Westministenders: Money, money, money

[RedToothBrush]

The big developments are that the government have signalled they are prepared to pay more and to involve the ECJ when it comes to citizens rights on condition that we move to talk of trade. But no apparent progress on NI. Which is significant with Ireland threatening to veto.

The EU has not changed its stance at all. Since Day 1.

There is always a worrying omission and lack of commitment to retain the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The bonfire begins.

Talk is of Green still going in a reshuffle, possibly with Gove replacing him as Deputy PM.

Coalition talks in Germany have broken down, and the British have got excited about it, whilst the German response have largely been a slight shrug.

Its been a much quieter week, despite the budget. Thank goodness. There are lots of outstanding issues that are lurking in the background like the Green one though.

The main message coming from the budget, has not been any new policy, but the dreadful economic forecast for the next few years.

Mrs Reynolds

^I dunno
I keep telling ds1 I have hope
But...im not sure I do anymore
😔😡^

Don't despair! The BBC's article on the state of the economy "Stagnant earnings forecast astonishing" has a Have Your Say section. Usually these are infested by Little Englanders and Russian bots saying "Get out now", but today for the first time the posts saying Stop Brexit and pointing out the utter shambles we've got ourselves into are being heavily upvoted. Hardly convincing evidence, I know, but in these dark times I'm grateful for any small shaft of light.

Thanks hasenstein
I'll take any comfort I can get

The forecast of twenty years flat earnings - two decades lost - has struck me such a blow today. Two decades squandered by idiocy and incompetence by this blundering, stupid government. How can they push us over a cliff edge like this; how can it happen?

Figment Mike Clancy was being logical, assuming that Brexit won't happen because the govt has cocked up so badly that it would be a disaster.

Much of UK business seems also to assume that a hard Brexit won't happen,
some were quoted as believing no govt would be so irresponsible as to damage the country so badly

Unfortunately, for its supporters, Brexit is akin to a religion, where logic, facts and experts are irrelevant, or even heretical.

Unless a significant % of the public is seriously impacted in the runup to Brexit - e.g. major manufacturers pulling out, job losses, inflation, flights stopped etc - then Brexit will almost certainly happen,
regardless of what a cods the govt have made,
even if there is no deal

• because the public won't understand or believe the consequences

and because even those Tory MPs who do understand would still put party before country

The Tory party has totally changed in that respect - 40 years ago, I would have been confident that 90% of MPs in both major parties would put country first.

Now, we are dependent on 20-30 Tory MPs who talked tough to the Whips at the beginning of the Parliament, saying they wouldn't tolerate Hard Brexit
We will be lucky if more than 5-6 are prepared to really thwart their own govt - which is too few, with Kate Hoey & co backing the govt & the DUP.

So why would he be so rudely dismissive of the aspirations of those cities who submitted recent applications? Sour grapes?

Because he's really, really, clever and always right and no-one else anywhere is as smart as him. At all. (He believes) And, because he's not very nice. And one of his key fans has this as his bio

'Researcher, writer, blogger. Sceptical of environmentalism, environmental policy and the fashion for 'evidence-based policy'. For science, against scientism. '

Not the English/ Anglo-Saxons that William the Bustard conquered, but the changing of the guard after Hastings

Sorry to be pedantic about Agincourt, because I know it doesn't matter but whilst obviously the people in charge were the aristocratic knights and descendants of the Normans (though as this is nearly 400 years after WTC I think pretending they are not English is a bit ukipperish) the battle itself was a massive victory for the Saxon and Welsh archers.
If it had been knight on knight, the French would have won - they outnumbered us massively and we were already in a bit of a bad state viz a viz dysentery and being on the run. It was the longbow men that saved the day - and they were very much of the native peasant class. However Daffyd Jones of Pontypridd or Wat Thatcher of Lacock aren't going to be remembered on any lists.

One of the complaints about Shakespeare's Henry V is that it completely ignores the archers and turns it into a glorious victory for the noblemen who did next to nothing (any Frenchmen not done for by the archers would have been done for by the mud.)

The St Crispin's day speech is still good though.

Mrs R. Tough times.

Gosh Swedish Peter North. Cross brexity bunnyitis seems to be catching. Or their real selves are getting difficult to hide?

Glasgow became hipster central after the year of culture thingy.

I can't find the stats,but like Liverpool,Hasenstein, I bet it made money.

I don't quite understand the brexiters' confusion at not being eligible to take part in something you've decided not to take part in, but there we are.

Like Grimsby?

Swedish Edith

Ah, I understand. Hadn't heard of him before, or hopefully ever again. Another one to swerve

@TimWalker
Expect the Brextremists to get a lot nastier and pump out a lot more fake news as the realities laid bare in the Budget are absorbed: prominent Remainers will be targeted.

Apologies to lh . Unlike the foul mouthed nonsense of P North, I have learned a lot from arch-leaver R North over recent weeks. It is not my field so I have not found anything he posts on the subject of Brexit and international trade self-evident. I hoped others would find it too.

Anyhow, I accept I was being very over sensitive and I'm sorry. I don't want to poison the spirit of this thread.

Going back to housing for a moment. I wonder who is going to be building all these hundreds of thousands of properties now that Eastern European workforce is leaving?

Good point mightybanhammer -especially since, according to Hammond, the UK doesn't have any unemployment

Who was that woman interviewed on Radio 4 about 5.30pm tonight who was going on about the EU throwing their teddy out of the cot over the European city of culture malarkey ? She tried to say loads of countries not in the EU got a chance and that we the UK were being snubbed , yet when the interviewer rightly pointed out that all these countries had previously met the criteria and the UK post brexit wouldn't , she described it as weasely words . She did point out the benefit to the cities who had previously held the title . But it will be fine because the government can dip into that 3bn brexit fund and give that money to those cities in the glorious times that are coming post brexit , NOT

Notthingham, Leeds and Milton Keynes voted to leave.

Leeds voted to remain. It was very narrow - but we did. (I say very narrow, it can't have been that much smaller than 52% and still be an outright majority so in fact I will claim that it was a massive win for remain in Leeds.)
Not that my leave voting tory mp cares. But then his name was on the list of mps who are landlords that voted against basic safety regulation in rented accommodation. And who, despite being one of the mps who are openly gay, seems perfectly happy to be cosied up to the DUP.

Just place mat king. Sorry. I’m so busy at work I’m struggling to keep up do still reading!

Regardless of what Pete North thinks or believes , I do hope Whitby gets its EU grant to rebuild the harbour walls before we brexit .

Is anyone else wondering how pensions will be effected post brexit , still got 20 years to pay into my public sector pension so that I can get it at 67 , yes 67 , I know that is currently the age for the state pension and yes it is the same for a nurse , who has paid in for 16 years already , in case there is any confusion , paid in as in out of my wages for those who think all public sector pensions are the same , they are not , rant over !

It’s precisely 17 months since the Referendum. Did Leave voters honestly envisage this when they put their cross in the box? It’s embarrassing. I wonder if Liam Fox is regretting his statement about Brexit being easy peasy lemon squeezy and that it could all be sorted out in an afternoon.
LH, that link about Euratom in regards to isotopes and cancer patients is shocking.
It honestly appears that nobody gave a moment’s thought to the logistics or implications of a Leave vote.

www.heartlandscornwall.com/about-us.php

This is what cultural regeneration looks like. It was part funded by the EU and also the lottery. The link shows the before pics. There is now the biggest adventure playground in cornwall , beautiful gardens, small craft shops, an affordable housing development, a restaurant, two conference rooms and the engine house has been turned into a museum. Its all free to access. There are rolling activity weeks which usually have a small fee and every year there is a free firework display and bonfire. This part of Cornwall is a massively run down, post industrial area. This development really changed the feel of the area.

Mighty Don’t be so ^negative* for goodness sake.

Not sure where this is but it's happening now:

@WokChiSteve
Flash Protest to get the Brexit Impact Studies released

www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155479681484270&set=gm.504220529943395&type=3 …

or 2 hours ago one to ignore folks, I think!

frumpety the public sector pension thing worries me too.
And for those thinking gold plated blah blah no it certainly isn't. Mine is split but my last 14 years of payments will also not mature till I am 67. Sure you can draw it earlier but the Pena.ties are too punitive to make it sensible.

Didn't say the participants weren't English/Welsh, but the ones at the Helm of England were descendants /successors of the Norman Conquest*. And they were the ones with the beef about their claims. That was the connection which linked the Hiberno Normans. Brought them on the same Crusades, previously. They still had links. Many a de something. Maybe Gaelicised or Anglicised. Don't think that originated in England or Wales.

If it had just been the English/Welsh and the descendants of Harold on the throne taking on France, there wouldn't have been the Anglo Norman 'conquest' of Ireland and the subsequent connection linking both. The Normans were like Japanese Knotweed.

*Willie I, II, Henry I, Stephen, Henry II, Richard I, John, Henry III, Edward I, II, III, Richard II, Henry IV, V.

All after Willie I are descendants/successors of the Bustard. Other houses in the male line married in and they weren't technically a 'Norman' ruling house any more. Nevertheless they were their bloodline and successors in title.

Don't think pointing out this fact is UKIP at all. Quite the opposite. It is more UKIP (and a reinvented narrative) to deny there was ne'er an Anglo Saxon arse on the patriotic centrepiece of the throne of England even as far back as Agincourt.

I think I read that that the new History syllabus doesn't go back further than 1066. Inconvenient truth of waves of migrations and arrivals. Norman narrative seem to have been been reinvented too.

Mighty , I was having a little bit of a rant about my own pension , but in reality I am actually just as concerned for everyone who is paying into a pension , if the economy is going to be shit for X number of years , that is surely going to have a knock on effect for those who will reach pension age in say 20 years ?

Hollie went there last year on our annual pilgrimage to Cornwall , lovely place , spent a great day there

I think I read that that the new History syllabus doesn't go back further than 1066.

What, nothing about the Vikings, who followed the Romans,who came immediately after the Bronze Age, which itself came after Ancient Egypt and the Pharaohs? You can tell what my school history was like before O levels.

By the same token, Jesus was born at Christmas, and then just 3 months or so later, was a grown man being crucified. This puzzled me enormously as an 8 year old.

Reminds me of In the loop;
Exasperated minister..."it's not easy! It's difficult difficult lemon difficult"
😀