Westminstenders: Local Elections Madness

[RedToothBrush]

This week has gone from banging your head against the wall to wanting to bang your head through it.

Labour have voted to support a 2nd ref as their EU election campaign strategy. Only for Corbyn to ignore it. And a row has broken out.

Change UK seem well on track to make everyone else look professional and to look as 'liberal elite' as humanly possible in a real life reverse paraody of themselves.

The Brexit Party is going from strength to strength with the most wtf candidates imaginable and Farage is happy cos his mate is coming to tea with the Queen.

The Liberal Democrats have decided that anti semitism is OK in an effort to keep Labour seats.

And the Conservatives. Where to start? Probably with the Tory Leadership Election infighting which looks suspiciously as if its now breached national security.

As for Brexit. No one really wants to talk about it. Local elections are next week. May is now apparently supporting the Malthouse Compromise. Be warned, it is difficult to see it as anything but a Trojan Horse for No Deal. Not that everyone has worked this out yet. But until we have the blood bath of the local elections over and done with on Thursday, don't expect much to happen.

Then expect the Tories to lose their minds...

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Day off but woke at usual time! Might pop out and vote early.

Another day at the hospital trying to get blood out of dgd. We are going to vote first then off we go. I wonder about the turnout today. We have had no canvassers around at all in our village. That has surprised me somewhat no leaflets either.

Taking my dd with us to vote after a post school thing. Always take her.

No local elections for me, will have to live vicariously through you lot today

I got distracted last night, but the article I linked to in the FT, mentioned that allegedly Boris Johnsons popularity rose when he wasn't mentioned in the media.

One is always relieved not to see his smirking face and haystack hair so involuntarily dislikes him less.

Interesting graphs on climate change and emissions from the Guardian. Really shows how bad USA is compared to Russia and China, yet it is frequently those latter two talked about on the news.

Nope I need coffee again. They've overtaken USA.
Anyone else just feel so mordaunted that we aren't part of a larger global trading bloc that could influence these countries?

if you are a looong way away from your polling station you can apply for postal voting.
you can have that sent to your new address.

daunted that we aren't part of a larger global trading bloc

With Huawei's big foot in our digital door.

Xianjiang anyone?

Beyond 5G: Huawei's Links To Xinjiang And China's Surveillance State

www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2019/04/25/huawei-xinjiang-and-chinas-high-tech-surveillance-state-joining-the-dots/#5188f030cd52

Looks like Labour is going after low hanging fruit of 'criminal investigation' of Williamson when they should be going after the substance of the case.

Our council counts tonight.

Our council counts on Friday morning and announces lunch time.

Nope I need coffee again. They've overtaken USA.

Per capita China still way below the USA. And remember that the US "exports" a lot of its CO2 emissions via US companies manufacturing offshore.

So our council does verification from 10 pm tonight then counting from 9.30 am tomorrow. What does verification involve? I'm a bit of a newbie with all this. Does that mean checking each vote to see if it's spoiled or not? Then all the good votes get counted the next day?

I'll be voting after the foodbank session today.

Dh after work.

What information was leaked from the NSC ? I am afraid I may not have been paying full attention.

Verification means opening the boxes up and checking that the number of votes in the box matches the number that have been ticked off as voting. It's a good time to check for anomalies and missing boxes.

Dd and I were talking about how we could reduce our carbon footprint. For us the biggest issue is the car, which I had to buy to get her to school after we were turned down for the one within walking distance (out of catchment by 0.1mi). It's apparently an eco friendly diesel, but I'm not sure there is any such thing. We both agreed that if there were no cars on the road we would both like to cycle to her school. As it is I admit I curse cyclists en-route as they cause huge tail backs in already crowded traffic, especially along a 50mph road.

It feels like the whole country needs a massive re-shuffle perhaps with people being awarded higher salaries if they take jobs within a certain radius of their home? The idea being that workers walk or cycle rather than drive for hours. I think the North/South divide would decrease if this was enforced as the local workers would fill local jobs rather than cities relying on expertise from other regions. I Just may be completely bonkers of course.

HesterThrale Chris Davies is my DM’s MP - she is outraged that he has been prosecuted (she is massively right wing Tory / Brexit / Trump) and insists he has been persecuted because he’s a Tory. The fact that he clearly broke the Parliamentary Standards Act (which I’m not sure could ever be described as “arcane”) by falsifying invoices has completely passed get by.

Recall petition might be interesting - the Conservative Group for Europe are based slap bang in the middle of his constituency,

So regarding climate change in relation to the UK.
The government has already hit manufacturing and trade hard with the Brexit foreplay and if the UK leaves, tariffs will cut profitability more.
It is (kind of) pledging to aim for zero emissions by 2050 (all very honourable) but to achieve this by a lot of research and implementation of new methods to achieve the technical capability at a time when investment and expertise are dwindling and the basic 'reasons' behind Brexit haven't been addressed yet.
Glass making (for insulation etc) and cement (for new building work) are near the top of Co2 production.
The problem is essentially the same as the UK on it's own 'telling' China (USA and Russia) to stop their current practices of expansion.
IIRC China is getting new coal powered power stations online at around one every 6 weeks or so.
Not so much David and Goliath, more ant and Goliath. While it is a worthy ambition, it needs some very serious thought about how to achieve it.
Humans should not attempt to live en masse in parts of the world where you need either permanent heating or 'air conditioning' to survive if the intention is to 'save the planet'.

Thanks BadKitten for the explanation. It's a tedious job by the sounds of it!

Lonely your DH's carbon footprint isn't as big as my DP's (that sounds like it's a contest but it isn't! ) ...he regularly flies overseas (mainly Europe but does go to the States occasionally) for his work, so often takes his car to the airport then a plane. I suppose because I'm housebound at least I don't add anything further transport-wise! I suppose if he could no longer do that he could work from home (he's in the IT industry). Last time he did that the poor car's battery went flat from lack of use!

Well Owen Jones new strategy is basically to frighten people into voting labour

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/01/remainers-own-goal-brexit-nigel-farage-brexit-party-second-referendum-labour#comment-128563816

God the man is an odious little sneak.

Labour are not pushing a second ref because they think their remain vote is secure and their leave one isn’t.