Westminstenders: Frozen

[RedToothBrush]

Boris Johnson was empty chaired by C4 with a block of ice.

The Conservatives went mental and have threatened to look at C4 broadcast remit.

This is illiberal and anti democratic.

Journalists are supposed to hold power to account on behalf of the public. If MPs don't turn up then they can't be held to account.

They have a duty to show. It's not good enough to avoid scrutiny because it might make you look bad. That's the whole point.

The contempt with which Johnson holds the press and public is reprehensible and you should be concerned whatever your political alligence. It allows corruption to fester without consequence.

And to then threaten C4 because they do their job in line with their responsibility as a broadcaster is alarming.

This is how authoritarian dictators work.

BigChoc, I understand German resentment at subsidising Greeks' early retirement at the time, but Greece should never have qualified for Euro membership.

I would prefer a Norway+ type deal to Remain,
as I don't think the Uk can play a useful role in the EU when half the country don't want to belong

From what I hear / read, most in the EU Commission and most EU leaders have thought this since 2017

I even supported May's WA, which is far inferior to Norway+,
but at least had the Level Playing Field rules which prevent a race to the bottom and the ERG's Bonfire of workers' rights etc

I've said before that I know this would never happen, but BJ is the only person who could get away with Revoke and kill off Brexit for the longterm

Any other route to Remain, even if 100% legal & constitutional, would imo just deepen the divisions

I think the main difference is that you see and empathize with society's victims and ours lie with people who aim to get by respectably, but who are not themselves rapacious capitalists

The thing is, when I am thinking about “society’s victims”, I’m not thinking about HCAs or nurses. I’m thinking about my disabled dialysis patient, who takes her manky hospital sandwich home from her dialysis sessions to share with her children (actually I don’t think she has any of it herself). After she’s paid the shortfall in rent that housing benefit doesn’t cover, she hasn’t got enough money left to feed them properly. She can’t work, she is badly disabled by her lupus and dialysis means she is in hospital three days a week. My heart breaks every time I see her and think of those kids. That’s not a civilised society, that treats its disabled people like dehumanised scum.

Xing I totally agree about Greece

However, at that time noone in the EU was prepared to offend the Greek national pride and say this

• I remember a Greek politican saying it would be an noutrageous insult if the "cradle of European civilisation" was excluded from the Euro

Sometimes, chickening out of making hard decisions and offending people can make a situation 100x worse later

The EU have become a lot more realistic about who should join the Euro now and don't want any unwilling Euro members either
Sweden joined in iirc 1994 and were supposed to join the Euro when ready .... still not ready and determined they never will be !

Sashkin Now my heart also sinks at the thought of your poor dyalysis patient

It's disgraceful that our system makes a disabled person go hungry

She's exactly the kind of person that makes me so against the Tories, since after nearly 10 years in power, I do blame them
I couldn't care less about tax rises, nationalisation, SAHMs wanting to stay home or umpteen other policies

I do care how some of the disabled are being made to suffer more, both by cruel interviews and by inadequate money

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jun/03/surge-in-terrorists-eligible-for-parole-poses-threat-to-uk-security

This is a 2018 article about the potential for security issues due to people having been convicted of terrorist offences coming up for release.

Released into the supervision of a partly privatised and severely underfunded probation service.

If you lock people up for longer, as the Tories suggest, the problem doesn't go away - it is just deferred.

Pmk

I think I'd be just as worried about forced abortions as the right to choose to have an abortion being taken away. It could go either way.

I have just had fun with a YouGov survey ( finally got one, even if the political questions were "and finally" ones - and they got my constituency wrong - like someone else can't remember who they thought I was in the one two streets away): after I'd answered the "points" questions, they then asked me 3 extra questions, one of which was "What did I think of Boris Johnson, the Conservatives and their policies?"

I should have taken a screenshot I started with "Not printable." Then went on to say something like, "Fucker. Liar. Selfish. Self-centred. Self-serving. Damaging. Dangerous." I'm sure I used some more words but I can't remember

If anyone has a positive response and outcome for Sashkin and her client? I really don't.

The Tories certainly don't either but that won't stop you voting for them will it?

I would prefer a Norway+ type deal to Remain, as I don't think the Uk can play a useful role in the EU when half the country don't want to belong

Never stopped us before. Half the country don’t have a clue what they want and what they conceive of as Brexit had nothing to do with the reality. In 10 years half the people who think they want Brexit will be dead, and the tide will turn on the Brexit movement completely.

Xing you say that an "..argument in open court is preferable, more transparent", which we'd all agree with, but this isn't what we'll get with a UK-US FTA. We'll get the standard IDS, which must qualify as one of / the least transparent disputes system.

Cats don’t give a shit.

...we are uncertain about the terms of trade and supply post-Brexit with our top quality suppliers in the Netherlands and Germany. So we shall look to the USA.

@XingMing, under what trade agreement?

And why not get all that material from the US now?

If your business happens to be plumbing, or any other business where item sizes are important, maybe you'll have to factor in difference in pipe and fitting sizes (Imperial vs Metric).

And transport costs.

...we are over 60, so also old enough to remember that nationalised industries didn't make money and only provided customer service in fine weather. The first time I wanted a phone line installed, pre-privatisation British Telecom told me there was a two-year waiting list!

@XingMing, so how is your privatised train service these days?

And what is your opinion of the following comment by Boris Johnson:
'Quitting the EU won't solve our problems, says Boris Johnson'

Mr Johnson says that he supports legislation backing a referendum – but warns that Britain’s problems will not be solved by simply leaving the EU as many of his Conservative colleagues apparently believe.

“If we left the EU, we would end this sterile debate, and we would have to recognise that most of our problems are not caused by “Bwussels”, but by chronic British short-termism, inadequate management, sloth, low skills, a culture of easy gratification and underinvestment in both human and physical capital and infrastructure,” the London Mayor says.

“Why are we still, person for person, so much less productive than the Germans? That is now a question more than a century old, and the answer is nothing to do with the EU. In or out of the EU, we must have a clear vision of how we are going to be competitive in a global economy.”

I find the use of the word respectably by XingMing very interesting.

Such a lot of meanings attached to it. Some of them very loaded.

[DeutscheBank]...which then used its weight to bully Greece (always a poor country) into even worse poverty plus massive unemployment.
XingMing

Emotive language there wrt Greece. Missing what actually happened in favour of some underdog/bully narrative.

Funny how that same sympathetic narrative is not applicable when it comes to the British poor, the unemployed and the underemployed, relying on various forms of welfare including Universal Credit to live day to day.

Faraway hills, etc..

Always interesting to catch up with the thread in the early morning.
I can understand why some very big multinationals and rapacious financiers may be comfortable with or even welcome Brexit, but as for anyone running a small business buying from or selling into the EU Single Market - well IMO they are coming from a place of disingenuousness or delusion. There is no point in engaging with their arguments because they are designed to wind up and waste time.

Wrt Cornwall where our education system gets about 60p in the £ of what's spent in London. Little wonder the results aren't improving as fast as in Tower Hamlets.

Here is a list of your MPs:
Camborne & Redruth: George Eustice (Conservative)
North Cornwall: Scott Mann (Conservative)
South East Cornwall: Sheryll Murray (Conservative)
St Austell & Newquay: Steve Double (Conservative)
St Ives: Derek Thomas (Conservative)
Truro & Falmouth: Sarah Newton (Conservative)

Tower Hamlets:
Divided between Bethnal Green and Bow, and Poplar and Limehouse - both constituencies have consistently voted Labour. The two sitting MPs are Labour.

On the subject of Cornwall I occasionally visit Cornwalllive.com just because of childhood & holiday memories etc really.

I don't get it's politics though. It's solidly blue everywhere admittedly some with narrow margins. When you go on Cornwall live now a pop up 'tactical voting' Conservative party site comes up to " Get Brexit done" basically just saying vote Tory.

Presumably this tactical voting pop up is not just Cornwall live but in all local papers in narrow marginals? Have any local papers refused to take these ads and how much are the reincarnated new ConservativERG party paying for these ads?

I've met great Westminstenders from Cornwall and this is a bit tongue in cheek but I feel a bit like not holidaying in Cornwall ever again.

It suffered from austerity... yet votes Tory.
It got support and hundreds of millions from the EU yet it votes leave . EU funding supported loads where it could help (within its restricted remit). The funded projects ranged from the Eden project and airport support to new village halls etc.All very confusing.

www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/exactly-what-eu-funded-cornwall-2697596

Also ... trying to get a defeat by encouraging LibDems to step aside in Uxbridge..

infacts.org/petitions/bring-down-johnson/

So London Bridge attacker was on release from jail with a tag for ... terrorism ?

Sounds like the government has some questions to answer here.

Ah, I wondered if you were in Cornwall XingMing .