Westministenders: Reality Bytes

[RedToothBrush]

Tonight the Corbyn and McDonnell Labour Party supported the Tory Party in improving the tax allowance for higher rate tax payers.

Yes you read that right. Did you even blink?

You've been so conditioned into seeing non existant opposition which seems to go against everything the Labour Party stand for that you no longer are shocked.

That's what 2 and a half years of Brexit has done to you.

You no longer care that Boris Johnson got £14,000 from the Saudis a couple of days before the Khashoggi murder. You know longer care that the former Defence Secretary is employed for £75,000 a year to advise a major Saudi Investor.

You are just happy that Trump hasn't started a war with Iran or North Korea yet. And hasn't started a civil war. (Though he's trying hard and next week is his best opportunity to stir it all up). You aren't surprised to hear that predictions are that the Democrats will fail to make gains in the mid terms.

You've suffered the 4657 story about how Therea May is just about to be challenged for the leadership.

You've heard about the squad set up at the Home Office to clear up all the cases the media get their hands on as the latest burning injustice. You are hearing that EU nationals who have been promised they are 'safe' are being subjected to questions about their right to stay. And you just shrug and say, "Yeah well thats the Home Office for you. The Bastards". And you do mean it, but you are so jaded by it all. And you worry that another 12 months from now, you won't even be interested in another story like that, and the press will stop printing them as they no longer interest the reader. What happens to your friends, your family, or even you then? Who is going to care then?

And then you have today.

A day where you hear that Bannon is being investigated by the Senate Intel Committee, Farage has been upgraded to the FBI's Really Naughty List and Banks has (FINALLY) been refered to the NCA. (We were only speculating on the possibility, on the 26th March...)

And you go 'Ooooooooo maybe there is hope'.

Maybe we COULD remain in the EU and avoid Turnip Soup and wiping your arse with leaves because of the national bog roll shortage. Or at least get a decent deal which suits us as a nation. Maybe, just maybe!

And that lasts for about 2 minutes before you log into twitter and the very first thing you see this:

Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn
Excl: David Cameron tells friends he’d like a return to frontline politics, and fancies Foreign Secretary
www.thesun.co.uk/news/7639377/david-cameron-return-to-politics/

And you let out a high pitched screech as if you are were a dying cat as you remember this is 2018, and it just wants to beat the life out of you.

On the plus side, it shows you do still care enough to think 'Don't let that fucking bastard anywhere near power ever, ever again.'.

Ho hum.

Keep on, keeping on. Don't let the bastards win.
Keep caring. It matters.

There was a stage too - late sixties, early seventies, where there wasn't all that much fighting going on, but it was a good way of getting a trade.

My ILs were deployed in Germany in the 50s. They had absolutely amazing housing and services. Living standards they could have never achieved from a low-skilled civilian job in England. FIL still regrets leaving the Army.

I suspect there is a hell of a lot of parental pressure and guidance of DC away from the military.
Parents are far more risk averse now than ever in the past
and kids too are mostly unused to real discomfort and danger

Also, unemployment is very low still;
if you are willing to move far away from home, live in grotty shared accommodation and work irregular hours, then there are enough lowpaid jobs elsewhere, rather than the added danger of the armed forces.

Managers at the Environment Agency (EA) were given just 24 hours to name 75 staff to be sent to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). In September, the National Audit Office said Michael Gove’s department will not be ready for a no-deal Brexit, with meat and dairy and chemicals exports especially threatened.

The EA memo, headed “URGENT Action – immediate attention” and leaked to the Guardian, said: “We are gearing up our contingency planning for EU Exit and have been asked by Defra as a matter of urgency to provide staff.”

It was sent on 22 October, with staff asked to redeploy within a week. “We realise this is an extremely short deadline and that many staff will be on half term,” it said. “However, please do your best as part of our ambition to go the extra mile to help at this challenging time.”

www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/05/environment-department-accused-of-brexit-panic-after-urgent-staff-demand

BigChoc Guilty as charged. DS would love to follow in DGFs's steps and join the Army. As a delaying tactic, I suggested he goes to uni and then applies to Sandhurst. I am not even sure it is possible for us plebs, but it gives us a good 10 years.

My late father joined the RAF late 1930s, to escape the dreadful poverty in the NE and send money to feed his dozen siblings.
After the war, as a married sergeant and later a junior officer, he got far better accommodation than now, imo.

The big detached married quarters - 3 or 4 bed, 2 recep - with huge gardens were sold off decades ago.
The sons & daughters of his friends who joined up reported (20 - 30 years ago) that they had a much lower standard of housing than what they grew up in.

Elanadr He would have a much better career with a uni degree (being a non-royal !)

officers really need a degree to be selected in the first place and then later not to be left in the slow track

Funnily enough, I've some sympathy with the idea of a National service, whereby citizens over the age of 18 - but after the highest level of education they can attain - give a year (or maybe two) back to the state. It would discharge any debts for studying, and not necessarily involve military service (in fact I'd avoid it) but more civic matters. With people who have advanced education (e.g. degrees) being given a chance to use those skills and "donate them" in lieu of their loans.

Ideally people would be mixed up into units so they meet - and live - with people they would normally never meet.

It sort of formed in my noggin after I shared with a guy from Nigeria at Uni, and he said that on return he would be doing national service. When I expressed surprise at the idea of him with a gun, he laughed and said "no, I have to work for the government to pay back my education". In his case he was a mechanical engineer, and he said he already knew of some construction projects that he'd be working on.

Brexit latest: Dominic Raab demands right to pull Britain out of EU backstop after three months

i.e. Demanding NO backstop

As I said yesterday, I think the Sunday Times story was just a UK attempt - via a UK govt leak - to bounce the EU into agreeing a deal and abandoning Ireland.
i.e. the classic fake news which had an ulterior motive

Disgracefully, the Cabinet is still bitterly divided, so it may well have also been an attempt of one Cabinet faction to bounce the rest

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2018/11/04/dominic-raab-has-privately-demanded-right-pull-britain-eu-backstop/amp/?twitterr_impression=true

Dominic Raab has privately demanded the right to pull Britain out of the EU’s Irish backstop after just three months,
the Telegraph has learned, setting back the prospect of clinching a Brexit divorce deal this week.

The hardline pitch by the Brexit Secretary to the Irish government early last week is understood to have “stunned” Irish officials
and exposed the continued deep divisions in Cabinet over how to prosecute the Brexit talks.

DG I have also long been in favour of National Service,
but along the lines of the German system, where there is a civilian option of say 7 years, e.g. civil defence,
but military service is much shorter, only 2 years

It should also mean that all debt for uni fees is cancelled on completion of service

I could have been quite tempted to be in the Royal Engineers 'way back when', as an excuse to play with big toys at the government expense and create things for 'the common good' (on the whole). Building bridges and 'stuff'.
The prospect of having to fight anybody was the strong negative against me pursuing it.
An interesting 'one liner' from a friend (whose ear is closer to the EU than most) this week was that the UK IS leaving the EU. It would have been undiplomatic to have pushed this statement for 'justification' any further.

No deal week this week folks.
uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-peston/uk-to-assume-no-deal-brexit

I imagine we'll have to wear patriotic fake flowers, on pain of deportation, and dance around bonfire effigies, or worse, this time next year, to celebrate our glorious liberation from food, medicine, law and peace. The 'Wicker Man' was quite prescient for the state of this place, now.

Defra imploding:
www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/05/environment-department-accused-of-brexit-panic-after-urgent-staff-demand

Lucky we'll have those nice mercenary Russian soldiers keeping law and order.

Being a peacenik isn't much use against fascism, I've always noticed.

As well as the disgusting and dangerous work and conditions in current british army, they can't get a domestic army because no one believes in this stupid regime enough to fight for it.

But god help us if this crew bring in national service for this regime.

Paying to get out of national service is proving a nice little earner for Erdogan, I'm sure that's been clocked here by that nice Mr Williamson.

Mr Macron was proposing a system of 'National Service' in France a few months back, I don't know how he is getting on with it though. It would have involved both 'military' and 'civilian' options.

Following as ever, very grateful for the sanity on these threads. Had a row with my Brother over Brexit last week, he told me to fuck off so I have. To be fair if it wasn’t Brexit it would have been something else but he was sitting there going on about how he thinks a hard Brexit best then opt into the bits we want and things escalated from that point.

No consideration of the fact how deeply personal Brexit is for me with DD deciding to leave country because of it and stockpiling insulin for DH. Brother doesn’t even live in Europe. On subject of insulin saw friend who is very senior in a Diabetes unit and has relatives with type 1. In the summer when saw her she wasn’t worried but is now and advising her patients to stockpile 2 months insulin just in case. She’s not worried about the testing strips as apparently a lot made in the UK.

Army recruitment fell through the floor when it was outsourced to Capita. Something no-one could have possibly predicted given the sterling track record of that company.

woman's link mentions too that some of the civil service manpower we desperately need now
was lost in austerity cuts from 2010.

The list of responsibilities covers a lot of what we need in our daily lives, as well as food & chemical exports:

Managers at the Environment Agency (EA) were given just 24 hours to name 75 staff to be sent to the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
In September, the National Audit Office said Michael Gove’s department will not be ready for a no-deal Brexitt^,
with meat and dairy and chemicals exports especially threatened.
< so a month for Gove to decide to panic, then action must be in 24 hours >

The loss of staff at the EA has also raised concerns.
It is responsible for protecting the country from flooding as well as water, land and air pollution, but lost a significant number of staff between 20100^ and 20188^.

The EA memo, headed “URGENT Action – immediate attention” and leaked to the Guardian, said:
“We are gearing up our contingency planning for EU Exit and have been asked by Defra as a matter of urgency to provide staff.”

I personally agree with a general pacifist type approach sort of being a small needs must type player rather than a warmongering giant.

However it is ridiculous to pay millions as part of austerity to make thousands of military staff redundant- 12,000 is a lot. It was absurd to plan to replace them with reservists.

Then within seven years to be having a volte face and be seeking to recruit overseas? Just a massive failure to plan properly.

I am very angry with a nephew who voted to Leave, being a commonwealth citizen despite only being here on a one year work placement during the Referendum year. How about asking us what we thought was good for the country we live in, instead of one you haven't made a commitment to?

Re conscription - Denmark used to have this. A Danish ex-boyfriend did his national service. It went like this - night exercise, turned up, tramped through the woods for half an hour, 'oh look, there's Jens' house, let's go there'. Five a m. - roughed themselves up and straggled back in, 'we got a bit lost Sir'. Not," we've spent most of the night sleeping in comfort and warmth."

We did that during the War - when France fell "we were in it on our own." No mention of the Polish fighter squadrons who came over and were some of the bravest, no mention of the Irish who despite being in a neutral country chose to join the British Army, no mention of the huge contingent from British India. I wish those sorts of 'patriots' would learn a few facts.

I had to go to the Italian embassy to let them know why I wasn't reporting for National Service. I had to go because DF hadn't mentioned it as a "thing" and when I turned 18 I was down as AWOL. In the case of Italian bureaucracy, it's definitely better to get permission than forgiveness.

We did that during the War - when France fell "we were in it on our own." No mention of the Polish fighter squadrons who came over and were some of the bravest, no mention of the Irish who despite being in a neutral country chose to join the British Army, no mention of the huge contingent from British India. I wish those sorts of 'patriots' would learn a few facts.

Canadian, South African ANZACs too.

Last year, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery had a powerful exhibition of the part Indian soldiers played in both wars. A staggering number.

Apparently the Daily Mail "Enemies of the People" headline was actually quoting Ibsen, according to well known cunt Paul Dacre.

I hope he gets twittered to death by moronic Brexiteers outraged that he used a foreign playwright, when we have so many underquoted British playwrights of our own. I mean what of Wilde, Shaw, Sheridan, Joyce ? Do they not count ?

(Incoming in 5,4,3,2 .... )

From James Patrick a while back:

Hearing news that the Brexit police resilience team (it’s not good this even exists) is looking to take on over 50 officers as rapidly as possible. I’ll put more details out as they come in but only a few weeks back this was still just a rumour in the halls

For clarity, this isn’t a rapid response unit or anything, it’s more like an emergency planning/policy unit

Perspective: To quell the 2011 riots by the fifth day, the Met had to actively deploy its full resilience of 32,000 officers

National unrest would need the army too

Guardian today:
www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/05/brexit-metropolitan-police-rush-set-up-no-deal-safety-net-unit

Ibsen - from the same nation which gave us the word Quisling.

I happen to like Norway very much though, and as Farage was only to happy to point out, being in the EEA, part of Schengen and having FoM is very good for them. Although he didn't quite put it in those terms.