Westministenders: Groundhog Day

[RedToothBrush]

Groundhog day is 2nd Feb.

Its also today. And yesterday. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before. And the day before.

We have all turned into Bill Murray.

That's Brexit in the UK.

The only progress seems to be linguistic gymnastics not policy.

No action has been implemented, we are still on words going nowhere.

Tick tock, tick tock.

Norwegian film Utøya 22 premiered in Berlin, impressive reviews in Germany

Reminding us again of the dangers of the far right, almost completely ignored by the nationalists who stir up hatred against Muslims

This film portrays, from the young social democrats pov, the 2011 massacre by a far right terrorist who murdered 69 of them
Several survivors advised the film-makers, to ensure the facts were correct and their emotions and actions were understood

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/feb/19/film-reenacting-norway-utoya-massacre-premieres-in-berlin

swedish Just add it to your watch list:
In the App, go to the top of the thread, slide the top header bar to the right and click "watch"
On Safari, go to the top of the thread and under the "EU referendum" header bar, click "watch this thread"

Kate Hoey is at it now.

<a class="break-all" href="http://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/hoey-good-friday-agreement_uk_5a8adf6de4b00bc49f46c3ac#click=t.co/aI4s1ZgIqn" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/hoey-good-friday-agreement_uk_5a8adf6de4b00bc49f46c3ac#click=t.co/aI4s1ZgIqn

Cheers, BCF - it's ok, know all about the watch list, just forget to do it or check it.

Jo maugham @ JolyonMaugam
Is it me? Or have expectations shifted a little since Davis said: "there will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside."

Siobhan Fenton @ siobhanfenton
Statement from Sinn Féin's Mary Lou McDonald: "Direct rule is not an option... The GFA provides for a British-Irish Intergovernmental Conference to reflect the co-equal and co-guarantor status of the two govts. The two govts must initiate this conference as a matter of urgency"

GFA and Brexit incompatible. And only now do the Brexiteers admit it.

Hoping Varadkar will not drop the ball.

In the UK, the quality of the current generation of politicians is overall so dire that attracting competent people from civil society has never been more important.

I think it should be possible to attract a new group of people without ruling out or demonising a different group of people. It is just a different sort of othering. Just because it is pushing out many people we don't like doesn't mean such a generalisation isn't still a dangerous narrative to go down.

It seems to me that part of the problem is a lack of engagement in politics by the general population and the dumbing down of debate and even thought in the media. The plurality of media doesn’t help in that sense either. I remember going into work and everyone would be discussing last night’s documentary, Panorama, World in Action etc. I suspect that has changed. When I watch UK television I am appalled by how lightweight it all is.
I think it is all too easy for people to ignore Brexit and pretend it will all be fine.
The saying that people get the politicians they deserve is pretty true imo.

Faisal Islam
@faisalislam
NEW: Dutch finance ministry letter seen by Sky News sent last week by Cabinet minister that confirms start of “hard Brexit” customs plan cites “the divisions within the British Conservative Party” for “impeding the smooth running of [Brexit] negotiations”...more on Sunrise at 8am
“.. therefore clear.. that scenario that the UK leaves the EU on 29 March 2019 without withdrawal agreement is still conceivable... & UK red lines “mean that the trade relationship can not go much further than the trade agreement with Canada”
Dutch letter makes clear that the first of 750 new customs positions (under a Canada and transition deal) or 930 if No Deal will be funded as it takes 9-22 months to train a customs officer - only required because of Brexit:

I don't know about Renew but are they really talking about "pushing people out"?

I'd have thought that the last thing à new movement needed was to be taken over by political opportunists from other parties, who will come with baggage. British political history has not been kind to politicians who cross party lines or to the parties they join (see UKIP, the SDP).

I don't know about Renew but are they really talking about "pushing people out"?

I admit I am basing it purely on their website renewbritain.org which has the phrase 'People from outside politics to renew Britain's hope' very prominent at the top of the page. For me once you make such a big deal of being people from outside of a group you are immediately ruling out people from inside that group and setting up a clear us/them divide between the two.

Not everyone who might not be happy with the direction of their current party is necessarily a political opportunist. I have no doubt there are plenty of moderates in both Conservatives and Labour who might be interested in something that better represented their views. Surely leaving the door open to experience and talent is a good thing.

This idea that everyone in politics is rotten is not helpful and is pretty dangerous. It certainly hasn't done America any favours.

Dutch letter makes clear that the first of 750 new customs positions (under a Canada and transition deal) or 930 if No Deal will be funded as it takes 9-22 months to train a customs officer - only required because of Brexit:

Which the UK will have to pay for. Personally I would have thought Brexiteers would have preferred British jobs. Although I guess Dutch-speaking UK nationals would be able to apply ....

But we have all agreed haven't we, Bigly that most of the shower in Parliament at the moment are about as much use as a chocolate teapot. Especially the remainers who keep voting everything through.

The key word here is most. Also it doesn't specify MPs, it is saying anyone in politics. Does this include ex-civil servants? How about if I've worked for the council? Who gets to decide where the edge of this group is you have to be outside? It is perfectly possible to seek change and encourage new people into politics without resorting to exclusionary and decisive language. Next they'll be calling to 'drain the swamp'

Wildy OT (or is it ?) fascinating story about the only pair of Roman boxing gloves ever found in the Roman Empire

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-43120942

Roman boxing gloves unearthed during an excavation near Hadrian's Wall are going on public display later.

Experts at Vindolanda, near Hexham, in Northumberland, believe they are "probably the only known surviving examples from the Roman period".

(contd)

It's funny that I grew up with a narrative that Britain was very much a second-class member of the Roman world. But a parade of archaeological finds (i.e. what was really going on, as opposed to what people wrote about what was going on) have managed to blow that out of the water. It's clear Britain was a first class Roman country - with unique finds unknown anywhere else.

Speaks to Britains part in Europe (or otherwise) historically.

(and don't forget those incredible Vindolanda letters ...)

I think a lot of Brexiteers may have watched too much Asterix ....

Apologies if this has already been posted on here

'Publish All Brexit Forecasts' Theresa May's Ex-Deputy Damian Green Tells Cabinet

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/damian-green-brexit-forecasts_uk_5a8ae4b7e4b05c2bcacd9bad

I think there are some poor MPs in the current crop, but I also think that they are faced with impossible decisions in a hostile climate with very weak leadership. I like a lot of Corbyn’s policies, but he is not a leader. May is hopeless.

I also would take it to mean that Renew isn't especially interested in attracting the people who do PPE at Oxbridge followed by research/spad roles before fighting a couple of by-elections and eventually being gifted a safe seat - but it is clumsily phrased. Their Become a Candidate page makes it clearer that they are looking for people with a wide range of backgrounds which seems less divisive/confrontational.

I think there are some poor MPs in the current crop, but I also think that they are faced with impossible decisions in a hostile climate with very weak leadership. I like a lot of Corbyn’s policies, but he is not a leader. May is hopeless.

There are some good MPs but a lot of spineless ones, for whom preventing the greatest constitutional crisis in our lifetime is less important than hanging onto their seats.

I hope to get my vote back soon (it does seem like it may happen this time) and if I get a vote in my old constituency I will be in the fortunate position of having a decent Labour MP to vote for - a Remain supporter who has stuck his head above the parapet on several occasions. And I am sure there are others, but there are equally a large number of intelligent and otherwise competent MPs who have been found wanting. Including the whole of the Labour front bench and notably Keir Starmer, in whom I am horribly disappointed. It's bad enough being a spineless hypocrite, but treating voters like idiots is disgusting.

For those that might be taken in by Ruth Davidson's "reasonable" face England is welcome to her - here is one response to her after her appearance on Peston on Sunday

AN open letter to Ruth Davidson MSP:

Dear Ruth, after weeks of silence I was surprised to see you in a television interview this Sunday when you claimed “people said we were not going to get a deal on EU nationals, and we have”.

There is no deal on EU nationals Ruth – if there were one, we would know. What we do know is that of all EU nationals who applied for permanent residence since the vote to leave the European Union in June 2016, 30 per cent had their applications rejected by the Home Office. If you had read some of their stories – one in Edinburgh, a French mother married to an ex-marine living here for 24 years and asked by the Home Office to leave after Brexit – if you were concentrating on your day job, you would know, Ruth.

There are so many of us left in limbo that “In Limbo” is now a book of testimonies from EU citizens across the UK. If you hadn’t blocked me on Twitter, you would know, Ruth. If you had bothered to meet us, the three million EU citizens living here in the UK, you would know, Ruth.

No excuses for not knowing, Ruth Davidson, that in your own city of Edinburgh EU citizens with other migrants were out demonstrating about how your own UK Government is busy mistreating them, separating families, filling detention centres and removing the rights of people like me. I was out in Aberdeen with my grandchildren celebrating the contribution migrants, all migrants, make to our city. I’m proud to be a migrant and I thank everyone who came to proudly stand with us on Saturday all across the UK in the “One Day Without Us” event.

Ruth, I wonder if you really can claim you don’t know what is happening to us. I think you do, but you don’t want to admit that we have become an inhumane and xenophobic country. Some blame Brexit. I blame Theresa May and I blame you.

Christian Allard

French citizen living in Scotland for more than 30 years, former MSP for the North East of Scotland, Aberdeen City Councillor for Torry and Ferryhill.

Powerful letter, pretty.

I was browsing the Irish Times when I saw this article rebuffing Hoey's/Hannan/Patterson's claims that GFA is toast anyway and reiterating its importance and the support it has across NI and RoI. I'm always really impressed by the measured tone that Simon Coveney takes - I don't know enough about him to know if this impression is accurate. Such a contrast to WM's rabble.

I will admit I didn't actually see the interview (I can no longer thole watching either Peston or Marr) but reading the comments below the Facebook post, apparently she also said that the NI border situation had also been sorted

I can remember politicians back to the late 1960s
I often disagreed with policies and was angered at sleaze, but from that time until about 2005 …

We have never had such a bunch of untalented ignorant cowardly hacks in either of the main parties, let alone in both, as now

We have never had such unfettered nationalist xenophobia (the Tory in the 1964 Smethwick by-election was condemned by mainstream politicians and ordinary decent people)
Now, such nastiness would be pandered to by the Tory hierarchy and ignored by the Labour party.

The 2010 intake is reported to have some highly promising new politicians, both Tory & Labour, but they need to show backbone and some knowledge wrt Brexit & trade.

So, we certainly need fresh talent
Unfortunately, this new party would either be totally insignificant, or would just take votes away from moderates in the 3 main parties - maybe they could just stand against the worst of the current crop in safe constituencies, where the mainstream alternatives have no chance.

The best chance for new talent is that principled people are inspired by the Dog's Brexit to join the existing parties