out), corporations can sue governments if their profits are threatened by government policy.

So goodbye reversing any privatisations/involvement of US healthcare firms in the NHS

So much for taking control of our sovereignty.

I've never thought a 2nd referendum is a sensible way out.
The campaign would create even more division & hostility to minorities - as the 2016 one did.

In the likely timing of late 2018 / early 2019, it would create further uncertainty, hammering the pound and the economy, as international finance & business leaders would cost in a no-deal Brexit

The UK is a Parliamentary democracy:
A govt can discard any, or all, manifesto promises - whether because circumstances change, or its opinion does.
Parliament can overturn any decision or action that its predecessors made

MPs are our representives, who have the mandate to exercise their individual judgement
They are not even bound by the party under which they stood :
an MP who quits or is expelled from their party remains the MP for their constituency until the next GE, or unless they choose to stand down.

TTIP was rejected by the EU - which is one of the many reasons the hard right Tory Atlanticists want Brexit.
Their desired Bonfire of Red Tape

TTIP wouldn't just hit the NHS.
Its application could affect all public services and every aspect of govt - who might not be able to carry out manifesto commitments that both MPs and voters thought best for the UK

It would apply to any US firms whose profits were affected by public health advice,
by regulations about health & safety, workers' rights, the environment
by any preferential treatment of British sources for e.g. defense contracts, policing, fire services, infrastructure projects,

Also, the version of TTIP accepted by a desperate UK facing WTO Brexit, or shortly after Brexit, may be much more favourable to US firms than the TTIP version rejected by the EU

Indeed. As I said yesterday, after hearing Trump talking about this "powerful deal" that he would be able to sign with the UK shortly after Brexit, it was exactly what I'd warned those that were voting Leave "because they were concerned about TTIP" would happen. TTIP on steroids

Right now I'd settle for Britain staying vaguely functional and not turning into a far right wet dream and on a personal level, keeping my job, house and pension. Small things.

Unfortunately I currently work in local government and will be moving into the NHS, so placing my hope in something more ambitious then choosing between really screwing the public sector or really, really screwing the public sector is the only option for me if I also want to keep those small things. Brexit is not the only issue on the table for me.

On TTIP this is an interesting article on the anti-globalisation movement that started in Latin America in response to free trade deals that have a huge negative impact on their countries. Worth a read if you are interested in that sort of thing.

Beyond the Pink Tide: Trade Deals and the Future of the Anti-Globalisation Movement
novaramedia.com/2017/07/05/beyond-the-pink-tide-trade-deals-and-the-future-of-the-anti-globalisation-movement/?utm_content=buffer1d87b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer