Westminstenders: May plays Sale of the Century

[RedToothBrush]

Theresa May is currently in the midst of a campaign to sell her deal to the public. Unfortunately she appears that there are only 649 people she needs to sell it to, and that's not going so well.

She attempted a sales pitch to potential Labour rebels and succeeded in getting them to actively decide to vote against her.

There are currently 100 backbench tories who have stated they will vote against it, which makes parliamentary maths very difficult.

There is a rising support for plan b in the form of Norway Plus. This may make Remainers less likely to vote for a deal but persuade some leavers to back May.

The ECJ A50 Court case has been heard. Judgment has not been given yet. Its due 'soon'.

Next week the Withdrawal Agreement will be debated in Parliament with the vote due at 7pm on Tuesday 11th December.

Expect a rough couple of weeks.

I think to be "fair" on the Government, it is incompetence and ignorance rather than conspiracy in excluding The National

They are so London-centric, that when they decided it was necessary to "pool" resources, they accredited their "usual London based suspects" without realising that there are strong and more appropriate Scottish papers.

Even the LibDems have condemned it, citing incompetence.

I'm sorry but incompetence is me forgetting to put the milk back in the fridge.
Politicians are being paid a good salary/expenses to get things right. Where is accountability?

Jack Maidment
@jrmaidment
BREAK: John Bercow says that Labour should write to him if they are concerned the Govt is not complying with request for Brexit legal advice to be published.
He will then decide if Govt is in contempt of the House.

I think the concept of democracy in the UK has been lost.

That's a bold statement, as it contains the implication we had it at some point, which I don't think we ever did. Certainly not in a form that the word "democracy" is being used in, when we talk about political systems, which is the original Athenian system.

We vote for local MPs to represent us in parliament, but then they can either decide how to vote themselves, or get told what to vote for.

Which is fair enough, when we trust our representatives to act in our interests. Not theirs.

My take on the history of England and then Britain is that one of the underpinning reasons why the world got a British Empire (whether it deserved it or not) is because when compared to the rest of Europe, England managed to somehow become a country very early on. Which meant much less wasted resources on stupid civil wars between disparate ever-shifting claims and regions. Come 1485, and the establishment of a single unchallenged English crown and we were centuries ahead of other parts of Europe. (Which then opened the door for English meddling in continental wars ...).

Part of that process was the establishment of MPs as representatives not delegates.

Maybe it's served it's purpose, and is due a revision ? The fact we've managed to have 3 referenda over 50 years, when we hadn't had any for 500 is instructive. But if we're governing by referenda, what's the point of MPs ? Or indeed a party system ?

Maybe we could replace our MPs with an app ?

BREAK: John Bercow says that Labour should write to him if they are concerned the Govt is not complying with request for Brexit legal advice to be published. He will then decide if Govt is in contempt of the House.

Oh yeah ?

And if they are, presumably it's half chocolate rations for a week ?

Place mat Kind

Thanks, red

Did i see a Teasmaid go past?

(methinks we will see more than the 'must have' products from the 1970's as we head back in time in our Regressive Generation Game)

'King' even

{Did i see a Teasmaid go past?

No that was the hostess with the leastest!

Ooops.... (I was vv young in the 70's, so must be getting muddled)

oT
@prettybird - what is the middle symbol I get the first and last but it looks like a rod, not a mat!

Anyway PMK

Thanks Red.

Grinchly - it's just a fish on a rod: I couldn't find an emoticon for a mat, so I just decided that a fishing rod was "bringing the fish in" so would do.

Apart from deviants, surely it should be place marking, as in marking a place? Or is just a MN 'in joke'?

I'm not really up to speed on where we are with Labour's in-out-in-out-People's-Vote-or-nowt version of the Hokey Cokey but more dangling seems to be taking place

Laura Kuenssberg
‏*@bbclaurak*
Is McDonnell stepping more closely to another referendum? sounds like it here... listen for yourself

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-46371439/mcdonnell-on-may-facing-no-confidence-vote-and-new-referendum

Funny times we live in.

You'd think that - finally - an admission form HMG that Brexit in any shape or form leaves the UK less well off than now would be cataclysmic news.

Now it's just another "feelz" up for debate, it seems, like vaccines, moon landings, climate change and the existence of life outside London.

Mrsr8, I sort of presumed that as it was too consistent compared to the usual bad spellings.

DGR
Maybe next weeks headlines will be 'Only a third of UK citizens will die of the plague due to Brexit'.

Only a third of UK citizens will die of the plague due to Brexit

Plagues unlikely.

Now influenza on the other hand ...

Bearing in mind we really don't know why the plague(s) died back ...

But plagues sound more biblical.
Influenza gets shortened to 'flu' which when it is 'man flu' it marginalised completely.
This has to be marketed properly.

We aren't allowed to take the 'Michael' out of those who voted for unicorns.

They get all cross and frothy.

Influenza gets shortened to 'flu' which when it is 'man flu' it marginalised completely.

You know, it gets to the point where I really can't be bothered to accommodate for the lazy stupidity of people anymore ....

I missed the last thread entirely.

Sorry for what happened to your wife DGR.