The Brexit Arms - Counting Down the Days...

[SingingLily]

Welcome to the Brexit Arms!

We are temporarily under new management but worry not, the ship is still steady as we sail on to 12 December. A quick recap of the events of the last week or two:

📋❓💙❤️💛⁉️💙‼️🤷🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️😀☹️😀☹️😧😱🙄😬🤥🤔😂🤣😂🔥💨⛈🌥🌦🌤☀️

Anyone of any political persuasion who is prepared to join in, eschew goadery, and enjoy a laugh, welcome. First drinks are on the house.

It is all about Brexit for many, it's also all about 'not Corbyn' or 'not BJ' as well

C4 were actually onto a good idea I think by having a one topic debate - would work well across all the various big topics (NHS, care services, education) - def would be more worthwhile than endless 'leaders debates'

But! Where they fell down was by making it a 'leaders' thing.

Instead, the parties would be better off sending their best representatives for the topic in hand - Gove is all over the Tory environmental policy for eg so would have been the best representative

In future GEs I'd prefer to see a few representative debates on the big topics, an audience-led grilling of the leaders and individual one-on-one grillings of the leaders

The multi-leader 'debate' thing is daft imo

Momentum wouldn't exist except in the hearts of a few lonely figures flogging their fringe newspapers on windy street corners. Back in the mists of time when I was a student at the good old Univ of Glasgow a lovely bearded student used to stand on University Avenue selling Socialist Worker come rain or shine.

The multi-leader 'debate' thing is daft imo

Absolutely. It’s so American.
Some people are just not great at this sort of thing, but it doesn’t mean they wouldn’t make a great PM.

The ‘replacing a No Show with something amusing and vaguely insulting’ was funny precisely once (the first time). Now it’s just childish and hackneyed.

Completely agree put up your best rep on the issues a la Dusty's suggestion would be much better. However I really don't like giving all the Jo and Jill Nobodies equal footing.

Made the mistake of tuning in to QT last night. Andy McDonald got a full uninterrupted 10 minutes of no challenge on Labour manifesto. Fiona turned to Brandon Lewis "for balance" and Caroline Lucas proceeded to talk all over him to the point where he actually couldn't get a full sentence out. Fiona made no attempt to stop her and then went back to Andy to reply to Brandon - absolutely unbelievable to watch.

Played well in Swindon with a Lefty Remain audience and would also have been equally well received among all my nurse and teacher friends on my FB telling me why I have to vote anti-Tory to "save" my services - not sure how paying them all a shed load more to do what they do now without any scope for change or more bodies actually does anything but make them richer at my expense but obvs they would be offended if I pointed that out to their saintly souls - sorry had to get that off my chest lest I explode irl.

Cammomile tea for me please

derxa I know that Socialist Worker #teamUofG
DD2 got 2 Offers from them yesterday so we are celebrating
I've got 3 months to persuade her of the merits of economics over physics.

Dusty jealous of you being back at work (even though I know its hard). Only saving grace is I would have had to scrape my car this morning as it is bright and frosty here.

Morning All!

Too many to list! Waves!

I don’t understand the furore about Boris not attending this ‘particular debate’.

We may be in an election campaign, but, he is still the Prime minister and he does need to be running the country, not just campaigning all the time. I’m not entirely sure of the importance of having this debate right now, and before any lurkers jump down my throat, I am in no way dismissing the importance of discussing climate change, I just don’t get the point of the timing, and the insistence on the leaders all being present. The climate change issue is being widely addressed in all of the manifestos, and has been equally widely addressed by each leader in their various campaign speeches. so what new and amazing revelations, could we have learned, in that type of short debate? I didn’t watch it, but I can quite imagine it just turned into yet another bunfight and leaders making yet more soundbites. The debate should have been held using the best and most qualified party reps from all parties on the specific issue, just like you would expect a specific debate on the NHS to have been held. I think it’s right that Boris accepted his own limitations here, and in my mind, that suggests he understands the importance of the issue and having the right people on the job to deal with it and discuss it. Imo, this is not the same as him ducking AN, as that is a general set of questions, with the explicit intent of gaining the leaders perspectives on a wide range of issues. Sending Gove was the right call imo. It’s just more naval gazing and pontificating on the issue imo. The amount of leaders debates, leaders questions, leaders vs type formats going on right now is ridiculous and tedious. One big debate, at each GE, long enough to touch on all issues and well run and managed, plus, one set of intense leaders questions. Is quite enough, the media have jumped the shark this time. It’s gone crazy, it’s almost daily now.

I think he should do AN, for balance, but turn down anymore of this nonsense. As should the others. It’s not helping now, it’s just turning into an excruciating wall of noise. Which is the exact opposite of what we want any efforts toward Climate change to be right now.

Additionally, if the plan is to truly address Climate Change in anyway, why on earth invite Nigel Farage? The BXP is not going to win or anywhere near it, so what purpose does that serve? I just see it as another virtue signalling opportunity for advertising revenue on the part of Channel 4 and nothing more. If they truly gave as much of a shit about climate change, as they claim to do, they would have wanted the best reps from the parties most likely to gain any significant numbers of seats and therefore influence on the issue. Otherwise it achieves the sum total of fuck all. As I suspect it probably did.

I think it’s right that Boris accepted his own limitations here, and in my mind, that suggests he understands the importance of the issue and having the right people on the job to deal with it and discuss it.

^^ This, Epic.

Boris has many faults but one of his great strengths is that he knows how to pick the right team and then, having given them specific responsibilities, he gives them the latitude to get on with it. Effective delegation if the hallmark of a first class chairman.

There really is no need for Jezbollah to try to be the expert on everything. He has an equally capable team he can rely on to get the message across clearly: John McDonnell on how to budget responsibly and legally; Diane Abbott on the costs of policing; Emily Thornberry on how to reassure the worried electorate that Labour has a coherent policy on Trident...oh wait...

Agree Singing. The election is about the team in cabinet in some ways and yes, Boris is a lazy boss who gives his team the freedom to excel. One of the many problems with the labour front bench is the lack of any intellectual depth. They complain about the tories being “entitled” but how entitled do you have to be to think you can run the country with two e grade a levels?

In my idler moments, Megan, I wonder what he got the two E grades for.

Singing...

Just musing...

Economics and RE?? 😂😂😂

😂🤣😂🤣Epic - and lest we forget, these are the A Level results he passed, probably because his teachers thought they were his strongest subjects. The list of his weakest subjects must have been extensive...

Interesting article from Buzzfeed this morning. I don't normally look at Buzzfeed but perhaps should. My take on the article is that Labour is committing exactly the same tactical blunder that Theresa's campaign did in 2017: concentrating all its campaign resources on unwinnable seats while neglecting their own backyards. That was certainly the case in our next-door constituency which was snatched back by the LibDems because party activists had been drawn off to form a protective shield around JRM's constituency.

What is different, and uniquely Labour's own spin on the tactic, is that they are targeting people rather than the seats: the big beasts like IDS and Graham Brady. Probably Dom Raab as well.

www.buzzfeed.com/hannahalothman/labour-activists-marginal-seats

Personally, I’m over this whole shitshow election campaign now, I’ve heard more than I ever need to hear from the cast of the Muppet show. Roll on the 12th! 😬 ✊🥀😉

I still can't do memes, Epic - that's yours and Dusty's domain - but I am storing up some snippets ready for the Brexit Arms Election Night Special. Hope you will be on board for that?

100% Lily! I will be staying on here now up until the big day and beyond, RL stuff excepting.

I’m not tired of the arms as I ‘luffs’ you all!, just the mental bombardment of election shit in general.

It’s taken over every minute of our lives, no wonder people are internally melting down. It’s inescapable, even if you want to take a break from it for 24 hours.

Posters
Leaflets
Coffee shop chat
Background radio
Social media
Phone alerts
Polls
Debates
Leaders questions
Comedy shows
Panel shows
Campaigners
Forums
News channels
Newspapers etc...

It’s interminable and starting to feel like a specific form of mental torture! 😂 I guess that’s why I love the arms, at least here I can articulate my feelings and thoughts with others who wish to discuss and debate them with me, outside of the fixed and repetitive bombardment from all of these other quarters, which I cannot physically respond to.

Additionally, what I also love here, is that we tend towards sharing our own viewpoints, instead of relying too heavily on the viewpoints of other sources with vested interests, sure, we share OP ed pieces and twitter comments from time to time, as an opportunity to spark a discussion point, but we don’t depend on these to form our own thoughts and arguments.

And by christ, above all else, we mostly manage to retain a sense of humour about it all, save from the odd diversion and ridicule we get. If you don’t have humour, when the world is so serious all the time, what’s left? You may as well just curl up
In a corner and die! I’m a human, not a robot! The Arms allows me to indulge in that.

Long live the Arms!

Sorry, I’m being a tad tangential today, 😬🤦🏻‍♀️😂 yes! Very much looking forward to your snippets Singing!

I gave up on QT about ten minutes in

I don’t feel bombarded by election stuff so that’s good. I’m out tonight but I would hope London bar chat hasn’t been taken over as well?

My best friend feels like it’s taking over as well.

I’m a human, not a robot!

Hoorah to that! Mr Lily keeps muttering "I'm not a number. I'm a free man" (some old TV programme or other, but it's much the same thing). I think it's because all the LibDem bumpf is addressed to him, not me, and the candidate's face grinning up at him from the doormat is giving him the heebie-jeebies. Well, not the actual face, you understand, just photos of it. If the actual face turned up on our doorstep - unlikely, without a map and a big "You Are Here" arrow - he'd have a throm and send me into battle while he hid in the den.

I'm busily mining humorous material for GE night. In the meantime, I've found out how Labour has costed its manifesto. Jezbollah asked Diane to check his maths as he only has an E in Economics.

Autumn rose, I’m probably being thick here... 😂

What do you mean by “London Bar chat” being taken over?

Oh! I am being thick! Are you out in London tonight? Lol

Sorry guys! I currently survive on about 4hrs sleep per night, and am being propped up by black coffee and cigarettes.

Epic yes, and I’m hoping the vibe isn’t “election chat” when we get there! The person I’m out with will def want to talk politics but I think it’s not relaxing Friday night conversation!

Ugh, Poor you Autumn, 🤦🏻‍♀️ maybe pick a noisy bar? 😂😂😂