Westministenders: High Drama at The Ok Coral

[RedToothBrush]

3:00 p.m. Wednesday, October 26, 1881, Tombstone, Arizona.

After months of death threats from the Cowboy Billys, their long simmering feud with the law thing came to a head. The Earp Brothers and Doc Holliday faced the criminals down in a shootout.

Tomorrow's 'sleepover' is starting to feel like the Gunfight at the OK Coral.

The outcome of the real story was three of the outlaws were killed. Another two claimed they were unarmed and ran from the fight. Virgil, Morgan, and Doc Holliday were wounded, but Wyatt Earp was unharmed.

How many Brexiteers can we expect to roll over and resign from the Cabinet and how many will surrender to May and the Pro-Business lobby? ONly time will tell.

Please place your bets for the number of resignations and the number of 'I support the PM' comments.

But don't get too excited. The showdown wasn't the end of the matter.

One of the outlaws who legged it, filed murder charges against the Earps and Doc Holliday. It took them some time for them to be acquitted.

Then Virgil Earp was ambushed and disabled in the arm later that year in December and Morgan Earp was assassinated in March 1882. Wyatt Earp, then thinking he had no other option, went on a personal vendetta to kill the outlaws and then fled the state.

Given the Tory Cabinet and the perchant for stabbing each other in the back and settling personal scores, a repeat of a wild west gun fight, really doesn't sound too wildly off the cards now does it?

Buckle up. Its time to play at Chequers.

I see what you mean now Tanith. But despite ordinary folk getting attention, no one has actually done anything for them. Not that I can see anyway.

Modernisation of the railways in the South Pennines, which should give a decent boost to the economy - tough luck, no money. Meanwhile the white elephants of HS2 and a third Heathrow runway get the attention and money. As for further north because there is a whole lot more than Liverpool - Manchester -Leeds - what have we seen? Nothing of substance.

Personally, I believe if there was a firm commitment on jobs, health and education for these areas, most people would be happy to forget about Brexit.

Guardian view on Boris Johnson’s resignation: good riddance to a national embarrassment

He was staggeringly bad as Foreign Sec, maybe the worst in our entire history
An indictment of May for appointing him and then endulging him for so long

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/09/the-guardian-view-on-boris-johnsons-resignation-good-riddance-to-a-national-embarrassment

Oh dear and another one.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/09/theresa-may-boris-johnson-tory-party

If Boris is checking his press coverage tonight, then I cannot imagine he is a very happy man right now. Turns out - everyone hated him all along... only everyone knew it, but him.

Remember glitterturdgate?

No didn't think you would.

Liam Fox liked a tweet that referred to the Turf Way as a glitter covered turd.

Now this:

God he's spineless!

Bring back David miliband and get him to demand a second referendum - the time must surely be right now.

And Polly Toynbee has laid it out nice and clear.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/09/theresa-may-boris-johnson-tory-party

The only trouble is - this stuff needs to get out of The Guardian and into spaces where leavers will see it. But still - maybe today has opened some eyes to what is actually going on... and maybe more people will start to look deeper into this.

It's not too late.

Has Jeremy evicted Boris yet? Or is Boris determined to squat overnight?

He has probably been ringing around every Tory MP trying to work out numbers for his leadership bid, only to work out he won't even have enough to nominate him this time round. He'd assumed when he quit he'd be able to go for it and has had a rude awakening and now is trying to plot his next move, but keeps drawing a blank as his career is dead. At least for now.

What time tomorrow are we expecting Graham to pop up on our tvboxes and Twitter feeds with his smiling face declaring he's got more letter than Santa gets in July?

heck - here's the correct Polly Toynbee link

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/09/cabinet-brexiteer-vision-chilling-neo-thatcherite

Anyone else rewatching the thick of it because it feels like a safe place?

Oh for the days when the headline item was a minister sending their child to private school

Europe Elects
Europe Elects
@EuropeElects
UK, ORB poll:

"Having greater control over immigration is more important than having access to free trade with the EU":

Agree: 38% (-5)
Disagree: 48% (+4)

Record high for the % who disagree.

#Brexit

Ashley Cowburn @ ashleycowburn
Hang on, did Boris actually have a photo shoot signing his own resignation lettter? Is that not... slightly odd?

It's Boris Johnson. And it's 2018.

Yup that's odd. Imagine resigning from your job and taking a selfie...

www.irishtimes.com/news/world/uk/britain-s-new-foreign-minister-jeremy-hunt-a-remainer-who-changed-his-mind-over-eu-arrogance-1.3559498?mode=amp&__twitter_impression=true
Britain’s new foreign minister Jeremy Hunt: a remainer who changed his mind over EU ‘arrogance’

How Ireland are reporting Hunt's appointment

(And if Sam Coates is right about what Hunt said at chequers, he has privately 'changed' his mind back to being very remainy given his Japan at the end of WWII comments).

Nick Timothy should STFU. Why would anyone listen to the man who advised TM to call the General Election? He’s an idiot, a man without an ounce of foresight or humility. His piece in the last New Statesman was little more than an embarrassment.

RedToothBrush guess he wants the photo for his future book ..... Perhaps out just in time for Christmas?

@woman11017: Completely off topic and I don't know if you're serious about not knowing what the toilet brush plant is, but it is a bottle brush, so you were pretty close:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callistemon#Gallery

A native of Australia, it will probably thrive in your current dry conditions.

Personally, I believe if there was a firm commitment on jobs, health and education for these areas, most people would be happy to forget about Brexit.

If we hadn't suffered austerity we wouldn't be having Brexit in the first place.

riviana thanks! 3 flowers on it now!

The trail to Hunt's wealth via Odgers Berndtson Board involves Virginia Bottomley. Little did we think, in the 1990s when 'quangoes' replaced democratic local authority accountability, that this re distribution of our 'family silver' to the aristocracy (see Hunt's background) would be such a direct threat to our democracy.
We have so much in common with Russia now.
www.opendemocracy.net/ournhs/jos-bell/admiral-jeremy-is-not-so-admirable

The Guardian on BJ and his conduct from

Yet again, Boris Johnson has exposed himself as a self-serving charlatan

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/09/boris-johnson-resignation-self-serving-charlatan

He once posed as a liberal, but now positions himself as a populist leader of hard-right nationalists. And he is a former London mayor who said he was in favour of the single market but has quit over the prime minister’s attempt to find a way for British companies to trade with Europe. But then Johnson only ever cared about one thing: himself. He is a self-serving charlatan with nothing but ambition coursing through his veins. Bear in mind this man, who claims such passion for his nation, has quit as foreign secretary in the wake of a nerve agent attack that killed a British citizen...

I'd forgotten that as FS he had a duty to react. Yesterday was so dramatic. But I'm a lowly prole. He was the bloody cabinet minister responsible for diplomacy with other nations!

Best he didn't bother to acknowledge Dawn Sturgess' fate and the possible perpetrators. We all know what his big mouth is capable of doing to vulnerable women, like Nazanin.

Oh good fucking riddance. Surely he can't come back from this? Surely?!

vulnerable women, like Nazanin
Link to amnesty campaign for her:
www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/help-get-nazanin-zaghari-ratcliffe-home

Is Hunt the dark horse candidate? Being compared to Major in this article, and refers to:
his alleged links with Rupert Murdoch led to accusations of a conflict of interest over the media tycoon’s planned takeover of BSkyB

www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-hunt-foreign-secretary-theresa-may-pri

More on new AG, Geoffrey Cox here. Sorry paywall.
Highest earning MP and celebrity chef paid into £1.2bn ‘tax avoidance scheme
www.thetimes.co.uk/article/highest-earning-mp-and-celebrity-chef-paid-into-pound12bn-tax-avoidance-scheme-fq2g299vbgz

Bear in mind this man, who claims such passion for his nation, has quit as foreign secretary in the wake of a nerve agent attack that killed a British citizen...

Yes two of the seven dwarves Thicky and Deceitful have gone.
Gazing at their own navels whilst there's been a murder and three attempted murders using a substance that is likely to be state owned.

Is it possible the state sponsored agent who targeted the Skripals disposed of some clothes or an object in a charity bin which reached the charity shop the victims visited? How long does this stuff last?

Flippantly it puts me off my normal passion for charity shops.

More seriously, the most likely explanation is that whoever put this substance out there is •instructed by a (Russian) government ; and
•presumably still at large in the Wiltshire area?

I'm surprised that there aren't tabloid conspiracy theories that it's an EU plot or something.

Oh good fucking riddance. Surely he can't come back from this? Surely?!

On this he has come back from conspiring to commit serious GBH to silence some one before.

Voters have short memories.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=iDJWkS2A9T0

Away from the madness that is the Tory party and a reflection in time for Trump's visit.

Abraham @ anewman_forward
Thread: Just back form 3 weeks in Europe. Takeaway -- The transatlantic partnership is in deep trouble.
2/Much of the attention has been on high-level interactions i.e. the G7 picture. But this ignores the corrosive force of the US administration on the day-to-day operational level.
3/European counterparts across issue areas counter-terrorism/non-proliferation/environment/anti-trust dont know what the US policy position is. They meet one day with one surrogate, who makes X claims, and then with another surrogate the next day, who makes Y claims.
4/The President, then, blows up both with a tweet. This undermines surrogate credibility. But also makes compromise/diplomacy impossible because European counterparts are not receiving a credible signal as to US policy demands.
5/At the same time, US expertise and information credibility has been eroded. This started with the Iraq War claims but has been supercharged by Trump information distortion.
6/In many sensitive domains, US intelligence is seen in Europe as the gold standard. That said, the US often tells European partners to 'trust us' on the details.
7/Trump pushes fake stories about criminality in Germany, EU history, NATO commitments. These all raise doubts in European partners that they should trust information coming from the US.
8/Add to this the tone and strategy. Europe bristled at US unilateralism under Bush. But at least they could see the goals (if not the means) as largely in line with European values.
9/Now the 'Cowboys' have been unleashed to seek individual personal gain (Ivanka brand), some corporate agenda or even worse the mercurial decisions of the President.
10/It is at this point in the conversation that someone flags 'kids in cages' and 'handshakes with Rogue leaders'.
11/In short, Europeans face an antagonistic, unilateralist US, who is not pursuing common goals. At the same time, they are increasingly skeptical of information coming from the US or the US policy objective.
12/So while we focus on the high level pictures and readouts from the NATO summit, dont forget that the US administration is putting something much bigger at risk.
13/It is the day-to-day interactions by mid-level bureaucrats that keep our borders safe, terrorism under control, global financial system working and goods moving. This requires constant interaction, trust and credible information exchange.
14/For many Europeans, they see US behavior and the current paralysis in the transatlantic relationship as only benefitting Russia and China.
15/It also eats away at the taken-for-granted blind commitment to support US power. The stories of GIs liberating cities from NAZIs and keeping the Russians out are being replaced with Neo-Nazi marches and Trump-Putin meetings.
16/ Decoupling/counterbalancing, then, is the next logical conclusion. For many I spoke with, they saw these developments as deeply sad. They didnt want to believe this could be happening.
17/Ultimately, it was a jarring visit. In many ways a call to arms for US officials and others to recommit to the transatlantic partnership.
#youdontknowwhatyouvegottilitsgone.

Trump really could not be visiting the UK at a worse time...

It's not only voters who have short memories, vicar's daughter prime ministers seem very amoral in their cabinet appointment decisions too.