Westminstenders: Rebel or Reveal

[RedToothBrush]

The EU Withdrawal Bill made it through the Commons. Though May did not manage it unscathed.

In an attempt to divide and conquer the Rebels, May might have damaged trust. We shall find out. The Grieve Amendment faces the Lords. We also will see if the Lords will back down on their amendments or apply some new ones for the Commons to deal with in Parliamentary Ping Pong.

Aaron Banks has been exposed as being pally with the Russian Embassy in a plot twist that absolutely everyone saw coming.

Meanwhile the EU thinks we have already run out of time and is preparing options to extend talks beyond the a50 deadline. These include having MEPs for the 2019 - 2024 session.

There is also growing talk around Europe that freedom of movement in its current form is unsustainable. Ironically we might see the EU adopt something akin to Cameron's pre-referendum proposals as the EU reforms.

Theresa May has also announced - at a moment when she is looking particularly weak - a new tax for the NHS, cunningly disguised in spin as 'the Brexit dividend'. Of course shareholders don't always get dividends and at times of poor economic performance instead might be asked to stump up extra capital...Expect to see buses with £350 million of the side just in time for the next general election cycle.

And so the Zombie PM limbers on towards the end of the summer session and the relative safety of the summer holidays. More drama, cringing and disbelief guaranteed before we get there.

@DGR
You are right, they are not a total solution and it is human nature to try and find ways of cheating if significant gain can be made. ID cards would make a real difference though on a 'day to day' level. As 'authorities' have ways of checking I agree there is no real need but having a card with you means that any check can be made in seconds, the same as popping your credit card into the machine at a supermarket.
The DV instance you proposed is a bit 'superficial' in some ways in that there are not thousands of occurrences of this per day/week/month. Yes sadly it does happen but once in a safe place the police or refuges can take stock and reassess the situation, the immediate danger is 'solved' and authorities can do whatever is necessary.
Perhaps it should be borne in mind that EVERYONE with a mobile phone is tracked to within a few meters ALL THE TIME. It is only a matter of having software to analyse the data that exists to extract the information and you can bet that it is already available or is very close.
Legislation and 'privacy laws' are all well and good but not all governments are as scrupulous and with the internet linking everything and every country together the world population had never been so 'analysed'. Mrs May can't even tell the truth about NHS spending which is nothing compared to what GCHQ and similar can be up to.

Harry Cole @MrHarryCole
Interesting developments for Gibraltar. Govt last night confirmed that Spanish have been offered access to the airport after Brexit.
Talks are ongoing.. but they are centring around the terms of the 2006 Cordoba Agreement that was only half implemented. Spanish never took up access to expanded Gib Airport then.. but offer is still on the table
Crucially the @GibraltarGov are well up for it as they see more flights and more people coming through the airport as more £€ coming in. But MPs from all sides of the divide have warned it could be the "thin edge of the wedge".
That's more money into the Spanish region rather.

Minister insist that sovereignty of airport is not up for grabs, but MPs from all sides warn of "thin edge of the wedge".

The Cordoba Agreement was never implemented by Spanish - but in theory would see exit straight into Spain.

www.thesun.co.uk/news/6567805/gibraltar-airport-spain-brexit/
Ministers accused of betraying Gibraltar by putting Spanish access to the airport up for grabs

Under the terms of the 2006 Cordoba Agreement between Gibraltar and Madrid, the Spanish were offered quick access to the airport that lies exactly on the border with the British Overseas Territory — an airport expansion would take passengers straight into Spain.

Useful explanation from Ian Dunt: What the bloody hell is going on with the meaningful vote?

Ministers accused of betraying Gibraltar by putting Spanish access to the airport up for grabs

Would that be more of less of a betrayal than brexit being imposed, considering the overwhelming remain vote in Gib?

In the article the Gibraltarians are actually quite keen on this airport deal, but once again Westminster knows better.

I'd be happy to carry an ID card similar to my driving licence but with my NHS number on it, simply for convenience. I know this is not a popular opinion.

@borntobe
If you have a EHIC card you are almost there too. A driving license card with photo actually says enough already as it stands so it would be relatively cheap to roll a 'driving license lite' card to citizens who don't drive (changing the name of the card to 'British Citizens Entitlement Card or some such).

Surely the Gibraltar/Spanish border is the same position as Eire/NI?

An ID card is just one measure that helps to form a whole system of checks
There is no one thing that will identify illegal immigrants, benefit impersonators, voter fraud (the latter 2 are actually very small numbers, but stir up a lot of emotion)

In the US, ID cards may not be compulsory, but without ID the poorest sections of the community can be denied access to some services and to voting.
So clearly ID cards must be easy & cheap to obtain, as in EU countries that have them

Having lived in Germany for several years, off and on, I find it so much easier to have just one document - in my case only a UK passport until Brexit - that works for banks, landlords, registering with GP …
German and non-EU colleagues use ID cards, as will I presumably, from 1 April.

The alternative to ID cards, when trying to control illegal immigration, is that banks, landlords, medical staff etc profile on skin colour and foreign accents
Many cases reported of British citizens who "look or sound forrin" having to prove entitlement in hospital, where white "native-looking" don't.

If May finally plucks up courage to face down the Ultras, then calling a GE would be the ideal opportunity:

She could then say Norway+ is all that avoids economic recession, or even worse.
If the Ultras then try to topple her, or even criticise too loudly, they risk throwing the GE to PM Corbyn, their worst nightmare

It's like an internet genie ... mention Capita, and:

www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/19/capita_admits_it_wont_make_money_on_botched_nhs_england_contract/

Embattled outsourcing giant Capita has made a loss of £140m trying to deliver on a seven-year contract to upgrade back-office support in the NHS – and never expects to turn a profit on it.

CEO Jonathan Lewis made the admission at an evidence session in front of the influential Public Accounts Committee yesterday, which was called to discuss the various failures in the £330m Primary Care Services project, the contract for which Capita won in 2015.

The work was to update outdated IT systems and outsource a range of services for GPs, dentists and opticians, including pay and pensions, medical record management, patient registration, and national performance lists for practitioners.

(contd)

Now, about those ID cards ...

If the Ultras then try to topple her, or even criticise too loudly, they risk throwing the GE to PM Corbyn, their worst nightmare

This is what I think is starting to happen. Brexiteers can froth. They can threaten. But ultimately, they have to decide if Brexit is worth a Corbyn government.

Maybe the Jezza has his uses after all ?

Peston predicts an election in the autumn.

Hi all, been a while.

Never did manage to get the Teoptic which Thea pharmaceuticals stopped making because their profit line suffered after June 2016. Even the might of Jeremy Hunt (with my MPs boot up his arse) has had to admit he can't force manufacturers to make a loss. In theory the MHRA is responsible for ensuring alternative supplies. But according to the letter I have from them, it's not.

Now another glaucoma medication - Latanoprost - is looking like unicorns farts. Medical readers will know the problems of achieving and maintaining a medication regime for chronic degenerative conditions, so will understand why the sudden unavailability of two of my key medications is concerning.

I won't be posting after this, as I'll want to reserve any failing eyesight for a bucket list of beauty.

I will really struggle to vote in the autumn if there haven't been serious changes to the labour party by then.

but a Tory party forgetting Brexit, and promising massive cash boost for NHS by sustainable taxation ?

You may not vote for them. But would enough ?????????????

LH fingers crossed something works out for you and fellow sufferers soon

LH all the best for your health and hope you can get your medication sorted!

I think ID cards, whilst not a perfect solution, do help to reduce crime and monitor immigration levels. They obviously dont help much in the case of home grown terrorism.

Firstly, if a policeman asks you to produce an I'd card on the spot, then you are obliged to do so. As every legitimate citizen has an id card (in the European country where I live anyway) then you are immediately identified as some sort of anomaly if you don't have one. Whereas in the UK, a lot of police time and money is wasted on finding out who someone is, and once they have found that information out, verifying if it's true or not.

And when I registered at my local administration when I moved abroad, as part of the process of gaining an id card a policeman came to my front door to check my declarations about identity and address were true. This took all of 4 mins!

Apart from that, I have rarely used it in 20 years - perhaps to pick up a parcel at a post office - or to vote locally.

And yes, I am sure it would be difficult for a woman fleeing domestic abuse without her id card, but the local admin would have copies of her documents. Just because copis exist for everyone, it doesn't mean it's not helpful for everyone else aside from that small minority to have them on their person at all times in case of crime, accident, or a security issue.

@DGR
Outsourcing may sound like a brilliant plan for cost savings. France keeps at least it's passport/ID system 'in house' which although may cost more they have full control of it.
More needs to be made of the untrustworthiness of the UK Government 'acquiring' SIS data and not just misusing it themselves, passing it on to the USA.
With the call for 'sovereignty' and security why is the UK Gov handing data to the Americans?

This one is doing the rounds on Twitter:

@pritipatel4pm
Dominic Grieve's mother was French and he was educated at the Lycée Français Charles de Gaulle school in South Kensington, a school wholly owned by the French Government.

He's a Frenchmen, with a British passport.

Don't let this Frenchman stop Brexit

I'm going to start by saying that I am very sure this is not an official Priti Patel account. Her official handle is @patel4witham.

But, this is the sort of shit I grew up with for not having two British parents. Its the sort of shit that had died down and is creeping back in.

And ID card system can be good or it can be bad. There are a number of reasons why a sensible ID card system in the UK could be good thing, though.

The problem the UK has right now is that is has not - and has never - had a cheap, easily accessed, universal way for residents to prove who they are and what state entitlements they can access.

• Birth certificates are fairly cheap and incentivised for all UK births, but they only say where someone was born, not whether they are UK citizens. (Many Britons don't realise that, I've discovered.) They are needed to apply for a school place or to register a child with a GP, but their main purpose these days is to ensure that the UK is not creating a shadow population of unregistered, "invisible" children who can be kept outside of all social support systems and are prey to exploitation.

• Drivers licenses are the first "tier" of proper ID in this country, but again they only have name, DOB, photo and address. They do not contain any info anywhere (and to be clear, I am talking about the database, not the card itself) about access to citizen entitlements. The problem is that getting a driver's license is expensive, even if you choose not to maintain a car afterwards.

• An NI number is not exclusive as it only attaches to name and DOB, but not to address, photo or citizenship status

• Passports are the current "gold standard" ID in the UK containing most serious proof of identity markers, but they are also expensive, need to be upgraded (every 5 years for children, 10 for adults) and are viewed by many as a luxury for the sort of people who travel abroad.

There are British people living below the poverty line (the "socially excluded," to use modern policy-speak) who don't have driver's licenses, don't have passports (and have a hell of a time finding a guarantor for a first child passport anyway), and are now also in the position of not have "adequate" documention to prove that they are British citizens entitled to state services. (Which brings us to the scenarios cited above, where some Britons are challenged to prove their status by landlords, GP receptionists and potential employers based on skin colour or surnames.)

There is nothing wrong with having a record that lists your rights and acts as "adequate" documentation when accessing services. There is a problem if you live in a police state and you have to carry a card or be savagely punished because your "rights" are being steadily eroded by people who love to bang on about patriotism but are taking every opportunity they can to weaken Parliament, the judiciary, the media, the rule of law, and the civil service.

I wouldn't believe that from the tory party for a start. Hasn't she just announced a cut in corporation tax and increases in when you start paying income tax? Or have I misunderstood

The "news" about the May-Hammond "pact" suggests she has given him free reign to raise CT.

If what looks like happening is happening, then it looks like Theresa May might - just might - have pulled one of the masterstrokes of politics of the 21st century.

Simply by being leader of the Tory party when it's internally crippled by Brexit/Leave/Remain and a seemingly credible opposition of Jeremy Corbyn who appears to be Marx reincarnated, she has actually found herself in a position where she can use the spectre of Corbyn to achieve the otherwise impossible.

I remain to be convinced, but am curious as to whether I've missed something ?

Flipping things around, you have to ask "what is stopping Theresa May from doing all this ?". And while there is a danger of a leadership challenge, it seems we return to the fact that there's no one that's a shoe-in. And then, the additional worry that any change of leadership might open the door to Corbyn.

It wasn't the pressure of the Allies that did for Nazi Germany. It was the absolute terror of being caught by the Red Army.

In a way, the meaningful vote business could have been the point at which it became painfully clear to the JRMs et al that for all their bluster they simply haven't got what it takes.

bear in mind some people were already left unable to vote last month. And that's without ID cards.