Westminstenders: The Maddest of May and Boris's Dare

[RedToothBrush]

Boris Johnson just dared May to fire him.

That's what his little rant about £350 million buses is.

Meanwhile its been pointed out that HMRC literally are incapable of handling a no deal and can only cope with an EEA / EFTA deal with no tariffs.

And given how good and on time the government are with computer systems even in a best case scenario are extremely unlikely to crack it in time.

Which makes Hammond's talk of a civil contingence plan, look, well half arsed and lacking.

We also wouldn't have planes able to fly to Europe under a no deal as we would no longer be part of Open Skies. This could leave thousands stranded. But no biggie there.

Meanwhile if the Leave Alliance have things right, May is about to serve our one year notice on leaving the EEA making all these things a reality.

Which is less like shooting yourself in the head and more like shooting yourself in the head, chest, foot, arm, leg and face (for a second time), whilst being run over at the same time.

But hey, Boris Johnson has it sussed in his 10 point plan. Especially the point where he says Brexit will be a success.

If you call success ending democracy, becoming a dictatorship, starving everyone, bankrupting the country and causing civil unrest.

Rule Britannia.

in 1974 it was for petrol. My DF bought some home ...

She is the one who warned that the very first contingency plan they drew up was for martial law in the event of food supplies etc being distuoted by Brexit
Martial law conditions including the banning of more than 4 people assembling in any public place

I think they should have Redwood and IDS manage Brexit now. Davis hasn't proved up to it.

Redwood said on the radio that they would pay something because they didn't do illegal things -oh yeah and they would agree to trade with the EU 'cos they were generous like that.

There ya go. They have all the answers. All solved in an empty room with just the two of them.

Pity it is a real country with real people, 'cos otherwise it would be just desserts. Not like any of the Cons are running it like a real country, with real people, in real life.

There is a radio programme called 'beyond belief'. That is where I am at, now.

I know, I know. How can it be an empty room with two of them in it? Believe it will feel like it is devoid of sentient beings from planet earth.

Apparently British retailers are confident about Brexit

www.pcr-online.biz/news/read/british-retailers-are-upgrading-their-tech-amid-brexit-fears/039696

Well, 4% of them, it seems.

MrsLH made a good point yesterday to justify her assertion (which she made June 24th) that Brexit just won't happen ...

Since A50 was triggered, every day has bought at least one story of problems with Brexit, with the opposing positive stories about Brexit currently totalling .... zero.

It's a sheer weight of numbers exercise.

My father is currently showing my three year old a picture of Vince Cable next to an article of him saying he could be PM.

My Dad is trying to teach him what the picture is of

"This." He says "Is a deluded old man".

My son is trying to copy him "deluded man"

He is doomed to a life of cynicism.

Simon Usherwood‏ @Usherwood
A couple of observations on #A50, after visiting Brussels and Westminster
1/
Both sides want a deal, with the UK moving away from 'no deal better...' stance (at least in technical level discussions)
2/
However, still basic issues on objectives and time
3/
As much as progress has been made (citizens' rights in particular), UK's lack of strategic objective imposes a limit on what can be done
4/
eg hard to see how financial liabilities can make any substantive progress until back-end of negotiations
5/
This is all familiar, but rising concern that there's simply not enough time to reach a deal
6/
EU is sticking w Oct 18 at end of discussions (to allow for ratification), and no desire to talk of extensions yet
7/
So have to tie up Phase I and agree Phase II structures in 1yr from now
8/
Even if HMG consolidates a view (eg EEA-/CDN+) soon, this still involves a huge pile of detail, not least on transition
9/
UK has additional problem that it has to plan for no-deal outcome, which seems to be paper-based so far (no procurement for new infra)
10/
Everyone recognises scale of task, and desirability of reaching deal, but this isn't intrinsically enough to make it happen
11/
It also raises interesting Q of who benefits from the confusion
12/
On 1 side, I can see hard-brexiteers seeing this as way to cement sharp break from EU. If car crashes, then we get out of car, etc.
13/
On other side, soft side will argue lack of capacity will push towards long transition that looks v.like membership
14/
Much of this latter view depends on will and capacity of UK & EU to patch together emergency deal
15/
Whatever one's preferred outcome, strong sense that 'something will sort itself out', which also doesn't help matters
/end

You pessimist LH There you are again talking down the positive of Brexit

How can you read that article and not take the positive that the tech industry is going to benefit from all this technology investment? And you a techie an' all!

Reports that Boris Johnson has threatened to resign
if May decides in her keynote Brexit speech on Friday in Florence
to signal her interest in a “Swiss-style” arrangement with the EU
i.e. basically EEA / EFTA

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/19/explained-boris-johnson-fighting-canada-inspired-brexit-instead/

Boris & the Ultras favour a deal like Canada has

• MUCH less access to the EU market

• and Canada has a v different economy to the UK, naturally trading more with its biggest neighbour
• Canada not really imterested in exporting services to the EU, whereas services are 80% of UK exports

"I cannot possibly comment but ration books being printed is a rumour going round,

Am the only one to find that frightening?

Eternal The plans for Martial Law in the event of food shortages caused me a sharp intake of breath

Well this is an interesting approach to fund raising for campaign to ensure Brexit from the delightful Freedom Association

Freedom Association‏**@tfa4freedom**

Will you help @tfa4freedom's @BetterOffOut campaign stop Tony Blair wrecking #Brexit? #StopBlair

Will you help us stop Tony Blair wrecking Brexit
Can you help us produce and distribute more? If you are in a position tomake a donation, we will be in a position to produce and deliver more leaflets, have more street stalls around the country, and attract more supporters for the campaign. That means more Brexit supporting voters contacting more MPs.

Useful long read by Faisal Islam about The Next 3 Months

http://news.sky.com/story/sky-views-the-next-three-months-are-totally-unpredictable-11019976

Parliament would prevent a 'No Deal Brexit' if it came to it.
< I hope so, but I'm worried at the end they'll vote party, not country >

In the immediate aftermath of their election flop,
around 30 Conservative MPs - including many ex-ministers (and not just the usual suspects) -
told Tory whips they could not countenance no deal.

No Deal would probably lead to a prime ministerial resignation and surely another General Election.
< I suspect May might cling on like a limpet >

Therefore the PM needs a deal.
In fact the PM now wants more than a deal.
She needs one quickly, so that she can then agree a transition.
....
Insiders suggest that the Brussels plans for a transition to this near-Norway long term state consist of two files -
the European Economic Area,
and a photocopy of the EEA agreement given a different name
.....
In the next three months, board meetings will occur where finance directors will put forward plans for the fiscal year 2018-2019.
These plans will have to include an assessment of exactly what the legal position will be with the EU on 30 March 2019.

If still unclear, many of these boards will have a responsibility to shareholders to activate 'No Deal' contingency plans that were prepared over the past year.
This is most apparent in financial services, but is relevant across the economy.

The Treasury calculates that this has already caused business investments to be put on hold, as corporates keep cash in the bank in anticipation of political turbulence.

So far in 2017, the UK economy is the slowest growing in the European Union
and the slowest of all the major world economies,
having been one of the fastest last year.

"By post as they did for petrol in 1974"

My recollection is that we had to go and collect them, from a central point. The collection days were arranged alphabetically, so the first part of the alphabet went one day and those of us who had surnames at the end, collected a couple of days later. When we got the coupons we could see that they had been printed at the time of the Suez crisis.

Rationing and martial law was definitely not what the Brexiters promised. Will people rise up and protest, or will they just accept it supinely?

Ah, the downside to having a surname being with R. Always at the back of the queue when the ration books are handed out.

Rationing for petrol would be annoying and mess up most peoples' plans
Rationing for food could lead to panic and anarchy

My parents generation accepted rationing in WW2, because ... um it was a world war
and also it was only a few years after my dad's family were going hungry during the Depression
So, most families had experience of doing with much less than the ration amount

That's long gone from direct memory, along with the knowledge of how to cope and the acceptance of food being limited in any way

we will be in a position to produce [and deliver] more leaflets

Here, or in France ?

To further cheer everyone up:

Trump speech at UN: "US may have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea" < gulp >

WTF is the Freedom Association? Grr at the way these horrid, self-interested groups hijack positively reasonable sounding names. Exhibit B - The Taxpayers' Alliance.

The Freedom Association has been around quite a while on the hard right of Uk politics.

I remember them from the late 1970s and 1980s:
campaigning against sport sanctions on apartheid S Africa
Advocating anti trade union legislation in the Uk

So, always on the wrong side of history

Since the noughties, they've been campaigning for Brexit ...

My parents generation accepted rationing in WW2, because ... um it was a world war

But... that ought to be right up the Brexiteers' alley. We won the Wars and Our Finest Hour and all that patriotic stuff. They ought to be right keen on rationing, after all they're pretty keen on policing loose lips and other war-footing type business.

Its a libertarian think tank. (Right wing one).

Has a nice whose, who of supporters. Y'know, the usual suspects from likes of the Tory Party/UKIP

You can probably name a few MPs and MEPs associated with them without blinking.

Taxpayers Alliance. Oh preserve me, not Dia Chakravarty.

This is frightening when read as it is about Trump and Nukes

Not only that, but just how much of this would you need to change to make it just about the UK?

GothamGirlBlue‏*@GothamGirlBlue*

1. I have come to the inescapable conclusion that peace makes people stupid. Soon you start to believe that bad things can't happen.
2. I think about Trump's appeal to the black community during the campaign: "What do you have to lose?" Because we know what loss is.
3. We know what it means not to be able to find work despite our education; we know what it is to see our children suffer.
4. So much of our political establishment has simply not suffered enough. They live lives of peace, and imagine it will last forever.
5. "What's the worst that could happen?" is like a line in a movie, where challenges are always overcome by the heroes.
6. To them, the idea that nukes could be used again is preposterous. It just wouldn't happen. It's not a real risk to them.
7. It's why so many reporters are waiting for a pivot that will never come. Trump must be shaped into what the President is, right?
8. The GOP wouldn't really gut Medicare and Medicaid. They wouldn't really harm millions of Americans.
9. Too much peace screws with your brain. You start thinking progress is inevitable; you think you're different from everyone else.

10. History, to many people, is like a collection of folk stories. Things were bad but the heroes won and now we're all happy. 11. To reckon that the same things that animated the villains can live within us, that they can animate us, because we're both human... 12. ...is a radical notion to many people. History is a closed book. The story began and ended. The world starts fresh with us. 13. That's why we're here assuming that the story will turn out OK. It always has before, right? History, to the peace-fed, is inevitable. 14. But I've got bad news: we are as every empire has been upon the Earth. And eventually, our time will end. That's inevitable. 15. It can die with violence and rebellion. It can die from arrogance and hubris. It can die from malice or apathy. It can die without us. 16. What I fear now, what history has taught me, is that our empire can die in a halo of fire. It can salt the earth with radiation. 17. This has been our truth since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From that time, we have trusted Presidents to prevent it. 18. Until peace rotted our brains out. Trump's comments on nuclear proliferation barely dented the cycle; they drew little attention. 19. For a press that could maintain laser-like focus on server maintenance, it was a stunning oversight. Because history is inevitable. 20. Because they thought the worst could never come to pass, they never entertained the worst-case scenario. They still don't. 21. Our information infrastructure never condensed issues down in a way the public could understand and refused to direct our focus. 22. 32 minutes. That was the amount of time spent on healthcare, on nukes, on foreign policy, on economics, on climate change, on children. 23. When peace rots you, politics is about entertainment. They'll never really hurt people, so it's just about the flavor you prefer. 24. So we had thousands of words and hundreds of minutes devoted to where the former Secretary of State kept her correspondence. 25. And we had thousands of words and hundreds of minutes spent normalizing the demagoguery of a Know-Nothing anti-immigration reality star. 26. Every minute we didn't spend on the issues is made up in hours. Hours of cleaning up Houston and worrying about North Korea. 27. Hours of tutoring children at home and in afterschool programs because we didn't invest in their education 28. Hours of calling representatives to preserve our meager health benefits, to keep the lack of wealth from murdering us with disease. 29. Hours spent marching for justice because our apparatus for it is run by a white supremacist who was defended by all-white colleagues. 30. HISTORY IS NOT INEVITABLE. Peace is not permanent. It can be shattered by bad choices and damage with poor investment. 31. Don't let your vision of the world come through the lens of your own peace. You won't see war until it is too late to stop it. /fin

I'm stuffed if they do allocate ration books alphabetically - my surname starts with Z Maybe it's just as well I didn't change my name to dh's - his "only" starts with R

I am seriously starting to think about buying a few extra cans (eg tomatoes, baked beans, kidney beans) every week while I'm doing the weekly shop