Westministenders: BAH HUMBUG said Mr Rees-Mogg

[RedToothBrush]

"At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge Rees-Mogg, ... it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."

"Are there no prisons hostels?"

"Plenty of prisons hostels..."

"And the Union workhouses foodbanks." demanded Scrooge Jacob. "Are they still in operation?"

"Both very busy, sir..."

"Those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge ^Rees-Mogg, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

He continued "Besides I do not believe that anyone would die without them. I think Theresa is right, there are many complex reasons why nurses go to food banks. The real reason for the rise in numbers is that people know that they are there and Labour deliberately didn't tell them. To have charitable support given by people voluntarily to support their fellow citizens I think is rather uplifting and shows what a good, compassionate country we are"

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This thread is dedicated to Mrs8 and anyone else who is working to make life just a little better in the difficult circumstances that ALL politicians are currently doing their best to ignore (despite what they profess).

No Deal = even more poverty and destitution.

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HERES HOPING FOR A HAPPIER NEW YEAR
especially to those of you, who might be having a tough time or facing real uncertainity.

I don't disagree with him that if TM had wanted soft Remain this is where she should have started with her pitch. However I'm not convinced it would have prompted a different, less hard line reaction from the EU as he suggests.

The original staircase chart, published by Barnier very early in the process, is your answer to this. Norway was always on the table (+ a customs union for NI).

PCPlums hope things are going okay and I think the way your spending Xmas is fab

I would feel so much more confident we could avoid No Deal if only Corbyn wasn't running Labour

• his gross incompetence and delusional claims have all along been blocking Labour from being an effective, sensible Official Opposition. Prevented them from looking like the alternative govt that voters can turn to.

The hard left and the hard right form temporary alliances, so they can shaft the rest of us

• we're seeing that in France too It helps when you don't have genuine moral principles to worry about


Sam Coates Times@SamCoatesTimes
Times interview with ⁦*@johnmcdonnellMP*^ - I can talk to DUP & can see us working together^
.....
Nicola Sturgeon@NicolaSturgeon

A Labour Party that often seems allergic to any prospect of working with progressive SNP is quite happy to cosy up to the DUP.
Westminster politics - Tory and Labour - really has lost the plot.

< that I can agree with >

Misti I wish May - or even Cameron - has gone for the Norway template at the start
and negotiated a WA that outlined all the things we needed to customise it.

Sadly, Norway doesn't want us
Not that they are in a huff at all the toxic UK behaviour since the ref,
but because EFTA votes on accepting each piece of EU legislation and Norway fears that UK vetos would leave EGTA hopelessly adrift.

So, EFTA, one of the organisations the UK actually helped found, won't have us

It still grates too, that the UK won't have a judge at the ICJ, another org that the UK helped found in 1946,

• for the first time ever the UK couldn't get enough countries to vote for a UK judge when the current one retired

Brexit continues to reduce UK influence and "soft power"

I dread to think where No Deal will land us in the international league table

• in the Dunce's Corner, i suppose

If it happens, I will never forgive either May or Corbyn for the consequences

• I expect the history books will hammer both, but especially May.

Corbyn will be just an ineffectual footnote

{Westminster politics - Tory and Labour - really has lost the plot.}
Cameron killed the UK and has burst the 'strong, pragmatic and stable' illusion which has been foundering for some time.
While the British people will eventually recover, they have been let down catastrophically by successive governments by prioritising 'profit' over national stability with solid infrastructure both in terms of hardware (Houses, roads, trains etc) but by well educated and healthy citizens.
The UK mindset needs a 'reboot' in a way that happened to Germany post WW2.

LeClerc
The UK mindset needs a 'reboot' in a way that happened to Germany post WW2
Interesting you say that.
DH is of the view that the countries who had to reform their political systems after WW2 (and got rid of FPTP) are now in a stronger position than those who did not ....

Exactly re the reboot - I know someone who was 95 in 2016. She said she voted remain because she saw how much Europe learnt the lessons of the world wars. That the creation of the EU was a product of this.
We have lost most of the generation for whom this is in living memory

Misti Norway + still looks like the EU's end point under the WA with Backstop. However that is not Brexit.

LeClerc I disagree. I don't think it is particularly healthy to have increasingly ineffectual and less and less representative coalitions in the shrinking middle while ignoring the unpalatable. Thinking of all the various machinations to avoid recognising the AFD in Germany but iirc Sweden and many others are similar. Even Ireland has ended up with FG and FF in quasi coalition rather than addressing the reasons both are losing votes.

lisamckenzie1968.wixsite.com/website/blog/pressing-the-fuck-it-button

Great description of the motivations. Absolutely NOT worth the ride. It's like suicide. Cry for help. Pointless outcome.

My point is really that the UK has an unjustified feeling of 'superiority' and entitlement burned into the collective brains. Having murdered and plundered it's way around the world 150 or rather more years ago, as did many European nations it is leading to the idea that the UK SHOULD be 'top dog'.
Those who actually interact with other nations regularly in business for example appreciate that in some things a Brit or German may have a slight edge on some matters, but maybe other 'national traits' make them more suitable at other aspects. Nobody is the absolute best at everything and it is learning to use a diverse range of talents to achieve a better outcome that needs to take place. The old I in 'team' thing.
There are of course unpleasant elements in all societies but I think I am right in thinking that if society in general is maintained to a decent standard, homes, food, jobs for example the whole benefit.
BCF suggests that although taxes are quite high in Germany, most see it as beneficial in that infrastructure is generally good and the numbers that feel excluded are relatively few. There is a danger of reading too much into press headlines as on the whole they want to report sensationalist news so might give an impression that the whole country is like that.
The UK, or at least the bits that aren't NI have had a barrier of the sea which gives an air of isolation to some degree, just a little twist which makes it a little less necessary to get on and negotiate with neighbours. In Europe you don't have 'hard' borders where those on one side of a road speak German and the other French, they blend and at least appreciate differing culture.
Dealing with groups who hold unpalatable views is of course a problem, but ignoring and failing to engage is not the answer.
While the UK might want to pull up the drawbridge and retreat from Europe it will soon learn that it is a very poor policy.

If the UK put tax rates back up to what they were under Thatcher, there would be no need for austerity

However that is not Brexit.

This selective post-hoc interpretation of the referendum pisses me off. It's dishonest and most of all it's astonishing ignorant. Brexit means leaving the EU; Norway is not in the EU.

We had endless posts on here during the run-up to the referendum, mainly I suspect by shills (I'm not saying howabout is one), variously touting the Norway/Iceland/Switzerland model as an end-point. The referendum only asked one question: in or out. It made no promises about how.

It is arguable that there is/was no need for austerity over the last 10 years IF a set of better policies had been followed. Playing to what some SAY the country wants but understanding what the country NEEDS are completely different things and politicians on so many countries need to understand both. Mr Macron is having a bad time as his plans, which might be quite good don't fit the countries narrative and he has a lot of 'old baggage' that he needs to lose. Similar in so may countries where everyone wants LOW taxes but HIGH standards of living. Working out an achievable plan is one thing but 'selling' it to the country, especially when you have 'rabble rousers' out to destroy everything simply for the sake of it is very difficult.

The scale and range of trade of Norway/Iceland/Switzerland is completely different to the UK and as such has very little chance of working.

Bloody Corbyn, it’s popped up on the BBC app that he’s pledged to peruse Brexit if theirs a snap election.

He’s going to renegotiate a deal

In Europe you don't have 'hard' borders where those on one side of a road speak German and the other French, they blend and at least appreciate differing culture.

I am not sure that this is the case. I have known French speaking Belgians who have never been to the Flemish parts and see absolutely no reason to do so. Or again, Germans living almost on the Dutch border who have no desire to cross it.

Yet in other parts, around Aachen for example where Belgium, Netherlands and Germany meet, people seemed to be to ing and fro ing all the time across the borders - the dreigrenze area they call it. Each of these have places or towns called Limburg and sure enough at one time there was a Duchy of Limburg where they were one state.

Childcare costs are ridiculous in the UK - I am childfree, but I can see how unfair it is if ordinary people can't afford to work for years once they have kids, or if childcare means they are working for buttons & pension
Childcare is heavily subsidised In Germany and most other EU countries or the demographics would be worse

Childcare was one of the first casualties of Austerity and your second paragraph answers the first.
There are now virtually no subsidies, grants, bursaries or funding for childcare: parents - and providers - are expected to cover fully the costs of professional, good quality care for children.

The only subsidy is the grossly unfair 30 hours “free” childcare for 3 and 4 year olds that in so many areas is inadequately funded.

Peregrina
Of course there are exceptions.
Gods own country would be happy for Lancashire to be swallowed up.

It HAS to go through both houses and the old style GOP folks will stand up to him on that one.

I think when the history of this period is written, it will written as the time when people didn't stand up to the slow creep of tyranny (again).

Wasn't it Thatcher who headed a campaign in the 70s based on a narrative of "well at least they wouldn't touch that. But they did ..." ?

Of course that has a corrosive effect on the population as cynicism grows, and faith in democracy shrinks. Eventually the two meet in a sweet spot called "Vive la revolution !"

oh here you all are!

The only subsidy is the grossly unfair 30 hours “free” childcare for 3 and 4 year olds that in so many areas is inadequately funded.

Not quite true. If you qualify for UC 85% of childcare costs are met so parents are effectively forced into low paid work to receive benefits to top up inadequate wages. The benefits in turn continue to suppress the wages. The final irony being many of these jobs will be in childcare and community care.

Talk I started work with Thatcher in power. I find the current disconnect between paying tax in return for services baffling.

I mainly blame the LibDems for pushing raising the PA and driving the divide between payers and receivers. I also blame them for embedding the expediency of TB's University fees and loans to grow the tertiary education sector and graduatise all jobs.

I find the current disconnect between paying tax in return for services baffling.
There we can agree.
The tax base has become too narrow
47% of adults do not pay income tax
so do not have skin in the game

47% of adults do not pay income tax

my first thought was “that simply can’t be true” but actually that’s probably right

It’s like a previous poster said. We want high tax benefits but we want low taxes.