Westministenders: Back to School

[RedToothBrush]

No, I'm not referring to the start of a new parliamentary season, I'm referring to the number of politicians who need to literally go back to school. Its embarassing, and worrying.

Anyway, here is a slightly lengthy, end summer news round up for you.

The Brexit Headlines
It seems to be Cabinet Office policy to push for the Chequers Deal or for No Deal Even though Macron has very firm, plainly and clearly said "non" in no uncertain terms. Its significant because its come from the official Brexit Department and not from a sweating Dominic Raab at Dexeu.

He has however delivered the first batch of the Brexit Untechnical Papers which are supposed to advise what to do in the event of No Deal. In reality this is a PR exercise, which makes the assumption that some sort of minimual deal will have been done, rather than no deal at all, combined with a very practical plan for 'a wing and a prayer'. Which is a bit of an issue if we decide that we really are going to stick to the line that its Chequers or no deal.

These untechnical papers are ludicarious shallow, which some having the audaciency to say "plan for the news rules, but we haven't actually decided what the news rules are and we'll get back to you as soon as we've made them up". The completely skirt the entire subject of NI, saying merely, more or less "oh that one will just work itself out". Despite the untechnical papers don't include the crucial aviation one, which apparently was held back because it was regarded as 'too shambolic' which is quite the statement, if you've read any of them. Nor do they include details of the contract for hundreds of portaloos to line our motorways so that lorry drivers can still take a pee whilst they are stuck in queues for days. They might starve and no one else will have any food because all the lorries are stuck, but hell they'll be no exposure on the M20 to offend you.

Its not quite as bleak as it sounds though. The Chequers Deal is a vision of our future relationship with the EU. Its not the Withdrawal Deal. And the Withdrawal Deal (and backstop) is the thing that needs to be done in Oct / Nov. Which then will lead on to talks about the Chequers Deal. You can't talk about Chequers without having ALREADY agreed the Withdrawal. Which is very important to keep in mind as its continuely being lost in the media coverage. Could it be that all the sudden noise from the Cabinet Office, is an attempt to distract in the short term to protect the Withdrawal phrase?

Also as an alternative to Chequers, Macron is reportedly expected to propose something akin to an 'associate member' style agreement for the UK with a vision for the EU and its allies to form a series of "concentric circles", with Britain closely tied to the 27 "core" EU member states. If this sounds familiar it is. Guy Verhofstadt has been banging on about this as an idea since before Brexit. Its also a plan which has long been muted by Barnier too. It will probably go down like a lead balloon here, but there is a political will in the EU for a deal. There just isn't in the UK.

More generally in UK politics
Jeremy Corbyn has had a nice relaxing summer but after the hard upcoming weeks ahead, I think he'll still be looking forward to his holiday plans for the Autumn Break, when he visits Israel to profess he's still definitely not an anti-semite, because look he's visiting the evil Zion and talking to Jews. He will spend the next few month telling us that No Deal is a Very Bad Idea, whilst also trying to get his MPs to vote in ways that are a Very Bad Idea. Meanwhile the rest of Labour will indulge in a very public slanging match which most normal people have long since stopped caring about in anyway because they are so bored and disappointed in how far heads have been inserted up backsides.

Theresa May, has been in Africa, where she is trying to get trade deals with lots of countries we already have trade deals with through the EU. She's also in the midst of a fight with Spreadsheet Phil who has been busy telling her to butt out of the budget and realising information to undermine the 'No Deal' narrative all week. Oh and trying to persuade beg Mark Carney to stay another year at the BoE cos no one wants his job. Rees-Smug has been up to his usual English Gentleman Act where he replicates the MPs of the Victorian Era who were into fucking those from the colonies whilst stripping them for asserts, with impecable manners. Boris Johnson is looking for his next photo op where he can look zany and drop a headline grabbing offensive comment. If it winds May up, so much the better. The Tory Creche outing to Birmingham looks like its going to be a scream.

I should say something about the LDs here, so here's a tumbleweed for you.

Back to Brexit
The fishing wars have started. Michael Gove has yet to be sighted in a souwester though (give it time). The Scallop Wars are an insight into why we need a relationship with the EU. It turns out that the French are pissed because we've been using these big fuck off ships which dredge the sea bed and are a ecological disaster and haven't observed a break for a 'breeding season' this year, whilst the French are forced to do so by law. We had been observing an informal agreement where we stick to the same rules, but for some reason this year, some bright spark though it was a bad idea for us to do so. So the French have got a bit shirty in response. Gove is spitting the dummy and saying we will do something. The reality? Well what exactly can we do apart from go to the EU and use the EU courts apart from patrolling the seas with a lot of customs boats and officials we don't have? Cod Wars III here we come!

We've also announced plans for brand new white whale money pit satellite to circle solely over the UK. We aren't in need of coverage for the rest of the world, so we aren't going to waste money on flying over anywhere else who isn't prepared to help contribute financially to its construction. It is going under the draft name of 'Heliocentre'

In other news
If none of this cheers your spirits, then great news; Good Old Nige is making a come back!!! He's dead excited because he's planning his first big Nazi Leave means Leave rally in Bolton where he act out his childhood Hitler fantasy. It'll a cost you a fiver to get in. He's also bored and worried about his income, as he's now considering getting pasted in the London Mayoral Election for the publicity. So soon his face will be back on your TV boxes for Questiontime. Are you all so happy.

I rather suspect the Greens won't be objecting and will be only too happy they aren't getting the publicity they deserve as the 4th biggest party at the moment...

So the Summer is over and normal service is resuming. I hope you have enjoyed the rest and this post brings you a little up to speed. We have Party Conferences to look forward to in the upcoming weeks. Won't that be a joy to behold? And the resumption of shooting ourselves in the face in EU talks.

Oh and don't forget that Trump fellow too. Its all starting to look a bit tasty over there ahead of the November elections. What happens there in the next couple of months might be very important to what happens over here.

Who is excited?!

I am just dancing to the sound of the South African Beats.

@YouGov
Compared to Boris Johnson, Theresa May is seen as:
Competent (+12)
Trustworthy (+10)
Up to the job of PM (+7)

Compared to Theresa May, Boris Johnson is seen as:
Decisive (+13)
Likeable (+15)
Strong (+16)

t.co/VuqVFVIlBu

Its the last three that are more worrying than the first three. Because Decisive, Likeable and Strong win votes a lot more than Competent and Trustworthy (and even Up to the job)

JustAnotherPoster00

Wanting a Party that will deal with austerity (and housing) should not mean having to put up with a Party that tramples over women's and children's rights to safety, boundaries, self-expression and basic self-perception in the name of a spurious 'liberation politics' which is largely the ego-assuager of angry middle class twenty-somethings.

Wanting a Party that will deal with austerity (and housing) should not mean having to place the expression of living within austerity as a woman with a disability, or a woman at the bottom of the income centiles, or a child at the bottom of the income centiles, or a man at the bottom of the income centiles second to the imagined experience and imaginary identifications of privileged people in order to be allowed entry into the 'group'.

(Because that, make no mistake, is what the 'Trans' stuff does. And it is so, so important to the group around corbyn, they've put out a propaganda video, which is all 'Fake News! We've had enough of Experts! Wrong side of History! Don't debate! Identify!)

Wanting a Party that will deal with austerity (and housing) should not mean having to place the people dealing and living with austerity (and housing) second to the demands of a lumpen-bourgeoisie/un-tenured academic class.

Wanting a Party that will deal with austerity (and housing) should not mean having to ignore anti-semitism used as a tactic to solidify fanatical support around a - really not terribly competent - leader.

Wanting a Party that will deal with austerity (and housing), above all, should not mean settling for a Party which really does seem to be going along with Brexit precisely because it will cause greater austerity, which will than act as a recruiting tool.

Wanting a Party that will deal with austerity (and housing) should mean seeing austerity (and housing placed front and foremost on the agenda - with extremely well-researched plans for dealing with these - in the short and long term. Plans which take account of a huge national income drop coming from March onwards.

Wanting a Party that will deal with austerity (and housing) should mean - really, really should mean - really engaging with those on the sharp end, living with austerity in particular. Not using them as a kind of reference point, a statistic, or a glove puppet - 'in the name of whom' you speak (which is appropriation).

Momentum is a fantasy of autonomy. It is a privately owned company, with a small executive. At the grass-roots, it offers opportunities of meeting, talking, organising - which is great. And it will give people great feelings of being listened to, heard, acting, empowerment. But the cost is exclusion if you don't go along with some things that should make all of us stop for a minute and think. And the BIG decisions are not made at grassroots level.

The momentum trans video is a shocker. It uses techniques we saw around the Referendum: don't listen to experts, a strong 'You can't trust anything' message (assault on the concept of truth), and the principle of encouraging people to double down on their pre-held identity beliefs in order to discourage debate or listening to other viewpoints. I would say it also demonised and othered dissenting voices.

It's slick. Produced, i guess, by media graduates grateful for a chance to air their skills.

It's about Trans issues, because I would say that is actually a core belief of a lot of the middle class Momentumites (for a variety of reasons) but it could have been about something else - what's disturbing is that it was not squeamish about using techniques we now know to be fundamentally antithetical to democratic communication.

Anyway, tl:dr, I think there are a lot of us who desperately need an anti-austerity, progressive Party. We're not privileged. We are at the sharp end of inequality. We desperately need change.

But we shouldn't be asked to put up with all kinds of shit to get that. And we should think very hard about what aspects of our reality we are being asked to jettison as we try desperately hard to get some Party into a position to work against austerity.

@woman11017: I'm more up to speed on Brexit that Swedish politics , but I expect a big gridlock will be the outcome...

The Speaker of the Parliament is the person who proposes the new PM, so that will be the first interesting test (24th of September). Since 1982 the Speaker has come from the biggest party, but now several parties want to change that - as much as I despise the Swedish Democrats, they would be justified in complaining if they do come out as the biggest party but do not get the Speaker.

standing ovation to cat

That momentum video is very very concerning for all the reasons you give. Its not about the subject, but the tools it uses to promote a position.

We are sleepwalking into God knows what.

It's not going to be pleasant for an awful lot of very innocent and vulnerable people whatever it is though.

"I rather think that what people are fed up of is popularism and political short cuts."

If only that were true. Unfortunately, just a single look at what passes for news, let alone entertainment, tells the opposite story.

Cardinal, I think my phrasing is off.

People are fed up of the consequences of popularise and political shortcuts but aren't really aware of what they are fed up of.

Popularism in another form therefore is what they are being attracted to.

The problem being its a doubling down because of the way its been framed as being different. Except its no different at all.

Does that make more sense?

Same old shit. Different packaging.

In view of discussions here about Boris J riding to the rescue as a newly reformed Remainer,

www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/boris-johnson-deeply-regrets-going-down-brexit-route-close-sources%EF%BB%BF-reveal/07/09/

If this is credible, isn't it quite interesting that it's coming out now?

I'm so tired of Boris' whole fan dance of 'Is he or isn't he?' It's somewhere between a burlesque strip-tease and gas-lighting.

And remarkably similar to the Jeremy Corbyn 'Is he or isn't he?' schtick - though the dynamic there reminds me more of priests in ancient times examining the entrails of a slaughtered beast to pronounce judgments and edicts for the people.

I think the idea is triangulation. Boris johnson will be elected PM by the Brexity nut-jobs and those desperately hoping - against their own common-sense - that he might be secretly anti hard brexit.

Hope is powerful. hope can make you ignore reality. It can do as much harm as good.

I'm tired of it. Boris Johnson is a venal, actually rather evil, person. I wouldn't leave him in charge of my cats, let alone put him at the helm of government during our biggest peace-time crisis.

That sounds better Red, I'd go along with that.

Unfortunately the persistent dumbing down of society as a whole, means that any spiv with a natty line of chat can convince those who can't see beyond Towie of pretty much anything they want.

Not to mention debate now playing down to "balance" and proving Isaac Asimov's position; "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, - and the UK - and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

we now have a new mistress and a soon to be ex wife, both of whom may well have an inside track on bojo's real views on brexit - if he annoys either of them sufficiently we may get some useful detail?

Another round of applause for cat from here too. Wish you hadn't introduced me to Idge of reason,

Not using them as a kind of reference point, a statistic, or a glove puppet - 'in the name of whom' you speak (which is appropriation
cough Guardian.
Spot on.
SchrodingersRat thank you, watching closely.....

Say one thing for one part of the electorate, but either deny it or do a reversal which looks under duress and you can say the exact opposite for the other half of the electorate.

Each half of the electorate hears the point they want to hear and ignores the counter point.

Thus you double your appeal without actually committing yourself to anything.

Trump does it. Johnson does it. Corbyn does it.

It's Popularism Basics.

If you are a remainer and you are thinking Johnson has been a remainer all along, when he hasn't actually said "Remain, I renounce Leaving" in unequivocal terms be warned.

The timing is the more interesting thing. As is what it signals he's trying to do - broaden his appeal. Why would he do that?

Also this was 'leaked' initially to the editor of the New European. I mean, that's kinda convenient, if you are deliberately trying to target a remain audience.

He's prepping the ground.

He's prepping the ground.

Yep.

Watch out for a new haircut as well - the “I’m an elder statesman and you’ll be in safe hands” one rather than the contrived “haystack” one (which he is known to affect for the cameras).

All very well and good, but did this:

I'm so tired of Boris' whole fan dance of 'Is he or isn't he?' It's somewhere between a burlesque strip-tease

Have to be phrased like this?
That's a mental image that isn't going anywhere fast... thanks thecat

I haven't got anything sensible to contribute so will post this:
www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/boris-sleeping-in-the-house-of-commons-20180907177099

It's either that or Trump in Spandex.

The one and only part of the political spectrum where there seems to be some political momentum is in Remain. The campaign for another referendum is in surprisingly rude health. This week alone it received support from a Tory party donor, Mumsnet, feminist campaigners, and the GMB union. It is an impressively broad and promising mix

www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2018/09/07/week-in-review-remain-is-the-only-part-of-the-political-spec

Not sure I agree with this article's optimism, but look, us again.

YouGov @YouGov

Latest Westminster voting intention (3-4 Sep)
Con - 39%
Lab - 35%
Lib Dem - 11%
Other - 15%

There is an old quote - said many times - that you can't afford to throw away tools because you don't like their design. If you apply this view to Boris Johnson (with the deliciously mischievous bonus of correctly equating him to a tool) then - assuming he could somehow achieve a position where he could reverse this mess we're in, does it matter if it's Boris ?

Or would deeper principles intervene and people would say "Remain, yes. But not at any cost"

Because to my ears that's the mirror of "Brexit at any cost"

I wonder if there's a lack of imagination here too ? One question nobody seems to have articulated, is "Is it possible to halt or reverse Brexit without a referendum or General Election ?"

(That btw, isn't terribly different to You Gov's result on the 8-9 August, which was the same but with the LDs on 10%).

I think as far as the EU are concerned the UK government can 'stop' A50 up to about a minute before midnight (11PM). Possibly wrong but sort of hoping.
If this were to happen, a different version of 'what the hell happens now' may well be uttered.