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?

Nicholas Watt @nicholaswatt
Signs of the beginning of a climbdown by Boris Johnson on the 21 Tory rebels? The chief whip Mark Spencer has written to some of the rebels outlining the appeals procedure, adding pontedly that future support for the government will be taken into account. Not going down well

Absolute fury from one of the rebels at the chief whip’s remarks in the letter that receiving the Tory whip is an honour and loyalty expected. The rebel says this is a government with ministers who actively brought down Theresa May

And there is anger that the chief whip trying to pick off the rebels. Some receiving letters, some not

One of the rebels is so angry they are thinking of leaving the Conservative party altogether

Nicholas Watt @nicholaswatt
Another rebel tells me they have not received a letter from the chief whip. ‘I think I have pariah status,’ the MP says

Time for Brenda to earn her vast wealth and privilege?

No, not really.

Reaction in Germany:

They've always regarded the UK as eccentric, but as another responsible adult in the room when the chips are down
Brexit some time ago turned that opinion 180°

Soon people in the EU will say of Hungary:
"well, at least it's not as bad as Britain"

Trumpton@Trump_ton
I think we are a week away from Johnson selling Northern Ireland to Greenland and declaring war on Scotland

Paul Brand @PaulBrandITV
NEW: Understand new @LibDems policy of pledging to revoke Article 50 and cancelling Brexit has put off one potential defector who had been close to joining the party.

“For me revoking Article 50 is just the opposite of No Deal - neither brings the country back together.”

UKIP and Nigel Farage would be finished.

Same aim for both DC’s (Cameron &Cummings) just different ways of going about it.

So what laws does a SPAD have to work under? Surely there is conspiracy to mislead public (unlikely given politics) or assisting crime?

Supreme Court seemed much more deferential to govt than the Scottish Court:

Tom Newton Dunn@tnewtondunn

The High Court disagrees with Scotland's Inner Court: PMs can prorogue to shut up MPs if they want.

Wonder if No10 dare to use that successful legal argument in the Supreme Court next week?

====

Matthew Holehouse@mattholehouse

An eye-opening passage from the High Court judgment in Miller on prorogation.

Claimants' case in London and Edinburgh was that Johnson had an ulterior motive ie Brexit.

Court says even if that's true, it's out of their hands: prorogation can be used for "political advantage"

< CLASH ! >

Marcus Leroux @marcusleroux
This eye-catching poll by @LordAshcroft is making ripples in Northern Ireland. I'd be interested in what other pollsters make of the implied methodology.

The first thing that caught my eye was that men were 71% of the unweighted sample! It wouldn't pass muster at YouGov, which says a "well-conducted survey will be close to" the 51/49 split of the population before weighting

Another quirk: 89% identify as being of either the nationalist or unionist tradition in both the weighted and unweighted samples. Life&Times survey: roughly half.

Most intriguingly: remain and leave votes add up to 92%. The actual referendum turnout in NI was 63%.

From a layman's perspective, it seems to have seriously underweighted the centre ground of Northern Irish politics.

Oooo interesting....

It's a non-trivial question to ponder on the nature of Brexitism as a virus or a parasite ? Because parasites that kill their hosts before they can reproduce get a fast track to the "ones that we lost" of evolution.

If I had been persuaded to go beyond my BSc, one MSc I liked the look of was biological expressions of computer systems. Even then I noted that a damaging payload was usually the reason most viruses did not propagate so much, so I wrote payloadless virus that once it infected a system removed itself. (This was in the days when you needed a floppy disk to infect a machine).

Oops, that was the High Court in London - let's see next week how deferential the Supreme Court is
AND
whether they are prepared to start a split in UK law

• unofficially, that must be a factor in their private thoughts

I think Farage has been quite cunning in highlighting ho wmuch CimFace hates him - he doesn't want to see his hard work spaffed away by a guy who "doesn't BeLeave" and is worried he will try to do that and take any glory going. Suspect that is why the Express covered the 'pact' today, to signal to Leavers Tories aren't on their side as much as they think - vote BxP!

Sorry for errors, running out for a few hours.

whether they are prepared to start a split in UK law - unofficially, that must be a factor in their private thoughts

I'd rather they applied the law like wot it is written. It's what we pay them for FFS. Irrespective of what they might think personally.

I'm sure they have so far, but if they haven't, they can reap what they sow.

Suspect that is why the Express covered the 'pact' today, to signal to Leavers Tories aren't on their side as much as they think - vote BxP!

Suits me fine. They'll just steal seats from the Tories which is no bad thing. I wonder if they can equal the UKIP high water mark of MPs in elections which is two. And that's double counting the same one in a by-election and GE.

Worrying that the judges interpretation is that prorogation can be used for political advantage.

Anyone in NI like to comment on the Ashcroft poll ?

In particular on one thing that struck me - BJ was much more popular among Unionist voters than Arlene

.... and he would sell them down the river in a trice if it suited him !

Is this just because men were 71% of the unweighted sample! ?
If so, that would really be a triumph of sexism over self-interest

Worrying that the judges interpretation is that prorogation can be used for political advantage.

At least it sets the rules out in plain English and no one is guessing anymore. OK, the UK might start sliding down the internation index of "countries you'd trust", but I think the clear message of the past 3 years has been the UK doesn't give a fuck about you and your country.

And will be treated accordingly.

Who was it said about the DUP if you can be bought you can be sold.

"applied the law like wot it is written."

Often not written, in constitutional cases that may come to court
Hence all the potential for mayhem from Cummings and his crawled-out-from-under-the-stone ilk

"Who was it said about the DUP if you can be bought you can be sold."

Everyone who ever met them

Never a truer word spoken or written about the DUP.

@BigChocFrenzy

I'm looking at our head of state, in her 90s - and I wonder who is remembering "a good day to bury bad news"

We used to worry about my nan being scammed out of money when she was in her 90's not being scammed into shutting down parliament