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.

Some people can have an argument in an empty room, regardless of how they voted.

I work with someone who appears compelled to have an opposing view on anything (however innocuous) you say to her. And she wonders why she spends the day arguing with her clients on the phone! 🙈 I think I disappoint her as I just shrug and move on if she does it to me; life's too short to argue all of the time!

Arguing with people about stuff isn't a solely-leaver trait!

Meanwhile the world is watching and none of the comments are flattering (and a lot of them a bit rich considering where they're from). The Chinese are already making an 'offer'. I think we'll be or are already being used by the chinese government as an example to highlight the failings of democracy. Depressing. However what everyone should add here: brexit is not democracy in action, it's mishandled direct democracy combined with misunderstood representative democracy.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/06/a-shambles-on-which-the-sun-never-sets-how-the-world-sees-brexit

This is more detail on Sos's mention of Zero hours ...what it's like trying to raise a family on a zero hours contract

And do you know the irony** if people voted Leave because they were struggling on zero hours contracts? The European Parliament had previously looked into banning zero hours contracts -but we one of the countries who really, really weren’t keen on banning them!
The U.K. government kept looking into them - but clearly did not want to ban them. What we did is allow them to continue but say employers mustn’t stop a zero-hours worker from getting work elsewhere!

Number of zero-hours contracts in the UK rose by 100,000 in 2017 according to the ONS. They help make employment figures look more positive too.

Having got rid of us, the EU Parliament were quietly able to achieve consensus on a resolution “to end precarious employment practices,” In particular banning the use of part-time “zero-hour”' contracts that provide workers with few benefits and little job security.

Zero hours contracts were already not allowed in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and Spain.

The furthest we would go is give a right to request predictable working hours which does nothing more than give workers a formal right to ask for more stability which can be refused.

TM has previously said the numbers of U.K. workers on zero hours contracts is small yet 1.8 million zero-hours contracts are in use.

This is a classic example of where as part of the EU we resisted doing something that protects the weak; collectively the other EU countries encouraged a more moral stance of setting a fair basic minimum.

Bloomberg~news~on~banning~zero~hours

facts~on~zero~hours

Well yes lonely. Turkeys. Christmas.

I've just received one of the last printed EU passports. Supposedly the cut off date was 30 March, but mine was printed on 2 April.

So have we, ifonly4. Ours were issued on the 1st of April.

Morning.
Off to do a shift at the local foodbank.

vanity sorry not had coffee yet so I am not properly awake but yes Lammy! Adored him for ages and think he comes across with integrity. Have him over Cooper as labour leader.

Sorry for my bold fails.

On Vanity's NHS I work in a deprived Northern city and just as you think you've got used to the poverty there are days it makes me feel so hopeless.

I had a conversation with a South African born grandma at school pick up this week. Her daughter had had a minor injury. Apparently she was advised that the next time you can get bandages quite cheaply from Poundland!

She was completely gobsmacked and was also talking about the isolation booths in the news she said " I come from a third world country but we treat people better than that..."

She had interesting insights she said in the U.K. we have this reputation of being superior to everyone else and but it's all talk and underneath the reality is very different. We had a complex conversation but I tried to ask her why she thinks it is and basically she thought we were the product of having had too much as a country for too long and being led by people who had never seen hardship.

My passport isn't due to expire until June 2024, or November 2023 depending on whether we are still in the EU or not! DD told me to get another to ensure that it said EU on it. I think I will wait until it's due to expire, because who knows, we might be petitioning to get back in then, or might not have left! As for the blather about the old iconic blue passports - more Leaver rubbish, they are not going to go back to issuing the very dark navy, almost black passports with the little windows with your name written in ink on them and the photos stuck in with pritt stick and then overstamped.

It’s controlled by the Russian mafia.

I am really pleased to hear of some Leavers being concerned about Russia though. That's actually a first!

I have asked and asked for an insight into the Leaver psyche on Putin but never get an answer when I ask. Never!

•Why isn't Putin seen as more of a genuine threat but Belgians are?
•Why isn't EU solidarity against Putin a good thing?
• Given Novichok, regular military vessels visiting our air and sea space and tens or hundreds (?) of thousands of clear Russian cyber hits on government websites why do Leavers never factor this in?

Why isolate us when that's a more profound threat. It's soooooo weird...

(Incidentally Putin is 66 when will he retire.)

I think we're being far too reductive about leavers...

Both sets of mine & DH's parents voted leave and they are:

• Educated, one to PhD
• Well travelled, all over the world
• Reasonably wealthy
• 3 out of the 4 are absolutely not racist*
• 3 out of the 4 are very tolerant & socially liberal*

*My stepfather however is an arsehole (racist, homophobic, thinks Trump is best ever President)

I am really pleased to hear of some Leavers being concerned about Russia though. That's actually a first!

But their concern about it was one of their reasons for voting to leave the EU...

DH and I have both recently received passports that have ‘EU’ on them. Hoping we might be back in by the time they need renewing again.

67chevy bless you that's a very generous way to send your Saturday morning.

Hazard - yes there's the rationing but also... There's illiteracy and overcrowding and not being able to afford to wash clothes too often or bedsheets and sending cancer patients to foodbanks and people working 2 jobs during cancer treatment because of the disaster that is UC... I've got high tech kit but I haven't got solutions for this kind if stuff. And this was just yesterday.

Looks like the somewhat (ha!) Eeyoreish James Patrick is right - has been right for all the weeks that he's said it - No Deal remains the most likely outcome.

And I do have the pro- European "feeling" that many of us voted on but I just look at a day like yesterday and wonder how these people, my patients and their families, survive if their lives get any worse.

The book "The Road to Somewhere" is the best explanation I've seen of the various factors that may shape someone into being a leaver or remainer and the values of both sets.

It's made think a lot more about the values of leavers and the fact that those values aren't wrong they are just different to mine. Our way of perceiving the world is so different we find it hard to see things from each other's points of view - but neither is right or wrong.

The votes are much more about values - not economics or practicalities and that's why factual arguments about these things.

Obvs I'm talking about normal people who are leavers here not the knuckle draggers that are Tommy Y-L's fans and similar. They're just dicks.

The Guardian ‘Shambles’ article is fantastic, well worth reading.

But their concern about it was one of their reasons for voting to leave the EU... 

I think these posts have helped me finally understand the Leave position on this.

Many leave voters don't see Tusk, Barnier etc as more of a threat than Putin, it's just that all foreign is lumped together?

Can it really be that simple and wrong?

Leavers = 'somewheres'.

They identify strongly with where they grew up, they're more likely to be in the same area or not too far away. Because it's part of their identity they feel strongly that changes to their area are a threat to their identity. They have a lot of pride in being British (or often English). They feel they haven't seen any benefit from globalisation but have felt or have seen negative impacts of it in their communities.

This may be different to how I see the world, but I can't say it's wrong.

If Macron gets his way we have less than a week. And he seems pretty gung ho - convincing Spain and Belgium, when his veto, alone, would be enough

Gung no is a good way of describing the obnxious prick. I'm not worried about him, like I've said before, he'll do what Merkel tell him. It's our own polticians that worry and scare me.

I agree with you @wheresmymojo.

I agree too with you last posts mojo, thank you.

Happy Birthday Pretty!

Many leave voters don't see Tusk, Barnier etc as more of a threat than Putin, it's just that all foreign is lumped together?

I would say that many leavers feel a level of pride in being British, their identity is strongly tied to country. They feel that Britain should drive its own path and so see any influence from other countries as undesirable.

They don't see Tusk etc as more of a threat than Putin. They understand Putin is more dangerous.

Again...if you look at it in these terms rather than reducing to something less complex you can see that they have different values but not objectively incorrect values.

If we keep reducing things to 'leavers are racists and stupid and hate foreigners" it won't help to understand where they're coming from.

{Gung no is a good way of describing the obnoxious prick.}

Glass houses and stones come to mind. At least he is not trying to take France out of the EU.
Since a significant quantity of food that the UK wants, from Spain, France and probably Italy comes through France, it pays not to be too rude.