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.

How did we get here
I do remember thinking 20+ years ago: the way that British Moslems are being vilified is just like old school Anti Semitism. It was the permissible and encouraged racism. When a state allows that..........

I saw that red and thought it was too spooky.
Especially as so many of the over 65 year old have never done national service. You'd have to be 80+ to have done it?

Given the huge costs involved in setting this up would take I am sure this group of people who be happy to cover the costs through a reduction in pensions and an increase in inheritance tax.

TheElementsSong Yes. I think there is, actually, something slightly obscene about that.

DesperatelySeekingSun I doubt that, though.

So, if the last compulsory military service ended 55 years ago, a 65 yo would only have been ten. Even a 73 yo would only have been 18, so probably not have experienced it.

I'm reminded of 'yes, minister'.

Last call up '60. You weren't called up past '57 if you were born before '1939. So 21 yo and over in '57 weren't called up.

So only roughly 79 year olds and above would have experienced it.

DF told me that he was the last year to do national service - he would have turned 80 this year

Stand corrected. So most enthusiasts did't do it.

Just occasionally I am tempted to say maybe the ultra Brexiteers should get all of their desires, people may think they want a country where their grandchildren are in harms way without their consent or spending their summers picking peas, with imports and export tariffs, a hard border in NI and a flood of US food however surely if they got all of their desires they might wake up an realise it was a disaster.

Who's going to pay the wages for all these people doing national service?

I could only get on board with it if a year's worth of voluntary national service bought you half off your uni fees or money towards a training scheme of your choice. That would be on top of the wages for doing it.

I went to uni with a Danish guy who had to do national service. His friend had to do 6 years. Apparently over there if the army want to keep you on past one year you have to stay. That might not be the case anymore though.

That's scary, woman but the Tory hard right are getting quite scary

• I wouldn't be so worried if it were just Britain First, because I expect errorist to be terrorists

Now the Tory Ultras seem to be deliberately whipping up emotions & rightwing nationalism, to cover up the mess their govt is making of Brexit
and the mainstream Tory party mostly turns a blind eye to this, imo, because they think the Ultras have the only strategy for the party to avoid disaster:

If Brexit really does hit the pockets of ordinary people, the Tory party would be wiped out, maybe for a generation, maybe permamently …
UNLESS they find scapegoats
The handiest scapegoats are foreigners, the EU and Remainers

What is alarming too, is the astonishing anti-EU and pro-Brexit of the BBC

• again, the Heil and Murdoch's Scum are no surprise. but it is astonishing how the BBC, after decades of neutrality and a worldwide reputation has become the Brexit Broadcasting Corporation

We can pay for it out of the Brexit dividend.

Oh wait, we won't get one of those.

Oh but we have all this food rotting in the ground because we have no labour. We could nationalise farms and put forced labour on it and then pay them out of the profits from exports we make.

Yeah thats it. State owned farms and forced labour.

Fab idea.

Oh no wait the capitalists won't like that.

Ok we can second labour to privately owned firms to get that food out of the ground so that the companies can get loads of dollar from slave labour who don't actually benefit in anyway apart themselves.

Fanfuckingtastic.

Its got fuck all to do with instilling respect and responsibility into the younger generation.

Anyway much more likely is that veg picking will be done by universal credit claimants with the threat of sanctions held over them. Buses from the job centre to the farms. Never mind if you're fit enough. If ATOS say you're fit to work then no excuse.

I agree that the lurch to the right is disturbing. To think this is how people have been feeling all these years. The trouble is JRM and Boris come across as funny but actually JRM scares the fuck out of me.

Modern warfare, including fighting terrorists, requires trained and willing personnel, who can follow orders
I doubt if many serving senior officers would like to have conscripts added to their forces, especially if they were supposed to actually fight anyone

I'm surprised the 65+ group are unaware of how unwilling US conscripts affected the US ability to fight the VietNam war
of how the officers there lived in fear of fragging, of the atrocities committed by servicemen unwilling and unsuited to be there.

(I have an extended US family and a US cousin who served in the US Marines in VietNam - horrifying what he went through there )

And Boris doesn't?

Isnt there some woman in prison who might not be if he hadn't put foot to mouth?

Those type of 'gaffs' are not exactly reassuring me about how our position in international diplomacy is going.

Do those elderly Brexiters want to punish the young for being mostly Remain, maybe to beat patriotism into them ?

Another picture for you

Well Boris did say long ago that Brexit would be a 'Titanic' success...

If Brexit really does hit the pockets of ordinary people, the Tory party would be wiped out, maybe for a generation, maybe permamently …

Please let this be so.

I went out with a Danish guy who had to do National Service. It was a bit of a joke, to put it mildly, e.g. one night exercise - after half an hour they bunked off to their mate's house and spent the night smoking pot, and then rejoined the exercise at 6 am, looking suitably tired.

BTW the Danish Army didn't keep my friend on. Perhaps they rumbled him.

My Danish friend didn't see the point in Denmark having any kind of forces at all. On the principle that no one would really want to invade Denmark anyway.

I've just been reading the Guardian's long read about Silicon Valley billionaires' obsession with New Zealand as a safe haven in the event of global collapse. There was a section about an apocalyptic book that has become very influential among them called The Sovereign Individual whose "400-odd pages of near-hysterical orotundity can roughly be broken down into the following sequence of propositions:

1) The democratic nation-state basically operates like a criminal cartel, forcing honest citizens to surrender large portions of their wealth to pay for stuff like roads and hospitals and schools.

2) The rise of the internet, and the advent of cryptocurrencies, will make it impossible for governments to intervene in private transactions and to tax incomes, thereby liberating individuals from the political protection racket of democracy.

3) The state will consequently become obsolete as a political entity.

4) Out of this wreckage will emerge a new global dispensation, in which a “cognitive elite” will rise to power and influence, as a class of sovereign individuals “commanding vastly greater resources” who will no longer be subject to the power of nation-states and will redesign governments to suit their ends.

The book is basically a guide to disaster capitalism and was co-authored by... William Rees-Mogg, The apple doesn't fall far from the tree .

As for Bojo, like Groucho Marx:

"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."

Having been hearing the brexiteers argument that we were fine before we joined the EU so we will be fine again for some time it has made me think how different the world is now.

There was the iron curtain and threat of nuclear war. No one thought the Berlin Wall would fall just 14 years later.

Supermarkets were a big deal. I remember when I was about 5 (1980ish) a linbar opened up the road from us. It was the first supermarket in our area and worzel gummidge opened it.

Clothes were bought from shops and were expensive by today's standard. I only had a few outfits and my mum made a lot of my clothes.

We had the troubles in Northern Ireland and terrorism was homegrown.

Immigration was from commonwealth countries rather than Europe. Racism was rife.

Sexism was also rife.

Technology as we know it today had barely even been dreamt of.

The world was in many ways a bigger place.

Our economy was a completely different beast to what it is now.

Which makes me wonder why they think the two things can be equated. We don't work the same, shop the same or live the same. And neither does the rest of the world.

I don't think all the changes have been great, for example zero hours contracts or throwaway clothes. But the world has moved on. Perhaps it left the brexiteers behind.

A totally different world wrt trade, too - far more complex multilateral arrangements,standards and regulations

Since we joined, global trade has moved heavily towards regional trading blocs

• many wanting to copy the EU success

The UK has spent 44 years integrating its industries and key agencies with the EC, now EU
Separating it all without pain will take 10 years+

The UK before joining had trade deals of its own, but would Brexit with none, under WTO rules.
Year Zero
Free trade deals typically take 7-12 years to negotiate
Some non-EU countries have said they don't want to just grandfather EU trade deals, but will want concessions from the UK

Some Leavers believe any price is worth paying to Brexit - that 30% who would Brexit even if it meant losing their job
Others are simply refusing to believe in the likely consequences.

If the likely consequences of WTO Brexit weren't so bad, the Tory party wouldn't be tearing itself to pieces trying to avoid it