Westministenders: Teetering on the edge

[RedToothBrush]

12 weeks to go.

There is rising confidence in the Extreme Brexiteer camp as well as open comments about how they can deliberately force through No Deal. Remember No Deal is the default. Every political crisis that takes up time makes no deal more likely and the ERG can just be obstructive to facilitate a political crisis. Parliament DO NOT have the ultimate power to stop Brexit - unless the government effectively allow an option to do so. And there is no sign May will let this ever happen. No Deal takes us back to pre-industrial revolution Britain in many social and economic ways. Which will please Jacob Rees-Mogg no end.

No Deal prep is now costing us a fortune - and is no where near sufficient in its scope. Won't someone think of all the extra that could have been put into the NHS.

Parliament returns next week. I hope you have enjoyed your Christmas break. What will happen in 2019 no one knows; the only certainity is turbulance and lurching from crisis to crisis. If we don't get hit by Brexit, maybe it will be the US shutdown crisis or the collaspe in the Chinese economy that will get us. Economists are nervous and thats generally not a good thing for the average person on the street.

Time to get in the euros, stock up on the tomatoes, invest in books and otherwise batten down the hatches financially whilst we await the coming storm in the hope that the forecasters are as good as Michael Fish in 1987.

DGR
I saw it on my feed too.
Does not make it anything that a fellow Remoaner did not put together at home.
Until I see evidence of it in a Medical premises I take all such things with a pinch of salt

{Hence why I'm hoping it will be hand-delivered, ideally prepared in advance and given to the ambassador as an emergency contingency
rather than May frantically trying to Skype Junckers at 10:55 on 29 March, when he's already down the pub}
Assuming the investigations were correct, the Naval radio chain was inoperative due to ionospheric effects so they used Telex and a guy cycles around to the relevant office, this being part of the delay.

One reason why religion can be dangerous ....

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-reveals-how-her-faith-in-god-makes-her-certain-she-is-doing-the-right-thing-a7442616.html

independent.co.uk
Theresa May says her faith in God gives her confidence she is 'doing the right thing'
@Rob_Merrick
8-10 minutes

Theresa May has described how her faith in God makes her convinced she is “doing the right thing” as Prime Minister.

In a rare interview – in which she said the “hugely challenging” task of Brexit leaves her with little time for sleep – Ms May opened up about her Christian beliefs.

Speaking with the Sunday Times, the Prime Minister was asked how she steeled herself for the job and the tough decisions ahead,
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She replied: “It's about, 'Are you doing the right thing?' If you know you are doing the right thing, you have the confidence, the energy to go and deliver that right message.”

Asked if that was a “moral” approach, Ms May added: “I suppose there is something in terms of faith.

“I am a practising member of the Church of England and so forth, that lies behind what I do.

“It's not like I've decided to do what I'm going to do and I'm stubborn. I'll think it through, have a gut instinct, look at the evidence, work through the arguments, because you have to think through the unintended consequences.”

In the interview, the Prime Minister admitted that it was the “really complex issues" at play in the process of leaving the EU that meant that “in this job you don't get much sleep”.

She said: “It is a moment of change. It is a hugely challenging time. And we need to get on with the deal in terms of Brexit. And I'm very conscious of that.

"I want to make sure that everything we do ensures Britain is a country that works for everyone. And that we really get out there and forge a new role in the world post-Brexit.”

Ms May spoke about growing up as the only child of a clergyman. Her father, Hubert Brasier, was the vicar of an Oxfordshire village.

She said: “Being brought up in a vicarage, of course the advantage is that you do see people from all walks of life, and particularly in villages you see people from all sorts of backgrounds and all sorts of conditions, in terms of disadvantage and advantage.

“What came out of my upbringing was a sense of service.”

On not having any children, the Prime Minister said: “Well, that wasn't possible, so you get on with life,” adding that she has nieces and nephews and godchildren.

Ms May revealed the celebrity aspect of the job has taken her by surprise, saying: “I did do my first wedding video the other day.

“I came out of a shop onto the street and there was a smart young man and he said, 'My friends are getting married today, will you do a wedding video for them?'

“It was sort of like a selfie, but I had to say, 'Hello James and Sarah, happy wedding day!'"

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She was also asked if her husband, Philip – who accompanies her frequently - found it hard being a male political consort, replying: “Well, I hope it's getting easier than it used to be.

“We don't want a situation where we feel it's really difficult to be a man if a woman happens to be prime minister.”

Does not make it anything that a fellow Remoaner did not put together at home.

Hence it was posted without any comment ....

The Pesto view (from the comments on that FB post).

I note there's no debate about the content. Merely the provenance.

DGR
I do not doubt for a moment that its the truth, I'm just pretty sure that the naice little consultants who do PR for the NHS would not have cleared it for printing

What catfromjapan said:
My elderly neighbour when I was a small child signed up for the 1WW.

I interviews him as part of an O level dissertation (oral history! 😁).

He said he and his family were starving. Literally. He signed up because he'd be fed and there would be one less person to try and support in the family.

Most alarmingly, he told me that that's what kept him there, in the trenches. There wasn't anything better to desert to.

So. There's a thought.

Honestly, I think of him when the tired old 'they voted Leave because things couldn't be any worse' line gets trotted out.

Explains exactly why "I voted leave cos I've nothing to lose" pisses me off so much. Like so many things about the leave vote, it's an example of people knowing nothing about quite recent history.

it's an example of people knowing nothing about quite recent history.

Which I suspect isn't an accident.

NumberFaker No, I think the Salisbury Convention would probably still prevail,
but since it has never been written down, it is more what the HoL decides it is !

The LDems back in 2005 said the no longer felt bound by it, due to decreasing voter participation and govt share - even though Labour had won a comfortable majority of MPs.

(If they were whingeing about minority %, we have to look back to 1931 to find the last govt elected by over 50% of voters)

It was suggested that Salisbury shouldn't apply for minority govts, so Blair in 2006 organised a joint HoC-HoL Commission to investigate incorporating this idea and making other updates in a formalised written version.

However, this was never done, due to lack of agreement on nailing anything down and losing flexibility

In practice, the HoL would be taking a tremendous responsibility with the serious risk of No Deal, in over-turning a WA agreed by the HoC.

They would carry the can - and the HoC and indeed the whole govt are desperate for a scapegoat.

So I'm pretty sure the great majority of peers would fall back thankfully on Salisbury,
except for a few batshit Ultras and possibly a few Remainers too, who would anyway be fanatical enough to vote against even a majority govt.

Golondrina, that's heartbreaking...

What I don't understand is how the older generation would be more aware of this history, so why were leave voters the older demographic (typically, I know I'm generalising) Did they not think "well it's not perfect but hey, we're at peace and relatively few people are starving"?

Most voters back a PV and also Remain

Big majority against No Deal

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-news-people-vote-yougov-poll-final-say-referendum-eu-mays-brexit-deal-a8713651.html

YouGov poll

25,000 voters - biggest since the ref

Pro PV
53:47

Remain vs Leave (result is consistent with other polls in showing clear remain lead)
54:46

Remain vs WA
63:37

Remain vs No deal (far outside margin of error)
58:40

Most voters back a PV and also Remain

But that's not the will of the people is it ? We had a referendum - so that's that.

easilyflattered The Leave voters you mean are of the post-WW2 generation,
with no memory of the 1920s / 1930s hunger and - if they are like my elder Leave relatives - minimised and avoided any firsthand accounts they were given.

The age group 85+ might even have been a bit different - I can think of a few Remainers I know in their 90s, so direct memories of their own.

Point for discussion:

I wonder if an important factor separating Leave and Remain voters in my boomer demographic is not just that Remainers were much more likely to be in the 6% or so minority that went to uni,
but also
were those who listened to the firsthand tales of deprivation and didn't reject them or find their poor DPs / GPs shameful ?

@Easilyflattered , you have to remember that most older voters were kids at most during wwii and would have been as protected as possible by their parents. They, like me, will have been brought up on a diet of inspiring black and white war films that rarely covered the reality.
My mum was in her 80s and voted Remain as her last vote before she died.

The Leavers aged 90+ may have come from families who didn't suffer themselves too much
and who - like we see even on MN - were particularly harsh in assigning fault to those others who were very poor

I do know one 90+ Leaver who had a hard time in the war as a teenager supporting her family (ill mother, father died of long-term effects of being gassed in WW1). However, she also remembered the late 60s/early 70s before we joined the EEC, when things were fine for her, and harked back to that. She is too old and not well educated enough to understand the massive changes since then to how our economy operates.

I just assumed that if as a child your own parents or grandparents told you stories about their extremely poor upbringing you'd take heed. I have ancestors born in a workhouse, and also some that left Ireland during the great famine. My mother's 72 and there's no way she'd vote leave because of these old family stories.

She’s extraordinarily good at avoiding answering questions...

Brexit: Theresa May hints she will force MPs to vote multiple times on her deal if she loses

She keeps saying she’s ‘delivering on the will of the people...’ I wonder if she loses any sleep at night worrying that it’s no longer the will of the people.

She may make the Tories so unpopular they’re not electable again. It’s not like they’ve achieved anything else to boast about AT ALL in this parliament.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-latest-deal-vote-theresa-may-eu-negotiations-commons-jeremy-corbyn-a8713946.html

I remember the 3 day week as colouring by candlelight and hitch hiking out to friends in the country
I suspect my Mum remembers it rather differently

Me too @Ta1kinPeace .

Irene It is a point that most of the West experienced a "golden period" from about 1950 to 1970 / 1975, depending on country.

this was the boom after the post-WW2 recovery, before the rightwing monetarists started in the late 1970s and before the disaster capitalists in the 1990s, the removal of banking regulations,

in particular before the hard right rose to power in the UK and US and ruthlessly transferred wealth and rights away from the 90% towards the 1%

Western govts, business and the whole ruling class were terrified that ordianry people would be attracted by communism,
but once the USSR fell, they had no need to worry about that, no counter-balance to greed,
so they felt free to bring in the most ruthless forms of capitalism

I remember the 3 day week as colouring by candlelight and hitch hiking out to friends in the country

For me it was sitting round in freezing student digs wearing fur coats (it was fine for male hippies to buy cheap fur coats from Oxfam) smoking endless joints by candelight. It was grim, although the joints helped .

I knew people who would hang around in shops waiting for the power to fail so they could nick stuff in the dark. As soon as the lights went out, you could hear things dropping on the floor as the shelves were plundered.

Yes. The numbers are there for a PV.

I suspect that's why the more extreme Corbynites have been mobilised to trash the idea of a PV and promote Lexit.

🤦‍♀️

I was in my late teens with my mum and I remember candles in the evening during the 3-day week
and keeping the fridge closed.

However, that and the TV were the only gadgets we had that were affected
We put the washing machine on during the other days.

Far more gadgets now and 24/7 TV and social media etc ... all requiring power and - bloody Apple - with limited power duration

There was some passenger transport disruption, but there was normal goods flow to / from the continent
So, we had no shortages of food in the shops - and certainly meds were not affected

No comparison really to No Deal - we just had a domestic union dispute;
we hadn't cut ourself off from the continent or from our other trading arrangements

Three day week near to us meant looting from the shops. Several of the businesses didn't recover and we ended up with even fewer amenities than we already had. We had a substantial walk to a launderette (no washing machine). It was 20 years before I was within commuting distance of a shop with fresh fish.