Westminstenders: The Final Week

[RedToothBrush]

Our final week in the EU...

I may be mis-remembering Marseille and e-gates, but this is the airport where I have seen Britons go through the non-EU gates when they didn't need to. More fool them, choosing to queue when they could have gone straight through.

The Independent’s Tom Peck on Johnson’s speech yesterday.

I honestly don’t get how we are meant to cope with this utterly luminous filth.

Don’t suppose he’ll ever be invited to any briefings.

An interesting thread:

mobile.twitter.com/tompeck/status/1224288726777503745

The trouble here Hester is that the Independent was quite pro-Romain, as was the Guardian. We will know the tide has begun to turn when Mail and Express writers start saying those things.

I know Peregrina.
Can’t see the Mail and Express changing, unless they start to lose their readers, or the benefits being pro-BJ brings them.

I thought the Independent had been bought by the people that own the Daily Mail. There was the expectation that it would begin to change direction and one of the writers (I've forgotten her name) left very publicly (on Twitter at least) for that reason.

The comment about Scorpio was a little bit of code.

Ahhh I get it now DGR. Of course they don't fit the new order. (Still I like my Outliers academic year advantage theory. )

I was impressed by their skill at changing to another vocabulary so quickly; they said it was basic manners.

I have some school run parents friends who speak Farsi, Mandarin and German. If there's a parent from the other classes around who speaks those languages my friends always switch to English if I'm around.

To be polite, sometimes I say don't mind me me if you want to speak X for a change . They never do - but I think it's polite of me to offer.

I can completely get that if I was doing a school run elsewhere and there was only one other parent in the school who was also English it would be nice to chat.

PMK to say nothing surprises me any more

I listened to the Today programme this morning. 2 BBC people discussed a big shift in popularity towards Sinn Fein and reunification, ahead of the election there. Gobsmacked that there was NO mention of Brexit. Apparently, it was only due to lack of housing, healthcare, etc. I'm guessing that BBC staff have been ordered not to mention Brexit.

Global talent ? www.theguardian.com/education/2020/feb/04/cambridge-sociologists-visa-fight-sends-shockwaves-through-universities

I guess the author of the "Norwich poster" will be glad.

Yes nothing is surprising...

There are some good petitions zooming up Very quickly at the moment...

https://www.change.org/p/uk-government-eu-nationals-were-promised-automatic-settled-status-make-it-happen-nomorebrokenpromises?pt=AVBldGl0aW9uAPQ1KgEAAAAAXjmESgvHj6A0OWFkNmNkYw%3D%3D&sourcelocation=discoverr_feed

https://www.change.org/p/uk-parliament-we-request-that-the-uk-rejoin-the-eu-as-soon-as-possible-after-11pm-31st-january-2020?recruiter=46915512&utmsource=shareepetition&utmmedium=copylink&utmmcampaign=sharepetition&utmmterm=petitiondashboard

IKEA closing it's Coventry store.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51369413

Although by the looks of it, not really Brexit related, but wait, wasn't Brexit going to bring prosperity? Shouldn't IKEA still be keeping the store open to await the upturn which is imminent?

Although by the looks of it, not really Brexit related, but wait, wasn't Brexit going to bring prosperity? Shouldn't IKEA still be keeping the store open to await the upturn which is imminent?

Oh, I'm not as dim as to jump on every bit of unpleasant news as being Brexit related. But as you immediately twigged, stories like this aren't a great lot of help when we're looking to big up the UK inside and out. It's worth noting that outside of London in the 70s, the area which produced the greatest blend of cultural mixings was ... Coventry. With two-tone. Given the level of deprivation, it was hardly surprising.

This town is coming like a Ghost Town
Bands won't play not more ....
Too much fighting on the dance floor !!!!!

Now I recall that song being an eerily perfect fit for the riot-torn UK of 1981. When - in Harrow - people were putting up posters: BRIXTON. TOXTETH. ENOCH WAS RIGHT ! on the lampposts.

I was talking to a building trade friend just now - the country is still holding its breath even though Brexit is done
because no developer will gamble on restarting construction until they know the economy will not be shrinking in 11 months time ....

Johnson had better get his skates on when it comes to reassuring business that Brexit really will make anything better

If you really want to wind up a Brexiteer, just keep asking them when Brexit will be done, and question any answer that suggests it isn't. (After all wasn't it remainers that said it would take time. Brexiteers kept telling us it would be instant. Immediate. Done in an afternoon ...)

Yes, it is an immature "debating" technique. (But then who said I was in any way mature ?) Also, you need to match your audience ...

It's not quite reductio ad absurdum. Can't really think if it has a name ... basically you start by accepting your opponents position rather than arguing it, and then just ask incessant questions as the lies unfold.

DGR
they tend to get very irate
and in real life many of them pay my wages so I choose not to

Torchlightt to be honest not a person I know who's voting on Saturday in the election is thinking about Brexit with regards to their vote. In fact the vast majority of them think that enough time and airwaves has been wasted on it. I'm in the North but am up and down a lot, I was in Dublin last night and the people I was out with were concerned with housing, health especially mental health provision, education and climate change, Brexit wasn't mentioned once, apart from the odd joke but certainly not in relation to voting.

I must say, I am as angry now as I was the day after the Referendum. They have got their Brexit, they have got their Brexit loving Tory Government and yet, the Leavers can't really tell us what will be better or even what they hope will be better. I haven't noticed any of them saying that they will hold the Government responsible for seeing the new hospitals built as just a starter.

Oh yes, and democracy in their terms has been fulfilled but they still can't tell us what the benefits are.

I can't quite get over just how sore the Brexiters are - they won

After the party comes the hangover, counting the cost, followed by regret and possibly some soul searching or much more likely denial / ostrich behaviour.

We will just get poorer and more insignificant now until an angry generation of disaffected youth applies to re-join.

We will just get poorer and more insignificant now until an angry generation of disaffected youth applies to re-join.

By which time the EU we left will be as unrecognisable to them, as the EU is to the EEC of 45 years ago, which itself was completely different to the Steel and Coal trading union of the Treaty of Rome.

Can't really think if it has a name ... basically you start by accepting your opponents position rather than arguing it, and then just ask incessant questions as the lies unfold.

Isn't that a bit like how the arguments go in Plato's "Republic"?

I myself could see us spending more money on as many opt ins as we can get but still having no say.

Yes. We have stropped off out of the clubhouse because we didn't want to pay the fee.

Now we will whinge on the outside until we need the toilet / feel hungry / want a job /miss joining in / miss the facilities and will try to use a pay as you go system to throw ourselves at the mercy of other countries who may well tell us to go forth.