Westministenders: The Art of the Deal

[RedToothBrush]

Well Trump seems to have put his foot in it.

Not that this should come as a surprise. For all the talk of closer ties with the US that was never going to happen. All that was need was for Trump to over step once too many.

By chance (?) Barnier also raised questions about our commitment to working with the EU on security.

Its almost as if we are being asked to choose whom we look to for security.

Meanwhile it sounds like the divorce bill is sorted - though this may not be as settled as that, if it comes with conditions. The deal might also be backtracked on, seeing as that appears to be the done thing presently.

Talks on Ireland are stalemated with Ireland threating to veto. No sign of a breakthrough here yet.

Talks on EU citz rights are reportedly going backwards (again) rather than going forward.

All of this is theatre for a British audience though, with the UK agreeing to everything. Because they gave again their cards when a50 was triggered.

The crunch is coming on whether we move to stage two before Christmas. We have no time to lose.

Not exactly unchallenged as Simon Coveney was the next guest and directly contradicted JRM. JRM did point out the complexity of Irish politics and the fact he was no expert. SC spoke with authority. One interpretation of last week's events could indeed be that the forced sacking to prevent a GE has completely resolved matters. However it also seems entirely valid to point out the current political fluidity in ROI and view comments made by its politicians in that light.

Latest opinion polling info, according to google, does indeed show an increase in support for SF which SC outright denied.

www.cnbc.com/2017/11/26/support-for-irish-pms-party-falls-as-snap-election-nears.html

The discussion about that porn figure data, revealed that it was times attempted to access but blocked from those sites.

They also said that the figure from 45 showed that the data was unreliable (or perhaps the blocking system was down) so the number was highly likely to be a very conservative estimate.

Also look at August and September figures. They speculated this was because many staff and MPs were not around in the holiday period so it's people feeling able to slack off because no one is looking over shoulder.

Also you have to ask a question here: was this block filter installed before or after Damien Green was raised? If it's after then there's a lot of sites that aren't blocked.

Totally agree with you Hester referendums. They only be used to decide in the colour of your bins or resident's parking. They are completely unsuitable for complex issues.

Not exactly unchallenged as Simon Coveney was the next guest and directly contradicted JRM. JRM did point out the complexity of Irish politics and the fact he was no expert. SC spoke with authority. One interpretation of last week's events could indeed be that the forced sacking to prevent a GE has completely resolved matters. However it also seems entirely valid to point out the current political fluidity in ROI and view comments made by its politicians in that light.

Latest opinion polling info, according to google, does indeed show an increase in support for SF which SC outright denied.

Couple of points:
There are polls conducted all the time in ROI, probably monthly and Sinn Fein have been on a downward spiral over the last few months. The poll you have linked to was during the political crisis and is probably an anomaly.

Regardless, there is no threat to Fine Gael (The party of Varadkar and Coveney) from Sinn Fein. They have completley different voter bases.
All the parties in ROI have the same views on Brexit, they are all behind the Taoiseach, including Sinn Fein (who have actually been fairly quiet on Brexit and left it to the Taoiseach.)
The Taoseach and Coveney are not getting pressure from anyone.
Andrew Marr should have been able to challenge the nonsense spouted by politicians, that is his job. You should not need the deputy PM of Ireland to challenge nonsense.
Irish politics isn't any more complicated that UK politics.

As an Irish person living in England I absolutely despair at what is either lies or pure ignorance of Irish politics.

Andrew Marr should have been able to challenge the nonsense spouted by politicians, that is his job. You should not need the deputy PM of Ireland to challenge nonsense.

I agree. Andrew Marr should have been able to challenge the nonsense.

We are in a very dangerous era of fake news in the UK where politicians such as Jacob-Rees Mogg are allowed to openly tell lies, or at the very least, utter complete falsehoods and go completely unchallenged.

@JolyonMaugham

1. The Charity Commission sought and obtained assurances that @LegatumInst and @Legatum would be independent. So why is the latter tweeting in support of the former?

2. If @LegatumInst really is delivering an educational and non-political purpose why does @Legatum think attacks on the former serve a political objective?

3. The motives of those questioning the lawfulness of *@LegatumInst's activities are irrelevant. The question is whether they are lawful. I believe, on expert advice, they are not. If they are not why should my motivations give @Legatum*Inst a free pass to break the law?

1. For the record I can show I wrote about abuses of charity law prior to the referendum. I'd respectfully suggest *@Legatum*Inst focus on acting lawfully rather casting misconceived aspersions. /ENDS

Legatum sound a little fragile?

As an Irish person living in England I absolutely despair at what is either lies or pure ignorance of Irish politics.
When this nonsense is all over, this country should be renamed 'Sorry'.

rdoo there's a vein that runs through brexiteers which is incapable of seeing any other country that has different politics to the UK as fluid or unstable. It's a very willful ignorance. It's a real disgrace tbh. But then difference isn't really their thing is it?

twitter.com/tony_nog/status/937268136910442496

1. #Brexit in miniature, and why reversal is so difficult for UK culture.
   This is a classic Brexit story. A key EU agency is leaving the UK. For various reasons this move will cost £540M. The UK will foot the bill.
   How will this be received in UK?

2. well, 5 minutes reasoned thinking will lead to:
   -Ok, obviously the agency must be in the EU
   -We've chosen to leave the EU
   -Someone has to pay, and if we're leaving it should be us
   -It's annoying that the leasing contract was messed up but, well, someone has to pay

3. but how will the person highlighted in this thread understand it?
   -He doesn't think we should pay a Brexit bill
   -He doesn't know about, and wouldn't care about, the Medicines agency
   -The Mail will tell him it's an EU stitch up, and he'll believe it

4. he absolutely will refuse to understand why an EU based agency has to move to the EU and even if it does, it's the EU's problem not ours.
   Because in his head the EU is an entity and not, ultimately, other taxpayers like him

5. our media will not inform him, normal civilised concepts of taking responsibility for your actions, fair play, paying your debts etc will simply not be applied.
   I appreciate this may come across as Liberal snobbery, but it doesn't change the facts.

6. we've given a large section of the population the right to be abusive, selfish & dishonourable regarding our obligations & civilised behaviour, because it's just foreigners at the end of the day

7. we've made it OK (at the international level) to eat half the meal at the big Xmas party then walk out without paying because we made other plans during the main course.

8. something that would be ludicrous at a personal level ("yes, I signed a 3 year lease on the building, but I've found a new building after the 1st year so I'm not paying you any more") becomes somehow perfectly acceptable at the international level.

9. the media aren't going to inform us & neither will MPs. It's up to each individual to ask themselves in this case for example "is it fair for this agency to move and is it fair for us to pay the bill?"
   A lot will simply reach the wrong moral conclusion, helped by the Mail etc

10. again, call it patronising, liberal snobbery, elitism, whatever...
    If this story breaks there'll be a lot of voices saying it's ok to ask "why should we pay?"
    And a lot of people who will be happy with that position
    That's ultimately the issue with #Brexit

11. We've made it OK to take ridiculous, insular, immoral, self harming & dishonourable positions, because the other side are "just foreigners getting uppity"
    and then we made it ok to take these indefensible positions as national foreign policy
    End/

Agree Rdoo and Abilockhart. Rees-Mogg was deliberately misrepresenting the Irish government's position in order to play to his own Brexiteer audience.

Hi everyone
I'm pretty busy this month - pleased to say that the advent food bank drive is being really well supported in the village 😁 so I'll be busy doing collections and deliveries
Thank you all for helping keeping me relatively sane this year
Love to you and yours x

RESIST ✊

Brilliant MrsReynolds sounds like you're making a lot of difference to a lot of xmases love to you and yours too

Happened to see the comedian Ed Byrne yesterday. As always, humour sometimes shines a light into the darkness.

He made a very fair point that we have all become spoiled (The show was called "Spoiler Alert"). In particular, when it comes to news and media. We can all chose the news channel that fits our views. It's not just Trump.

I wonder if there will be any opportunities to buy returned tickets on the day - my daughter is obsessed with Hamilton but I didn't realise it was transferring to the West End until it was too late .

Oops, wrong thread .

Oh look. Nadine's computer only has an email account on it and is not linked to any official government sites as she isn't on the front bench.
So not quite the same as Damian Greens
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-42216622

In my last job, it was gross misconduct to share your password with anyone

And that was without having a job representing my constituents and respecting their confidentiality

When I got my first ever account on a networked computer, it was made very clear that sharing passwords was a disciplinary matter. Some wank on Twitter from Jeremy Vine about electors being the only people who can sack MPs. That being the case, then an MP who behaves in a way that would get them sacked in any other job should resign their seat and seek re-election.

Anyhow, in other news, it turns out the Home Office is now telling British citizens who lack the patriotism to marry a fellow islander should now fuck the fuck off out of the country when their spouse's visa is refused:
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/03/corbyn-visa-policy-puts-uks-global-reputation-research-risk

Oh look. Nadine's computer only has an email account on it and is not linked to any official government sites as she isn't on the front bench.

As an MP she will almost certainly be sent personal, sensitive and confidential information by email (she says she gets hundreds a day). By having a shared password access there is no audit about who is reading and responding to those emails. If an intern accidentally sends a constituent's personal info to a third party she has no way of knowing who did that. While I fully expect MPs to have staff who may see my info if I email her, I am pretty appalled that she appears to have no way of monitoring what they are doing with that info. Also does she changed her password everytime someone leaves her employment or are there tons of ex-interns wondering around who know the login to access these emails?

She seems to have a complete disregard for the information people email her. These people don't need access to secure Government documents for them to be viewing sensitive information, emails are bloody sensitive!

Anyhow, in other news, it turns out the Home Office is now telling British citizens who lack the patriotism to marry a fellow islander should now fuck the fuck off out of the country when their spouse's visa is refused

Well, they're not likely to be true Patriots are they, so good riddance to them. And it's a BOGOF for the net migration figures. What's not to love?

I did not see the interview, only read the headline, but what do you all think Jeremy Hunt meant by the line that there would be no Brexit if we don’t get behind Theresa May? Is he implying that she/someone else will rescind the article 50 notification and say we’ve changed our minds? Or is he assuming that if we don’t reach a deal then we’ll somehow be able to stick with the status quo? If a lot of MPs are assuming that Brexit won’t happen if we don’t reach a deal then perhaps that explains the curious lack of panic/opposition. It does seem as though those speaking out are the ones with the legal backgrounds who appreciate that a legal process was begun with the triggering of article 50.

Still only half way though Ivan Rogers's love letter speech on David Cameron. So far I have only learnt that statesman Cameron had no choice but calling a referendum. It was beyond his control - for those of you who like Dangerous Liaisons.
Also it is ok for us to be opportunistic bastards all the time, but if the EU states protect their own interests, it is not nice.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/12/03/botanics-chief-flabbergasted-brexit-uncertainty-facing-french/

Botanics chief 'flabbergasted' over Brexit uncertainty facing French wife.

I know of someone else in this position. EU citizen, married to a Brit with British children, never received any state benefits, and now being asked to prove self-sufficiency. Which, of course, she can't.

No wonder they're desperate to get rid of the ECJ.

My interpretation of what Hunt said was that he meant to imply that without May, there would be "No Brexit deal " ie, that she was our defence against crashing out without a deal.

But as ever, with our current crop of politicians, he was inept