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Brexit

Westminstenders: On An Election Footing

966 replies

RedToothBrush · 25/07/2019 16:22

Boris Johnson has set out his strategy.

He is challenging remain Tories to put their money where their mouth is, or to shut up.

His majority, soon to be just 1, is fragile but he intends to tough it out.

His Cabinet, is to all intents and purposes an ERG take over of the Tory Party, not unlike the Momentum take over of the Labour Party. And Johnson is looking to purge the party of its liberal wing, whilst pretending that he is liberal to make it acceptable to long term loyal Tories who might still waiver and merely vote for the rosette or like the veneer of respectability.

It has been made clear to Tory MPs that they will have to sign up to a No Deal Strategy should a snap election be called - or face the prospect of deselection. Disloyality will not be tolerated as Hunt's Cabinet backers all found out when they were sacked rather than be allowed to resign as Grayling was.

Instead Johnson reaped his revenge bringing back quitters and disgraced MPs as a deliberate 'fuck you' to moderates and remainers.

His message is clear and made all the clearer by the appointment of Dominic Cummings.

Today the Treasurery opened the piggie bank and told all departments to prepare for no deal. That is what is going to happen.

Parliament can not stop no deal. Johnson will drive it through regardless, even if its technically illegal. The default of no deal makes it an impossible juggernaught to stop without triggering a GE before the 31st October.

Technically speaking there are just 3 parliamentary days left this can be done.

And a GE is no guarentee of stopping no deal anyway. Cummings coming on board spells it out. Its a campaign strategy to reinvigourate the Leave Campaign and make all the promises that were made before. Of course there is no way of implimenting any of these before 31st October, so they just sound nice and people will believe them because they want to believe them. They want to trust and have hope for the future.

Yet with no trade deals and third party status, and crippling gridlock at ports and extra red tape for exporters and importers to deal with, it is inevitable that the economy will take a big hit. And Johnson's promises are expensive. His £39 billion he wants to withhold, is peanuts in the scheme of things and given what he is proposing.

The plan might sound nice, but it doesn't actually add up.

If we want a deal we will STILL have to sign up to conditions that Brussels sets out EVEN IF we no deal.

Meanwhile the US is ready and waiting to fleece us, because we aren't prepared to admit this and are too proud to see that this is a better option than have corporate American feast on the bones of the British economy.

Human Rights and Workers Rights are very much in the cross hairs with this. Health and Safety standards that have been set by London and then imposed on the EU will be burnt.

All the while the EU will be blamed for our own folly.

The worst thing is, people will actually buy it too.

Things are going to get a hell of a lot worse in this country, not because we lack optimism and hope, but because our egos are too big and we have been too idealist rather than recognising very real obstacles and finding ways to overcome than rather than just trying to ignore them. We will find out all those Paragraph Cs in good time the hard way because of the lack of attention to detail.

PFI and outsourcing will look like minor hiccups when the shit hits the fan.

I do hope that the puritians of the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats and the Remain Referendum Campaign are happy. This is also their mess. They have spent 3 years naval gazing and still don't understand nor know how to respond. This is where a General Election becomes a very real danger because they are clueless as to how to combat a reunited Leave campaign.

Be careful what you wish for going forward.

OP posts:
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DGRossetti · 26/07/2019 17:28

A criminal record would close the US escape route.

Not if you have a Presidential pardon.

bellinisurge · 26/07/2019 17:30

The President can't pardon people convicted by other jurisdictions.

DGRossetti · 26/07/2019 17:30

New Transport Secretary Grant Shapps imposes two page limit on rail documents he has to read

Actually I'm in two minds about this. It's not unheard of in business.

And who hasn't been advised to keep their cv short'n'sweet ?

Mistigri · 26/07/2019 17:31

Actually I'm in two minds about this. It's not unheard of in business.

In marketing documents and press releases sure.

Not in discussions of complex technical issues.

The man is a fool.

DGRossetti · 26/07/2019 17:32

The President can't pardon people convicted by other jurisdictions.

But they can instruct the Immigration service to waive restrictions.

ListeningQuietly · 26/07/2019 17:33

RTB
That 2 page rule actually sounds really sensible to me.
It is the job of the civil servants to digest and analyse the information with which they as permanent staffers are well acquainted.
They then summarise the options and give a recommendation to the minister who takes the public decision.
It is the opposite of micromanaging.
It is trusting the paid officials to do their job.

Mistigri · 26/07/2019 17:37

They then summarise the options and give a recommendation to the minister who takes the public decision.

You could argue that if the rule was about submissions to the minister, but it's about submissions to the Rail Group.

With the best will in the world (and I speak as someone who dumbs down complex stuff for the public and senior managers for a living) there are some decisions that require more than two pages of information.

DGRossetti · 26/07/2019 17:37

Not in discussions of complex technical issues.

But - and I hate to sound like I am defending someone as odious as Grant Shapps - he's not there because of his grasp of complex technical issues. And no one would pretend he is. His only job is to take the credit when things go well, and ensure someone else gets sacked when it doesn't. And you don't need War and Peace to do that. In fact to be honest, 2 sheets is a tad wasteful. A matchbox with some dice in it would enable him to do the same job.

Mistigri · 26/07/2019 17:39

DGR, this rule seems to be about submissions to the Rail Group not to Mr Peanut Head himself.

DGRossetti · 26/07/2019 17:42

DGR, this rule seems to be about submissions to the Rail Group not to Mr Peanut Head himself.

Er, are you sure ? From RTBs post:

New Transport Secretary Grant Shapps imposes two page limit on rail documents he has to read ..... In an internal email, seen by The Yorkshire Post, contributors to the Department’s Rail Group are also warned that Mr Shapps will “pay attention to the font sizes and margins” of any documents he receives.

Mistigri · 26/07/2019 17:47

Yes, i agree on further reflection that it's not clear.

But tbh that doesn't change anything. No decision to spend millions of pounds of public money should be made on the basis of arbitrary rules designed to pander to short attention spans.

DGRossetti · 26/07/2019 17:57

There is a slight sense of "can't win" here.

In a "Yes Minister" episode, Hacker demands to know everything that goes on in his department. Cue him receiving 5 boxes a night to review. Orders for paper clips. Discussions about seating plans (you get it). Feeling proud of himself, he is quickly deflated when it's pointed out to him (by his wife IIRC) that all he's done is given the civil service the opportunity to drown him in detail - so he could never spot the trojan memo.

He then does a volte-face and insists on receiving only the material he "needs to know" ... which is cue for more circular logic.

Personally I really don't give two shits what people like Mr Shapps in charge of a department know, don't know, want to know, don't want to know. What I do want, which never happens, is when there's a cock up, for them to own it on account of being paid an insultingly large sum of money that is supposed to recompense for just that situation.

Mistigri · 26/07/2019 18:02

The length of the document should be determined by the complexity and size of the decision, surely? Ministers don't need every small detail of every small decision made by their department. But when they are spending tens or hundreds of millions of pounds of someone else's money, they need to make decisions from an informed position.

Lack of attention to detail is what wasted tens of millions of your money on non-existent ferries.

ListeningQuietly · 26/07/2019 18:05

The length of the document should be determined by the complexity and size of the decision, surely?
No.
If a process is too complex to be summarised into clear decisions
it needs to be broken down until it can.

Grayling's ferries was the result of the exact opposite - a politician who did not encourage civil servants to present analysed evidence
and did not act on professional advice
again and again

DGRossetti · 26/07/2019 18:05

The length of the document should be determined by the complexity and size of the decision, surely?

Er, you realise you said that out loud ?

On the Brexit forum ?

ListeningQuietly · 26/07/2019 18:06

DGR
I was too busy thinking procedurally to ROTFLMAOPMPL Grin

DGRossetti · 26/07/2019 18:11

Can someone find the posters that said I was being ridiculous about scrapping metric, and kick their arses, please ...

Mr Rees-Mogg makes clear he would prefer staff to always use imperial measurements, most of which were phased out from the mid-1960s.

Westminstenders: On An Election Footing
Mistigri · 26/07/2019 18:12

If a process is too complex to be summarised into clear decisions
it needs to be broken down until it can.

Do you make complex capital spending decisions in your job?

DGRossetti · 26/07/2019 18:12

I really hope he gets trolled with grains, and US pints and gallons. He can then spent many a happy hour explaining how the Queen Anne measures were introduced.

DGRossetti · 26/07/2019 18:13

El Reg duly noted - let's see what fun they have Grin

Mistigri · 26/07/2019 18:13

Can someone find the posters that said I was being ridiculous about scrapping metric, and kick their arses, please ...

Oh my word. Someone's having a laugh surely? That looks like a twitter meme.

probstimeforanewname · 26/07/2019 18:16

New Transport Secretary Grant Shapps imposes two page limit on rail documents he has to read

I once met the Colonel who was heavily involved with British forces in the Balkans. He made everyone put everything on one sheet of paper.

If Grant Shapps sorts out the railways and ploughs ££££ into cycling I will accept that he is not a fool.

tobee · 26/07/2019 18:22

How about a bushel and a peck Jacob?

Mistigri · 26/07/2019 18:23

Oh my word that JRM thing seems to be true! There is also a "banned words" list. Shock

QueenOfThorns · 26/07/2019 18:26

Double spaces after full stops? He’s proper old school Grin

(I agree with the rest, apart from the Imperial measurements and Esq. bit)