Westminstenders: "I don't give a flying flamingo"

[RedToothBrush]

Amid scenes parliament was shut down.

In an unprecedented comment the Speaker, stated it was not an ordinary prorogation and it was blatantly an attempt to stop the executive being held to account.

And now it seems a Scottish Court agree with him:
"Lord Brodie cont: "the principal reasons for the prorogation were to prevent or impede parliament holding the executive to account and legislating with regard to Brexit, and to allow the executive to pursue a policy of a no deal Brexit without further parliamentary interference"

Thus parliament must reopen. Unless the decision is overturned in a higher court.

This is constitutionally a big deal. The Queen is highly unlikely to attend a reopening, especially in this manner, due to how political it now is.

General Election campaigning has already began with parties trying to take full advantage of the fact that there are currently no rules over spending.

Dominic Cummings actively and openly campaigning for the Conservatives whilst paid as a civil servant by the tax payer is a huge breech of the Civil service code but MPs are struggling to pin the government down on this as its being obstructive.

Cummings is keen to use data to target and personalise people based on their usage of the .gov portal for Brexit. This is OK as its in the national interest apparently. Its also incredibly sinister and concerning about how this could be used against the population.

Anyway if you thought parliament closing would result in a lull in events you were very much mistaken!!

What next?

DGR

Surely it was England's Civil War. It was before the Treaty of Union and the War was about the conflict between the English Parliament and the King (although he did happen to be King of Scotland too as the Union of Crowns had happened).

At least, that was the way that Cromwell, the regicide, the Roundheads and Cavaliers were taught to me in primary school.

I will bloody love it if the Scottish courts manage to stop Johnson.

Bet they wished we had got Independence now.

You posted ahead of me pretzels - and I'll take the scolding on the "first"

....although my point was also to infer that the next Civil War may be England only if Scotland manages to make a successful run for it

Surely it was England's Civil War.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_the_Three_Kingdoms

A rose by any other name ...

Also, when someone has shoved a pikestaff up your backside, I doubt correct nomenclature is the first thing on your mind (although the pikestaff might be the last ....)

If you're going to play Wikipedia pages

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EnglishCivilWar?wprov=sfti1

Bugger - the link didn't paste properly

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EnglishCivilWar

The irony of arguing over the definition of the civil war on this thread cannot be lost on all, surely ?

FFS - it won't post properly. Look it up yourself:

Howabout

?

I wonder if these Scottish court cases are really a stalking horse for independence ? It's not impossible to think they're goading the Supreme Court to adjudicate that Scotland isn't an equal country in the Union, but a subjugate country to England ? Arguably calling into question the status of the Act of Union ?

Or am I overthinking these things (which would balance out the underthinking by the shouty brigade ...) ?

Yep, pretzels imo at least the 4th English civil war and I'm no history buff

Giving just the centuries, because I didn't study any of these periods:

• 12th Century Succession civil war after the death of Henry I without a living son,
  his dd Queen Matilda vs his dn Stephan

• 15th C War of the Roses

• 17th C What is usually called "The" civil war

• 21st C Authoritarians vs the rest

Anyway, back to BJ-Cummings' habitual lies (yes, I know, every time his mouth moves ): I was shouting at the TV during PMQs when BJ claimed that Scotland paid the highest taxes in Europe. Glad to see that C4 fact-checked it.

https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-johnson-on-scottish-taxes

Turns out his lazy prepping and lack of attention to detail meant that he had misremembered that Scotland pays slightly more income tax than the rest of the UK - and conveniently forgets that eg council tax is generally lower and that there are other benefits (eg slightly better welfare payments to mitigate the worse of UC and other undevolved welfare payments and free prescriptions )

I don’t think Jo Maugham or Dale Vince care much about Scottish Independence.

DG I don't think there are any Scottish plots

but if Westminster isn't v careful then there probably will be Scottish Independence

• all these insults and riding roughshod over Scotland

And of course, although NS has her faults, she is miles more competent & savvy than any of the 3 main Westminster party leaders

• admittedly a really low bar

The 12th century civil war (started 1139 - which I know because of the Horrible Histories song) was called 'The anarchy' - because no one had a frigging clue what was going on and the whole country went to shit whilst they duked it out... Can't wait to find out what pithy name they're going to give this latest one.

Anymore of this Scots Law shenanigans and I think Johnson will be phoning Sturgeon begging her to set a date for the Independence referendum.

"no one had a frigging clue what was going on and the whole country went to shit whilst they duked it out."

nearly 900 years on ....

What do you think about Black Swan? Is it real, will it be released?

Rosamund Urwin @rosamundurwin
"This is not Project Fear — it’s what we face after no-deal Brexit". Operation Yellowhammer is not the worst case scenario (that's Black Swan), this is the government's "base" scenario
From 18th August

Given that this is the journalist who leaked Yellowhammer, it does tend to suggest that Black Swan is real.

Given that Yellowhammer is the base line and talks about medicine shortages, you tell me what happens if there are widespread shortage of medicines which keep people alive?

Lets go full on dystopia and think this through.

Yes you can ration, but that means you also have some people who might not get some. This is a rather large issue.

What happens then?

You'd have people collapsing and are rushed to hospital in large numbers. Hows security going to be at hospitals? Would you get people killed as people steal drugs? Riots as people try and get some for their loved ones? Surely this means potential injuries if its a clear life and death thing? That's even more strain on emergency services. Imagine the chaos and the strain on the system.

How long does it take for us to get to this stage? Remember the ports are all bunged up for days and the approaches are car parks. There's limited fuel or no fuel. How do you get drugs in? There's trouble in certain places due to the food riots, so the drugs can't get through cos key roads into the hospital are blocked and the army are already dealing with problems? The airports might be used but where you going to get the drugs from? Any company selling those drugs outside the EU will see a business opportunity.

And then there's a terror attack.

It's not hard to get to this from Yellowhammer because by the time you are at Yellowhammer, disaster planning management is already at full stretch - if not beyond...

Dd is currently doing "the English civil war " in history at school. I am resisting the temptation to ask her to compare it to now. She's only 12 and doesn't need that shit.

The irony of arguing over the definition of the civil war on this thread cannot be lost on all, surely ?

Nor the unreliability of using Wikipedia as a source for both sides of the argument

If there was ever any doubt that this is a fascist coup: today the Fail ran an article about the 'Spartans' (ERG undergoing a rebrand here?) pushing for an alliance with Farage... 'we need Farage' it says.

This will not end well.

Is now the right time to introduce PR voting?

Who the heck are 'the spartans'? because of they mean JRM then King Leonidas would laugh the haunted pencil dandy of town and then ... you know, stab him.
Can't imagine him being to impressed with Mark Francois either.

www.theregister.co.uk/2019/09/12/uk_politicians_blame_social_media_for_their_terrible_laws/

Some 42 per cent of Brit MPs reckon social media has damaged their policy-making processes, which is in turn having a negative affect on members of the public.

In a further demonstration of self-flagellation, nearly half – 48 per cent – of the Conservative MPs surveyed felt this way even though they are the party in government turning their own policies into law.

(contd)

Forty Eight percent ? Fancy that ....