Westministenders: Conference Cult

[RedToothBrush]

Is it over yet?

The Tory Party Conference is in full swing in the Manchester Rain, and is proving to be its usual fun.

Johnson is caught up in all sorts of allegations of abuses of power - the non-declaration of his "friendship" to a busty blonde whom was getting a large tax payer grant, and then there the Odey question after his sister said he was under the control of the Hedge Funders.

And thats before we talk about the 40 hospitals, his provocative language and how many times he can say the word surrender.

There is lots of distancing from Lyton Crosby. And accusations that Johnson has gone 'rogue' only listening to the wisdom of Cummings and Symonds.

The Queen apparently has asked for advice as to under what circumstance she can dismiss a PM.

AND NO ONE IS EVEN TALKING ABOUT A DEAL.

pmk

Thanks red

Anybody else watching BBC 1 at the moment ..... its not "News" to the folks on these threads
but interesting that its on the premium channel ....

*Practical session to help exporting businesses to prepare for Brexit

Date: Tuesday, 29 October from 9am*

This obviously says we are not leaving on the 31st.

As does the Tory MEP group advertising for a researcher on a 6 month contract .

(I'm almost tempted to apply so I can ask the question. I am collaborating on an EC research project right now so I must be qualified, right? Lol)

Reading through Gauke's twitter feed he is reading and retweeting a lot of the same stuff I'm picking up and reading.

Not a huge surprise.

Plus those EU berets are truly offensively awful.

PMK

So I got to chapter 4 of the book of Ece Temelkuran, the 7 steps to lose democracy. The 4th step involves weakening the foundations of the society and the morals, to destabilise the judiciary amongst other things- and the first group targeted is women. In turkey it passed through normalising children marriage, expecting primary school students to wear headscarf, and recording every pregnancy - even a grown up woman would have a male relative notified automatically if a test is positive, her father if there’s no husband, and then notify them again in case she goes for an abortion.
In the USA it’s the battle against abortion.
In the U.K. we’re smack in the middle of it, right?

Problem is even if all the other civil service research is published (black swan etc) Leave voters will still just dismiss it. I don't think there's any moving them from their position. I think if Johnson, JRM, and all, came out and said "we knew Brexit would be shit, bankrupt the country and we're only doing it so me and my friends can make a fortune crashing the pound and UK economy" I don't think it would make a dent in support for Brexit.

I've also worried about civil war for a while.

No one would be daft enough to try and come for my Siamese, although older he still has a nasty right hook when he wants.

In the U.K. we’re smack in the middle of it, right?

See that 'gender neutral' toilet.

There's nothing politically neutral about it.

Don't believe me? "Then how come it's not the gents that's being repurposed...

Yep we are right in the middle of it and the left is playing along too.

FWIW if the US and UK slips into civil war, then being elsewhere in the EU isn't going to necessarily be an escape from the fall out either.

That's the calculation I've made, and one of the reasons I've not pushed DH harder to get out the UK, which we possibly have the mobility (and connections) to do.

I’m more worried about the “it’s was just a compliment! Girls can’t distinguish harmless admiration anymore!” And the “that was years ago, if she kicks a fuss now surely she can’t be trusted”

Also everything I've read on Macron in recent weeks suggests to me he's very much on the ball in realising whats going on even if the UK isn't.

Thus any extension is going to be about making the EU immune to our shit spreading primarily at this stage and I don't think that's good from a Remainer pov.

It happened to me, it happened to the lady at uni with the now appointed Supreme Court judge in the USA, it happened to innumerable people even around Westminster. But it’s normalised and acceped

PMK

Don't believe me? "Then how come it's not the gents that's being repurposed...

To be fair here, when our Church toilets were refurbished, the Gents did lose out.

Being in Germany gives me some distance if there is a UK dictatorship / civil war
Politicians here, including the centre right, are now alive to the danger and fighting back.
Some other EU countries foghting back well, but Poland & Hungary far gone

However, the EU would feel some of the economic and political fallout

I don't expect a full-blown UK civil war, because with a (small section of) disarmed populace facing the armed forces of the state, it would be over within a few days, if it ever started

More likely imo:

Economic meltdown after No Deal
Civil disorder
Some riots after shortages, especially after any child deaths due to lack of meds
Strikes, probably a national strike called by the TUC
Limited terrorism, like the Angry Brigade of the early 1970s, growing to maybe early 1970s IRA capabilities
Emergency powers invoked under CCA
Troops guarding key installations and supplies
Internment introduced
The "5 techniques" made legal in the mainland (5 low grade tortures used by the British state in the early NI Troubles)
Internet censorship a la China and social media crackdown

Also likely to see Putin stirring the pot with more poisonings
and IS taking the opportunitsy for more attacks

@RedToothBrush sounds like an interesting book about propaganda - what's it called?

@borntobequiet GET OFF ME YOU PERVE is what should have been said at the time. I could say that in 1973 when I was 20 and relatively vulnerable. Why couldn’t these high achieving, well educated women do this 20 years ago?

I'd like to think I'd kick up a fuss like that in the (unlikely) event that something similar happened to me now. However I'm sadly quite sure that if it had happened to me 20 years ago I'd have been too shy/scared/self-conscious/cowed/conditioned/attention-avoidant to have asserted myself, so it doesn't surprise me that others were the same.

red For some months imo, the main aim of the EU has been to escape being hit by the wreckage and sucked under,
if the UK goes into economic freefall / anarchy / authoritarian dictatorship .....

They'll help the UK avoid this if they can, but they don't currently see how

It is only the Uk that can dig itself out of the mess it got itself into
To be specific: MPs have to think how to do this

PMK.
I've always said I don't think it will be anything like a nice clean civil war. We haven't got the organisation to produce 2 clear sides. This will be breakdown - neighbour against neighbour, city against country. Lots of small groups. There's not much in the way of police to stop it, and little they can do that won't inflame tensions. "State v people" is out of the bag and all bets are off.

Whatever about the apparent slide towards right wing dictatorship (in quotes).... I am still of the opinion that No Deal will Never happen. It cannot, it is unprepared for and it is just a threat.

What comes next is anyone's guess, but be assured that it is party before country no matter what.

Well, that's a different pov !
The Saj didn't ring my bell though

Tom Newton Dunn@tnewtondunn

Best speech of this Tory conference so far from Sajid Javid - combining emotion with striking new policy, and a powerful defining message for workers’ Toryism.

He is without doubt now the leader-in-waiting #cpc19

I worked in a male dominated industry in the 80s, I was in my 20s. It happened constantly. So often that I could not shout "get off me you perve every time". I had to hold my gunfire for when it was really threatening, and most of the time it was rather pathetic, not not when it was a drunken jolly and the area manager for Glasgow . One particular choice comment I heard was a senior manager bemoaning the fact that AIDS meant it was back to the 60s (pre pill days) and having to use a condom again. Still when boss was asked by his boss if he had, yet, his reply was that talk like that was likely to end in me coming at him with a pair of rusty scissors. I still think we had a feminist source of power at our disposal that current 20 somethings did not until me too woke them up, and made feminism cool again.