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 wasn't saying the poll tax wasn't instrumental in getting rid of Thatcher (although Gore Vidal - who predicted her downfall a couple if years earlier would have given different reasons). Just that as far as I know she never once acknowledged it was in any way a mistake - not that she had made a mistake in promoting it.

I distinctly remember the US ambassador to Britain appearing on a debate about it (possibly QT - he was the 4th guest) and smiling when someone in the audience said something akin to "no taxation without representation" ...

www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-theresa-may-second-referendum-peoples-vote-committee-questions-a8659241.html

No wonder Theresa May is so against a second referendum. It would involve actually answering a question

It is, I believe, the sixth time she has faced this committee [the Liaison Committee], and now, when she meets each of their simple questions with impenetrable, meaningless noise, they just laugh at her.

And an extract on the sort of answers she gave them:

What is certainly the case is that no deal is no longer better than a bad deal, is it, because no deal would be the worst outcome of them all, wouldn’t it?” Hilary Benn asked her.

“Well that depends on what a bad deal looks like,” she replied.

“Is there a worse deal than no deal?”

“The deal we have negotiated is not that.”

“But what deal would be worse than no deal?”

“We have not negotiated a deal that is in that category.”

She would drive me nuts.

Just to amuse people especially those that might be too young to remember - here is the original Spitting Image "Testing Ground" sketch.

It is still fresh - the only difference being "They'd vote Labour SNP anyway"

Too much truth in that video.

I never cease to be surprised when people who always vote Tory, or always vote Labour sometimes seem surprised that no one's listening to them. The entire balance of power in this country rests on a few thousand - maybe hundred - swing voters.

Sorry but on the Hillary Benn question, what's the point of it? "Is there a worse deal than no deal?" the answer is clearly, "it depends on the deal" which is basically what TM said.

Since TM absolutely has to show a willingness to pursue No Deal in order to convince the HoC to back "Her Deal" the question is just vexatious

On top of that, it's pretty plain that their is no deal that TM will put before the HoC that Hillary Benn would vote to support, so the question is pointless and he's being disingenuous at best.

On top of that, it's pretty plain that their is no deal that TM will put before the HoC that Hillary Benn would vote to support, so the question is pointless and he's being disingenuous at best.

rather like "debating" the WA with Corbyn then ....

I must admit that I was deeply disappointed by Evan Davis yesterday with JRM.
When it was asserted that EU tariffs are so high on some goods that they cannot be sold in the UK
Evan did not say the magic words such as?

because bitter experience has told me that nailing down hard facts is something that the rainbow unicorn brigade loathe doing

I must admit that I was deeply disappointed by Evan Davis yesterday with JRM.

It can't have been a surprise, surely ?

The pisspoor "reporting" the BBC has shown over Brexit is going to cost them dear, I'm sure. If they think by sucking up to the Brexiteers they have somehow protected themselves from the onslaught of Murdoch et al, then they'll have a shock. Paying the Danegeld/forfeiting liberty for security etc, etc, etc.

Indeed.
After a lifetime of listening I have given up on the Today programme, largely given up on the 6 o clock news
and have recently switched to ITV for evening news

The pro Brexit bias of Question time for years (Farage on more than everybody else) has always stopped me watching it

I'm not sure what they are trying to achieve

@DGRossetti

re: the May/Corbyn "debate" thing I think you raise a good point. I honestly can't see that it will achieve very much since it's MPs in the Commons she has to convince not voters as a whole.

I guess one could say that it might encourage people to contact their MP to urge them to support the deal if TM did well? I shall be doing this anyhow, but I'd say the impact of this would be so marginal. I suspect most MPs have made their minds up anyhow.

"Pro brexit bias of Question Time" are you serious? When have their been more Pro-Leave panellists than Pro-Remain ones since the referendum??

I guess one could say that it might encourage people to contact their MP to urge them to support the deal if TM did well? I shall be doing this anyhow, but I'd say the impact of this would be so marginal. I suspect most MPs have made their minds up anyhow.

So the response to the suggestion that large sections of the electorate felt ignored is to ... ignore large sections of the electorate.

The deal is just a mid range parachute
it will soften our landing after we jump out of the plane
but we will still fall a long way and land hard

Unless there has been one on recently, did you know that there has not been a single pro-Europe MEP on Question Time in the period 2013-2018?

UKIP 33 times and Conservative (Daniel Hannan) twice No LibDems.

No SNP. No Labour. No pro-EU Conservative. No Green. No Plaid Cymru

leftfootforward.org/2018/10/breaking-pro-eu-meps-to-meet-bbc-news-exec-after-claims-of-pro-brexit-bias/

Pro brexit bias of Question Time" are you serious? When have their been more Pro-Leave panellists than Pro-Remain ones since the referendum??

One of this lot will surely be on QT tonight:
Katie Andrews
Camilla Tominey
Isabelle Oakeshott
Julia Hartley-Brewer

I don't know who I despise the most

For many MPs, seemingly yes
By way of example, I saw a video with Lisa Nandy who isn't my MP but did opine on QT some time ago that she "got it" re the anger and people feeling ignored. She is now confirmed as one who is not going to support the WA

UKIP 33 times and Conservative (Daniel Hannan) twice hmm No LibDems. No SNP. No Labour. No pro-EU Conservative. No Green. No Plaid Cymru

However, Nish Kumar has been on twice ...

Nah, it won't be as good as cats

"Kentucky Fried rats"
Fur-lickin' good !

@prettybird v. interesting thank you. FWIW I think our MEPs have done a very bad job of publicising their work, but that is largely their fault. The did appear regularly on regional editions of Sunday Politics but QT is much more often MPs not MEPs

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Question_Time_episodes

If anyone would like to point to an edition since the referendum with a majority of pro-leave panellists I'd be all ears, I can't see one but I'm not the avid watcher of the programme I once was.

I can't remember where I heard it now, but someone said they wouldn't be surprised if the markets didn't react badly as expected when the deal is not passed. They said the reason the markets reacted so badly to TARP was because everyone expected it to go through and were shocked when it didn't.

Whereas at the moment no-one is expecting the deal to pass and it's common knowledge that TM will just call another vote on it if it doesnt.

Thank you all for your very informative posts.

Anyway, to lighten things a little (I think!)....

March 29th 2019 (exit day) is also Good Friday. So we could have a Good Friday Withdrawal Agreement to uphold the Good Friday Agreement. LOL.

Louise
Tim Martin, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Nadim Zahawi
three out of four
TONIGHT

Irish comedians Foil, Arms & Hogg on the Brexit Divorce....

prettybird BBC QT did have Mairead McGuinness on a few month back - as she’s an Irish MEP does she count?

Farage has been on at least 32 times (set the joint record with Ken Clarke back in Feb 2018).

Farage’s latest appearance comes after it was revealed that Ukip appeared on almost one in four of the BBC’s Question Time programmes in the last seven years – despite never having more than two MPs.

uk.news.yahoo.com/nigel-farage-set-record-question-time-appearances-century-155615416.html?guccounter=1

@Talkinpeece. Thanks for that. The panel in full is:

Tim Martin (Leave) he's the Wetherspoons guy
Rebecca Long-Bailey MP (Remain)
Nadim Zahawi MP (Leave)
Benjamin Zephaniah (Remain)
Layla Moran MP (Remain)

So I make that 3-2 in favour of Remain

twitter.com/bbcquestiontime?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor