Westminstenders: Beano or Bust

[RedToothBrush]

The last week has seemingly been eventful but not in the way that's on the surface.

It's what's going on behind the scenes and the little comments in less high profile speeches that's more telling.

On the one hand the Norths think the May speech is a laying down "an offer" that the EU can not accept, in order to set up a no deal situation.

On the other hand Telegraph Journalist Peter Foster thinks there things going on in Brussels with the EU set to compromise in someway and help May present a deal acceptable to the British. You have to wonder whether the "presentational" stuff is about a deal to essentially be in the EU but not in the EU. A Brexit Existing in A Name Only. Beano.

It's difficult to tell, and it will come down to brinkmanship over timing. For both a deal and for the Repel Bill as the two sides in parliament try to push things to their limit for their own ends.

In this vacuum of uncertainty CBI and their "arch enemies" the TUC have put out a joint statement saying no deal is nuts and will screw every one and the way EU cits have been treated has been dreadful.

As it stands it does look like May is serious about a deal and Davis is also acting in this way. Johnson and Hannan have launched their Institute for Free Trade (at the foreign office breaking ministerial code, but hell there's no consequences these days anyway cos May dare not let Johnson off the Brexit hook) in retaliation to try and retell the Brexit story as always being about free trade rather than racist. Unfortunately leavers seem to have bust that by admitting they are considerably more racist than Remainers by their own admission.

Then there's Trump and Bombardier. Just as Brexiteers are pushing for this closer relationship with the US in trade, despite May personally lobbying Trump he fucks her over slapping 220% tariff on Bombardier and putting the future of 4000 jobs at risk. This was inevitable as Trump fucks everyone for his own gain. The US won't ride to the aid of the British capitalists. They'll just eat them alive.

This week sees an important vote by the European Parliament on Brexit red lines. One of the votes states that the UK has to either stay in the customs union and internal market or NI has to have a special arrangement and stay in the customs union and the internal market in order to protect the EUs border integrity. Neither is compatible with what the Cons and the DUP have said they want.

It's also the Tory Party conference.May's big speech, in which she must throw red meat to the swivel eyed loons on right, is on Weds. There are of course, no debates at ConParty because, well, they can't behave like good little children without supervision. Instead the conference is to, erm... yeah we'll find out next week.

Who is in team Boris anyway.Moggy and ?

www.vice.com/en_uk/article/8x8m9g/bullying-suicide-and-cringe-why-the-tories-cant-start-a-youth-movement
Help the Aged: Why the Tories Can't Start a Youth Movement
The Tories energised youth movement helped win them the 2015 election, but a shocking suicide and accusations of bullying destroyed the party's young base. Now, Tory members – average age 57 – must win back the youth vote, or watch their party croak.

THIS is an exceptional article on the Tory Youth problem by Marie Le Conte.

Like Olivia, Jack thinks the party has stopped talking to young metropolitan and ambitious people like him, and points out they can't rely on the elderly forever.

"To speak frankly, the core Conservative vote is dying off. Not enough people have a tangible stake in the country, and when you're on low pay with no assets, why would you think the current system works for you? The Conservative Party needs to work out how to renew opportunity in the country, because whilst entrepreneurialism is strong here, living standards appear to be dropping away."

Who is in team Boris anyway.Moggy and ?

Gove is (unless he stabs him in the back again). Most likely Fox is now (unlikely to repeat his leadership bid). And I'd argue that Leadsom is, even though she doesn't realise it yet and is rumoured to want to stand for the leadership (she agrees with Boris on the red line stuff and pretty much refused to back May yesterday and I'm sure her little demotion and the previous leadership election have left bad blood there).

James Cleverely, you'd maybe think was Team Boris but it looks like he's Team Cleverely - but that benefits from Boris being his stalking horse rather than the other way around.

Then you have all the hard right ultras. If they get a whiff of May trying to soften Brexit they probably will just throw a spanner in the works because they can.

The way I see it, the hard right know that the only way they have to stop a compromise now, is to be difficult because of the numbers in parliament. They have the desire to go over the cliff rather than make a deal.

If there are enough to trigger a vote of confidence then there is an issue.

However its also true that I find it difficult to see a hard right candidate carrying the confidence of the party to do anything else too. At which point, the likelihood of the government collapsing goes sky high, even with the fear of Corbyn lurking.

This is why Tory MPs would be likely to try and eliminate 'the worst' candidate(s) in the early rounds of a leadership election if May looses a confidence vote. (She may still survive one, again because of Corbyn).

Hammond's speech was to all intents and purposes about that, and supporting May - within the party - rather than anything to do with the economy and the wider audience.

I think this weekend is liable to be the crunch point tbh. A leadership candidate has to act based on something - citing lack of confidence from the party as well as recent poor performance - has to be the reasoning behind a challenge. Leaving it any longer looses the momentum of that and the past week or two.

Farage is in Brussels. He's speaking in the European Parliament.

He is, would you believe, criticising the EU for not intervening more over Catalan. Yes, the man who believes that the EU interfere too much is complaining they are not intervening enough.

twitter.com/twitter/statuses/914978736168144901

Rees-Mogg tries to sell Brexit to the young.

It has to be watched, to go 'eh?'

Badders, Detectorists was just perfect and probably complete in the first series. Glad they made more, though. Here is the theme song to give some respite. Johnny Flynn.

He said “one of the reasons” why Britain has not been “as successful as we might have been at selling pigs’ ears to China is that EU rules dictate that pigs, like all livestock, have ear tags”.

From DM. I know, I know.

www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-4940480/More-pigs-ears-export-Brexit-says-Michael-Gove.html

So, was Gove lying as a Minister? Shouldn't he make a public apology, then.

This whole thing has me puzzled. It's a total canard.

Ian Dunt‏*@IanDunt*

"Young people will love it"
Anyone who wants to see the depths the Tory party has plunged to should watch that video several times.
Sentimental, doddery, chuntering nonsense of the highest order. Fucking hell man. Get a grip. In the name of Christ.

I think Ian Dunt, might agree with me.

Ian Dunt‏*@IanDunt*
He literally said Agincourt. He compared Brexit with Agincourt. You can't help these people.

That article about the Young Conservatives is fascinating, RTB . I have to say, I've read it in a classic 'confirmation bias' way: it chimes in with what I think (I've just read it, after having started thinking about young people and the Conservatives in response to a thread on MN).

If the Conservatives had any sense at all, they'd set up a pro-Remain-ish group, heavy on entrepeneurialism. But I guess they can't, because they are tied to the Brexit juggernaut.

www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/las-vegas-shooting
We are entering a new era of copycat crime
The Las Vegas shooting was the latest in a series of copycat crimes perpetuated by an unstable man, stimulated and inspired by the intimate horror of real-time Facebook video postings and other social media coverage

Another, piece on the role of media. I think phrasing it as copycat crime is a much better way of doing it. It also feeds this idea that we should think about anti-suicide measures being applied to such attacks and the way they are reported.

Also, it really gets rid of the 'lonewolf' narrative.

Thanks RTB for the summary of team Boris, methinks there are not enough of them to support a no confidence vote.

Part of me thinks actually we actually should have Boris as PM, just to really hit rock bottom.Some Mums on the school run still laughing at the Kipling poem thing today. Once you have sunk as low as 'Prime Minister Boris Johnson', the only way after that is up. Sort of a self flagellation thing.

I love your confidence that Boris Johnson as PM could be our low point and it couldn't possibly get worse.

I'm sure we could try.

They may have enough to no confidence here. It may ultimately come down to what hard liners fear most though - Remaining in the EU / EEA or Corbyn. Whilst many have worked for the later for over twenty years, not all of them share the enthusiasm for it to that extent.

^I love your confidence that Boris Johnson as PM could be our low point and it couldn't possibly get worse.

I'm sure we could try.^

You know that 'hold my beer' thing?

“It couldn’t possibly get much worse.”

In a word - Gove.

This has got to be the most "intetesting" Tory conference in decades??

RTB is right of course, things could sink lower. I'm reminded of a partly formulated train of thought that I shared many threads ago. In the analysis of how this all happened, people often refer to hubris.The extreme foolish pride and dangerous over confidence that got us into this mess.
In turn hubris classically brings about Nemesis-downfall. I just thought PM Boris or indeed PM Gove could be the downfall before a catharsis, but I guess there's a long way to go before we hit rock bottom.
( I didn't do classics at my comp.I just like a google.)

Remaining in the EU / EEA or Corbyn.

That would be an interesting dilemma ... Brexit and Corbyn, or Remain and Tory rule ?

I'm vaguely reminded of building logic circuits (in the days when you had to solder 74xx series chips into boards) and working out the states the machine could enter.

Maybe Boris becoming PM is the best way to kill Brexit ?

I really can't understand why some Brexiteers are so in thrall to Boris. The man has clearly demonstrated on many occasions he has the morals of an alley cat, and will follow whatever start he thinks will lead to Bethlehem Boris. Currently he's hitched to Team Leave, but that could be as ephemeral as his hair on a windy day.

It's probably the strong coffee (Starbucks single origin Guatemalan, freshly ground in a doppio espresso), but the whole Brexit scenario seems to be like that scene in Fawlty Towers: The Americans, where Basil blusters to the American that there are "plenty of satisfied customers", only for one to step forward and say I'm not satisfied ...

We are all for Brexit ...
(pause)
I'm not ...
I'm not ...

To be fair - and it's a momentary weakeness - it would have been an impossible position for DDs team, even if they were trying properly. Imagine after every single proposal or discussion, Barnier just said "yes, we know that's what 50% of you think ...."

Oh, and in a nod to all the posters who have suggested sources for "Too Late, Too Late - the awful cry" many thanks. However, I don't think anyone has hit the nail. Sadly with my DM passed, I have no way of going further. Although it's been a fascinating ride

(Of course, I am assuming the original source is English .)

Fawlty Towers: ....Basil blusters to the American that there are "plenty of satisfied customers", only for one to step forward and say I'm not satisfied.

Although to be fair that whole 1970's humour about foreigners, Manuel etc probably helped legitimise the whole it's acceptable to be xenophobic thing.

Although to be fair that whole 1970's humour about foreigners, Manuel etc probably helped legitimise the whole it's acceptable to be xenophobic thing.

Funnily enough, we were chatting about this a few nights ago ... specifically the trope from those days (sadly nowhere near dead yet) that women couldn't do "real" jobs. It was almost mandatory for a sitcom to have a scene or a plot where there's confusion as "the doctor" (or mechanic, or whatever) is a woman.

Ha bloody ha.

That said, the Fawlty Towers episode "The Psychiatrists" cleverly subverts that, by making is so the man and woman are doctors, and it's Basil who looks a berk with his misogyny and snobbishness. Thus highlighting what genius Booth/Cleese bought to the party.

Amber Rudd quietly being torn a new one on tech forums. I suspect this will only play into her "poor little me" performance.

Anyone else finding it dangerously close to sitting by the side of the road waiting for "a man" to change a tire ?

A couple of amusing tweets

Pawel Swidlicki @pswidlicki
Work colleague: "fitting Rees-Mogg compared Brexit to Agincourt, England went into HYW holding half of France and ended up with just Calais"

@jimwaterson
If you've wondered what Tory conference is like, it's summed up by the couple loudly shagging in the toilet near a former cabinet minister.
@PippaCrerar
Still reeling from overhearing bonking Tories in ladies loo at Midland last night. Did @NickyMorgan01 hear too as she reapplied make-up?!