Westministenders: No Australia Don't Have A Deal

[RedToothBrush]

Since Friday, far from letting things calm down, Johnson has doubled down stating that if we can't have a Canada Deal (which the EU says wouldn't be equal because we are much closer than Canada geographically) we will go for an Australia Deal.

This is the latest rehash of a managed no deal package up as something else which the EU have already repeatedly said no to.

So we are on track for no deal.

At the same time Johnson has got very excited about American food and how its great. Almost as if he wants no deal wit the EU to force a shitty bad deal with the us through.

Johnson and his chronies have also been trying to undermine journalistic transparency by blocking access to the lobby to some media outlets in a move that makes us look like a tinpot dictatorship. Fortunately there was a mass walk out of journalists but it remains to be seen how long that can be maintained.

Far from being a clean slate to move forward from its already proving that nothing has changed and old divisions are as deep as ever, if not worse...

Mockers, your idea of what a war crime is needs adjustment.

The definition is not solely to do with treatment of regular combatants.

The collusion of the British Armed forces with Loyalist extremists is a shameful blot on those forces. The brass should have refused most of what it was asked to do in NI. A pacification operation that lasts several decades and costs so many lives and drags the reputation of Britain and its armed forces into the gutter is a most unsuccessful one.

If it wasn't a war then it bloody well walked like a war and quacked like one.

(Speaking as the daughter, niece and granddaughter of officers in various British services here).

Also, if the Uk tried "flicking a switch" to actually take away an important existing facility from the USA,
then I would expect similar consequences and US pressure to what happened in the Suez crisis

I would expect far more tbh.

In the immediate aftermath of WW2 the USAF mapped every single square inch of the land for miles around Shannon Airport. I would assume that all actual installations and surroundings are mapped and plans filed for their occupation. I suspect that any US installations or joint installations in the UK or elsewhere are considered de facto US territory, assets important enough to occupy just as implied in the mapping of Shannon and its perimeter in the dawn of the Cold War.

Very well said mathanxiety, i too have familial military connections but the actions of both sides of the terrorist argument and some of the actions of the British government were deplorable....but the GFA means we must move on and as long as the Tories, Sinn Fein or the DUP continue to adhere to it then people should vote for them if their policies are good

It's hard to break free from a union.

...the GFA means we must move on and as long as the Tories, Sinn Fein or the DUP continue to adhere to it then people should vote for them if their policies are good

Absolutely agree.

There are no Irish political parties anywhere on the island apart from Labour, Greens, and the SDLP that don't have their origins in armed struggle or the threat of it.

And one party incorporated a fascist movement into itself very smoothly.

< 😂 >
On a more serious note, Ireland should reap some economic & foreign investment advantages from now being the main EU country with English as its - in practice - first language

https://wurst.lu/irish-english-replaces-british-english-as-eu-working-language/?

Following the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union at the end of January,
the EU has announced that Irish English will replace British English as the union’s primary working language.

The change, effective immediately, was announced on Monday by European Commission president Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen,
who says the unity of the 27 remaining countries is “grand” despite Brexit and the years of the UK “foostering about.”

“The British are just after leaving, and fair play to them for getting what they wanted,” she said.
“They’ve been part of this union for donkey’s years, so I amn’t saying that we won’t miss them.”

“But we’ll be needing an English that’s more reflective of what now be our biggest English-speaking country, the Republic of Ireland,” she continued.
“Starting today, all of yous will switch to Hiberno-English for all meetings and the drafting of documents, translations, and the like.”

At least that made me laugh, BigChoc.

The difference can be seen in a statement that was published on the EU homepage in late January, which referred to the UK leader as “Prime Minister Boris Johnson,” but by Feb.1 the words had been changed to “your man.”

Loving the hiberno English vibe. Sure it'll be grand. the tins and all that stuff are in the press, and put your sheets and towels in the hot press, where the dreaded immersion is.

Y'all realise that is stage Irishery, right?

The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-2020-disinformation-war/605530/

That this narrative bore little resemblance to reality seemed only to accelerate its spread.
Right-wing websites amplified every claim.

Pro-Trump forums teemed with conspiracy theories.
An alternate information ecosystem was taking shape around the biggest news story in the country,
and I wanted to see it from the inside.

I was surprised by the effect it had on me.
I’d assumed that my skepticism and media literacy would inoculate me against such distortions.

But I soon found myself reflexively questioning every headline.
It was that, in this state of heightened suspicion, truth itself - about Ukraine, impeachment, or anything else -
felt more and more difficult to locate.
With each swipe, the notion of observable reality drifted further out of reach.

What I was seeing was a strategy that has been deployed by illiberal political leaders around the world.

Rather than shutting down dissenting voices, these leaders have learned to harness the democratizing power of social media for their own purposes
- jamming the signals, sowing confusion.

They no longer need to silence the dissident shouting in the streets;
they can use a megaphone to drown him out.

Scholars have a name for this: censorship through noise.

Do not worry, mathanxiety. We did realise it's a joke. Although the "we're after leaving" in my experience is a typical Celtic expression which I have also heard from 1st language Welsh speakers when speaking English.

Looks like the Tories are headed for open warfare again over Huawei

For some reason it cheers me.

Especially with headlines where Loathsome is warning Boris over reshuffles ....

www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-51422840

Oh, and it seems the Tories have suddenly decided taxing the rich could be a thing:

The FT Weekend reports that Chancellor Sajid Javid is considering making tax and pension reforms that could hit high earners in his first budget next month. But the moves have not been finalised amid risks of a Tory backlash, says the paper.

Voters would welcome higher taxes to help pensioners, first-time buyers and GP services, according to a poll for the Daily Express. "Almost half" of those polled said that they feel positive about the country's future - a clear message, the paper says, that "people are backing Boris to think big and make the country better".

We live in ... interesting ... times.

Oh, and it seems the Tories have suddenly decided taxing the rich could be a thing

Reducing the tax break on pension contributions from 40% to 20%, wouldn’t be that surprising. But reforms to inheritance tax might not go down so well with the traditional Tory supporters - remember the howls when the Labour Party picked up on this as an idea?

I read - might have been Express as well - that the Brexiter economist Prof Minford is advocating large spending increases

..... the same Prof Minford who back in 2010 was stating how austerity was essential

Now his Brexit has happened, suddenly he U-turns on public spending & taxation

A surprising number of other rightwingers too, so looks a trend
Just standard vote-buying that most politicians do for their own voters - e.g. pensioners - but Tories deny doing ?

Are rightwing Brexiters becoming alarmed at the economic prospects after transition
or was austerity just "punishment", which now Brexit has happened is no longer needed ?

The stereotype is of the poor pensioner, and some are like that, but an awful lot are not - if they had a good work pension as well as the state pension, and their house is paid for.

But hey, if Johnson's glib promises cause him trouble at' mill - who am I to get upset on his behalf? Is there an English word for schadenfreude?

It is annoying to see the Tories potentially stealing Labour's clothes, but for the average person in the street, what ultimately matters if it makes their life better, not which party ticket delivered the result.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brexit-forces-scot-to-say-auf-wiedersehen-to-german-mayoralty-dj6blghf6?shareToken=260f870268f47b8166377c9bf765a667
Brexit forces Scot to say auf wiedersehen to German mayoralty

If you're going to mount a raid on high earners and inheritances, now's the time to do it (another 5 years in office and a big majority).

But I don't think it will happen as I don't think Javid is in a strong enough position.

Higher taxes on earnings - depends how you do it. But i am 100% in agreement on taxes on assets.

Are the 1930s the true historical parallel for Labour today?
The 1980s are more frequently cited, but with care, lessons can be drawn from the interwar period

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/are-the-1930s-the-true-historical-parallel-for-labour-today-macdonald-lansbury-corbyn-starmer-long-bailey-leadership

Despite the obvious differences, an existential economic crisis followed by a ringing electoral endorsement of the right will sound familiar to any observer of British current affairs since 2008.

The parallels don’t end there.

As in 2019, more working-class electors voted Tory than Labour in 1931 and 1935.

To build this hegemony, the Conservatives successfully appealed to newly enfranchised women and the anti-Catholic and anti-Irish vote in Merseyside.
But they also appealed to a cross-class patriotism
(even asking electors to vote for the “National Government”),
and smeared Labour as dangerous “Bolshevists” with dubious links to Soviet Russia.

We do need to move on, which is why the cynical and vindictive persuit of old men who served in uniform over forty years ago needs to end.

And just as some people cannot grasp the difference between human rights and civil rights, some people will not grasp the concept of a war crime is not the same thing as a crime against humanity or a breach of human and/or civil rights.

Wearing incorrect insigina of rank is a war crime, assuming there is a war, or at the very least a state of hostilities that would conform with the UN Charter and Article 51 rights. Crown forces were engaged in a purely domestic operation supporting the legitimate civil power, (with all its faults.) Any crimes that were committed, such as the Finnucane case, were plain old crimes under UK law including human rights treaty obligations.

The only possible war crimes were those operations that eminated from the Republic into the Province, such as Charile Haughy's gun-running.

Javid is allegedly 'fighting for his political position' as he's clashing with Cummings and Cummings wants rid of him.

So this story is possibly about positioning. Javid frames himself as being against the rich but nothing ever comes of his proposal because he's 'forced not to follow through' with something that just isn't going to happen. Or Cummings frames Javid as being a threat to core Tory voters and therefore must be removed by Johnson, especially if Javid is showing up Johnson as Johnson said he'd do this and then backtracked.

Whichever it is, I think its manoeuvring rather than a serious proposal.