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.

And here:

The Canary Islands

The Canary Islands are part of the European Customs Union, although they are excluded from the application of VAT.

Though no VAT is levied, there are two special taxes in the islands:

The Canary Islands apply a tax equivalent to VAT: the IGIC (Impuesto General Indirecto Canario or General Indirect Tax of the Canary Islands), which is charged for the supply of goods and services in the Canary Islands by traders and professionals, as well as for imports of goods into the islands.

The standard rate is 7%. There are also higher rates for goods with external costs, such as automobiles or alcoholic beverages (9.5% and 13.5%).

The AIEM (Arbitrio sobre las Importaciones y Entregas de Bienes or Tax on Imports and Deliveries of Goods in the Canary Islands) is levied on imports of certain types of goods that are produced in the islands. It aims to protect some local manufacturing sectors by charging some imports with rates of 0%, 5% or 15%.

www.taxmarine.com/documents-list/118-publications/753-the-canary-islands-ceuta-and-melilla-implications-for-yachts

Yes, complicated indeed.

Mrsr8. Me neither. I think that’s part of their plan...

Tonight I am coping by consuming copious 🍷🍷🍷. May I offer you one?

Wiki says
"The islands are outside the European Union customs territory and VAT area"

and I read somewhere else too, possibly on R North's site or Irish Times, that they weren't in the CU

Complicated when different sources disagree !

Why I raise the comparison with the NI border issue:

The checks Spain / CI of goods, but not people - which btw backs up the CI not being in the CU -
show that there can be checks between a mainland EU country and one of its regions that is in the EU, not the CU.

It doesn't matter that rUK is much bigger than the bit of the UK that would be in the CU
Checks carried out when the customs border is a sea are technically very feasible and indeed already carried out Spain / CI

In our case, both countries would be outside the EU, but NI would be in the CU but also in the UK

I'm with you, Mrsr8. My brain went Tilt some time ago. I try to keep up, but the ramifications of it all are quite baffling.

Big secret:

The Uk govt haven't a fucking clue either

The ones who haven't realised this - stars in the UK-wide Dunning Kruger experiment - are squabbling in their playpen over whose turn with the unicorn

The ones who do realise are rocking worse than you - picture Hammond rocking back & forth, his face going greyer & greyer

Me: I don't do rocking, but I have only myself to take care of and I'm already doing all I can.

May urged to clarify whether she blocked Arron Banks investigation

Why did the security services even have to ask May for permission to investigate those suspected of Russian influence ?

Do they ask permission every time they want to investigate say a teacher or a trade unionist ... or just those who hobnob with top Tories and who have donated in the past to the Tory Party ? 🤔

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/nov/02/theresa-may-arron-banks-leave-eu-campaign-investigation

Labour MP seeks answers amid reports PM stymied security services in 2016

Watson [Labour deputy leader] asked: “Did [May] ask the security services to investigate? Or did she stop them doing so?

There is a suggestion that in the run-up to the referendum the prime minister – in her capacity at the time as home secretary – declined at least one application from the security services to mount a full investigation into Mr Banks and others suspected of Russian influence.
We need to know if that is true.”

Brexit: The Movie producer charged with £500,000 fraud

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/02/david-shipley-brexit-the-movie-producer-charged-fraud

More than 2 million people watched Brexit: The Movie

A hedge fund executive who produced a feature-length Brexit film encouraging Britons to vote leave in the 2016 EU referendum has appeared in court charged with committing a fraud of more than £500,000.

David Shipley, 36, is alleged to have committed fraud by false representation by Photoshopping his wage slips to make it appear he was paid much more than he really was in order to secure a loan approval.

UK and Ireland signal Irish border Brexit deal could be agreed soon

www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/nov/02/uk-and-ireland-signal-irish-border-brexit-deal-could-be-agreed-soon

Senior politicians say recent progress in talks could resolve the backstop imbroglio

Thanks so much for these threads, Red. And all the contributors. It is easy to get left behind on what is happening. And great to be able to click in here to catch up.

* Spoiler alert *

On a more serious note, people are still dying from malaria as a result of fake malaria medicine in poor countries. (Wasn't this a plot line in "The Third Man" ?)

It was penicillin in war-ravaged Vienna, divided among the Allied victors, and it was the context of the plot of The Third Man, a truly great movie.

BCF wrt your post of Fri 02-Nov-18 17:50:28 -
I posted this a few threads ago on the subject of antagonism and mutual bewilderment between London and Dublin.

I suspect given the huge influence of Ronan Fanning (UCD's History Department is one of the major producers of diplomats and the upper echelons of civil servants in the Department of Foreign Affairs) that Dublin is considerably less bewildered than London is.

mathanxiety Thu 27-Sep-18 21:37:41
www.drb.ie/essays/ronan-fanning-1941-2017

(An excerpt from Prof Fanning's obit:)
His Fatal Path is a masterpiece, not alone of history and literature, but of clear-sighted wisdom. It explains with dazzling clarity why the Rising and the War of Independence were so important, but crucially it also underlines another reality. The wizard Lloyd George, a Liberal, was constantly looking over his shoulder to ensure that the only concern of his hard-line and threatening Tory allies, that is protecting the unionist cause, would take precedence over all other Irish issues. Bonar Law, Carson and Craig were his three Brexiteers. This meant, as Ronan explained ‑ sometimes to the astonishment of the patriots of this generation - that the struggles of nationalist Ireland always came much further down the British agenda, subsidiary to the more intense dramas of jockeying for domination within the British cabinet. 'Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose'. Those who represent us in the imminent negotiations over Brexit could do a lot worse than take Ronan’s incomparable book with them to London, or Brussels...

.....
www.politico.eu/article/how-brexit-burned-uk-irish-friendship-theresa-may-leo-varadkar/
“Dublin has always believed Brits have never really understood Ireland or cared about it,” said a second senior U.K. adviser, who has advised Cabinet ministers on Northern Ireland and who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Brexit just proves to them what they have long suspected.”

Subsequent hostility to Ireland in the British press — the Sun’s front page attack on “air head” Taoiseach Varadkar, in particular — or injudicious remarks by leading Brexiteers, are jumped on in Dublin as further evidence that old patronizing, “colonial” English attitudes have returned.

But the rot set in before Brexit. While the high water mark in the Anglo-Irish relationship came with the queen’s state visit to Ireland in 2011, there were already signs that London had taken its eye off the ball.

I don't think anyone in Dublin was surprised that London took its eye off the ball.

Exasperated that London once again took its eye off the ball, certainly, but not surprised. Ireland and even NI have always been, as Fanning put it, 'subsidiary to the more intense dramas of jockeying for domination within the British cabinet'.

Brexiteers and sections of the 'press' in the UK sputter about an alleged aggressive Irish stance, but what the Irish government is doing is making sure London does not take its eye off the ball any more. Even the most milquetoastey Irish government would be the bete noire of the DUP. There is no Irish government that would not be either spat upon or shat upon by this party.

(See the last half of the article for the inspiration for this comment).

While pondering the topic of the Canary Islands (nice to ponder as the wind here switches around to the north) it struck me that the Isle of Man enjoys a 'neither here nor there' association with the UK and the EU, as does the Channel Islands...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_relations_of_the_Isle_of_Man

Pondering the Canary Islands, you also have Greenland, which is still part of the Kingdom of Denmark. The difference as I see it with these various 'not in the EU, but part of/associated with a country which is in the EU' arrangements, is that they all seem to be islands and as far as I am aware, non of them have had Civil Wars raging in them. Nor do they belong to countries which politically has decided to Leave. So Greenland didn't say they wanted to stay in while Denmark opted out. I assume the Canaries were never in the EU. Are there any examples, Gibraltar and NI excepted, where a country shares a land border with the EU but a constituent part of that country isn't in the EU. (I hope that's not too garbled.)

Added to this, NI of course, did not vote to leave the EU, so is being taken out against its will.

A bit late for a placemat but thanks red

Also, fuck Cameron. And fuck Johnson.
Can I be up for digital, culture, media and sport. I'm a little bored myself.

There may be an all-UK customs deal but would the Brexiteers in Parliament accept it? If the deal is voted down in Parliament, where do we go?

People’s Vote.
Not ideal but the only solution.

The BBC must have had many complaints about Arron Banks being on Marr. They’ve already responded:

The Andrew Marr Show, BBC One, 4 November 2018
We received complaints from some people before transmission about Arron Banks being interviewed on ‘The Andrew Marr Show’.
The BBC’s response
There is strong public interest in an interview with Arron Banks about allegations of funding irregularities in relation to Leave.Eu and the 2016 EU Referendum. The Electoral Commission has laid out concerns about this in public and it is legitimate and editorially justified for Andrew Marr to question Mr Banks robustly about them, which he will do on Sunday morning.

Marr had better be robust then.

www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complaint/andrewmarrpretx/

Marr had better be really robust.
This is the journalist who wrote two thrillers, Head of State and Children of the Master, whose plot lines are driven by financial skullduggery around a (then) hypothetical Brexit!

IMHO May's Pact with the DUP was and remains disgraceful. Whatever the shortcomings of the Good Friday agreement, it brought a substantial (not total) measure of peace to NI. I remember all too well what a terrifying place it could be back in the 1970s when I spent quite a lot of time there. It was a revelation to go back and find that police stations were no longer surrounded by 20'high corrugated iron anti-rocket barriers. The GB government should have remained even-handed - but it's all too obvious that May is driven by her determination to hold onto power at any cost (rhino hide?) while Corbyn et al fail to offer anything resembling and effective opposition.

IMHO May's Pact with the DUP was and remains disgraceful.

As I've said before on here... if you read all this in a history book (say in Tudor times) you'd be shocked at the intrigue, scheming and Machiavellian plotting:

• Imagine you read of the Tudor government pulling the U.K. out of a vastly beneficial trading agreement which also removed individual rights from the peasants and serfs.

•To get Parliamentary control one political party paid £1 billion of the peasant's and serf's taxes to a minority NI group of politicians representing a small group anyway. That this happened at a time the proper NI assembly was suspended.

•That the only people to benefit from withdrawing from the trading relationship would be a few very wealthy members of the ruling class.

•That the serfs and peasants were tricked into supporting all this by false promises by the ruling classes of a better life, That very wealthy overseas merchants and governments paid to help influence the serfs and peasants.

Machiavellian May indeed.