Westministenders: Sub-Prime Minister at large

[BigChocFrenzy]

Our Sub-Prime Minister BJ is threatening a govt tantrum strike until he is allowed his Haribo GE on 12 December.

If MPs vote for a GE, he has promised them "more time" to debate the WAB,
but that would only be from 29 October to 7 November

• ridiculously inadequate for such complex legislation -

before Parliament is automatically dissolved for the 25 sitting days before a GE.

The GE debate starts Monday 2:30 pm in the HoC
Corbyn says he'll agree to a GE if BJ takes No Deal off the table

BUT wIth this WA,
No deal cannot 100% be taken off the table whilst the Tories are in office:

they could still No Deal after transition ends on 31 December 2020,
if they don't request a transition by July.

We don't know when the EU will give their decision on an extension, or what it will be:

The EU may decide only after the HoC vote
- in which case MPs would be voting "blindly"

Tusk, Merkel & most other leaders want to grant the Flextension until 31 January,
but Macron & a few others want to give a short extension of only 2-4 weeks, to pressure MPs to pass the WA in November

• in which case the GE would take place shortly after Brexit, which would be a gift to BJ.

A 12 December GE would also cause serious logistical problems for local council officials:

Apart from their poll station bookings clashing with Xmas bookings for church halls & schools,

they are legally required to send out all the polling cards based on the current electoral roll,
then at the GE, check names against the new electoral roll which must be updated on 1 December

The Rebel Alliance want a long extension, so they have time to add amendments to the WAB,
e.g. a CU, the Level Playing Field agreement in May's WA, maybe even a PV
So many may want to vote against a GE before that ..... but what does Corbyn want ?

BJ as PM could still change the date of any GE after he has agreed to it, if it suits him.

What does BJ want ?
Alice Cooper said it:

"I'm your top prime cut of meat, I'm your choice
I wanna be elected
I'm your yankee doodle dandy in a gold Rolls Royce
I wanna be elected
Kids want a savior, don't need a fake

I wanna be elected
We're all gonna rock to the rules that I make
I wanna be elected, elected, elected..."

m.youtube.com/watch?v=cSvy8HpxFxo

• Post edited to correct dates

The story is based on leaked papers:

'The government paper, drafted by Dexeu, the Brexit department, with input from Downing Street stayed that the UK was open to significant divergence, even though Brussels is insisting on equivalent regulatory provisions.'

Rather obviously, it contradicts assurances made by Johnson to the HoC, Labour and Labour MPs in particular.

megan You raised the hard right's bogeyman of Soros

I pointed out that's bollocks:

He didn't start this Brexit, didn't fund the Leave campaign
In contrast to Brexiters who did fund it and who have made hundreds of millions

He is the bogeyman only because he funds organisations that oppose the far right in Europe, especially in his native Hungary,
where Orbán is turning the country into a corrupt far right dictatorship.

The whole George Soros demonisation started as a deliberate political strategy in Hungary.
It worked for Orbán, so the far right in the USA picked it up.
Now it's the world's largest anti-Semitic conspiracy theory

Think: Don't feed it

But it is wrong to tell one group of people to park their money in A while B stabilises, but then tell you constituents in B, the people who trust you to represent them, that it's all hunky dory and they have nothing to worry about.

Admittedly, if the people in B had a bit more gumption they'd vote out both Rees-Mogg and Redwood, so they get who they deserve.

megan There is nothing wrong with moving funds around

There is a great deal wrong with telling wealthy investors to move funds out of the UK because of Brexit,
while telling ordinary voters how great Brexit will be

and with moving their own money out of the danger they have put the rest of us in

They should either quit the investment business or quit being MPs
They don't seem able to do both jobs at the same time, at least not while being honest to both investors & voters.

that it's all hunky dory and they have nothing to worry about.
Funds are liquid (as I said), houses and jobs less so. Doesn't mean he is not doing what he believes is in his constituents' long term interest. He may be wrong, but you can't say it's not what he believes because only he knows that.

People can lose their jobs and homes "in the short term"
Especially if they make decisions about those jobs and homes, believing the lies that all will be well

Wealthy investors can plan longterm and survive short term blips;
many ordinary people would lose everything if they were out of work for more than 3 months
they don't have the financial resources to cope with the "short term" effects of No Deal or hard Brexit

JRM and Redwood may genuinely believe that only rich people matter in this country,
that all decisions should be made for the benefit of rich people,
that poor people are poor because they are lazy / scroungers / feral ....

That doesn't make it OK to lie to the rest of the country, to keep us all quiet until it is too late

Any predictions for Monday and Tuesday and Thursday?

I can't see that bozo will get a majority for a GE. Not at the moment. I've only read bits on here today and the state broadcaster but it seems the SNP, PC, Tiggers, Green, LDs and possibly labour (but they hadn't said up to the point I read) would vote against. So that leaves the tories, labour rebels, and possibly the DUP who would support a GE.

Tuesday the EU27 will wake up with a migraine and possible concussion after banging their heads against the wall and offer the extension we asked for until the 31st January. Not that we will make any progress by then but hey ho. Two years would be much better to allow tensions to die down and actual work to be done to fine tune things. It would allow people to de stress after having constant near-deadlines hanging over us.

Thursday all the remainers heave a huge sigh of relief and threw a massive Halloween party whilst the leavers drown their sorrows in their pints and rage about how unfair it is. I get that they are pissed off but surely they want this done properly?

Ds is having a small Halloween bash for some friends from his reception class and afterwards I'm going to collapse in a heap with a glass of wine and if we have a decent extension raise a toast to all on this thread who have been invaluable, to Donald Tusk, Angela Merkel, Michel Barnier and Jean Claude Junker and to Hilary Benn and all those who helped prevent us going over the cliff this time.

Funds are liquid (as I said), houses and jobs less so.

Nonsense.

Financial instruments can be more or less liquid. When fund managers get into trouble, it's usually because they are holding on financial instruments that turn out to be significantly less liquid than they thought they were.

Conflict of interest is an interesting point I admit and I don't know if it is regulated in that particular instance. In the same way that many of us have in our employment contracts that certain activities (or investments) would require specific permissions, I don't know how potential conflicts of interest are captured if you are an MP. I would imagine that it must have been looked at somehow though - does anyone know? I suspect that the ability of an MP (although not a cabinet member) is so far removed from any ability to move markets that it could be deemed unnecessary, in which case that would be your answer, but I don't know that for sure.
Obviously any public utterances of the Chancellor can move markets so it must be dealt with at that level.

PMK with thanks

Conflict of interest is an interesting point I admit and I don't know if it is regulated in that particular instance. In the same way that many of us have in our employment contracts that certain activities (or investments) would require specific permissions,

Jesus fucking Christ.

Every heard of insider trading?

Anti- trust legislation?

Nonsense.
Not nonsense. I know a lot about liquidity funds and all the problems they have faced. Most funds are liquid - you give a couple of days' notice and there you have it. Billions bought and sold every day.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Every heard of insider trading?

Yes, know a lot about this too.

Most funds are liquid - you give a couple of days' notice and there you have it.

Jesus. Aren't you embarrassed to come out with this sort of crap?

Does the name Neil Woodford mean anything to you?

(Pause while Megan goes to google Neil Woodford.)

that it's all hunky dory and they have nothing to worry about.

What does this mean?
Inferring (always risky): Something is 'hunky dory' and someone (constituents? Electorate? UK inhabitants? Me?) have nothing to worry about.

Why should we? What?

What does this actually mean?

Funds are liquid (as I said), houses and jobs less so.

Sort of makes sense. But does it? Are all funds 'liquid'? No. And those that are, are unequally liquid. Also, we're talking about an investment firm, telling clients where to invest. Those funds will have greater or less liquidity, dependent on long and short term investment.
Mogg is telling his clients not to tie up funds in the UK - short or long term. Ouch.

Houses and jobs less so.

I think that's only there as some kind of counter-balance to the first statement. What does it mean?
Does it mean houses aren't investment? Well ... they are. And in a fast-moving market (such as London pre-Brexit) they can have a fair degree of liquidity. Jobs - van jobs not be moved? What? Huh?

Doesn't mean he is not doing what he believes is in his constituents' long term interest.

Well. Given that none of us are blessed with telepathy, we'll never truly know.
So, delivering the line, 'You can't know for sure!' Is hardly the killer proof that you think it is.

Suffice it to say, Mogg's blandishments to the electorate are delivered from the playbook of The Economidts for Free Trade whilst his business decisions are based on the forecasts of The Institue for Fiscal Studies.
Following Wittgenstein and James, we might say that it is not necessary to know what is inside the box of
Mogg's head, it is only necessary to watch how it operates to 'name' it. I would name the behaviour as opportunistic.

He may be wrong, but you can't say it's not what he believes because only he knows that.

Again with the not-so-killer-line.

Seriously, this is the word-salad style stuff we had to wade through during the pre-referendum.

I remember a visitor we used to have who claimed to work in FinTech.

Anyone else remember that visitor?

And the visitor had no idea about holidays in the UK.

Agree, Misti. And I think our visitor has forgotten all about the scandal involving Basil Brush and Disgraced pop star Zebedee.

Anyone who claims to work in financial services and hasn't heard of Neil Woodford is basically telling porkies.

Lots of things you can invest in that aren't houses aren't really that liquid.

My job involves some very illiquid markets where there are all sorts of exciting ways to come a cropper, eg by short-selling a commodity and then finding yourself on the wrong side of a liquidity squeeze.

But this is kind of a diversion because I think the idea that Brexit exists so people can win financial market bets is not a sensible one.

Of course there has been and will be some opportunistic betting on Brexit outcomes, and there may even have been some "insider trading" based on political inside knowledge. But I don't think this is the main driver for these people.

No.

Did you see the FT Weekend story I linked to? Think that's more along the lines of where we're headed.

It's certainly very pertinent that the areas of work legislation where the U.K. significantly downgraded workers' rights are those areas not underpinned by European legislation.

Zero hours contracts, access to employment tribunals. Not protected by EU law.

A very depressed PMK....