Westminstenders: The wrong homework

[HashiAsLarry]

I'm no rtb but I'll give it a shot, though her efforts deserve much more than me.

The August negotiation round has, well, fizzled out in much the same way as any other. It's taken over a year to get to written position papers and there's still no clue as to a direction from the UK government.

Japan, meanwhile, is about to sign off on a deal with the EU. A deal we want to copy.

@faisalislam
^but if post brexit britain's trade deal with third biggest economy in world is to be based on Brussels' deal, what about rest? TTIP? Canada?
...when PM signs off statements like this on primacy of EU-third party deals, one wonders how temporary the temporary customs union will be^

The NHS is now launching a drive to recruit foreign GPs, like the ones that have left thanks to Brexit. It's a good job they'll be £350m a week better off now. Oh hang on...

JRM isn't Johnson (pre-ref Johnson). He has a cult following. And has to compete with the cult of Corbyn.

Mogg as leader!?
Fuck me they are desperate now....

I would laugh hard and long if it was the hard right Tories who rebelled and managed to destroy the Tory party in the process, or at least kept them out of power for 20 or 30 years.

Over in the US it has been the extreme right of GOP who have so far scuppered legislation being passed and in effect saved Obamacare so far because they felt the Trump offer was not extreme enough as a replacement. I don't actually think it is as far fetched as you might imagine that it will be the more extreme brexiteers who end up rebelling as they feel the Government is not going far enough.

(Paywall) WW2 Frankfurt bomb defused after 60,000 are evacuated

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/frankfurters-refuse-to-evacuate-while-raf-bomb-is-defused-87nrfbcq6

German bomb disposal experts successfully defused a huge British < oops > Second World War bomb in Frankfurt last night,
ahead of schedule, after more than 60,000 people were evacuated.

The operation began at dawn, when police officers went door to door in a 1.5 km radius of the bomb site telling residents to leave or face arrest as part of the biggest German evacuation since 1945.

Police used a helicopter equipped with thermal imaging equipment to check that each street had been cleared in the potential blast zone.

The area included 20 care homes, an opera house and the Bundesbank, which is home to £54 billion of gold — half the country’s reserves.

Agreed Lurking, but still getting weird looks from all my Mum friends when I say I am not encouraging my teenagers to learn to drive.

Thanks for that ONS link howabout there are some lovely stats on there. I had put it on my list of things to go look for, but then suddenly realised dd was supposed to be at school today.

Yes! I did actually forget to take my daughter to school
Thankfully the office staff found my profuse apology hilarious. I am a bad, bad parent today. I have had to eat chocolate cake to recover from the trauma.

Agreed Lurking, but still getting weird looks from all my Mum friends when I say I am not encouraging my teenagers to learn to drive

Owning a car is so ridiculously expensive. I have had some lessons, but never got around to doing the test as it just didn't make financial sense for us to have a car when we don't need it for getting to work. I don't know how people afford it sometimes.

Agreed Lurking, but still getting weird looks from all my Mum friends when I say I am not encouraging my teenagers to learn to drive.

We are trying to encourage DS (who, as a child was car-crazy ...) to learn to drive (in as much as we'd pay for it).

But right now it's not even on his "B" list of "things to do". Not just him, but his entire peer group. OK, maybe the logistics of living in a city, rather than the arse end of nowhere skews things.

But the reality is, a lot of future planning is starting to factor in the drop in drivers.

Bear in mind the decline in younger drivers will cross a graph somewhere with the ascent of driverless cars. And I am still calling a future where private vehicle ownership is the exception.

Oh no bigly, you've clearly gotten out of routine!
DD is missing her first day as she's had to come back for her final dose of medicine and discharge. CBA to attempt to send her in for all of an hour by the time we get home.

Bigly I sent my lot to school despite all the snuffles they have already picked up from their classmates in the first couple of weeks back.

BBC also reporting Norway sovereign wealth fund investing heavily in the UK. Perhaps they know something we don't?

Oh no bigly, you've clearly gotten out of routine!

Yup, I'm not working at the moment so not needing to be on top of leave and stuff. Also DH has had really nasty flu for the past week and barely knows what month it is, so not much help there. Still, nice to have a surprise free afternoon

Norway sovereign wealth fund investing heavily in the UK. Perhaps they know something we don't?

Sterling has lost nearly 25% against the Norwegian krone in the last 2 years. Some sterling-denominated assets probably look cheap at current exchange rates.

It would seem that Pete North the younger is not Rees-Mogg's biggest fan!

twitter.com/PeteNorth303/status/904972925077516288

1. We need to have a little talk about Jacob Rees-Mogg. Manners do not a gentleman make.
2. I've been involved in politics on the right for a very long time and I've met a lot of wealthy Tory people.
3. Not one of them speaks like Jacob Rees-Mogg. Why? Because nobody does. It's an affectation.
4. And who would bother to present themselves in such a way? Who? Only an immature, pretentious, pompous ass.
5. And why would you bother to maintain such an obviously fake persona? Quite simply - you are maintaining a deception.
6. Moreover, skilled oration is no indication of intellect. It is an enviable talent but it is not the measure of a man.
7. What matters more is wisdom and integrity. And on that score, Rees-Mogg has neither. He's a fake.
8. This is a man who would, if convenient, sabotage a select committee meeting to suppress evidence.
9. This is a man who believes in the most destructive Brexit imaginable. A zealot blinded by ideology.

10. If there's one thing I've learned about ideologues its that theyre lazy people looking for easy replies. But not all replies are answers. 11. Solutions to complex problems are not found in an Adam Smith screed. It takes research, understanding, intellectual honesty & pragmatism. 12. To pretend ideology alone can fix things is to deny their complexity and depth - and that is the mark of a dishonest man. 13. As with everything else he does, it is a ploy to hoodwink simpletons. Sheep looking for leadership. 14. We have seen all this before with Boris Johnson. Eventually the mask slipped to reveal a back-stabbing, thieving, lying conniving shit. 15. Rees-Mogg is no different. Only needs to fool some of the people some of the time, just long enough to make his power play. 16. Such men are not worthy of office. I've wiped more endearing things off my shoe. Britain deserves better. 17. If all it takes to sway you is a plummy accent and a fine suit then you're probably best off not voting at all. You've lost it. 18. If your sole estimation of a man is how well he comes over on a TV panel show then you've forgotten what politics is for. 19. It's been my experience that people who back these such men are looking for leadership and glorious revivals. 20. No glorious revival is coming and these parasites are not leaders. Men of integrity need no façade. Please, Britain, grow up.

Perhaps the Tories (some of them) are pushing JRM now to expose him to scrutiny? He is a complete fake, Pete North is right about that. But I've seen it on here posters saying, "we need to leave the leadership of the country to clever people, those who've been to Eton etc. They're cleverer than us". Of course, who knows who those posters really were now.

The Norway Wealth Fund is undergoing restructuring - due to falling oil prices, last year was the first year that the government took out more money than was paid in, so it is moving to investing more in equities and using government bonds in sterling, dollars and euros as its benchmark, and debt that matures within 10 years.

Personally, I would say that the problem with the 'elite' politicians is precisely that they've all been to Eton - hence them behaving more like schoolchildren rather than mature adults in parliament. It's like the relationships have never moved on. I find the quality of our politicians and political discussions really poor. There is no long-term vision or real leadership - instead it's all short-term thinking only as far as the next election.

I'm not holding out any hope for a Tory rebellion - they will put party before country.

I wonder, if when history looks back scornfully on this period, if they will talk of the sages North the Elder and North the Younger

At least Norway has a Sovereign Wealth Fund

What did the UK do with its oil dividend?

I wonder, if when history looks back scornfully on this period, if they will talk of the sages North the Elder and North the Younger

In other circles, there's a debate about the "Wrong Hitchens" being called to their maker ....

The Norway fund equates to about £130,000 per capita.

The UK pissed it up a rope.

Worse, we used it to find tax cuts and to subsidise building up the South East corner of England and unbalancing the entire UK economy.

Things aren't going too well for Moggy and Activate just at the moment: - apparently their twitter was hacked

I was artisanjam btw. I feel the need for alcohol now.

A wee bit of the alternative view from Economists for Free Trade and Labour Leave.

brexitcentral.com/new-model-economy-brexit-benefit-need-most/

Worse, we used it to find tax cuts and to subsidise

Foreign car manufacturers, second homes en Provence, and premier league footballers ....