Westminstenders: Crisis. What Crisis

[RedToothBrush]

October is slowly rolling into November.

Your eyes, rightly, will be distracted by events the other side of the pond.

It won't be good and it won't be pretty and it will have an impact on what happens here in relation to Brexit in one way or another.

May seems to have headed off trouble makers for now. But that means nothing if she can't get a deal through parliament.

And if you think we are in anyway prepared for No Deal I'd like whatever drugs you are taking. That way lies only disorder and to put it bluntly, deaths.

We MUST find a deal, any deal to prevent that. Desperation is the final ingredients in this mess. Who will blink as they realise what's at stake?

The problem is though, is too few MPs have grasped what's at state, such is the quality of our elected representatives. And that's the truly terrifying bit.

If they can't work out the risk of no deal, they certainly not equipped to handle the fall out of no deal.

If you want to shit yourself anymore, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that the minister responsible for hauling all your food and medical supplies in the event if no deal, is Mr Christopher Grayling.

Start praying.

And wrt nuclear plants not fit for purpose, Sellafield (formerly Windscale) has been a major issue for decades, with grossly unacceptable levels of nuclear contamination of the Irish Sea and allegations from Ireland about leukemia and other cancer rates that are the direct result of a disregard for public safety on the part of the plant operators.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/04/sellafield-remain-threat-ireland

Farmers and hauliers threaten fuel price protests
www.fwi.co.uk/news/farmers-and-hauliers-threaten-fuel-price-protests

A new study reveals how the wealthy engage in ‘stealth politics’:
quietly advancing unpopular, inequality-exacerbating, highly conservative policies

Study was of the US, but the same people are funding the hard right and far right in the UK & the E27.
They especially hate the EU, because they don't have the power & influence there that they do over decades of UK and US govts

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/30/billionaire-stealth-politics-america-100-richest-what-they-want

citizens could be badly misled by what a handful of famous billionaires [Gates, Soros, Buffett] said in public.
....
Our findings help illuminate how the political network assembled by the Koch brothers could have become so powerful.

The Kochs have had a fertile field of less-well-known conservative billionaires to cultivate for hundreds of millions of dollars in in secret, unreported contributions.

The Kochs’ entrepreneurship and organizational skills, together with stealthy contributions by these little-known billionaires, have produced a political juggernaut.

Both as individuals and as contributors to Koch-type consortia, most US billionaires have given large amounts money
– and many have engaged in intense activity –
to advance unpopular, inequality-exacerbating, highly conservative economic policies.

But they have done so very quietly, saying little or nothing in public about what they are doing or why.
They have avoided political accountability.

We believe that this sort of stealth politics is harmful to democracy.

UK Brexit ministry says no set date for EU negotiations to end

As we thought, 21 Nov was just invention
either something to feed the demand for Brexit news, or just to feed Sterling speculation / profit

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-deal-raab/uk-brexit-ministry-says-no-set-date-for-eu-negotiations-to-end-idUSKCN1N52P7

“There is no set date for the (EU) negotiations to conclude,” a [Brexit] ministry spokesperson said in a statement
after Raab’s letter to the Chair of parliament’s Committee on Exiting the European Union was published.

“The 21st November was the date offered by the Chair of the Select Committee for the Secretary of State to give evidence.”

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/10/even-ministers-dont-understand-brexit/

The Brexit negotiations are becoming so complicated that even the cabinet admits that it doesn’t understand what is going on.

< they never did understand what Brexit involves - they are just beginning to realise this >

The Prime Minister has been told by several of her colleagues that they won’t back any deal she agrees until they have seen written legal advice, setting out what it means.

If a Brexit deal is going to be impenetrable even to secretaries of state who have followed every step of the negotiations, what hope does the public have?

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/31/home-office-tells-northern-irish-woman-to-prove-right-to-live-in-belfast

The issue of NI people's right to identify as Irish and pursue their lives as Irish, without recourse to an assumption of an umbrella UK citizenship, with the right to live in NI and the rest of the UK intact, continues to baffle the Home Office.

I don't think we need to look any further than the Koch brothers and their ilk to find the source of Trump's candidacy and his ultimate win (thank you, billionaires Robert and Rebekah Mercer), and likewise I strongly believe that Brexit is the result of private US interference (though it is hard to find the line between government and private in the US, as BigChoc's article states) and again a big thanks to the Mercers. All those 'think tanks' including some discussed here on previous threads are nothing more than fronts.

As the pace of preparedness intensifies in Europe, the decisions that the UK gov make are getting less and less relevant to them.

Another sign that the UK seems to have less international "clout" now, relegated to lower status ?

• Erdogan seems to regard the UK as not in the big European league of France & Germany

UK not in some heads of govt photos a few days ago, either

www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/30/recep-tayyip-erdogan-jamal-khashoggi-killing-saudi-arabia-protected

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said he had shared information with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, at the weekend that the two European leaders had not previously known.

I feel as if we should send this thread to the newsreaders to wake people up

Hazard It’s an attractive idea but I fear I would be dead wood in this arrangement. Unless the village needs someone to write it a marketing plan?

Volunteering to be the resident scientist ☢️

Thank you for the kind words @Hazardswan . I'm talented at knowing my limits!
I also put faith in scientists (contradiction in terms , I know) de sounds like we are sorted with @BigChocFrenzy .

Sounds great! I’m not sure what I could do (as a statistician / social scientist), but my husband and children are great at growing veg. Maybe I could teach?

@SingingBabooshkaBadly - if you can write a marketing plan, you've got some ace skills. Review, analyse, spot opportunities and hazards. How about presenting? Need that to get people on board. And I bet you have practical skills that either you weren't aware of or they are a bit rusty.

Always need an accountant!

You know that budget ?

You know how Merikka is gonna be our pal ?

www.theregister.co.uk/2018/11/01/us_bashes_uk_tax/

US Republicans bash UK for tech tax plan

Top GOP man threatens retaliation

One of the top Republicans in the US House of Representatives had harsh words Wednesday for the UK government's plan to impose additional taxes on tech giants.

Representative Kevin Brady (R-TX), chairman of the influential House Ways and Means Committee, said the tax was an unfair measure to extract cash from US-based companies.

"The United Kingdom’s introduction of a new tax targeting cross-border digital services – which mirrors a similar proposal under consideration in the European Union – is troubling," Brady said in a statement.

"Singling out a key global industry dominated by American companies for taxation that is inconsistent with international norms is a blatant revenue grab."

The proposal, floated earlier this week by UK chancellor Philip Hammond along with the 2018 budget, would levy a "digital services tax" against search engines, social media companies, and online retailers who do business in the UK starting in April 2020.

The tax, said Hammond, was an effort to address overseas tech giants that make money in the UK while skirting taxes. Hammond claims the current model is "clearly not sustainable or fair that digital platforms businesses can generate substantial value in the UK without paying tax here."

Brady, however, does not agree with Hammond's assessment, and he is threatening to take similar actions against British firms should the digital services tax indeed take effect in 2020.

"The ongoing global dialogue on the digital economy through the OECD framework should not be pre-empted by unilateral actions that will result in double taxation," Brady declared.

"If the United Kingdom or other countries proceed, that will prompt a review of our US tax and regulatory approach to determine what actions are appropriate to ensure a level playing field in global markets."

The two countries will likely work something out well before the tax would go into effect. With the US locked in a trade war with China and the UK preparing to take the full economic brunt of Brexit, neither side wants to see additional economic sanctions right now. ®

Brady is a chap they listen to. Post Brexit negotiations off to a great start

I need an accountant, and I have a bit of space for growing stuff so you would be welcome here. As it's in France there probably won't be much of a problem though so we cound just nip down to the shops which I suppose defeats the point of the exercise!

bellini thank you for the kind words. Marketing people are usually pretty derided! Mind you, I marketed books, so I tell myself that’s ‘good’ marketing!

Actually, thinking about it, I can make natural skincare products. So if anyone’s likely to be bothered about remaining smooth skinned post Brexit I can help. Just as long as I can get hold of the ingredients

54321. Much better idea. Let’s all just come to France instead

Working outside on veg you will get a bit 'brown and leathery' either suntan or rust!

DH and I could provide childcare and Early Years education for you 😊