Westministers: Operation Over The Cliff

[RedToothBrush]

Bit late and didn't realise the last thread was so close to the end... so this is a very quick OP

What do you think the secret continency plan name the government have in place for the No Deal?

Suggestions Please

David Cameron's Twitter replies worth a read

No they're not.

Police fear Wiltshire couple have been exposed to nerve agent

The Oscar Wilde observation seems entirely appropriate ....

Agree that if the football team reach the final, we can definitively kiss goodbye to any further 'people's vote
Why?

I think it will be a mixture of two things ... one, the bread and circuses aspect. The fact that more people will be emotionally involved in the world cup for longer, the celebrations after, the cup coming home and the team having their bus ride through the capital ... to get a people's vote we need people to care enough to make it happen. A distracted population is not going to agitate for change... plus the buzz of winning will mean people don't want to think about things that will bring them down. The euphoria will last until it is too late for people to get to grips with the reality of brexit and ask for change.

The other reason is uglier, I'm afraid. It will bring out the 'we're number one - fuck you johnny foreigner we can do anything' feelings in many of the leavers who are now - to quote themselves - 'bored of brexit'. They will think that because we have pulled off a miracle and won the world cup after 52 long years in the wilderness... then we can pull off a brexit miracle and make it a rip roaring success. Have we not just proven that we are superior to every other country on earth? Of course we can manage - we can take anything that gets thrown at us - rule Britannia!
The spike in nationalism will kill off any hope for putting an end to brexit in a democratic way - and it will embolden TM and the ERG to push everything to the very limits - and even take us over that cliff edge.
At the moment TM may still call everything off at the eleventh hour (tenth hour - we brexit on Brussels time) because that would ultimately be the safer option for her - rather then let us crash out. But if we become much more nationalistic - and then think she has stolen brexit away from us at the last minute, when it would have been glorious because we won the world cup don;t you know? then cancelling would be the more dangerous course of action for her. (and by danger - I don't mean losing her premiership - I mean getting lynched).

It doesn't make any sense - football should not affect politics. But in this case it really could - because brexit isn't sensible. It is all about emotion - and that is exactly what winning the world cup would unleash.

Getting to the quarters is exactly the best place for us. We have done better then normal so we can all be pleased with the team - and not feel embarrassed - but we haven't got so close to winning as to drive people into a nationalistic frenzy. Sadly - the team we face is an EU one, so losing will still leave brexiteers feeling aggrieved. But winning takes us one step closer to nationalist overload.
I suppose the best outcome now would be to get through this round and lose to Brazil next time. But of course Belgium might win.... and I think Sweden have a pretty decent chance of beating us, anyway.

All in all - I wish we'd gone out last night. To Colombia. 2nd round is respectable (for us, anyway)

All in all - I wish we'd gone out last night. To Colombia.

Whatever happened to the notion of keeping sport and politics separate ? Like the Americans don't.

On a purely sporting note, it would have left a bad taste in the mouth if Colombia had won ... not much sportsmanship from them.

Who can remember Maradonas handball in '86 ?

football should not affect politics
There are small but well funded groups of extremists embeding themselves in football clubs and with england fans, there's a lot of malarkey going on.

For this reason; I hope england does well enough to keep the kiddies happy, and not well enough to provide succour to the extremist loons.

Sport, and particularly football and 'you know what' have a long established mutual dependence.

North Wales Fire and Rescue Service still had crews at six wildfires on Tuesday evening after dealing with multiple blazes in the past 24 hours

Fires have also broken out across Wales over the past week

Officials have described the number of incidents as "unprecedented

North Wales fire crews have been called to 44 small fires and six large fires in the open since midnight on Monday and were still tackling the following blazes on Tuesday evening

inews.co.uk/news/uk/why-is-britain-on-fire-saddleworth-moor/

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-44693616

Some are being started deliberately, but looking back at 1976 hot summer, there were lots of fires then too.

These current fires don't seem to be getting reported much.

Nice explanation @Icantreach. Sounds like a plan!
I like the notion that we will 'crash out' because Mrs May turns up an hour late with her homework.

I can't - thank you - that's exactly what I thought but couldn't put into words.

I'd love sport and politics to be separate but they get conflated.

I agree, annandale politics and sport absolutely should be separate.........

A modest proposal:

@SamCoatesTimes
If the "unknown substance" that has caused a man and woman to collapse near Salisbury is linked to Russia - tests currently underway - will Theresa May pull the England football club out of the World Cup?

@SamCoatesTimes
“They’re coming home”?

Anyone reading "Relationships" atm ?

TM obviously shouldn't have called the snap election when she did, but if England do somehow win the World Cup she will be kicking herself for ever more not to have been able to call one this year and ride the inevitable wave of good feelings that it will generate (in England, anyway) and would no doubt have given her a huge boost and therefore an actual working majority

Who can remember Maradonas handball in '86 ?

Maradona is from Argentina.

Colombian football players are the poor souls that get shot and killed when they come out of the world cup. That player who missed the penalty last night ... i bet he's bricking it!

Russia renews World Cup invitation to Theresa May

Moscow tries to tempt PM to abandon her post-Salisbury boycott after England’s success

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/04/russia-renews-world-cup-invitation-to-theresa-may

I wonder what the chronology of this invite was, the last 'incident' took place on Saturday. She does look terrified most of the time, but that's probably just because of her party.

DGR I expressed myself badly. The replies to David Cameron are witty and worth a read.

For example " Just like I'll calmly explain to my daughter that her blue passport was worth it Brexit, Dave."

DGR I expressed myself badly. The replies to David Cameron are witty and worth a read.

you know what they say about humour and the internet ?

My sledgehammer wit was trying to insinuate that nothing to do with David Cameron is of any note. The guy is a skidmark on the pants of history ...

Maradona is from Argentina.

I'm almost insulted that a regular on this forum could believe I'm so loose with my countries [mock offence].

My point was that obvious unfairness has a way of permeating the national psyche.

Colombian football players are the poor souls that get shot and killed when they come out of the world cup. That player who missed the penalty last night ... i bet he's bricking it!

Funnily enough I mentioned that to DW after the game . Colombia was as close to a failed state as you can get.

The really silly thing is for all their stupid fouls (which pretty much gave the game away) they weren't a bad team when they got going.

Bloody Sarah Smith . How can she do a so-called feature on "regaining control of our fishing", talk about the percentage of fish caught by EU boats, and not mention that UK fishermen sold their allocations? I thought she was supposed to be an investigative, senior journalist

prettybird goes away muttering that Sarah Smith couldn't possibly have brought herself to point out such inconvenient facts as that would have proven that what the nasty SNP has been saying in their support of Remain might actually be correct

“What did Jeremy Corbyn talk about today in PMQs?

Buses. ”

I thought that was well planned.

He doesn’t really need to point score over Esther McVey at this stage and he left it to Marsha de Cordova - Theresa May was obliged to disassociate herself and EM forced to apologise.
No. 10 also mentioned the damning “fullest confidence” claim that means her days are probably numbered...

So he talked about public transport instead: something that’s very much on the mind of the electorate. Not trains, either - everyone knows about them!

Buses.

Not so much publicity about buses to date, but they do affect ordinary people, particularly in the Labour heartlands and big cities.
And there’s that unfortunate association with one Big Red Bus in particular...

Someone knew exactly what they were doing when they decided to make buses the main topic of political conversation today.

Please tell me someone has called Cameron a spam faced cunt?...or I'll have to go and it...sigh.

I suppose Mr Corbyn doesn't actually need to do much as the Tories are at each other's throats and Corbyn has no real hope of 'winning' anything at the moment.
Aren't the majority of buses run by EU companies?

Woman I live the opposite side of Manchester to Saddleworth. We are getting smoke from the fire drifting over here.

At the bottom of my road I can see Winter Hill. We could see the fires on Thursday night.

Both are at least 20 miles as the crow flies.

On Monday night, I woke at 2am and could smell burning to the point I had to get up and check the house wasn't on fire. It was so acrid it hung at the back of your throat irritating it. The whole house stank of it.

I can not imagine living closer and having to close the windows because of it.

The air quality across most of the NW must be really affected. A friend has a child with asthma. They have been struggling.

red, it sounds awful and the poor firemen are clearly working flat out. Really hoping for rain now............

Prettybird. I'd like to read more on the fisherman selling their allocations. I'll try google but do you have any links? Thanks

It's okay, Prettybird it was easy enough to find. It's shocking - I thought this comment was interesting

It wasn't as simple as that. The EU asked countries to introduce a scrappage scheme to buy up boats if fishermen wanted to give up. The Thatcher government refused to join in with the scrappage scheme but told the fishermen to sell their boats on the open market. Only after they had sold the boats did most of them discover that the UK government (the only one in the EU to do so) had attached the quota to the boats so that in selling their boats they had also sold the quota. It was the government, and not the fishermen, so sold the fishing rights

We're the fishermen that naive? Really?

Remory - I posted this back in March (fortunately I'd drafted it in "Notes" as it had multiple links and I often "lose" a post in the MN app while going to get the link)

Full access to fishing is a red herring (sorry! 😂)

These articles are old - but at least they were written before accusations of Project Fear and demonstrate the UK Government's somewhat messed up approach to fishing except when they want to blame the EU

They point out that fish don't respect sea national boundaries , hence the need for quotas and stock management across those boundaries and in the 2nd article, that much of the UK's quota had been sold on to foreign vessels and that EU regulations to protect local smaller fishing vessels was not being implemented by the UK Government don't know if it has been since https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/04/english-fishing-quotas-foreign-businesses-greenpeace

http://theconversation.com/fact-check-is-80-of-uk-fish-given-away-to-the-rest-of-europe-39966