Westminstenders: Welcome to 2019

[RedToothBrush]

Welcome to 2019.

Bit of a different thread starter; instead of me speculating what are your predictions for the coming year politically? Will be interesting to see how people are viewing things right now.

How is Brexit going to play out?

Who is going to be framed as the scapegoat for whatever scenario you think likely?

What are going to be the biggest political issues that the media / politicians push (as opposed to what the real issues are)?

What is going to be the most shocking thing that will happen either here or abroad?

What will happen with Trump?

Who will be the next Tory leader and when?

Whats on the cards for the various political parties in general?

As much as I find any kind of Brexit absurd, the WA is (I admit reluctantly) our best and perhaps only hope. Hearing and reading No Deal shills call up radio shows or spout their bullshit online really sends chills down my spine. (Not to mention the fact that I'm seriously worried about what the same kind of mindset is currently doing to the US.)

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b180956c-106c-11e9-aa1a-52868904fdf4
Troops must be ready for Brexit chaos, says defence minister Tobias Ellwood

The government must ensure that thousands of troops are available for deployment in the event that Britain leaves the EU without a deal, a leading minister has said.

Ministers at a no-deal Brexit planning meeting on Thursday were told that 30,000 regular troops and 20,000 reserves must be ready to help manage the consequences. Sources said that Tobias Ellwood, a defence minister, warned that troops may be needed in case of civil unrest, to help at airports and ensure the safe delivery of fuel and medical supplies.

50,000 troops.

Just remember 65,000 police were deployed for the first weekend of gilets jaunes unrest followed by 90,000 the following weekend.

There are 126,000 police in the UK (including British transport police).

And 1000 police are being trained up for the NI border in the event of no deal.

Somehow these numbers are not looking sufficient...

@Mistigri - I totally agree. I think WA is terrible for all the reasons you say. But I willingly exchange this terrible cliff edge for one in the future. I give in , Theresa May, I'm willing to be manipulated and cowed into accepting something I don't want.

Andrew Bridgen on No Deal today: We won’t be crashing out, we will be cashing in
Ha, incredible, they can sometimes speak the truth- except that 'we' in that sentence is sure as hell not the British people...

@bellinisurge I agree that the WA beats no deal hands down. But if the aim "putting Brexit to one side and focusing on something else" (ie what the PP wanted to do) it's not a sensible strategy.

The point is we WILL NOT be ready for the march cliff edge. We might have a few more things in place by the time of a cliff edge in two years time.

A cliff edge in March ironically might be better for my living arrangements - both housing and job location wise on a personal level but this will be at the expense of everyone else. Which isn't a good enough reason to favour no deal.

The only people who genuinely think no deal now is better than the WA, are those who are economically cushioned, have assets or options outside the UK and have had an empathy bypass.

Arj Singh @singharj
We'll still have food, says a senior Leaver: “We won’t be able to get certain foods like bananas or tomatoes but it’s not like we won’t be able to eat. And we’ll be leaving at a time when British produce is beginning to come into season so it’s the best possible time to leave.”

Riverford @riverford
It'd be the worst time: late April/May is the hungry gap, when the winter crops have finished & summer crops aren't yet ready. We have so little ready to harvest that we have to temporarily stop our UK Only veg box, because we often don't have 8 British vegetables to fill it with

Should we believe a senior Brexiteer who has probably never planted cress or should we believe a company who sells veg boxes.

I know, we've had enough of experts. It's got to be believing in Brexit opportunities and that Britain can be successful.

Whilst eating turnips.

I go back to times when fruit and veg were seasonal. You only ate veg in season. Now we eat them all year round and have forgotten what used to happen. I never went hungry when fruit and veg were seasonal. Yes we didn't have an option for so much variety of food as we have now all year round. But we didn't starve. Just saying.......

You could tell what seasons were by the fruit and veg available. Strawberry and raspberry season, new potatoes, brassicas etc. Our diets were controlled by the seasons. Not a bad thing imo.

Fair enough

But I like pizza.

I eat mostly seasonal as I use a veg box. There's a fair bit of cabbage at the moment, carrots, sprouts, swede. It gets quite tedious. By early spring it gets more tedious.

red

Our local veg box is excellent. Provided I can still have pizza and curry too.

You can do so much with winter veg! Stew and dumplings, curry, casseroles, pies, steam puddings, roasts, vegetable samosas, onion bahjis, vegetarian dishes......and turnips keep very well for a period of time especially buried!

Don't forget you can pickle, make chutneys, preserves etc.

Yes you can. Shame my four year old is fussy. We are struggling to get him to eat veg as it is. We just about managed to persuade him to dip bread into veg soup yesterday. He would not touch most of the above.

If there is also a milk shortage we might face real problems.

We've tried everything.

That's a good point. Ready made custard is long life... Must put those on the book shelf next to the passasta.

There was a dire situation in Haiti after the horrific 2010 earthquake that they experienced. At a base that the U.S. military had established there were stacks of much needed medical supplies just sitting around doing nothing.

There was disagreement and confusion between the Haitian Government and U.S. officials about where the medical supplies should go and to whom and as a result there was simply an absence of authority with regard to these medical supplies, nobody could get permission to deliver these supplies anywhere.

Meanwhile the Haitians at their impoverished, still surviving hospitals were having to use rusty hacksaws to perform amputations without benefit of any anesthetic drugs.

When I read about that and particularly about the fact that there was a hospital about a mile and a half from this base where these horrible operations were taking place and everybody knew about this but apparently could do nothing about it, well sorry but if I was there I would have loaded up a truck with as many medical supplies as I could and then busted through the gates if I had to.

If the powers-that-be wanted to court-martial me for delivering these much needed medical supplies, fine, go ahead and court-martial me.

Shortly thereafter on TV they did an interview with Jack Keane, a retired American four-star general and former Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army regarding this very subject. He said that in the absence of authority one has to become the authority by asserting it.

So if he was a low-level nobody in this type of situation he would have done the same thing as I decided I would have done ( boy do I love this guy ).

I saw a link with a caption underneath it about one way a no-deal Brexit could be stopped with a picture of Queen Elizabeth II above it. I thought YES!!! and clicked the link. Apparently though it's questionable whether she would have the authority to do such a thing.

With apparent chaos at Westminster it would be fine with me if she asserted authority ( whether she technically has it or not ) and said this ( no-deal ) is not going to happen.

There is a saying that soldiers will follow a sargent they trust more readily than an incompetent officer that they don't. In this case the queen is the sargent and the incompetent officer is Westminster. The queen has always struck me as a very sensible and solid person and I would back her 100% if she made such a move though I a foreigner be.

Okay, this is such a heavy duty subject I probably need to go watch a comedy or something.

100% with you on that xebob.
I believe the King of Spain in the 70s prevented a military dictatorship from gaining power back when Franco died. Thanks to him, Spain is now a democracy. I don't know the details though.

Unfortunately I don't think the Queen has any real power. Not sure though as my history isn't up to much.
They do a lot of different coloured veg now especially carrots red they come in lots of colours that maybe you could disquise in something your DC might like. So if he likes mashed potatoes for instance you could get white carrots and mash in with it.
A blue carrot may make it fun to eat.

The pup whose huge now is a fussy eater and if things get bad food wise I will have to be very firm with her. She will have to eat what I can give her. She's a dog not a human so i symphathise for those with special diets or fussy eaters ( dgs is one of these) and people with autism who definitely have problems with food.

The poi The point is we WILL NOT be ready for the march cliff edge. We might have a few more things in place by the time of a cliff edge in two years time.

Two years for companies to move their production out of the UK if they are serving European JIT supply chains. My employer's new Eastern European manufacturing plant will be ready by December 2020.

The Queen doesn't exercise any real power but she is still the Head of State.

if I was there I would have loaded up a truck with as many medical supplies as I could and then busted through the gates if I had to.

Why do you think that government ministers are now talking about troop preparedness? Busting down a gate is all very well as long as you're not going to get shot doing it.

But otherwise: yes, governments in a panic make bad decisions about resource allocation (ferrygate) and often the decision making process goes into complete stasis.

The thing is, extra winter veg to see us through would already have had to have been planted.

Winter veg
Carrots, leeks, kale - all planted last May and harvesting now
Spuds - planted last March, lifted in September, in a clamp to be eaten now
Apples - harvested last October, chopped and in the freezer

Winter veg has to be planned 9 months in advance