Westministers: Happy New Year?

[RedToothBrush]

And so we enter a New Year full of hope that things might just be about to recover from our national nervous breakdown... or perhaps not.

As we have Damien Green ejected from his role as Deputy PM over allegations of inappropriate conduct towards woman and use of porn at the end of last year, 2018 sees a bright new progressive dawn with the appointment to the role of universities regulator of Toby Young. A man who has deleted 20,000 tweets including many which are inappropriate and offensive to women, is a fan of eugenics and hates the working class and disabled.

Meanwhile the NHS is facing a crisis which is totally unexpected to the government and couldn't possibly have been planned for by a man who has over seen it for over five years. Which naturally bodes really well for Brexit planning.

We are apparently planning to join the TPP. Never mind geopolitics we can move the UK to the Pacific region.

We still are not ready for trade talks because the Cabinet can not agree on anything. Not that it sounds like they have actually discussed anything along these lines yet.

Rumours are that the Cabinet - including arch leavers such as Gove - are leaning towards supporting May and a softer option, despite the disgust of Johnson, who once again is the subject of malicious chatter about his sacking in a forthcoming Cabinet Reshuffle.

There is talk of further Tory Party war with the revelation that membership of the party has dropped to a core of just 70,000 hardline authoritarian men, most of whom are over 60. Tory HQ now wants to (perhaps with some good reason to prevent the loons) rewrite the constitution and limit the power of local associations to select candidates. The Tory party is now lining up to be a power struggle between internal authoritarians, who don't like democracy voices or structure.

Meanwhile the Labour Party membership now apparently overwhelmingly looks upon staying in the customs union and single market favourably and is in favour of a second referendum. In opposition to the leadership who are utterly committed to Hard Brexit. Much to the annoyance of Lord Adonis who is pitching a fit about government corruption and incompetence and being accused of being elite because he going skiing. Unlike of prominent Leavers who are in touch with the working class.

And finally Nigel Farage has got a meeting with Barnier. Farage, unlike Clegg, Clarke and Adonis, will not be accused by the Right Wing Press of undermining the government's negotiating position because...

It appears that we are in for another year of Brexit nonsense then.

We've not even heard mention of Gibraltar yet.

Jim Pickard @PickardJE
growing speculation about Claire Perry as new business secretary but frankly I wouldn't trust me on this

Matthew Moore‏ @mattkmoore
NEW: BBC staff told that anyone who has indicated support for Carrie Gracie, or tweeted an opinion about BBC pay, can no longer present any segments on BBC pay.
The directive, from new director of news Fran Unsworth, applies to off-air producers as well as on-air presenters.
Given that dozens (hundreds?) of BBC women and men have publicly backed Carrie Gracie, this threatens to turn into farce...

Culture War....

Jess Phillips @jessphillips
I hope this isn’t true, I’ll be writing to the Director General today. It is tantamount to shut up little women!

RRROOOOOAAARRRRRRRRR!

Culture War....
All pre empting the abolition of Equalities Act this week;
A war on feminism and the proponents of feminism.
Banning speaking about the causes of feminism is presumably part of the package.

That is fin horrendous red Full fat Stalinist/Trumpy/Erdogan.

I think I must be starved of levity of late because this really tickled me

(((Dan Hodges)))
‏*@DPJHodges*
There was a story I was told about one the Blair/Brown reshuffles that Malcolm Wicks missed out on a job because the post-it note with his name on it fell on the floor, and no-one noticed till it was all over.

It's almost too painful as a metaphor ...

www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/08/tory_party_website_lacks_secure_connection/

Another day, another embarrassing gaffe for the Tory party. This time it seems someone forgot to renew the site's security certificate.

The unsecured site reads "Your connection is not private. Attackers might be trying to steal your information from www.conservatives.com (for example, passwords, messages or credit cards)."

(contd).

I'm offering evens that this doesn't get reported on the BBC, or Sky ...

More incoming:

@jessphillips
Anti-choice campaigner. Slow hand clap

@carriesymonds
Our new CCHQ Vice Chair for Women is @MariaCaulfield

Faisal Islam @faisalislam
Unexpectedly PM just appeared silently outside number 10 with Chairman @BrandonLewis @ deputy @JamesCleverly and a selection of new MPs - apparently the new vice chairs including @KemiBadenoch @mariacaulfield @bbradleymp @Rehman_Chishti

What is the more difficult job?
Brexit negotiations. NI. Or selling the Tory party to under 25s?

This is from Peston FB earlier today. Greening interesting:

Theresa May’s reshuffle – which will take place today and tomorrow – is all about domestic-policy change and Brexit continuity.
In the Cabinet, the dismissals and changes will all be in the middle and lower ranks, and will be extensive. There will be around four sackings, but the job changes will be many more, affecting perhaps half of the middle to lower cabinet.
However all will keep their jobs right at the top of the cabinet – viz the incumbents as Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary and Brexit Secretary will not change.
Why are those at the top safe?
“It’s because we’re in the middle of negotiations to leave the EU, and we’re about to get into the big economic and security issues, so it would be wrong to change those intimately involved in the economic and security decisions” said a well-placed source.
That’s the sanitised version. A reason that reflects less well on May is that she’s not strong enough to risk sending to the backbenches any minister who could foment serious discontent with her (it’s worth noting the rumour that the newly knighted head of the Tories’ 1922 Committee of backbench MPs Graham Brady is sitting on rather more letters from MPs calling for her to quit than is commonly understood).
Confirmation of the cabinet changes will come later today.
On Tuesday there’ll be a fairly extensive overhaul of the middle and lower ranks of government, when supposedly bright new talent from the backbenches will be given their big breaks.
“In a way those changes to junior jobs will be more important and more interesting, because they’ll put the spotlight on who are thought to be the coming generation of Conservative stars” said a minister. “It’ll be a chance to test tomorrow’s potential leaders”.
The Cabinet reshuffle will be designed to make good on the prime minister’s pledge to improve the fortunes of British people on lower incomes, to restore momentum and imagination to a domestic policy agenda which has had the life sucked out of it by the massive challenge of delivering Brexit.
Senior government members for example expect a new Cabinet-ranked post of Housing Minister to be created, to reinvigorate attempts to tackle the shortage of affordable homes.
So who’s in and who’s out?
Justine Greening seems to be dead minister walking at the Department for Education.
Her crimes?
“Senior backbench MPs are still fuming at the way she killed the plan to open new grammar schools” said one of her colleagues. “And my goodness she goes on and on at Cabinet. The annoyance on the prime minister’s face when Justine won’t stop talking is quite a picture”.
Greg Clark, the business secretary, looks to be on his way out – because “he’s too secretive and is said to be a ditherer”, said a source.
The party chairman, Patrick McLoughlin, will be axed – because if the prime minister hasn’t taken personal responsibility for the Tories’ lacklustre performance in last year’s election, he’ll be forced to do so.
Also Andrea Leadsom is expected to be replaced as leader of the House of Commons: she attracts too much attention for the prime minister’s taste, and often for the wrong reasons, said one of their colleagues.
Why the reshuffle now? Well she had to appoint at least one new cabinet minister, following her decision to sack her de facto number two Damian Green as First Secretary just before Christmas, for the untruths he told about what he knew of a police probe into porn on his computer.
For what it’s worth, it looks as though Green’s cabinet office responsibilities – including liaising with the governments of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales on Brexit – will go to a new minister. But his grand title and role as effective deputy prime minister is expected to go into abeyance.
Anyway, here’s the big point. Having made the mistake of calling an election last year that cost her party its parliamentary majority, this reshuffle is May’s one and only chance to prove she’s in power as well as in office.
If she pulls it off, she can be confident of remaining prime minister for at least another year, perhaps longer. Fluff it, and the patience of her party will be almost exhausted.

Robert Peston @Peston
Crikey. What does this mean? There was not supposed to be Home Secretary change. @AmberRuddHR

Jim Pickard‏ @PickardJE
A promotion for Rudd (if true) would imply deputy PM given there's no vacancy for chancellor or PM...
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/01/01/theresa-may-considers-reshuffle-promotions-seven-female-ministers/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

There was a rumour that Rudd would move and she would be replaced by Hunt.

Faisal Islam
@faisalislam

Amber Rudd tells me on steps of Number 10 “same job”

I liked this tweet:

Richard milne
Richard milne
@milneorchid
Does anyone else remember Winston Churchill appointing a minister for losing the war? No, me neither.

.

TheElementsSong the only problem with that wiki entry is they got the date wrong -it's 2018 now!

the only problem with that wiki entry is they got the date wrong -it's 2018 now!

What ! An error !? On Wiki ?!

Say it ain't so ....

Which is sensible, but still made my heart sink:

Brexit: Don’t believe people who say Britain will say in the EU, president Juncker says

Commission President says EU must plan budget as if UK is leaving

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-wont-happen-eu-jean-claude-juncker-commission-president-a8148146.html

My MP has just praised Jeremy Corbyn and his job on the nhs
[Eye rolls into another dimension]

It is being suggested on twitter that Grayling DID actually get the job. For twenty minutes.

Robert Peston @Peston
So the new housing minister is actually the old housing minister. It is a radical rebranding of a department but no structural change. Yawn

Sajid Javed. In the same department with a new name that includes the word 'Housing' to show just how serious the Tories are about housing.

Sam Coates Times @SamCoatesTimes
No10: David Lidington CBE MP is made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Minister for the Cabinet Office - but not first secretary of state

Danny Shaw @DannyShawBBC
Ken Clarke, Chris Grayling, Michael Gove, Liz Truss, David Lidington, and now AN Other: 6 Conservative justice secretaries in less than 8 years.

The Party of Law and Order. The Tories are serious about Justice.

Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn
Another clue: is Jeremy Hunt about to be made Business Secretary? His DoH deputy Philip Dunne is responding to a Commons UQ on his behalf now.

Hunt has been in No 10 for an hour. There are jokes about whether he has been made to wait on a trolley.

Laura Kuenssberg @bbclaurak
After the Grayling mystery, reshuffle glitch number 2 - Maria Caulfield new tory vice chair opposed decriminalising abortion - BPAS response

bpas‏ @bpas1968
We are incredibly disappointed to hear that Maria Caulfield MP, who supports the criminalisation of women who end their own pregnancies, is the new CCHQ Vice Chair for Women.
Maria Caulfield lead the parliamentary opposition to @DianaJohnsonMP's bill to protect women and decriminalise abortion up to 24 weeks, and defended the current law which threatens any woman who ends her own pregnancy without the approval of 2 doctors with life imprisonment.
This is not an abstract issue. Women in across the UK have faced prosecution and prison sentences for ending pregnancies using abortion medication bought online.
These are often women in the most desperate of circumstances. One study found 1 in 5 who tried to use online abortion medication were in a violent or controlling relationship. Should these women face criminal prosecution? According to the new CCHQ Vice-Chair for women, yes.
Caulfield's views are out of step with members of the public & her own parliamentary party. Our polling found majority of Con MPs agree that a woman should be able to have an abortion if she does not want to continue with a pregnancy, a more liberal framework than our current law
Abortion is not a side issue. One in three women will have an abortion in their lifetime. One in three. They deserve parliamentarians who take their wellbeing seriously, not those who would seek to impose their minority view on their access to healthcare.
Maria Caulfield MP, the new Conservative Vice Chair for Women, seeks to be a "voice for the unborn child."
Our full comment on the shocking decision to appoint Maria Caulfield as Conservative Vice Chair for Women is here:
www.bpas.org/about-our-charity/press-office/press-releases/bpas-comment-on-maria-caulfield-mps-appointment-as-conservative-party-vice-chair-for-women/

This reshuffle is about trying to give the party more appeal to women and ethnic minorities.

Its all going just to plan then. If you like Trump or the DUP.

Jim Pickard @PickardJE
new possibly worthless gossip: Jeremy Hunt for Beis, Greg Clark to DCMS and Karen Bradley to NI

More for hunt to intentionally fuck up and privatise

Sam Coates Times
@SamCoatesTimes
Social care portfolio moved from DCLG to Department for Health - Jeremy Hunt remains in job of the new combined role

Jeremy Hunt is now no longer the Secretary of State for Health!!!!

Don't get excited.

He's now the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

Sam Coates Times @SamCoatesTimes
Social care portfolio moved from DCLG to Department for Health - Jeremy Hunt remains in job of the new combined role

Housing more important? Social care less important?

Faisal Islam‏ @faisalislam
Downing St snapper suggests At this rate Williamson (who has just gone in) might become Defence and Guns Secretary

Oh for fucks sake!

Jeremy Hunt who has screwed over healthcare to such an extent that people are dieing on trolleys and while waiting for ambulances is now being given Social Care to destroy as well. Social care is already a nightmare, but I am sure Hunt will somehow manage to make it even worse.

And to top that the Vice Chair for Women is anti-abortion and keen to support the rights of the unborn child over the rights of the group she is supposed to represent.

What a shit show!