Westminstenders: War and Weirdos

[RedToothBrush]

With weirdos set to run No10 and Trump seemingly having started a new war in the Middle East, 2020 already looks set to be a cracking year.

To start off your year, it turns out that chinese curse about interesting times is actually a fallacy...

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times

Happy New Year.

May we make 2030...

But it was his dying wish to be consumed with Yorkshire rhubarb and a glass of brown ale.

flouncyfanny
They will have to untie your straight jacket first - Brexit insanity?

Although - we will have a lot of Welsh lambs to eat.

Is a flat cap and a whippet involved?

flouncyfanny something to do with NI parties amendments? It was defeated but I'm not sure of the significance to the big picture as I've not been following things since the election really. I needed a break as felt rather desolate about things

Word of the day: scaremongering.
I will be watching out for it on these threads and generally from now on.

Strait jacket. It’s strait jacket, not straight jacket.

Another Corbyn loyalist lining up to join the leadership contest

• maybe they doubt Rebecca Long Bailey can recapture the white wc male votes they lost in the GE, or maybe itthe doubts are more about winning the leadership

So they are going for an older - and pretty stale - white male

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/barry-gardiner-labour-leadership-bidukk_5e15d8edc5b6c7b859d39afb?

Lewis Goodall@lewisgoodall

EXC: I can confirm there is to be a seventh entrant into the Labour leadership contest.

It’s Barry Gardiner.

Tune into #Newsnight at 2230 for more.

Gardiner is preparing a run after being approached (among others) by Len McCluskey, who has been speaking to a number of other potential candidates, as he isn’t convinced Rebecca Long Bailey can win.

Although some might find this surprising in some ways you could imagine how it might take off.

A once marginalised, older man, been in parliament for ages, beloved by the grassroots, getting into a race which may otherwise be predictable.
We've heard this story before...

Strait jacket. It’s strait jacket, not straight jacket.

Apologies 'straitjacket' - one word.

Layla Moran tabled an amendment (clause 10) to the WA today that sought to keep the UK within Erasmus and Horizon.
It's bitten the dust.
here

Gardiner and Starmer do NOT get on, reportedly - no surprise

Starmer's campaign going very well so far:

Lewis Goodall@lewisgoodall

Big victory for Keir Starmer, securing the backing of Unison, which backed Corbyn in 2015 and 16.

Unison, as one of the biggest unions, gets Starmer closer to being assured of a place on the ballot paper.
Needs two more affiliated organisations, one of which must be a union.
This looks a certainty.

NEW: Starmer's campaign to be chaired by @JennyChapman, fmr MP for Darlington who lost her seat in GE19.
Smart signal about recovering lost ground.

Also coup to get Simon Fletcher as head of strategy.
Campaign director for Corbyn in 15. Smart signal to the left.

Just dropping in here occasionally for a (depressing) sanity check.

Between Trump, Johnson and the Australian premier I am feeling very sympathetic to Guy Fawkes view of politics at the moment.

I hope they do negotiate Erasmus though. For everyone's sake, we need to maintain ties with the EU.

I hope they do negotiate Erasmus though.

My feeling too, or at least I hope Johnson and his cronies, if they fail to do so, and fail to offer anything to their new Tory voters, piss off enough people to destroy themselves.

I was reading up on Erasmus .... its around 17,000 brits (and comparable from every other EU country) per year
but it is SUCH a good thing
it should continue

its around 17,000 brits

Slightly misleading figure. I did find a study for a previous thread which closed before I could post. In 2014/15, something like 26% of the 'brits' were in fact non-UK students studying at UK universities - who were then going abroad via Erasmus, sometimes to their home countries. Also, over 1,000 students were 'double counted' by the British Council - they counted the number of placements, not the number of students.

Its very hard to your home country, so those numbers will be tiny as was said on that thread and linked to. Why do you persist in this bullshit.

Although on the whole I think Erasmus is a good idea there needs to be more transparency on the stats. Will look for the study tomorrow - going to watch tv.

As an aside - the British Council's 'face of Erasmus' is actually a Rwandan/Belgian entrepreneur and television presenter - she attended primary school in Wales (doesn't say how long for), secondary school in Belgium, then Cardiff Uni.Yes, she's very likeable/bubbly/speaks well etc, but she's not British...

does anyone else's eyes glaze over when they see clavinova's name? maybe its just me then... but honestly why does it matter if the Erasmus face is not in fact white British?

Cause its not fair that someone not white and British should represent something British.

Clavs posts are amusing tbh, she obviously regards herself as some sort of intellectual.

oops silly me malylis

Why would she have to be ‘British’? 🤔

Clavinova reminds me of the line from Trollope:

“It’s the line of the French to be clever, it’s the line of the British to be dull”.

The Erasmus decision is incomprehensible. Terrible PR for the U.K.

Layla Moran tabled an amendment (clause 10) to the WA today that sought to keep the UK within Erasmus and Horizon.
It's bitten the dust.

It's mind bogglingly silly. Why on EARTH would we not want to stay in both?
I can hear a collective scream of despair from academia.

What were the reasons given against Erasmus?