Realistically, how long will it take to do the house stuff?
Thats a how long is a piece of string type of question tbh. I need as much time as possible at the weekend to shift stuff into storage and go to the tip as well as sort out bits and pieces. I can't physically do it myself, and I need to guide DH with where I'm up to. Its 45mins by car to central Liverpool if the traffic is decent, or car to the station then around half hour in by train. So I could do a half day in Liverpool comfortably, which is considerably better than 7am start and a late night return going to London.
I don't think anyone has mentioned about Kwasi Kwarteng's leaked notes. Its a piece by Robert Peston.
www.itv.com/news/2019-03-21/what-a-brexit-minister-was-told-to-say-about-the-brexit-mess/?fbclid=IwAR0svdxvHCEdAVyeKnRhQuT1CTqr59EFdldU3zgIwzOlxxXCcq4nvm8xIB8
What a Brexit minister was told to say about the Brexit mess
This is utterly fascinating. Read it all.
What is striking – and important – is that Kwarteng has been instructed, presumably by Downing Street, to avoid saying that MPs face a choice between backing the PM’s deal and a no-deal Brexit, even though that is how the PM and the EU’s president Donald Tusk seemed to be framing the choice yesterday.
and
^
Expecting to be asked in interviews that it’s “no-deal if you lose MV3 [a third meaningful vote on the PM’s deal]”, Kwarteng is told to reply “you’re getting ahead of yourselves”.^
Elsewhere in the note, headed “top lines and Q&A” it says that if MPs reject the PM’s deal again, “MPs will have to decide how to proceed”. There is no suggestion that a no-deal Brexit is the automatic consequence.
In other words, the document rather poo-poos the idea that MPs face a straightforward binary choice between her deal and no-deal – and that rather reduces the jeopardy for them if, as I understand, a majority of them still expect to reject her plan next week.
I've also seen this circulating this morning:
Tom Harwood @tomhfh
Reminder: if May's deal is voted down we DO NOT get no deal.
If it's defeated, the EU has plans to hold an emergency Council summit in Brussels on March 28 where they would hand the UK a long long A50 extension - forcing us into EU elections.
assessing the options, leaving on 29th March with No Deal has one of the lowest likelihoods of all.
This is where I use salt liberally. I've not seen this said ANYWHERE else. Tom Harwood, I believe, is the latest recruit for Guido Fawkes. So a firm right wing journalist, but not a total nutter either.
I do not know if its true, but its circulating in certain social media bubbles - and actually it seems to fit quite nicely against the Peston Story above - and also potentially with all this stuff May said about EP elections and a long extension. Its certainly plausable, though I am not buying it as its something that would have had to have been overlooked by every other journalist there is. Which I find hard to believe.
Back to the NI story, and it seems the DUP are not happy bunnies:
Sam McBride @SJAMcBride
The DUP's Nigel Dodds asks Karen Bradley to do something "radical" by calling the Assembly to meet & "putting it up to the parties" to see which parties are prepared to form an Executive. Karen Bradley carefully doesn't answer his question.