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?

Just looking at the Ramsgate plan. 24 miles of 'A' road before trucks get to the M2. Unless the main roads are better than I can see on Google earth that should be fun.
So they only have to find some ships (that will match up with the RoRo ramps at Ramsgate) some crew, dredge the sea lane, recruit and train customs officials and build extra facilities.
It takes a month to get a conservatory built and they have 3 to finish preparations.

30 years researching childhood leukemia is definitely worthy of a knighthood...

The brother I never really knew because of his agonising death from that.
How many other DC in the Uk alone over the decades; How many other mothers grieved until their own end

Yes, give knight hoods to any researchers who may reduce future agony & grief

Redwood .. has done FUCK ALL to deserve anything other than hollow laughter
He may indeed not vote for the WA

His knighthood was a pointless sop to that small batshit section of the party that has shown it has little power
and can't even organise to get rid of its own party leader, let alone the most complicated & dangerous UK undertaking since WW2.

Brill summary BCF.

Fabian Zuleeg@FabianZuleeg (European policy Centre, Brussels)

UK politicians calling for EU reform of FoM etc to entice UK to remain assume that the EU is somehow desperate enough to sacrifice core principles to keep UK in.
Completely delusional, will not happen

Looks like the guy resigned as secretary but stayed on as a director.

What I notice here is the French Interior Minister - not just at work despite the hols - but posing naturally with the national flag and the EU flag together
UK ministers avoid that sort of thing - even when they are actually working

Tom Newton Dunn@tnewtondunn

France 1, Britain 0 - again - in the war for message control.

Macron's interior minister tweets a pic of himself looking busy on Sunday morning (albeit with jeans on underneath the table).

No tweets from @sajidjavid yet.

#BrexitMeanzBungz

That Nigerian pilot being threatened with deportation because he was believed to be a stowaway is beyond parody.
My DPs have always been hard core Tories but my DM has finally conceded that they have gone too far to the right. She’s supposedly a practicing Christian and it has been painful watching her perform the mental gymnastics needed to reconcile her political beliefs with her faith.
She has eventually admitted that it is very unlikely that Jesus would vote for this bunch of fascists.
TM, Deadwood and JRM are hardly a glowing recommendation for the Christian faith.

Sorry the discussion has moved on, my comment was about the Seaborne Freight company listing
beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/10709921/officers

There seems to be another company called Albany Shipping Limited that shares a lot of the same directors (including the 80 year old!).

European Conservatives in countries where they belong to the Christian Democrats tend not to have that sort of wrestle with their faith,
as the CDU grouping keep to the social chapter as part of their Christain roots

Not always popular in the hard right, e.g. Merkel welcoming 1 million refugees,
but decent policies are supported by many people across the political spectrum and bring the country together

e.g. when I visited HR shortly before Christmas, I passed the Union office and saw again the graphic symbol
"Refugees Welcome"
that I still see quite a lot here - we donate clothes etc
I haven't seen it in the UK, but

Isn't that more inspiring than "Let the Children Drown"

This graphic is common in local govt offices here too
I can't imagine Javid putting it in the Home Office, or even many town halls choosing this symbol

Amongst all of the seabourne hiccups is they've spent millions fortifying calais ( which has only driven refugees to try even more desperate measures) but now if the fantasy freight rescue goes ahead, they are going to have to secure another port and this time in Belgium. Do we have an equivalent agreement to the Le Touquet with Belgium?

Jeremy Smyth
‏*@jemsmyth*

All of the officers of Seaborne Freight also officers of this older Co too

beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/08891537

Albany Shipping site here.

Investment Advisor
In 2015 Albany was fundamental in the creation of a new Shipping Fund in the UK specifically for the purpose of purchasing offshore vessels. The fund is based in Gibraltar and is managed by Flexagon Capital Solutions LLP in London, with TMF Custom House Fund Services (Ireland) as Administrator.

No we don't have anything like this agreement with Belgium.

The Le Touquet agreement took quite a while to negotiate with the French govt and local authorities, then tweak to work as best it could

It costs the French money & resources, which was politically rather unpopular even before the ref,
but reportedly French politicians gritted their teeth to help a fellow EU member.

After a No Deal Brexit, I wouldn't rely on the French, Belgians, Dutch or anyone else to invest millions per month on anything which helps an awkward 3rd country like the UK, rather than their own folk
They'll only do what is in their own interests.

brain, swedish Your posts alone show we need to know why - if the govt really wanted to include a Uk company - it had to be this particular one.

Director Jean-Michel Copyans was formerly involved with MyFerryLink, which ran boats leased by Eurotunnel.

Info here about a happy sounding company .

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MyFerryLink

From May 2018

New English Channel ferry service hopes to benefit from Brexit boost
An ambitious plan for a new freight ferry service across the English Channel is being launched despite the UK’s pending departure from the European Union. Seaborne Freight is a start-up venture that aims to reopen the Ramsgate to Ostend ferry route within a matter of months. The project is slated to cost about £100m, with all but £25m to £30m of the finance lined up.

translogistics.uk/2018/05/new-english-channel-ferry-service-hopes-to-benefit-from-brexit-boost/

This sounds plausible as well.

Jessica Simor QC
‏*@JMPSimor*

Unbelievable. Could it be that millions is being paid with both HMG & Seabourne knowing full well the service will never be needed (since no deal will never happen)? Reminiscent of the £50m of taxpayers' money paid for the garden bridge before planning consent was ever granted...

I'm just picking this all up from Twitter.

Missed the crucial info from Jessica Simor's tweet about Ramsgate being deemed obsolete. It was a shabby underused port 20 years ago.

twitter.com/JMPSimor/status/1079504647889539072

Yes, it all seems q dodgy. The Raincock chap set up another company v recently called Chichester Gateway + Services. Could it be linked to this?

www.chichester.co.uk/news/politics/decision-on-southern-gateway-funding-to-be-taken-in-secret-1-8396632

And several of the directors of Seaborne are also in a company called Litigation Management.

www.litigationmanagement.co.uk/about/#

Quite a diverse skill set they have

(Just picking this up by poking around the companies house site so may be adding two and two and getting five).

Other interesting comment

"I think you're Barking up the wrong tree here. It's a sweetener to get the local MP to vote for @theresa_may's Brexit deal. Craig Mackinlay is a member if the ERG. A £14million investment in a project in his constituency is a very nice bribe."

Omg! This is awful! Wtf is May doing? If all what you all are saying is true I'm really gobsmacked!

.

I remember going to Barcelona 2 or 3 years ago and seeing a HUGE banner hanging on the front of the Town Hall: ‘Refugees welcome here’.

I thought at the time that you’d be unlikely to see that on a Town Hall in the UK. Along with the EU flag, which you see everywhere on the continent. (Although actually I can’t speak for Scotland or NI.)

I believe the U.K. has a good reputation for giving money to international development projects. But doesn’t seem to want people to come here.

Do we have an isolationist mindset because we’re an island?

I believe the U.K. has a good reputation for giving money to international development projects

I think that should be had not has?

We don't want to give money to our own residents who are struggling, let alone those struggling internationally?

Apparently Jeremy Hunt used a column in the Mail on Sunday yesterday to praise the Singapore model for us. He was saying it is one of the most dynamic economies of the world etc.

What rarely features when Singapore is praised, is that Singapore is in the bottom 10 out of 157 countries for the wealth inequality gap between rich and poor.

The worst inequality gap scorer (below Singapore) is Nigeria where 10 percent of children die before their fifth birthday. TEN per cent.
Clearly, shamefully low health and social spending plus removal of any basic workers’ rights are the countries we now aspire to. Jeremy Hunt is advocating this, instead of the E.U. with its basic food and workers’ rights standards.

I'm cynically surprised we don't just go for the Nigeria model and be done with it.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-inequality-index/nigeria-singapore-and-india-fuel-wealth-gap-oxfam-idUSKCN1MI2C5