Westminstenders: Stuck in the twilightzone

[RedToothBrush]

Just want to remind everyone if what really matters and what the priority if Theresa May is.

May isn't interested in a new referendum. There is barely time to hold one, and anyone remotely interested in one, isn't named Theresa May. Forget it. Its not happening.

Nor are Brexit talks the most important thing. Whilst Jeremy Corbyn seems finally to be playing with some sort if EEA type solution he's not the one named Theresa May. If she doesn't want one, then it won't happen.

May does seem to favour something along these lines but she has to sell it to her party. If she ends up relying on the support of Labour to push it through against what her party want, then that doesn't end well for her or her party. So Corbyn seeming to squeeze her here isn't necessarily a good thing. It could push her to no deal.

Why?

Cos petty party politics.

THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING, and don't forget this, is the EU withdrawal Bill. As it stands, May has to concentrate her efforts on this. If it doesn't pass by the art 50 deadline then we have legal chaos. May isn't big on the courts, but I'm not sure she would want that situation either. It would be even more unthinkable than queues at Dover coupled with food shortages.

If it doesn't pass, and the Lords will do all they can to delay and obstruct as long as they can, May's only option is to beg for an art 50 extension. Which the EU might not be inclined to give. Which might leave us in a situation where our only option is to revoke a50.

The only predictable thing, is this will be last minute brinkmanship.

All the talk of a second ref is a distraction. Talk of Labour's position at this point, is all about positioning for the next election and not about Brexit at all.

So try to keep your eyes on what really matters and what battles are May's big ones and which are merely side shows.

I wonder who Side Show Bob will turn out to be.

I'm starting to wonder (a bit conspiracy theorist ) about the Carillion collapse. Bear with me.....

It crossed my mind that the government is happy for them to collapse because

a) it is diverting attention from Brexit and the government grab of powers and reduction in our rights. Where is the coverage on MSM (eg breakfast TV & news) about the fact that yesterday the government was successful in voting to withdraw from the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and (with the support of the 13 Scottish Conservative MPs) voted to take back devolved powers (with the "promise" that the unelected House of Lords would put in safeguards and if you believe that..... )

and

b) When If the Carillion collapse causes a domino effect of further collapses amongst those to whom it owes money, the government will be able to blame those nasty senior managers and directors at Carillion (whose chairman was an advisor to May on "corporate responsibility" ). The recession that follows will be Carillion's fault and Nothing. Whatsoever. To. Do. With. Brexit.

In the same way that the global financial crisis was nothing whatsoever to do with government actions (or lack of action in terms of regulation); the governments had been happy to ride on the back of the bubble, and when it burst made the "ordinary" people pay for it (with the bailouts, austerity and job losses) rather than the bankers etc who had made all the money.

Related to Carillion, I see Capita has lost a massive contract with the Prudential - almost £1 billion over ten years - with a whisper about firms that have "Ca" as the beginning of their name.

www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/16/capita_loses_biggest_contract_to_rival_outsourcing_biz/

We have always been at war with Eurasia ...

The Global Financial crisis was surely entirely the fault of the then Labour Government?

prettybird

interesting suggestion.

I would counter that things 2018 are not comparable to things 2007, and the tricks that worked in 2007 may not work in 2018. (The old adage about being equipped to fight the last war).

I think last years elections result runs a lot deeper than it appeared. No one has any playbook to deal with it - it's never happened before (and was obviously not expected).

If you want to catch an elephant, you can't be too strong at once.

Hey guess which country starts the next global financial crisis? All those will money offshore are laughing.

Insert relevant conspiracy here.

On the plastic bag thing have you seen this post from DEFRA getting in a strop because apparently their plastic bag charge is nothing at all to do with the EU! It is just an amazing coincidence that the EU was pushing for plastic bag charges around the same time as the UK decided to do it.

Here in Italy we've been charging for plastic bags for a while (well, in the north...), or else the supermarkets give you biodegradeable Ines that break. Now all the fruit bags in the big supermarkets are biodegradeable mater-bi as well, so if anything the UK is behind.

www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/shamed-mp-jared-o-mara-not-turning-up-for-work-at-constituency-office-1-8959349?__twitter_impression=true&__twitter_impression=true
Shamed MP Jared O'Mara not turning up for work at constituency office

Yorkshire Post pissed off at Jared O'Mara.

Guido Fawkes is now reporting that since that article was published yesterday that O'Mara apparently is back in work today on a phased return to work.

pretty I think it’s a very good analysis.
They might not have created the situation in purpose but I’m sure they will use it to their advantage!

www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/business/winners-carillion-scandal-making-300m-government-contractors-collapse/15/01/

On the plastic bag thing...

It happens in workplaces all the time. There's a long boring meeting. At some point a junior assistant comes up with a good idea. It's vaguely listened to. Weeks, sometimes months, after the meeting a senior manager normally male repeats the idea presenting it as their own.

That has happened here. In the past at an EU meeting some-one probably a green MEP has suggested doing something about plastic. The U.K. certainly acted on it this before regulatory alignment evolved, so did Italy.

However Gove should not be taking exclusive credit. It was an idea knocked around in the EU since before 2013 and should be seen as a benefit of collective responsibility. It doesn't matter who mentioned it first and we will probably never know who it was.

Belated Place Mat Kinging

South Africa introduced charges plastic bags in 2003 #justsayin

And Scotland introduced it before England - and Wales before Scotland!

I'm pretty sure that when I lived in Germany in the middle nineties you had to pay for bags. Everyone used cloth bags like the ones you get in primark. I much prefer them to our bags for life. You can wash them easily and they are zero plastic rather than reusable plastic.

"I'm pretty sure that when I lived in Germany in the middle nineties you had to pay for bags."

Same in the Netherlands in the late nineties.

Hardly mentioned these days, but going back it was widely noted that there was an incentive for shops to give away carrier bags, as it was free advertising.

Funny, we have an Insurance Premium Tax (which I seem to recall was just magicked up one day) but not an advertisement tax.

We do a 'rot garden' exercise at the environmental ed place I work.
Items are placed under a mat in the woodland, to see how they decompose. We include stuff which will degrade naturally.
We have a woolworth's carrier bag. It was put there about 14 years ago?
Completely intact; you can see the colours and writing on the bag.
We have to explain to little kids what Woolworths was! And that the bag is still there, shows that plastic never disappears. One bag. 14 years.

We then go on to show them how to make compost!

Thanks to these threads I've had a very strange epiphany about my parents and their cutting us off. Its all gone a bit Ultra Brexit Vs EU. Bear with me, it sort of makes sense.

At one point they were being parents the main influencers. As time moved on things changed we grew up and though still very influential, the level dropped. Even later on new family members joined, welcomed whole heartedly by them, but that shifted the balance of influence away from them. They don't like not having the driving influence anymore, and have voted to bring back their sovereignty by refusing to have anything to do with us leaving the union.

I shouldn't but the analogy is making me laugh a lot.

*Hashi
*
I think that's very true. For many people control is such an emotive issue, perhaps because they are old and no longer the family power base. Or because they feel disenfranchised, and that others are thriving by contrast. They feel a powerlessness on a personal level.

So sub-consciously or maybe consciously if you 'offer' more control people will say yes. Even though it's completely illusory and as we have seen a way of handing control to the Johnsons and Goves of this world who absolutely are the least likely to share power.

To continue your analogy, Hashi, hopefully the youngsters will win in the end.

@faisalislam
Justine Greening makes dramatic first backbench intervention in EU Withdrawal Bill :
“bottom line is that if Brexit doesnt work for young people in pour country in the end it will not be sustainable, and, they will seek to improve or undo what we have done and make it work”

It also feels like the country is actually just ill; it's an almost tangible sickness that's been caused by this all, which the Byline crew would say, was exactly the point of the whole exercise for some.

Well I am old, but I simply can't imagine voting to make my children poorer and limit the opportunities of my grandchildren. Why would anyone want to do that?
To me it seems more as if people have thrown their brains out of the window. Television has been dumbed down, newspapers peddle shite, political debate is dominated by the hard right.
Having made a crap decision to leave the EU cognitive dissonance has kicked in and nobody wants to admit that they have got it wrong.

bottom line is that if Brexit doesnt work for young people in pour country in the end it will not be sustainable, and, they will seek to improve or undo what we have done and make it work

Interesting ...

Hashi, it about a 'loss of status'. Why don't you respect me in the same way as you used to?

Where ever you see this insecurity happening, you see shades of fascism appearing.