Westminstenders: Blue Passports

[RedToothBrush]

Yay for the blue passports.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all

May next year bring us £350 million for the NHS, cake, unicorns, financial passporting, access to the single market, Irish love and of course control to the people.

(Apologies been up to my eyeballs. Normal service will resume after Christmas).

Merry Xmas one and all ...

Christmas thoughts & kindness

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/dec/25/jo-cox-brendan-twitter-take-a-moment-talk-loved-ones

Brendan Cox@MrBrendanCox
Weird thing to do on Christmas Eve but I’d encourage everyone to take a moment to imagine losing the person you love most in the world. Imagine what you would wish you had said to them.
Then take a moment to say it.

Brendan Cox@MrBrendanCox
Wasn’t at all expecting this outpouring of kindness to me or to each other in this thread.
A lovely reminder at the end of the year that bad shit happens but the world is still full of good people.

I'm drunk, dressed as elf and with even dafter slippers and hat on. I'm 40 next year.

I must admit that common sense and being sensible are often overrated! It's just a question of knowing when and where.

Anyway Merry Christmas to you all. Thanks to everyone nominating for thread of the year, but I believe that you are just nominating yourselves really.

The power of MN is not individuals but a collective wisdom and a community where ideas can be exchanged. Sometimes people just need to be like a dog with a bone over important stuff.

Be persistent if you think something worthy of it. Your voice is never a lone one.

rtb if it makes you feel better, I'm also nicely boozed up and have been sporting antlers all day Am contemplating wearing them to the footie tomorrow too.

Red I am 50 next year. You are a mere slip of a girl to me. I am glad you had a nice Christmas. You’re a legend.

A Brexit Christmas Carol

Enjoy

https://www.politico.eu/article/brexit-christmas-carol/

Having gone to bed last night somewhat upset that my dps decided that if they can't froth hatred in front of my DC's they'd rather not have anything to do with them, I needed something good to cheer me up.

And I got it. So brilliant is this news I feel I must share.

Cleggy is getting a knighthood and Farage isn't. Brexiteers and nationalists are going mental. Merry Christmas again to you all.

Hashi great news about Clegg. The man always does what he judges to be the right thing and is a much needed voice for common sense and moderation. What a shame about your DPs. Enjoy the rest of the holiday.

This, along with the fact that parliament voted his book “how to stop Brexit” as book of the year, is really encouraging! Although jolyon Maugham was expressing discomfort at clegg’s knighthod, saying clegg created the conditions for Brexit, which I didn’t really understand.

Hope everyone had a peaceful Christmas and isn’t suffering for it too much today Echoing everyone above, thanks so much for these threads - they’re really invaluable and I’m grateful for the insightful dissections and commentary.

Our idiotic and unrepresentational electoral system, confrontational Parliament and the general ignorance of many people as to how the system is supposed to work, combined with the malicious and mischievous machinations of much of the media, created the conditions for Brexit. Not Clegg, who was trying to do the best he could within the constraints.

Thanks born. Sadly my DPs are the epitomy of cats radicalisation theory. I'm not a believer and have asked them not to preach the gospels in front of my DC, so therefore we've been cut off. Thankfully mil, who we have whole other issues with around this time of year mainly, accidentally came to the rescue and decided to make a fuss of the DC's when she wasn't planning to initially so as far as they're concerned a gp made their Christmas.

Pain there's a lot of delightful tweets essentially saying everything bad with the coalition = Cleggs fault, everything good = Cameron. God knows it wasn't perfect but that's some amazing political blinkers. It is however amusing the hell out of me!

Good news about Clegg, he has a decent moral core.

This keeps happening-why is this timed on Christmas Day? Why doesn't this bother those who wish to relinquish EU membership? Why doesn't this remind a majority that being the member of a bigger club may be a good thing?

DH (who is admittedly very prone to conspiracy theory) genuinely believes that the Russians are just waiting until we leave the EU to make a move on some of our territory. I don't agree with him, but I also don't understand why the blue passport/capital punishment brigade don't seem bothered by our vulnerability once we are little Britain.

Better go as 14 people expected -Agghhh!

www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/navy-shadows-russian-warship-sailing-close-to/

Sorry the 'this' in the previous post refers to the Russian naval ship visiting our coast on Christmas Day.

I know it’s inevitable there’s pushback back but jolyon always chimed with what I thought (well, more accurately it’s the other way round) so I was surprised at his take on it.

Elsewhere, sovereignty rules!

Tom Newton Dunn
@tnewtondunn
Excl: Government urges Prince Harry not to invite Obama to his wedding for fear of infuriating Trump;

Government urges Prince Harry not to invite Obama to his wedding for fear of infuriating Trump

Gosh I really hope that’s fake news, but these crazy days fact can often be stranger than fiction.

Great news about Clegg’s knighthood though, and we had a good giggle at the Fail’s STOP SNEERING AT BLUE PASSPORTS front page this morning.

It was in the Sun, so haven’t actually read it.

lonely there’s this too

Russian submarine activity ‘highest since Cold War’ warns NATO chief

Alliance plans to set up a new command post for the Atlantic.

www.politico.eu/article/russia-submarine-activity-highest-since-cold-war-warns-nato-chief/

I hope he channels his aunt and tells them where to go

not that I am a royalist

Delurking to say how much I appreciate these threads and your contributions. I always come here for the balanced, intelligent, sane POV. What do the Westminsterenders think is now my lodestar.

Thank you and I also hope 2018 will be a return to sanity with many more grown ups putting their heads above the political parapet.

Clegg's knighthood is the gift that keeps on giving. There's a section of twitter going mental that he's going up to the Lord's. He's not of course, but they're fricking mental. Truly making my day.

I think Jo Maugham has a point though. One of the big contributors to the Brexit vote was resentment against the political establishment for shifting the burden of the crash to the people in the shape of austerity. Clegg of course is not without blame there as vicePM in the coalition. I think Clegg accepting this is one of his less clever moves, just like his student loan broken promise. He cared more about being in power then, and he cares more about his knighthood now than not fanning the flames around a viciously divided country. That's how it comes across to me, anyway.

WRT the Russian thing I find it so odd that brexit is considered, by leavers, to be a patriotic act. Yet to some extent it was pushed along by Russia, for their benefit not ours. We're letting ourselves be torn away from our closest allies at a time when Russia is certainly flexing her muscles. And yet if you asked any leaver/brexiteer what they thought of Russia and Russian aggression they'd naturally feel it was something to defend ourselves against. Yet stopping brexit would be one of the best defences possible. Its all very odd.

Am very pleased for Nick Clegg. Tories blame all their failings on the other parties whether they were in coalition with them or not. But somehow people fall for it every time. The one good thing about brexit is there won't be anyone else to blame, but I expect they'll have a good try to paste it on the EU.

Good news about Clegg, he has a decent moral core

You must be flippin' joking. No core at all, neither fish nor fowl.
Hooray for Brexit! Sorry ladies, but you are all misguided. As regards going 'blue' again, govt is not going back to the old-style size of passport. We will be getting the EU passport but in a different colour (and some new technology, apparently). Best to have no memory of the EU passport imo.

All key vapids tend to receive honours, haven't you noticed?

Best to have no memory of the EU passport imo.

Yes because remembering a time when you could travel freely around Europe without even having to plan it because no visas were required will only serve to remind everyone what they've lost.

Passcards are a distraction.

1 Liam's 'secret' trade deals: we get to decide what's secret, Liam mate.
2 Our Royal Navy which barely exists and continuing Russian warships on our coasts
3 Impending Article 50 challenge, which ('win' or lose) will reveal the constitutional impropriety/ illegality of the whole sorry business,

are the real stories.

Happy Boxing Day folks.

I presume Clegg’s citation is for services to the Tory party by reducing the LibDem vote share by an impressive factor of three during the period he was in government.