Westministenders: Slow News Fake News

[RedToothBrush]

Things have been slow whilst we are in proroguation, ahead of next weeks Queen's Speech and the EU summit.

We've been in full spin mode, from the likes of the far right and an unnamed source at No.10.

People seem to be waking up to the reality that its highly unlikely we will get a deal now, unless something significant. And No.10 has worked out the NI problem. FINALLY.

Anyway, if you have a little time this week and you are interested in the history of where technology change and fake news meet and how where we are now is merely things repeating themselves, Ian Hislop's Fake News: A True History, is essential viewing.
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00095hv/ian-hislops-fake-news-a-true-history

I really feel strongly this is stuff that should be being taught in schools somehow as its what protects us from extremism.

Will next Saturday be televised? I'm wondering if I should buy beer and Doritos in preparation and popcorn for mini Bercow (dds will be at their twatfathers)?

Maybe the sudden Brexit lovefest is to distract ? As I've said all along, any housing "crisis" is manufactured and won't be cured until we build more houses (and I know someone did post a challenge to that a while back).

When I was younger I couldn't quite grasp the hate for the Tories some had. Now I'm older, I really can't see how people were so calm.

www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/11/government-accused-wrecking-plans-build-more-social-housing

The government has been accused of “trashing” plans to build more social housing across the UK after it imposed a shock interest rate rise on cheap Treasury loans.

Councils reacted with frustration to the one percentage point increase on public works loan board (PWLB) finance, which was imposed “out of the blue” this week, warning it could delay or scupper housebuilding and regeneration schemes.

They said rise would lead to fewer council homes being built, and would reduce local authorities’ ability to build and maintain schools, roads and waste facilities, and invest in commercial property.

(contd)

So we will be given any old Brexit? And then Johnson and the Shitheads in charge til 2022 or until, maybe, 2025?

Well that'll be great!

Very belated PMK

I’m going to my local Brexit readiness session on Monday. Just had the instructions through, including done very bizarre directions in which they suggest leaving the M6 5 junctions away from the city. I know it’s just a typo (j28 rather than j23) but it doesn’t fill me with joy over the attention to detail!

Mship I think a PV on the WA or whatever Johnson pulls out his arse is the best way forward. A PV gives moderate leave (but not cult no-dealers) MPs a ladder to climb down. Yeah brexshiteers will be pissed if remain wins, but at that point 🖕we won get over it 😁.

So we will be given any old Brexit?

That was always the risk Brexiteers ran. They are more than free to argue with Boris that "this isn't Brexit", but they pretty much lost that line of arguing when they insisted they knew what they were voting for.

Let's wait and see. The only thing I would be 100% certain of, is that whatever is being plotted, the #1 aim is to benefit Boris. All else - all else - is so much chaff. We know he has no ideological position on Brexit - or indeed anything except Boris. So far that's been played as a fuck you to Remainers, but it could just as easily be played as a fuck you to Leavers, if it suited him.

If he does return triumphant with a "deal", what's the electoral possibilities that moderate Tories will be happy enough to stick it to the BXP ? Who we already know could never be pleased anyway.

I can't see a PV being part of any future. Not under this parliament leastways.

Delurking to ask whether anyone else read this from Katya Adler (tweeted at 11.46, sorry I don't know how to link properly)

"I hate to be the thrower of cold water but when it comes to new UK proposals, whatever they might be, if PM moves towards EU position on customs, he’s likely to lose most/all DUP +ERG support. New deal must be agreed not only by PM + EU but also by majority of MPs /1

EU diplomats also sceptical Boris Johnson would want to be seen to be ‘conceding’ to EU ahead of elex, with Brexit Party breathing down his neck. EU fear is the PM might enter intensive negotiations, get a concession from EU and then pull out.. /2

Putting EU concession in back pocket - for electoral advantage at home - but leaving EU with no deal and having just played a major card .. Such is the level of mistrust between the two sides /3

When I read it I just thought of course that's what Johnson would do.

..

Katya Adler is a voice I trust.

DUP reported to be “ not opposed” to proposed NI half in/ half out place in the customs union.

I wonder how much that cost. Every bus company in Europe ordering buses from Ballymena?

What this episode also exemplified was how whenever these realities emerged it turned out that they had been warned of before the Referendum and dismissed by Brexiters as Project Fear. Yet, inevitably, their emergence did not lead the Brexiters to admit they had been wrong but, rather, to insist ever more angrily that they were right. Indeed, worse than that, by configuring each consequence as a punishment they ‘proved’ that the EU was a malign body and therefore validated the decision to leave.

I have an emotionally abusive family member who is never, ever responsible for the consequences of their actions, so I saw this coming a mile off. (No idea how Family Member voted: I just recognise the behaviour.)

If Family Member wants to do something, there's absolutely no telling them that water is wet and gravity acts downwards. All that trying to warn them gets you, is the blame when FM finds out the hard way.

FM is completely un-selfaware and will actively go round canvassing validation from their friends: "So-n-so said it would get wet – so she must be the one who wet it!!!"

FM responds to flattery and to Happy Feelz. They can also be kept in check by fear of public shame, but that's always risky: FM needs a Good Feelz escape route to divert into, because you must never, ever, trap FM in a corner. They'll burn everything down rather than face responsibility for Bad Stuff.

In order to change course, FM needs someone else to blame. It might be someone who failed to give them a key piece of information, or lied to them, or failed to complete a task. So in good news, you can feed FM a carefully chosen (and safely out-of-the-way!) scapegoat to help them dig themselves out of their self-made hole.

NB, FM's ire to the scapegoat is in proportion to their need to escape blame themselves – so IMO it does have to be either someone who bears some responsibility, or someone who's safe from harm.

(This post comes with the usual carpe lector that it is not about people who voted Leave per se; it's about people Farage who have those behaviours, however they voted.)

Every bus company in Europe ordering buses from Ballymena?

I did see something about Wrightbus being thrown a lifeline somewhere in one of me feeds earlier. To be honest it never registered at the time ...

Do you think ERG will cave "coz it's Boris" though? I wouldn't be surprised.

PerkingFaintly

That sort of behaviour was pretty much the format for every "Yes Minister" and "Yes Prime Minister" every shown.

Anyone read "Zen and the art of motorbike maintenance" ? There's a bit about one biker who had to have $100 shims for their bike, when a ring pull would have done ... it's written quite eloquently (as the whole book is).

Do you think ERG will cave "coz it's Boris" though? I wouldn't be surprised

The whole thing just feels like a game of pass the parcel ... maybe they've got cold feet now the final layers of paper have come into view ? Perhaps they can even smell the shit from the parcel ?

I keep thinking what the worst outcome would be at the moment.
I think we all know what the best would be, but it's not gonna happen. I just whish they would revoke, admit they've done a mistake and that for now they want to remain until they have a proper proper plan (or just remain full stop).

But what's the worst outcome?

But what's the worst outcome?

No deal. Without a shadow of a doubt. It's a bucketful of variables, diluted in uncertainty juice and prone to spring a leak from anywhere. There isn't enough gaffer tape in the multiverse to hold it together for more than a few microseconds.

As hard as it sounds, no deal would be an eye opener. It would show that remain was always right. The told you so moment. Would no deal maybe make things awful for a while, but a shoddy deal would make things less awful for a lot longer?

Don't get me wrong, I really don't want no deal. I want to revoke, remain, reform. All the R's.

All this has probably been discussed by all of you a million times.
I just can't follow up with these threads...

No-deal an eye-opener? I suppose so. But also a killer. And definitely the worst case scenario.