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.

The C of E used to be called the Tory Party at Prayer

I think they both have the same problem going into the future though. Support for them is dying because their supporters are dying, both are populated by the elderly.

peregrina "Broad church" in the sense that it includes all types of Tories !

(yes, I know a few must be Lab, LDem etc but it seems still to be / has reverted to "The Tory Party at prayer")

It's one thing to support Brexit, as their demographic does

It's quite another to walk by on the other side of the road - against the tenets of Christianity - when 3 million people are left vulnerable and insecure
and to ignore the xenophobia Brexit has spiked

Reading the survey results, it very much looked to me that a majority in the country would be quite happy with EEA + CU. Which is absolutely nothing like Theresa May's plan.

Interestingly too, neither Corbyn, Johnson or Farage scored especially well when it came to the opinion on negotiating.

I think the High Church CofE like Theresa May is in decline - such growth as there is has come from the evangelical wings. A group of people IMO who hold very set ideas e.g. will take literally the instruction to spare the rod and spoil the child - not get to the idea behind the instruction, or will be very big on wives submitting to husbands.......

Welby specifically spoke out urging people to 'get behind brexit'.

And then there's the church's tax affairs...........

They may be unpopular in terms of bums on seats in churches but the C of E is loaded. Appallingly so.

Tax and brexit.

Addendum: I know there are lots of good ordinary Christian folks doing great work, I'm distinguishing them from the men in charge. But it's a murky world, the C of E.

I posted before that I would expect any UK-wide CU would have to contain many elements of the SM in order to be nearly frictionless - as May wants, to protect UK businesses -
because it is really the SM that removes most of the friction.

The Norway+ that Barnier was proposing would include the SM + a deep customs arrangement amounting to CU
Currently, it looks like the proposed CU could end up quite like Norway+ ... if we do get a deal.

Tony Connellyy @tconnellyRTE*
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1059511062423314432.html

A senior EU official tells @rtenews tonight there will be "no breakthrough" on the backstop this week.

This is not just because the UK cabinet is divided over whether there should be a NI-specific backstop as a final safety net, or because of the termination clause...

...but because the UK-wide customs arrangement brings with it a whole spectrum of small print,
on "level playing field" issues, such as competition rules, state aid, social, environmental, health & safety rules
that member states will want assurances on before they sign up to it.

In other words, the EU is not going to grant tariff- and quota-free access to the UK for a temporary customs arrangement without assurances on those level playing field issues.

"This bare bones EU-UK customs agreement," says the senior official,
"defining it in terms of a single customs territory, all that has yet to be drawn up. The EU is looking for the details of that proposal, of what that means, and they’re waiting for Olly Robbins to tell them..."

So the UK-wide temporary customs arrangement (TCA) implies alignment, level playing field issues, things that bring you de facto close to the single market.

The Task Force expected technical papers from the UK last week but they were not forthcoming.

The view in Brussels is that in seeking the TCA the UK hadn't bargained for the conditions that would be attached, 🤦🏻‍♀️
and Theresa May will find it difficult, if not impossible, to get that thru the cabinet tomorrow...

Thomasina, no I think that is Cumbria, don't know how they voted before.
They voted Leave. I have told people about MIL before, who voted Remain. She is from that area and still has family up there - her opinion the other week - they still vote Leave, well they are not very educated. MIL herself didn't have a very good education - before the war, working class girls especially didn't.

IIRC quite a bit of the good (productive) farmland in the East of England is church owned.

May and her "War Cabinet" keep thinking they have found a simple solution
Each time, they seem completely unaware of the complexity of what they have chosen

Is Olly Robbins not telling them, or are they not listening ?
Even more scary - is he unaware himself ?
Ivan RIchards probably undertands all this, but I don't know if Robbins has this specialist knowledge and experience

Peregrina I've posted before how my late dad had to leave school on his 14th birthday.

Nevertheless, he had a marvellous range of general knowledge, including of currrent affairs, history, geography, maths, science, the arts that he certainly didn't get from primary and middle school

Some people stop learning as soon as they leave education;
others continue to learn all their lives

Your mum may be one of the latter

How much do the Cabinet actually consult and listen to the civil service? They seem to want to avoid hearing anyone who they suspect won't tell them what they want to hear. I find it astonishing that the national government have refused to speak to 1) representatives of the British in the EU, 2) representatives of all the non-DUP parties in NI. What's happened to the concept of governing for the good of the whole country?

Giles Fraser is a raving Lexiter and most of the people I've spoken to at our high church CofE parish in rural, Brexit-voting Norfolk are despairing remainers, so don't generalise! (Still despairing about Welby and Sentamu though, didn't know that )

mother We need to face reality
Look at how the archbishops voted in the HoL on E27 expats
Listen to the speeches

The CofE shouldn't be the Tory Party at Prayer, but it is
Certainly over Brexit
Probably because of pressure from its members who would overwhelmingly be elderly rightwing Brexiters

The CofE has totally failed in its pastoral duty, in its Christian duty to support the vulnerable
Over recent years, it has noticeably swung back to hard Toryism
The Tory party is overwhelmingly for hard Brexit, without giving a damn about who it hurts
The CofE mirrors this

My mother attended umpteen CofE churches for the 55 years we shared and they were all very rightwing
Afterwards, it was usually like a local Tory party meeting
In fact, sometimes local party matters would be discussed with the tea & biccies after service

I hear you mother and peregrina .
This isn't about the actualities of the good people who go to different churches, it's the machinery of state.

We are in a very odd position with our constitution, the monarchy and the state religion.

The brexit is putting our powerlessness as subjects in sharp relief.

Cof E worth £8bn
Very opaque tax arrangements and government funding.
www.itv.com/news/2018-09-14/how-does-the-church-of-england-invest-its-wealth/

Churches legally avoid large amounts of tax. They receive substantial donations from some of their richer members on death. These gifts are free of Inheritance Tax

They receive substantial donations from their living members. Much of this money is gift aided, so the Churches receive large sums from the state as repayment of the Income Tax which the donors had paid before their gift

The Churches, led by the Church of England, have tax free Endowment funds which generate income and capital gains that are untaxed. Some of this money is used for current spending

johnredwoodsdiary.com/2014/02/21/should-churches-pay-more-tax/

Tax and brexit.

What CofE members had in common, I observed, more even than party affiliation, was being super-patriotic
and I think that has moved in recent years to unthinking nationalism

The leadership at least, who set the whole tone, place Brexit and nationalism above the 3 million left vulnerable
to say nothing of the already vulnerable British people who will be made poorer

The abandonment of the 3 million in the HoL really shocked and disgusted me at the time

• I'm surprised it didn't have bigger headlines and cause more public debate about the CofE, with their guaranteed seats in the Upper Chamber of our Parliament

And the 'leavers' or 'Brexiters' complain about the EU being corrupt!
Nods, winks and deals all around.

So get writing to your vicars/whatever if you do God (I don't and know nothing of the CofE - not my background).

Antisemitism row: Ukip accused over links with US far-right website

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/05/antisemitism-row-ukip-accused-over-links-with-us-far-right-website-infowars

The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Community Security Trust (CST) has called on Ukip to dissociate itself from Infowars
after it brought in one of the website’s editors as a member and used him to promote the party to younger people.

My mother attended umpteen CofE churches for the 55 years we shared and they were all very rightwing
Afterwards, it was usually like a local Tory party meeting

That explains Theresa May for me - I am sorely tempted to write to ask her if her Bible has the gospels missing. “Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?' "
Matthew 25:31-40

How does this square with your Hostile environment Mrs May? We hardly see you doing any of this for the least of your brothers and sisters. We see you pandering to the already wealthy.

Thankfully, not all churches are like that. The one I belong to falls over itself to be community minded and get involved in campaigns.

blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2018/09/20/how-anglicans-tipped-the-brexit-vote/

This suggests there is a mismatch between Anglicans as a whole (66% leave) and their bishops (predominantly remain).

Apparently churchgoing Anglicans were more likely to say they would vote remain, whereas Anglicans as a whole voted strongly leave. It also says 55% of Catholics in England voted leave.

As a rubbish Catholic, I would agree with that assessment. To put it crudely, in my community the closer a a Catholic was to immigration, I.e., immigrant themselves or mum or dad, the less likely they were to vote leave.
Not true across the board, obviously.