Westminstenders: Break Up or Make Up?

[RedToothBrush]

The next week or so appears to be yet another crunch point (not that any of these crunch points have actually resolved anything so far).

The EU is set to outline the plan for Ireland. Which everyone thought had already been outlined and agreed already. And it had been admitted was legally binding.

Except apparently we don't want to do that, and we are now crying about how the EU want to break up Britain (nothing to do with England wanting to leave the EU and Scotland and NI wanting to stay in it of course).

Jeremy Corbyn has now apparently decided that the customs union is a good idea. David Davis and Liam Fox have responded by saying that this would stop us making our own trade deals. Yes this has obviously stopped Turkey, and why aren't we doing as much trade with China etc as Germany anyway? A vote in the HoC looms before Easter. Will Tory rebels support.

Will Jeremy Corbyn bow to pressure over the single market too? The customs union alone does not stop the border issue in Ireland. Nor does it stop ridiculous queues at Dover. I'm not sure Corbyn is one for listening though. He's got a whiff of power and democracy and reality is just a hindrance to utopia.

As for the Great Repeal Bill. Word has it, its not going too clever in the HoL. The conservatives had something of a show of strength with an unusual number turning up for the debate. But few on the backbenches were willing to speak in favour of...

It all feels like we are making no progress at all. We are still bleating on about cherry picked deals as if this is a negotiation. Its not.

Hi Cailleach - yes my mains is OK as comes from underground, it's the feed to the tank (inconveniently situated in a very difficult to access part of the roof) that supplies the immersion heater that's the problem...my place is at the top (4th floor) of a poorly converted very old building. Sorting the tank and properly insulating roof space and pipes will be a huge job and is on the list. In 5 years I haven't had a problem but the prolonged low temps and the unusual easterly winds may change that!

Word of the year.

cnut [kuh-noot, -nyoot]

n. a person who believes that regal or parliamentary power can transcend the laws of nature in defiance of common sense and reality.

Derivation. taken from the sycophantic followers of King Cnut (c.995-1035) of Denmark, England, and Norway. In a commonly misunderstood story, his followers believed as King he was capable of the impossible. In a demonstration of the limitations of secular power, he demanded they take him to the sea, and demonstrated that even Regnal power was unable to avert the incoming tide.

Example. John is a real cnut. He believes you can make the sky green by passing a law.

Plural. cnuts. (e.g. "Look at those cnuts over there")

collective bunch. (e.g. "What a bunch of cnuts ."

That sounds more complex, borntobequiet.

Would it only be the water from the tank which is affected? I think the gov't ended the grant for insulating. We re did the insulation in our attic. There was a big difference in how long the house stayed warm after you turn the heating off.

During the freeze, we were also worried about the attic and water tanks. I remember someone mentioned putting a blow heater with warm air up in the attic near the tank. Because ironically, the better insulated the floor of the attic, the colder the attic itself becomes. But that won't help with any vertical pipes outside the space.

Hope you can sit out this spell in warmth. And with your water.

80-90 % of* ENGLISH Leavers & Tories think breakup of the UK is acceptable price for Brexit*

October 2017 - Future of England survey, presented quietly at Tory Party Annual Conference in Manchester:
Total fanaticism

imo:

1. They should split the UK before taking the other 3 nations out of the EU
2. Labour Leavers more Unionist than the Conservative & Unionist Party - who clearly don't give a damn for anything but England

https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/952642-will-the-union-survive-brexit

Eighty-eight per cent of leave voters felt that a ‘yes’ vote in a second referendum on Scottish independence was an acceptable price to pay in order to "take back control."
A similarly high proportion, 81%, also felt that destabilising the Northern Ireland peace process would be worthwhile to see the UK exit the European Union.
…
Conservative supporting leave voters^ are also more likely to countenance the breakup of the UK with 92% prepared to accept Scotland voting for independence
(compared to 78% of Labour supporting leave voters).
By the same token, 87% of Conservative supporting leave voters would be willing to risk jeopardising Northern Ireland’s peace process
(compared to 67% of Labour supporting Leave voters).

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Professor Ailsa Henderson, Professor of Political Science at the University of Edinburgh, said:

"It’s evident from the data just how high a price many leave voters would be willing to pay to make Brexit a success.

What’s perhaps most remarkable is the substantial proportion of Conservative supporters that are willing to risk the breakup of the UK to see Brexit happen."

Today is clearly a day ripe with metaphor

Faisal Islam
‏*@faisalislam*
So pro single market campaigners are now offering “cake” to the guests at the PM’s #roadtobrexit speech next to a “Road Closed” sign...

Police just did this with the “Road Closed” sign she was going to have to walk past just before the PM’s arrival at her #roadtobrexit speech... 🤔

twitter.com/faisalislam/status/969551975724584960

The Government may have scrapped the grant for insulating but the energy companies still have a requirement to improve insulation. We were doorstepped by a company that was going round improving insulation in our area (converted attic so therefore difficult to do - a bit like the photo not my house ) They put in extra insulation in the eaves and as far up into to the flat bit (via the crawl space in the eaves) that they could and lagged vulnerable pipes around the water tank (we're in the upper conversion, ie the first floor and attic floor), so our water tank is in a room in the attic) It was done for free : we kept on trying to find the catch but two years on, there doesn't seem to be

Shame they didn't do anything about the down pipe from our bathroom which is exposed to easterlies: it blocked yesterday. I'm now trying to run hot water, followed by cold water, regularly so that the outlet doesn't freeze again. The kitchen outlet hits the down pipe slightly lower down and so far is ok.

Picture not included as the MN App is currently refusing to post anything with a picture attached

Essentially the houses are two storey stone built Victorian villas with bay windows and sloped roofs but a flat square in the middle (ie not gable ended).

Sympathy to pretty and other freezing Wesiminstenders.

The late great Bob Hope:

“It's so cold here … that politicians have their hands in their own pockets.“

BBC / ICM Poll in Wales found far more people think Brexit will be negative, not positive- for the Welsh economy, way of life, their own finances

<a class="break-all" href="http://go.mumsnet.com/?xs=1&id=470X1554755&url=blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/electionsinwales/2018/03/02/the-bbc-icm-poll-brexit" target="_blank">http://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/electionsinwales/2018/03/02/the-bbc-icm-poll-brexit/

@paulwaugh
Stage set for May. Last time I was here for a PM's Brexit themed speech, David Cameron answered his own infamous question:"Who would be happy if we left [the EU]? Putin might be happy. I suspect Al Baghdadi [Daesh leader] might be happy..."

I have been following these threads since the beginning - but am a serial namechanger.

I keep feeling I'm resigned to the total fuck up but this statement about the speech has pissed me off all over again "We must bring our country back together, taking into account the views of everyone who cares about this issue, from both sides of the debate."

In that case Teresa, why "citizens of nowhere". Why didn't you slap down the Daily Mail about "Enemies of the People" or "mutineers", malcontents or whatever else.

TM has done more than anyone else to frame the terms of the debate and now calling on everyone to come together is just gaslighting. She should have managed the whole process properly and with a degree of political nous instead of salivating all over Nick Timothy's anti-immigration plan. I hope the tories do lose the local elections. I hope they lose them very very badly.

Off to a cracking, fibbing start

"The government I lead will not be driven by the privileged few"

The TV is at severe risk

It's all such bollocks. It is gaslighting.

"We are making real progress"

"No one should be in any doubt to our commitment to the draft we made in December"

The TV is at severe risk
I am physically unable to watch her. Impossible.

Come now people - you know that TM means the opposite of what she says!

"In Munich last month she set out what she wants from the security partnership. Today she will set out what she wants from the economic partnership."

Does that mean she'll dripfeed one partnership a month for the next year? Just do a bloody speech and actually say what you realistically hope to get you stupid woman!

Try to restrain yourself prettybird but if you have a kitty, walk away from it.

I can barely watch...

May says we are not at a crucial moment in the talks
Talks can't fail if you don't talk?

On the GFA issue, something's got to give. She's not giving solutions.

Norway model - ruler taken and fom.

Canada model -
WTO -

These options significant reduction to access to our markets.

Successive British governments have worked tirelessly with Ireland and NI governments to bring peace - that's why I have consistently put this at the heart of our negotiations.

Don't want to go back t o a hard border - physical infrastructure or checks and balances. Not good enough to say EU made us - it's our responsibility to find a solution. So that's what we need to do.

It would be unacceptable to break up UK common market by making a customs border down the Irish Sea.

SO we want none of these models (I think that's what she is saying)

"Cake Philosophy" is alive and well, even if she claims she accepts she can't have get cake and eat it

She really is truly a master (or should that be mistress ) of gaslighting.

Reading this, I'm quite glad I'm out and about and not watching TM.

Urgh: we're leaving the single market. We will not accept the rights of canada and the restrictions of norway.

ECJ won't apply to us after leaving. "EU should be confident we won't engage in a race to the bottom. No UK constituency that would support this"