Westminstenders: Compromise is a difficult word

[RedToothBrush]

Today the HoC had a water leak. It closed the house for the day. This isn't without consequence; any hope for the opportunity of Indicative Votes on Monday had cold water poured on it.

Meanwhile talks between talks between May and Corbyn were about as productive as you'd imagine. But apparently they had nice tea and biscuits.

The Cooper Bill, the last minute lock on May getting a extension to prevent no deal, has been in the Lords today. I say it's been in the Lords but Tories have filibuster Ed on procedure for over 6 hours to prevent the chance of it passing the house. Tory whips are timetabled until 6am but the opposition benches have vowed to go to 7.30am. So far the votes to ruin the procedure have failed comfortably so the opposition have the number. Its just a question of time.

The trouble is with the Lords not sitting tomorrow that means the bill won't get passed until Monday and there are fears it won't get royal assent until Tuesday.

The bill doesn't prevent accidental no deal but it would be a barrier to May.

It therefore looks like May's gambit with the EU to get an extension is to say her plan is ongoing talks with Labour for a cross party solution. It won't wash.

No deal looks more and more likely.

Customs Union explanation
(apologies if already posted by someone)

www.wired.co.uk/article/what-is-the-customs-union-definition-single-market

People who say "we managed fine before the EU" were probably not in jobs that involved travel.

As someone whose extended family actually lived and worked abroad I could not agree more!!

Up to you if you choose to be dismissive.

Is this fight Friday .

Not being dismissive at all. 2 is 2 is 2. But 2 is smaller than 3 and bigger than 1, and if you only have 1,2,3 then it's an arithmetic puzzle.

Imo that turnout is shocking!

Again, go deeper ... why, and more importantly, what would it say for an election in June (for example) ?

Ultimately, each passing day is damping the "Revolting Leavers" threat which has become received wisdom. Farages failed march ... the resolute peacefulness of an order of magnitude more Remainers.

Sorry, it's very, very hard to fight the impression that the Leave curtain is peeping open, and the Wizard might be seen any moment now.

After all if we can have 3 years of chaos over 2%, then anything more than 2% seems worthy of centuries of debate ...

The reality seems to be they could quite openly campaign for Remain and not really lose too much - if any - support.

The neighbouring constituency is heavily leave. If it votes for anything but a red rosetted donkey I'd be staggered. Remain / leave is irrelevant.

I am in favour of times tables and adding facts up to 20 by rote learning. Too many DC get turned off of sums all together because they don't get over the basic hurdle of mastering numerical mechanics. However it has to be done in the right way. Rigid testing too early just reinforces fear of failure which is a massive barrier to learning.

My DD2 was thoroughly demoralised when she was 6 because the rest of the top set were competitively doing mental maths and reciting their times tables. She is very very mathematically inclined which as an accountant mother I could tell.

I asked for her to be demoted to the middle set and put in a lot of home effort till she was passably competent with the rote learning stuff. (she also took ages to learn to read and still cannot spell because of the same dislike of rote learning). The irony is that because she is geared towards conceptual and analytical thinking she came top of her year in both Maths and English GCSE equivalents 10 years later.

Recently had parents night for DD3 who is 7 so at the times tables stage. Her Scottish school approach (now CfE has properly bedded in) is introduce, encourage learning, reintroduce, encourage learning, reintroduce, encourage learning little and often. DD3 is sharp as tacks and her teachers are always concerned I will think they are holding her back. However I have no such qualms. This approach means the bright ones have plenty of time to reinforce things till they become second nature and engaged classmates catching up to them all the time. No-one is bored or turned off by monotonous fruitless repetition in a concentrated target driven rush.

Michael Gove is exactly the same age as me and both Scottish educated. Right up until he transferred to private school he would have benefited from free range learn / don't learn at your own pace. I am inherently very lazy and a tad non-conformist and can remember a great deal of time spent creating my own entertainment in primary school. There may have also been a few spells out in the corridor but I generally managed to charm my way out of the belt.

I wonder if Gove is still reacting to the culture shock and feelings of inadequacy from transfer to private school from a "trade" rather than "professional" family.

A year (possibly less) extension with various potential outcomes is still not going to provide any certainty for possible business investment

red ah, but will the same apply in blue rosette areas??

Meanwhile, talking of the Daily Mail ...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47825157

UK house price growth will continue to be "subdued" during Brexit uncertainty - particularly in London, according to the Halifax.

(contd)

suggests another thread unravelling ...

With Newport West, until 2017 when UKIPs vote pretty much folded everywhere else too, Labour had been slowly losing ground to the other parties anyway. Throughout the late 90s and early 2000/2010s UKIP we're slowly gaining support. UKIP have massively swung up this time, whilst labour still held so I'd agree with DGRs conclusion. Also notable who the UKIP candidate was this time (Neil Hamilton) which May well play a part.

Turnout down 30% on 2017 though.

Thats significant.

Dontlickthetrolley
A quick thank you for the article link - now several pages ago. It shows even more inconvenience caused by the UK. It is a wonder the EU Council, MEPs, institutions etc continue to be as reasonable towards us and Mrs May in particular.

I wonder if Gove is still reacting to the culture shock and feelings of inadequacy from transfer to private school from a "trade" rather than "professional" family.

No I think he’s just one of those stupid arrogant people who think because they went to school they know how to teach and set a curriculum.

My mother, who was an academic before she retired, wages a one woman war against Gove who she calls ‘the frog footman’.

My tory mp would love a majority of 'just' 2000. Sadly (for him) he's not even a quarter of the way there.
Newport is a good result. It shows that, even if some voters are still brexit mad, they're still not a coherent majority - and labour won't get punished in the polls for being soft or even no brexit, even if that's just because all the hard brexit factions are too split to beat them.

Add in that the turn out suggests that, above all else, apathy reigns supreme - and it looks like 'the will of the people' is becoming insufficient as a fig leaf.

I feel silly asking but are there county and district elections on may 2nd too?
Or was it just parish and local councils....
Google is not being helpful

I agree with you on UKIP / Conservative vote split potential Bigchoc.

However I think there may be a UKIP / Labour potential split in some seats too.

Matthew Goodwin was on This Week last night. Interesting analysis on our stats discussion yesterday. He reckons in 2017 Conservatives lost Remainers and picked up UKIPers. He didn't say this, but since LibDem vote was static 2015 to 2017 can only assume Conservative Remainers went to Labour and / or LibDem and the 25% Leave LibDem went Labour. So in summary hence why Conservative "voters" now are much more Leave than in 2015 and Labour "voters" are much more Remain.

2015 "voters" and 2017 "voters" are different for BOTH Labour and Conservative.

(sorry an aside but should read 25% Leave LibDem split between Labour and Conservatives)

Also notable who the UKIP candidate was this time (Neil Hamilton) which may well play a part.

I don't think it's too much to say he would be a "big-hitter" (treble checks typing there ) in UKIP circles and gained some boost from fame/notoriety. A relatively unknown candidate would almost certainly have polled less, as they wouldn't have the Googel-fu that "Neil Hamilton" would have in the press.

Turnout down 30% on 2017 though. Thats significant.

Again, incredibly. Firstly it suggests that the person in the street isn't quite as consumed by the burning need for Brexit as the ERG keep trying to sell to us. Secondly - again - what if repeated nationwide ? The ultimate expression of disgust/disillusionment/despair with politics is the simplest. Don't vote. Is that what happened here ? And if it is, and repeated nationwide, then who would it benefit or harm most ? And how would that play out.

For me, these are questions I am sure are being pored over in the most excruciating detail across Tory, Labour LibDem and the various factions of alphabet soup that make up Brexit. And unlike the utter codswallop the public was presented with, I am sure the analysis will be forensically thorough. Because it's the first unbiased polling result after the non-Brexit of 29th, and it was conducted while Jezza is facing calls from 25 Labour MPs to resist any talk of a PV.

Yes, one swallow does not a summer make. Buy at the same time, if it's the first bird you see in spring, you're going to look at it very carefully .....

I wonder why the Tory party don't care about their Remain voters?

I'm always surprised that the Cash for Questions scandal - with 2,000 quid in a brown paper bag - didn't kill Hamilton's career stone dead

but since he managed to get elected as an MEP in Wales, others obviously accept much lower standards for politicians than I do

or is the scandal sufficiently long ago - and opponents too nice to raise it now - so most voters have no idea that it happened ?

Tatiana that made me laugh. My Gran was a primary teacher in the slum schools of Glasgow. She spent her career bribing the kids to do the boring stuff so she could entertain them with her pet interests - wide and varied. I doubt she would have much time for Gove.

Tragically her son got private education (I think free) as part of the Glasgow deal to bribe graduate women like her back to the classroom. He would have got much more out of education if he had been in her classes. I have inherited most of his personality and would not have thrived in a private school one size fits all environment in the same way he didn't.

Littlespaces Remainers are less than 30% of Tory voters and about 10% of party members

The party has swung to the right since even Thatcher's day, so some previous Tory Remainers would have switched party even before the 2016 ref

Also, with the bogeyman Corbyn in charge of Labour and the Walking Dead / Retired in charge of the LDems,
Tory Central are not so worried about those voters switching elsewhere

They are more likely to close their eyes and vote for the usual pig with a rosette, or stay home if they really care about Remain

Hmm, I wonder what else has been the same for the last 10 years? Productivity puzzle indeed .
Do you think Tories will re-name it Brexterity? Jazz it up a little for the masses?

Littlespaces Conservatives cannot out Remain LibDems or Labour and if Soubry, Allen and Wollaston are typical nothing but full Remain would keep Conservative Remainers. They can only play the "fear of socialism" card and hope it trumps "fear of Brexit".

I didn't realise it was as low as 30% Remain voters in the Tory party. Explains a lot. Thanks.

They can only play the "fear of socialism" card and hope it trumps "fear of Brexit".
They don't have to do anything with Corbyn as Labour leader. It would be a game changer if he were replaced with Starmer.