Westminsterenders: The Ersatz ImitationThread

[OlennasWimple]

I am no RedToothBrush, so I'm not going to try to emulate her exception OP style.

Here, though, in the interests of carrying on our conversations about WTF is going on with Brexit and the weird political world we find ourselves in right now, is a sort of continuation thread

(Hurry back Red, we need you!)

The political logic in appointing the 3 Dunces was clear from the beginning.

However, what is missing is the next step,
because a "there are NO unicorns" statement looks unlikely to come from them.

it's like setting fanatical evangelists to study the bible & the theory of evolution in the expectation that they will then publicly announce "hang on, there's no evidence of a Sky Fairy"

The "No Unicorns" should have come from a responsible PM and cabinet after evaluating progress by the 3 Dunces.
Unfortunately they are incorrigibly irresponsible.

I am sure that Heseltine thought May would be sensible - and didn't realise that she would totally flip and appease the right wing of her party.

Brexit reduces opportunities for consumers to save:

I just remembered this lad !
He saved £7.72 on his journey from Sheffield to Essex – via Berlin, flying an extra 1,017 miles.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/video/2016/jan/28/teenage-blogger-shows-how-sheffield-to-essex-rail-journey-is-772-cheaper-via-berlin-videoo_

(paywall) Cheerful look at politics

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/tempting-offer-is-on-the-table-f06c9mvwm

Greg Hands, the trade minister, has been in the Czech Republic, seeing if he can get us a post-Brexit Skoda deal in exchange for a job lot of shop-soiled Jaffa Cakes.

Hands was the right man for this mission since he studied in Prague as part of his Cambridge degree 30 years earlier and was able to deliver a speech in Czech
— “it’s just the packaging that’s damaged, the Jaffa Cakes are still edible” —
that impressed his hosts.

“Were you a spy?” the mayor of Prague asked, when he told her about his stay in the 1980s.
Hands coyly says it is “always better neither to confirm nor deny these things”.

Jerry Hayes, the former Tory MP, is pessimistic about his party having a peaceful conference:

He predicts that Theresa May will be treated like a family pet that everyone knows has to be put down,

while leadership hopefuls, when not stabbing each other, will be offering their bodies to anyone who gives a wink < NOT envy >

“It will be like Love Island for old people,” he says. < ditto >
Only without the ratings.

Sorry for the derail but who was it whose dd ending up going to the US to study politics (?) and ended up staying on - possibly doing something with the UN? Very vague I know but I can't do Advanced Search on the phone Something tells me it was either Peregrina or Whatwouldrondo.

The reason I ask is that ds is now talking about wanting to work with the UN and is now muttering about doing International Law at Uni (rather than the Maths & Physics that he has been saying for the last few years he wants to do )

He's just got his Higher results - was disappointed with his Physics result ("only" a B yet he'd been on course for an A - will find out how close he was to the grade boundary when he starts back at school next week and whether it's worth going for a re-mark) but is currently planning on doing Advanced Highers in Maths and Physics and a crash Higher in Modern Studies this year (he got 2 As and 3Bs - was devastated at his B in Physics, disappointed at his B in English as he'd thought his portfolio was strong enough, and OK with the B for Chemistry, and As for Maths and Physics).

He is passionate about the UN, Gandhi, Mandela and trying to improve international relations don't get him started in Trump so it's not too much of a knee jerk reaction.

Not my DD or DS.

Well done prettybird's DS!

Labour holds the 10 least marginal seats.

In 2017 97 seats were won by a margin of 5% or less of votes cast – an increase on the 56 won by this narrow margin in the 2015 Election, and slightly more than the 91 in this category in the 2010 Election.

The number of very safe seats also increased in this election. Seats won by a margin of over 50% increased from 21 in 2015 to 35 in 2017, while the number of seats won by a margin of between 45% and 50% increased from 18 to 29.

researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-8067

A new centre party would just split the center/ left vote and rescue the Tories from oblivion - maybe even give them that landslide May wanted
^This. What's more, this kind of action is going to throw a lot of the youth vote Labour has garnered. They won't forget and won't forgive.

Heseltine says the trio are "the right people to prove the job can't be done." He explains: "It was the only political answer I could see — to let the Brexiteers prove that their policies work. Patently they don't. There are no policies.

I still remember posting this on these threads at the time that these three choices are so blatantly wrong they look deliberate and not incompetency.

I think this poor Country Squire contributor has lost the run of himself !
"If Britain wants to it can run Eire into the ground where there are no consolations – its spotty youths will brain drain again to the US and Britain and its economy will crumble. In a decade, after some bumps in the road, Britain and the North of Ireland will flourish. Varadkar will be on the political scrapheap like Sturgeon. The squeals of puppies trapped in car boots will be long gone. Britain’s farms will be booming. The EU will be without Italy and the vacuous Macron experiment will be a distant memory, as will Merkel who won’t dare show herself in public after a fatwa has been put on her by the Muslim Mayor of Cologne.

Maybe then prodigal Eire will seek membership of the UK. Unlikely. Unless they somehow – miraculously – developed loyalty, we’d not actually want them or their hurdy-gurdy."

countrysquire.co.uk/2017/08/10/get-stuffed-eire/

I'm not the poster you were looking for Prettybird but you could get him to look at unjobs.org to get an overview of the kind of jobs available and the requirements. Although international relations is a popular choice, there are a huge number of pathways in. Other than the very competitive JPO route, which is for recent graduates, a lot of UN staffers have field experience with smaller NGOs, and a masters is minimum qualification for most posts.

Apologies although Brexit related I meant to post my last post on the Brexit Ireland thread.

I still remember posting this on these threads at the time that these three choices are so blatantly wrong they look deliberate and not incompetency.

Do you think May will do a U-turn then? After all, she has got form for doing that.

Several of us thought May had a cunning plan in her appointment of the 3 Dunces, or even just forcing them to clear up their own mess.

We didn't realise she'd catch the stupid - because we hadn't realised how much she was already riddled with it.

The author is a civil servant in the British government, writing anonymously because David Davis probably won’t find any of this funny:

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/brexit/2017/08/secret-civil-servant-brexit-negotiations-there-such-thing-stupid-question

kofa well of course ROI will want to join the uk when they see the bounty of land fertilised with unicorn shit

May is what happens when the only people running against are swivel eyed loons. She seemed normal. She still is compared to them though. Not that it's any consolation

Either the civil service and the professionalism of its staff have deteriorated substantially in the 7 years since I left, or that New Statesman piece is a big piss take.

You can tell by use of the term Eire (pronounced 'eerie') that some cracking bullshit is about to be unleashed.

Not sure whether to or at the Country Squire screed.

The Irish Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, formally offered his condolences to the German Minister in Dublin on the death of Adolf Hitler in 1945.
It's been over 70 years - how about getting over that?
This is a mere anecdote, but there was at least one member of deValera's wartime cabinet who had two nephews serving in HM forces, my dad a captain in the RAF and his brother an engineer (rank of major) who fought under Montgomery all the way to a spot about 50km from Bergen Belsen.
They were not the only Irish servicemen in the forces.

Clearly Varadkar's reminder that Ireland (a) exists, and (b) could end up with a say in a transition agreement, has put the wind up certain parties.

Gumpendorf that New Statesman article sounds suspiciously like something the Torygraph published (referenced earlier in the thread):

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/08/09/britains-brexit-negotiators-denied-water-brussels-divorce-talks/amp/

math how dare the Irish appease hitler, that was the uk's job!

Same rag, different verbal diarrhoea ('same bucket, different scum' to coin a phrase)...

countrysquire.co.uk/2017/08/08/why-is-philip-hammond/
'Why is Philip Hammond?'

Oh – and one other thing I noticed, during the most profound expression of democracy this country has ever known, in 2016, was that Mr Hammond opposed what turned out to be the democratic choice.

Well duh - that is what democracy allows. Without the freedom to disagree it wouldn't be democracy.

The zeal of the true believer revolutionary is all over this. It is so over the top that it is almost parody, but sadly it is not parody.

Back away slowly, and then run as fast as you can.

Do you think May will do a U-turn then? After all, she has got form for doing that.
I think there isn't enough pressure in this cooker yet for that to happen. She is most probably waiting for Labour to take the lead so she could put her party's blame on Labour in the end when pacifying staunch Leavers. It will still not bring back the Tories into parliaments. But it will save them from a total wipe out. My local MP is so thoroughly scared now that I feel sorry for him sometimes. If this trend continues, he will be the one losing this safe Tory seat forever.
Which is why I dislike this new party idea. Everything is a useful distraction for May now. And if at least some of the far right stories have benefits coming out of this whole mess, we will give them a life line effectively to continue. Some of these New Labour ones are good ones (for example I think Wes Streeting is a wiser one and so is Sadiq Khan, unsure about Owen Smith). However, I have started to suspect some of them to have other motives too. Like Chuka and Mike Gapes.
Basically anything that takes the light off Tories right now is downright stupidity and anyone from Labour doing that will not be forgiven by the heavily Labour-inclined under 30s. Look what happened to LibDems. They have talked nothing just sense last whole year. And I still remember Nick Clegg's face which gives me an evil sort of satisfaction though I like him on a personal level. It is all about branding in the age of social media. And basically you can never suffer memory loss now.

That was "far-right Tories" (not "stories"). And "nothing but sense".

I have a feeling if something is going to happen, it is going to happen around the new year. unless of course DH is right in saying something happens to May on walking holidays.

Random. Thanks for the Telegraph link. I think they were recycling the NS piece.

No water? Spying? No Eurostar bookings? It's like 'Allo 'Allo for bureaucrats.