Westminstenders: Waiting for Sanity

[RedToothBrush]

We could be waiting a long time, but that's what we have to wait for as that's what the EU is waiting for.

The EU has requested we expand on our plans for 'alternative arrangements' with regard to the backstop.

We need to do so before the next HoC vote on 14th Feb. The EU see no point in shifting their position before than. And the UK will struggle to provide the info the EU want before then. So there is now some doubt as to whether the vote will go ahead as planned.

About a third of the Cabinet now believe that Brexit will have to be delayed due to legislation not being ready for exit date. However we don't have power over this and we might still exit without it.

There is no Brexit related business next week in the HoC to prevent pesky amendments. The recess has been cancelled but MPs have been told its OK to go on their ski holidays so it's just a PR stunt.

Meanwhile No Deal is in full effect as businesses trigger their exit strategy in the absence of certainty. No Deal is reality for many even if we do have a last minute deal...

We are all about to get poorer. As that's what we voted for.

Re languages
The reality is that most of the world population is at least bilingual. And yes that’s including all the developing countries. They often speaka regional dialect and the official language of the country for example.
So yes, nowdays in western countries, learning one or two languages is the norm too.
It’s will soon only the English that think speaking several languages is unusual.

Btw the teaching here is crap. In part because of the curriculum (why learning to speak anything else than basic stuff to go away in hols??) You can see that with adult courses too.
But teachers are crap too. Their language skills aren’t always great. But they also often lack the mastery of the grammar. And if you want to learn French or German or Spanish, that ISgoing to be an issue too.

Sorry I’ll rephrase my last sentences.
Not all teachers are crap. Some of them ARE good at what they are doing. It’s just that they are hard to find - both due to the shortage of teachers and because some of them aren’t good at all (think mixing some words up, using expressions that are wrong but telling the students ‘they are high level expressions they have to learn’ etc...)

Was brushing my teeth this morning and it dawned on me that one way to make leavers see how batshit we are finding all of this (as it is so patently clear they haven't the foggiest) is to ask them to substitute the work "brexit" for "EU".

'The Queen is being evacuated because of the EU' would be sure to rile them?
IMO the government have managed this all a long time ago - TM giving Nissan something in exchange for Non Disclosure Agreement. I wonder how many other companies are doing similar despite NDA's?

work = word.

So listening to the radio I hear MPs are going to waste their time discussing the Malthouse fiction and considering non existent alternatives to the back stop.

But that's ok, it's not like there's only a few weeks to go.

The thing I find so depressing is the amount of MPs who, even now, after everything they must have been briefed on, think that this could be the solution. Perhaps the collective noun for a group of MPs should be an incompetency or a gullibility.

But that's ok, it's not like there's only a few weeks to go.

Maybe it is OK, if it increases the likelihood of an extension.

Once we've had one extension I genuinely think the chance of serial extensions rises exponentially. (Remember when the absolute, final WA deadline was last October? Lol)

I agree. If the can keeps on being kicked down the road then I think compromise / fudge / BINO becomes more likely. The problem is that business still has the uncertainty.

I’m not holding out much hope for this new Working Party to come up with anything - Patterson and Fysh? FFS.

Thus far, May is still insisting NO Extension

An extension would infuriate the ERG batshitters
and the pattern to date is that the Tory moderates always run away at the last moment - 8 of them are too few to worry May

If the cabinet and Tory moderate MPs don't put real frighteners on May, FINALLY, then she'll just continue to pander to the ERG,
who'll continue to demand more & more concessions.

At this rate, in a few weeks she'll be announcing a GE which will close down Parliament until Brexit No Deal has happened.

The moderates need to make their final stand before it is too late

Hard Brexiters say only acceptable way forward is to remove backstop

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/feb/03/hard-brexiters-say-only-acceptable-way-forward-is-to-remove-backstop?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copiar_en_el_portapapeles

I'm pretty sure that May knows she will have to extend Article 50 and knows the ERG will kick off; so she's delaying the extension to the last possible minute. It's not a terribly responsible way to behave his a his the country as a whole, but that's been her modus operandi throughout.

With the £60 Million being suspended/stopped I presume the thinking in government, when job losses start, is that they voted leave and by implication DELIBERATELY made themselves redundant, so any additional benefits above bare minimum can be withdrawn.
The fact that at the time the government wanted them to leave (by voting) being a 180 degree turnaround will simply be forgotten.

I spent 15 years working in Community Education where, among other things, I taught French. Students are anxious about learning grammar until they understand that having a grasp of grammar enables them to be productive users of language (ie to speak and write). The way to teach it is by constant practice and repetition but in my experience, having gone to Spanish classes which were appalling, a lot of teachers aren't willing to put in the preparation and effort themselves - they just "work through the book." Similarly all three of my children supposedly learned French, German or Spanish in school, but what they actually learned were set phrases which they used to pass their exams. That's fine so long as the people you meet when you're in that country only ask you the same questions or use the same phrases as your examiner! I did GCSE Italian a couple of years ago, and again it involved learning phrases and passages in advance and reproducing them under exam conditions - there was no creative or spontaneous use of language - the emphasis was simply on reproducing perfectly something that you'd learned before. There's a real need for a drastic overhaul of language teaching in this country. We also need to get across to students that learning a language is not difficult - after all we've all done it at least once.

“I don’t think people will lose their jobs,” he says. “In my opinion it was on the cards to start with. It’s just scaremongering. I think they’re hedging their bets and waiting to find out about tariffs. They are just playing it out. I think Nissan will do anything to get more money from the government.

“They keep a lot of people around here in employment. It’s so central to the area that the government will probably subsidise any tariffs Nissan should be subjected to.”

www.theguardian.com/business/2019/feb/03/sunderland-locals-worry-as-nissan-scraps-plans-to-build-new-x-trail

Are these people living in the same universe as I do?! The Tories will do everything in their power to keep Sunderland afloat?!

I'm pretty sure that May knows she will have to extend Article 50 and knows the ERG will kick off; so she's delaying the extension to the last possible minute. It's not a terribly responsible way to behave his a his the country as a whole, but that's been her modus operandi throughout.
I agree, Irene - she is utterly irresponsible. IMHO the worst PM in my adult lifetime and in my whole lifetime, on a par with Anthony Eden.

chickens I agree with your post at 00.37 and want all the same things as you.

I also want NOT to have to fill up a secret cupboard with a stockpile of food, NOT to have to worry about how to encourage DCs (at Uni and living in their own places) to start a stockpile, and NOT to have to worry about how to persuade elderly parents and PIL to start a stockpile. Without worrying them.

There’s only so much worrying you can do for other people.

DH and I did an Italian course some years ago. The younger people in the class could talk, but grammar was a closed book to them. What was more annoying to us wasn't that they didn't know some grammar, they didn't want to know. As a result they chattered away in what one language teacher had referred to as pidgin Italian.

I did Spanish with a very good teacher who had lived in the UK for 30 odd years, and she wasn't too proud to occasionally ask for help with an expression, saying that she was still learning. This was usually a more nuanced expression that the class would have to think about, and give a couple of suggestions, but this is the difference between a working knowledge and real fluency.

Mind you, I think the mistake happened when they stopped teaching English grammar for O level. We had one section on grammar in the NUJMB O level paper in 1967; the following year this was done away with, and you just had to prove that you could use grammar correctly.
I sound like an old curmugeon with this this, but some things do need a structured and disciplined approach (tell any successful athlete!)

@IrenetheQuaint
I am no fan of TM - but maybe she is forced to operate this way - the moderates in her party are bullied by ERG , labour hopeless (JC and whip have no control of his party/ I wouldn't trust JC to be double dealing in the background) - so to take the middle rode she has to play it to the wire and scare the bejesus out of the "sensible" in her party?

It is a situation of her own making - she should never have triggered article 50 - it has literally put her and the country over a barrel

I thought that Anthony Eden had been regarded as a reasonably successful politician until Suez? Was May ever regarded as successful? She held the post of Home Secretary for the longest, but led a dysfunctional xenophobic department. Apart from an initial honeymoon period ('Theresa's doing well' DH heard once), after her disastrous election it's been downhill all the way.

She should never have stood for PM - let the Leavers fight it out, and own the whole shit show, and then ride in as a dull but hardworking PM who set out to clear up the mess.

R4 atm has a very good debate about the rise in surveillance tech and populism/authoritariansim. I think it explains well why we have had Brexit - EU (Germany in particular) very keen to curb silicon valley. I think we've seen enough to know we are a petri dish for USA. Data capture is huge.

@Missbel I said to my husband that I believe TM will be vilified in history. Unfortunately I think other who should be won't - Bojo, JRM, Farage....

I want to be able to go back to having conversations with people without thinking, "Which way would you have voted?"

wherearemychickens I do this too, although I try not to as some Leavers voted that way for reasons they believe to be sound, not all are knee-jerk bigots.

Bold fail!

I haven't yet heard a sensible reason from any Leaver.