Westminstenders: Competitive Stupidity

[RedToothBrush]

A week of wondering which MP is going to be the most dumb.

There is stiff competition between parties and remain / leave.

Expect incredible bids of ignorance and incompetence to curl your toes, with a bit of constitutional craziness thrown in for good measure.

Valentine's Day beckons...

... And so does the No Deal Divorce.

I know people say there's no point because China,

There's no point because it's too late. But things being what they are, an awful lot of time, effort and lives will be wasted chasing the promise of somehow "reversing" things, rather than being invested in dealing with the changes. Starting NOW.

{I know people say there's no point because China, but we can't make them change,}
It is difficult I would happily admit but part of the strength of the EU is that it tries to fight 'upwards' by putting environmental and peoples live experiences above sheer profit.
As I have said before, the 'bendy bananas' originated in the EU challenging farm bosses who were spraying field workers with pesticides rather than wait for the banana groves to be cleared of people prior to spraying. Persuading China and many of the other manufacturing countries to use 'best practices' is the way forward.
Clothing companies that check and continually monitor 'sweatshops' in the far East have some impact but need more. It does of course put prices up.

Live = life!

I vaguely remembered that Eurotunnel ran some Channel ferry services until the competition regulator ordered them to stop - apparently that was in 2015.

Grayling obviously didn't

Noone has run a Ramsgate service for a while, since the harbour has to be dredged first

So, unlike Seaborne freight, Eurotunnel at least had recent ferry experience, as well as current experience with handling huge numbers of passengers.
They also have a website that's not copied from a fast food joint
Therefore, it's odd they weren't asked to tender, but Seabourne were.

Eurotunnel's lawyer accuse the UK government of a “secretive and flawed procurement exercise”

• well, can't deny that ! 😂 The judge already sounds pissed with the govt, saying he only found out from a newspaper about new ferry negotiations.

Let's see if Grayling can lose us yet more money

TMs speech shortly is expected to tell MPs to "hold their nerve".

FFS.

I went to my drawing class today and brexit came up. It's pretty much all retired folk in a remain area and everyone is just fed up of the whole mess. This is usually my two hours of brexit free time so I was not best pleased that the horror of brexit has now contaminated even this small sanctuary.

Then they started talking about trump and I broke my chalk.

That's my morning in a nutshell.

One source says: “She’s been told – ‘You need to understand prime minister, it’s very simple maths – the ERG [European Research Group] will fuck you, fuck the Conservative party and they will throw themselves over a cliff. Your Remainer colleagues will not’. It’s who’s got the biggest balls.”
m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/theresa-may-no-deal-brexit-fallback-plan_uk_5c617348e4b0910c63f30fc8?fbm&utm_hp_ref=uk-homepage&ec_carp=3705907444531400056&guccounter=1

Just for clarity, I am not retired. I'm just not working right now for health reasons. I'm the youngest person in the class by quite some way.

I'm the youngest person in the class by quite some way.

I'm amongst the youngest for my morning swim - one chap is 90 ! But when I did my lifeguarding course I was the eldest. In fact I was older than the 3 youngest (16,17, 20) put together (and could swim faster than some ...).

They were as pissed off as could be with Brexit (this was 2017). Notice 2 will be able to vote now.

The Brexit prisoner’s dilemma

https://www.politico.eu/article/theresa-may-tory-mps-brexit-prisoners-dilemma/

It's crunch time for the Tory moderates.
< and I expect they'll back down, as always >

Inside the U.K. Cabinet, those most fiercely opposed to a no-deal Brexit return to their constituencies this weekend wrestling with the biggest dilemma of their political lives:
How long to give Theresa May before triggering the emergency escape hatch?

Jump too soon, by resigning to join a parliamentary rebellion against no-deal, and risk scuppering the prime minister’s negotiation with Brussels at its most crucial stage.
But wait too long and it may be too late.
Worse still, they will have abandoned their post at a time of national emergency.

I used to be the youngest person by a country mile in our Labour branch when I was a member. I am well over 40.

Hold the front page

Looks like NASA may have found somewhere big enough to bury Brexit ....

www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/12/earth_second_impact/

Scientists believe they may have found a second meteorite impact crater lurking under ice sheets on Greenland.

Researchers say they've clocked a hole measuring 22.7 miles (36.5 kilometres) wide caused by an ancient space rock slamming into our home world.

(contd)

Sorry, somebody has to mention this.

Does she bizarrely think the EU have never meant their complete support for Ireland and resulting insistence on the back stop? Hold nerve for what?

The EU 'leave things to the last minute' has been a complete myth. We are the ones who perceive merit in being a last minute merchant.

Inside Theresa May’s mind < shivers >

https://www.politico.eu/article/inside-uk-prime-minister-theresa-may-mind-brexit-deal-cliff-edge/

Would the British PM really drive the UK over the cliff edge?
Even her closest political friends don’t know.
....
The woman who runs Britain in its gravest hour of crisis since 1945 remains almost uniquely unknown for a prime minister.
.....
In interviews with MPs, Cabinet ministers and the most senior government officials who know her best, none were able to say which way the prime minister would jump.

(Friday, March 22)
Her choice: the economic catastrophe of no-deal
or the national - and personal - humiliation of a last-minute climbdown to ask Brussels for a Brexit delay.
......
Revoking Article 50 is a non-starter, most of her colleagues assume.

Any attempt to unilaterally withdraw the U.K.’s notice of its intention to leave the EU would be fiercely opposed by the Cabinet,
given that the European Court of Justice ruling in Decemberr^ means such a move would be deemed all-but irreversible.
....
The obstacle to revoking Article 50, however, is legal as much as political

Even revocation with Cabinet support does not change the law, as set down by the EU (Withdrawal) Act,
under which EU law ceases to apply in the U.K. from 11 p.m. on March 29.

To remain in the EU but not abide by its law would cause a crisis of its own

In other words, May alone cannot stop Brexit

The Cabinet, though, can authorize the PM to ask for a delay.
Few believe they would not.
And the assumption is that in such dire circumstances, the EU27 would unanimously agree such a request

The EU 'leave things to the last minute' has been a complete myth. We are the ones who perceive merit in being a last minute merchant.

I think that sentence basically sums up why we are where we at.

I'd assume in the VERY unlikely event that May chose to Revoke,
she'd use Henry VIII or Emergency Powers to repeal the EU WIthdrawal Act

Maybe she could be blocked from doing this - but i don't think the HoC would resist repealing the Act in that kind of godawful legal mess

Surely no PM would want to be the one who lurched us over a cliff. Even the Maybot is too patriotic for that.

Maybe she is, maybe she isn't. I wish we knew bellini.

No-deal Brexit would leave many businesses facing ‘extinction’, warns food industry chief

UK food industry has already threatened to stop cooperating with the government if politicians do not focus on Brexit

A number of British businesses are at risk of “extinction” if a no-deal Brexit goes ahead, the head of the Food and Drink Federation has claimed.

The warning comes after the UK food industry threatened to break off cooperation with the government because of the “catastrophic” risk of leaving the EU with no deal in place.

On Monday, the heads of more than 30 trade associations told Michael Gove, the environment secretary, that they cannot “respond to non-Brexit related policy consultations or initiatives”.

Organisations including the FDF, the National Farmers' Union and the Federation of Bakers said all attention should be focused on how to deal with a no-deal Brexit, which is becoming “ever more the likeliest outcome”.

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-no-deal-food-drink-shortage-business-theresa-may-vote-commons-a8775071.html

I'm 99% sure she'd rather destroy the country than the Tory Party

I hope I'm wrong

Sadly I agree. May never wasted a second thought about the lives she destroyed whilst she was at the home office and how she broke the law. Doing right by the party and hitting the tens of thousands number was all that mattered. We've seen her loyalty to the party above all else.

By your logic, it's OK for a University admissions officer to tour schools and tear up completed application forms on the basis "they wouldn't have got in anyway".

It's hardly 'logic' to create an analogy that isn't in the slightest bit analogous is it? For your analogy to stand Eurotunnel would have been invited to bid and then their sealed bid destroyed without opening.

In business it's perfectly normal to only invite preferred bidders to tender. I realise of course that government procurement has its own rules and the courts will presumably decide whether they were broken.

The fact remains though that Eurotunnel have no ferries, they are not a ferry company, they weren't set up to run ferries. They're specifically banned from operating ferries out of Dover. When they did 'operate' ferries in the past they leased the ferries from one existing ferry operator and subcontracted their running to another. I would no more invite them to tender to run a ferry service than I'd invite Tesco or Kids Unlimited to do it.

I liked Corbyn's joke about Grayling.

You only have to look at how the Tory party treats the most vulnerable in our society to see how much they care about the country. If you give zero fucks about the disabled, then you're not going to give too many about low paid workers in the north east.