Westminstenders: It's like a bloody aviary

[RedToothBrush]

From Flamingos to Yellowhammer and Black Swans.

The Tory Remainer is now a Dodo. Instead the party in inhabited by disaster capitalist Vultures. Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, has been labelled by the right wing press as a Chicken. The SNP would very much like Boris Johnson to be a Jailbird. The LDs are keen to sing like Canaries about the contents of BlackSwan. The Br

And the Tower of London is starting to get very jumpy about the whereabouts and location of its Ravens.

I would not, however, advise eating urban wild pigeons if things get desperate, from what I know of their health.

Seconding the strange dis-connect in RL with Yellowhammer and what life will be like after 31st October this morning.

John Cleeses mum again ...

Is it childish of me to be amused by the acronym for the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, SCOTUK ?

RTB - the Leave UK demo sounds interesting! We had a Brexit party minibus randomly stopping in the bus lanes of Oxford one morning with a "honk if you support Brexit" sign.

Funnily enough, although it was deeply annoying and I'm almost sure I saw the bus driver give the minibus driver the finger, nobody honked at all.

DGR I heard she was a worrier?
I've got anxiety which is hampering me with "at what point should I say something" decisions when people look earnestly into diaries and talk about plans for November. Anyone else finding it hard to assume we can plan past 31st Oct? I cope with my anxiety by planning usually, so it's almost like I have a blank space there at the moment, making it hard to take people seriously when they say "Oh my aunt is visiting from Canada on 2nd Nov" or "I wonder if I can drop my son in London before I do XYZ after school on the 1st". I almost hear my eyes rolling in my head inwardly but have so far kept schtum.

Conversely the Leave means Leave signs in the fields round here have disappeared. (I live in Brexitshire)

No idea what that means either. Probably farmer not being payed to have them on his land I guess. Ponders if they have appeared in a field near Red......

Is it childish of me to be amused by the acronym for the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, SCOTUK ?

Not sure really. Until recently we had the Law Lords which doesn't really abbreviate so snappily.

I guess SCOTUK is a parallel to SCOTUS. Although I'm pretty certain even 20 years ago I never read "SCOTUS" or "POTUS" in print. I hesitate to say they are neologisms but am prepared to be wrong.

Echoes of discussing Bonn, Peking, Calcutta and Bombay yesterday ...

(Whatever happened to centigrade ?)

To answer the OQ, I guess we all have an inner child If not an inner court of session ... (not many people doing Scottish Law jokes these days ...)

Just watching All Out Politics and they are twittering on about devolving Yorkshire

I've said before there is simply no point to an English parliament. It would be - what? - about 100 MPs smaller than Westminster, still far too big and unwieldy and disconnected to service 56 million people the way the Scottish parliament services the Scots. And sure - put in Hull or Stoke, rather than London - that doesn't actually make any difference to people in Newcastle or Swindon or Truro though - does it?
The only English region with a population smaller than Scotland is the NE. I assume every English region has a population greater than Wales. When you think of it in those terms - regional assemblies make a lot of sense.
Law, the NHS and the education system are separate in Scotland but are classed as 'England and Wales', and yet Wales still has room for devolution - so whatever it is the Welsh Assembly does, regional assemblies could do that. There are more people in Yorkshire and the Humber than there are in Wales - I think the question really should be why shouldn't they have their own assembly?

twitter.com/EvendenKenyon/status/1172420119005290497

from the leaky libdem who claims to have a copy of the "black swan" report. She says she will be releasing it to the media in 24 hours. No idea whether this is real or not

In that vein:

Dr Liz Evenden-Kenyon 🔶
@EvendenKenyon
·
3h
#BlackSwan: apparently (in its redacted #Yellowhammer version) there is mention of:

1. Martial law
2. Significant fuel shortages
3. Unnecessary deaths re drugs & social care.

After consideration, I will hand over our findings to mainstream media contact soon. #LibDemLiz

X-post pidegon

I suspect it is real as LD's campaign is to revoke so will be keen to show the worst case scenarios. I'm sure they will have had legal advice as to what is safe to release? I bloody hope that they won't be telling terrorists potential weak spots at the very least - hard thing to navigate though when it is all so inter-connected.

Johnson going to meet Juncker.
I'm willing to bet he'll come back with a NI only backstop and sell that as a win.

I was in a meeting yesterday ad asked to not pln a meeting on the 31st October. Most people looked ar me strangely with comments along the lines 'oh do you already have a meeting planned that day?!?' until one of them realised why.....

I am refusing to stop planning for after the 31st October. I think that the answer to the question 'what do you think is going to happen?' is 'I dont have a fucking clue'.
But the 31st IS a key date and id rather not travel that day if I can avoid it.

DGR I heard she was a worrier?

Dug out the subtitles, as they are a wonderful exemplar of the discussion ...

And so it was in this tedious little town that my
mother was born into a large Edwardian family
in October 1899,
and she died in Weston at the age of 101
in October 2000,
her life having spanned the entire 20th century.
From the assassination
of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo
through the First World War,
the Great Depression,
the rise of Hitler and Stalin, World War Two,
the atomic bomb, the foundation of lsrael,
the Cold War,
the space age
and the collapse of communism.
She lived through it all.

Without really noticing any of it.

She knew that there was a war with Germany
and a man called Hilter was in charge
of the Germans.

Frankly, she had more pressing things
on her mind ...Namely, her worries and her phobias.

@JeSuisPoulet, there is nothing in that list that looks out of place really.

I think many people just have never experienced things not running normally that they cant imagine they are a possibility. Maybe the result of having such a long period of peace...

Johnson going to meet Juncker. I'm willing to bet he'll come back with a NI only backstop and sell that as a win.

He cant' come back with anything more than warm words. There is no way on Gods Green Earth the EU is going to try and rustle up a Johnson-saving fudge in less than 3 days.

As has been stated several times previously. If we want to know if there's been anything important happening, we look to Ireland, and to the EU. And they've already stated fuck all has actually happened.

The real question is what will Johnson try to sell - and to whom - when he gets back ? Because I'm wondering how far off he is from selling the ERG down the river now they've got him into no. 10.

DGR - I first remember hearing POTUS c20 years ago in the 1st episode of "The West Wing" - something along the lines of POTUS has fallen (when he cycled into a tree).

To be fair, I think the usage of acronyms has increased in general in part due to texting and Twitter.

Myriade I may be wrong but isn't it 12pm on the night of 31st Oct we leave? People may be stockpiling but I do think the following days are when the problems will start getting out of control, rather than on the day itself?

Of course where you have POTUS you have FLOTUS FLOTUK does start to look like it should be rude.

I may be wrong but isn't it 12pm on the night of 31st Oct we leave?

I thought it was 11pm ....

DGR yes that is certainly how I am seeing people act! The overly long, tongue-tuttingly thoughtful flicking through the calendar felt like something out of a dark comedy.

DD has asked to wear her grim reaper outfit if it is safe to go trick or treating. Quite fitting if this is all a dark comedy - we turn up on doorsteps begging for food dressed up as the harbingers of doom. I might have to find a chicken outfit to add some positivity...maybe with a sign saying "freshly chlorinated" for added chuckles.

Pmk

I'll beon the sofa mainlining haribo on the evening of the 31st....

My chocolate "stockpiling" will consist of all the mini mars bars, crunchies etc that I'll have got in for guisers and not given away. We tend not to get many around (although I put out a lit pumpkin 🎃 ) so I always have leftovers