Westministenders: The Return of Parliamentary Sleaze?

[RedToothBrush]

Brexit is quietly going round and round in ever decreasing circles.

The story is that the European parliament will not agree to a transition period beyond 1st January 2020.

The third minister responsible for getting the Repel Bill through the Lords has quit. There are now nearly 400 amendments. It is scheduled for 6 days parliamentary time in the Commons from this coming week. With another 2 possible the following week. Rather bravely AFTER the budget. Bored with May, CVs are being submitted for the position of Chancellor.

Interest Rates are looking likely to rise next week too with the message being 'this is as good as it gets'.

Another team of MPs has gone to the EU to see if they can check up on May and her team. This is unlikely to work as Nicola Sturgeon came across a brick wall.

And then there are the many many distractions from it all.

Catalonia has declared independence, which will consume EU time and energy.

There are rumours that the first prosecution in Trump Russia will be Monday (Guess who is currently in the US. Yep, the gurning one). And there are increasing muttering about Russia over here, with Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg being called to respond to a Select Committee investigation into Fake News.

And then there's the sleaze. Jared O'Mara seems to be the first in the queue. There are rumours more will be outed in several parties. Suggestions include May's right hand man Damien Green who was previously named in 2008. And the Tory Whips have a 'sleaze list' which suggests they know whats going on, but have done nothing.

This morning we have Gove making ill advised jokes about Weinstein in this political climate. With Neil Kinnock laughing heartily in response.

Anything that happens will be political to discredit opponents not because there is a change of attitude towards the treatment of women. We know this, because of who is leading the charge on this. The skeletons are being dusted off out the cupboard rather than exposed for the first time in dramatic fashion.

Things, could take a very unexpected turn against this background.

Don't bet against it.

The problem wrt Brexit is that the default after invoking A50 is Brexit,
but no terms or deal or extemsion unless our govt actually bothers / is capable of negotiating any.

So if the govt continues to flail around helplessly, that's an automatic no-deal Brexit

The hope is that sufficient non-fanatical adults in the Tory party realise this and will ally wth the Opposition

• who also need to be prepared to put country before party -

maybe at the eleventh hour and beg an extension - it will then probably be too late to obtain unanimous consent of the E27 for A50 revocation. This would allow time for an EEA / EFTA least worst Brexit

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/3078829-Westministenders-A-week-in-politics-is-a-long-time?watched=1

New Thread

I can see the EU taking pity on the UK charge of the situation and giving us the option of remaining/extending A50 because they realise what a massive fuck up dropping out would be. I agree with brain that TM won't be able to ask for this herself.

It looks like the Brexiteers are trying to take over Remembrance Sunday now, because obviously the British English won two World wars all on their own...

I have to say that I probably will refrain from a poppy this year.

History is very important to me and I have extensively researched the experience of two of my great grandfathers in WWI (by this I mean documentation, photos, battle orders and diary and writing it all up for the rest of the family and I consider it a particular passion of mine).

The pressure to wear a poppy misses the point of wearing a poppy and why the poppy as a symbol even originated and the idea of remembrance. Now it is becoming a symbol of false patriotism.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, is all I have to say to that.

Now it is becoming a symbol of false patriotism.

Absolutely, I have stopped wearing poppies now and have stopped going to Remembrance Sundays at Church.

Back in the 1950s and early 60s when there were still bomb sites everywhere it meant something - a significant number of the population had made sacrifices during both Wars and it was rightly a Remembrance Sunday. Then about 15 years ago we had the push to have the minute's silence on 11th November itself, and woe betide any one at work who didn't stop what they were doing at that time, but we still kept Remembrance Sunday. IMO it's now become something between jingoism and a glorification of War. If we were really bothered, we should be doing something for those service people who have served in subsequent wars and have been thrown on the scrapheap after discharge.

For those of you who have been watching The Last Post on BBC One about Aden, it was pointed out, (not sure where), that the British Army withdrew two years later, and there is nothing to commemorate the people who fought and made sacrifices in that conflict - they have been forgotten, and feel annoyed.

It looks like the Brexiteers are trying to take over Remembrance Sunday now, because obviously the British English won two World wars all on their own...

On the Now Show, Tez (can't recall surname) made the point that his grandfather fought - as a Muslim - for the British Empire.

Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery had an exhibition of all the Muslims that fought for Britain and their descendants (in Brum).

On the Now Show, Tez (can't recall surname) made the point that his grandfather fought - as a Muslim - for the British Empire.

DD is obsessed with horrible histories at the moment and they make the point that there was also a large number of polish and czech fighters and airman. They have a polish guy in their frankly awesome RAF pilots song. I think more brexiteers should watch horrible histories

m.youtube.com/watch?v=GLUyEXO-jI0

DD is obsessed with horrible histories at the moment and they make the point that there was also a large number of polish and czech fighters and airman. They have a polish guy in their frankly awesome RAF pilots song. I think more brexiteers should watch horrible histories

I used to work with a racist dickhead who used to complain about hearing Polish spoken when he popped into town on breaks (he was even less impressed when I suggested that he - like I - could learn a word or two).

I took great delight in showing what an ignorant dickwad he was, by noting that where I grew up, the Polish War Memorial is a well known landmark (usually for traffic jams on the A40) and it commemorates those very brave pilots. He hadn't known that previously, and really didn't like (thank you Wiki) finding out it was true.

It's also worth noting that unlike British pilots, Polish pilots were sent to the concentration camps as Nazi ideology made them subhuman. They knew this, and fought anyway.

If Brexiteers are playing WW2 mood music, it's only to drown out their pig-ignorance.

For as long as I've been going, if there was football on remembrance weekend then there was a silence held before the game. Now each premiership at least club seems to be required to hold one, so teams who are away next weekend but home this weekend had one this weekend. I liked the mark of respect on actual remembrance weekend, but this is all getting a little ridiculous now.

Having said that, this is the second time I've ruined a silence at the football. One by having a coughing fit and this time by briefly clapping the musician who did a wonderful job playing the last post before realising So maybe I personally need a few goes at it.

I think the best remembrance would be no more wars, as unpopular as that might be.

My grandmother is a kipper. Hates the polish coming over here. Except the one who married her sister and the ones who care for her daily. They are the good ones. My mother asked about the bad ones and who they are. She has no answer. Guess what she reads.

Europe Is Tiring of 'Anglocondescension'

After Trump and Brexit, the Anglo-Saxon world's intellectual leadership may be on the wane
< hardly surprising >

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-11-03/europe-is-getting-tired-of-anglocondescension

Just a few years ago, fatigue from "Anglo-Saxon lecturing" was a hallmark of authoritarian regimes like Vladimir Putin's in Russia or Xi Jinping's in China.

Now it's surfacing in mainstream European media

• a sign that, after Brexit and Donald Trump's victory, the English-speaking world is losing intellectual legitimacy.

.... has shamelessly flowed from the United States and the United Kingdom,
two countries that have committed collective suicide in the last year in the view of the whole world
as part of a boorish, populist reality show, starring the most rancid elements of the right wing, the most mediocre politicians,
and the most dishonest media outlets,
all working together to bring a corrupt clown such as Trump to power, and prompting a folly on the scale of Brexit,
&something that not even they can find a way out of.^
...
They are trying to establish new rules of engagement,
under which the U.S. and the U.K. can no longer speak from the position of moral superiority that was born of their World War II victory.
< but Kippers will forever bang on about beating the "huns" >
....
As the events of the 1940s fade into the historical distance,
English-speaking societies' more recent intellectual and moral failures gain relative importance.

US_ Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told Britain to fall in line with American post-Brexit ... or else_

http://uk.businessinsider.com/us-commerce-secretary-wilbur-ross-on-post-brexit-trade-with-uk-2017-11?r=US&IR=T

Ross attacked "burdensome and unnecessary" EU labelling requirements for chemicals,
"geographic indicators on food products",
< US agribusiness doesn't want us to be able to identify - and avoid - their chlorinated chicken, hormone-ridden beef, GM products etc >

and called for the UK to allow car manufacturers to self-certify that vehicles meet safety standards

< holy crap. That means self-certifying crash tests.
I know that US vehicle manufacturers can just keep repeating crash tests until they get a pass, whereas EU / UK manufacturers add a safety margin to ensure they pass reliably >

Ross attacked "regulatory divergence" between EU and US,
and called for Britain to follow US standards to boost trade.

....
Asked about recent aircraft tariffs that have put 1,000 Northern Irish jobs at risk, Ross said:
"Even our best friends really have to play by the rules."
< you mean play by US rules >