Westminstenders: The Mask is Slipping

[RedToothBrush]

This week has seen the department of the Chancellor who launched a 50p piece, the serious contemplation of a tin pot bridge, the rebirth of eugenics as a subject for cabinet, the announcement of the end of the BBC as we know it, the cabinet chanting after the PM in a way Orwell would be proud of, suppression of a report into trade deals which dares to mention the effect of distance and geography, worrying signs of an ever growing rift with Europe over negotiations for a deal, an appointment which starts to make our membership of the ECHR look very dodgy and there have been rather a lot of floods which so far seemed to have escaped the attention of those in London busy in their own swamp.

It's becoming apparent very quickly just how Trump like our new government are and how they want the UK to emulate the very worst aspects of America.

We are falling fast and its not looking like it will be pretty.

All we need is a major global issue to test our national resilience and the incompetence will truly be laid bare for us all to see... But not necessarily speak of. Such us the way it works.

Brexit Britain is not a nice looking prospect.

That's quite apart from rich men & women - could be just single men - using poor women as incubators

I wonder if being a surrogate will in the future be defined as a "job" that women in the correct age & health band will be forced to take, or have their benefits stopped

Do you think that everyone should have to go through years of checks and training before being allowed to conceive?
And there are restrictions on using surrogacy already.

I wonder if being a surrogate will in the future be defined as a "job" that women in the correct age & health band will be forced to take, or have their benefits stopped

...will this government lose the squeamishness about people being required to do sex work before they get their benefits. It might start taking coats in a lap dancing club. But where will it end ?

"Do you think that everyone should have to go through years of checks and training before being allowed to conceive?"

No, because they are conceiving and carrying their own babies for 9 months or so
For themselves to raise
Not to sell as a commodity

People are not allowed to sell their babies on ebay, even if they desperately want the money for a house deposit or whatever
Because tiny human beings are not used clothing or gadgets

Creating a new human being simply to sell to anyone rich enough to buy has obvious dangers

Yes, DG A slippery slope

Here's a thinhg: Sympathy for Boris Johnson

No, I do not think dragging the PM to Wales or Yorkshire so he can be made to stand in a puddle while local people shout abuse in a range of accents would do anything to help the situation.

Nicola Sturgeon was out visiting g flood affected areas and talking to local people on the 1st day after Storm Dennis hit #justsaying

Why has the phrase "brood mare" flashed up into my brain ?

I feel quite ill.

Exactly DG I personally think of "incubator" but the same idea
turns my stomach, for both the women and the babies

The hard right increasingly regard poor people, especially women, as "things" to serve the convenience of the rich,
rather than as human beings in their own right

The medium income mc should not be complacent either - as with automation, this attitude will make many of them suffer too

No, I do not think dragging the PM to Wales or Yorkshire so he can be made to stand in a puddle while local people shout abuse in a range of accents would do anything to help the situation.

No it wouldn't help but it's hardly a big deal to get helicoptered down there to make sympathetic faces and drink stewed tea for half an hour. People have long memories about this sort of stuff

A logical extension to "brood mares" would be the DWP expecting new mothers to be wet nurses for more important women

A logical extension to "brood mares" would be the DWP expecting new mothers to be wet nurses

Can't see the big pharma paymasters being impressed with that. Someone has to buy formula milk.

@prettybird. If we are going back to Victorian times, we may as well go the whole hog!

Wet nurses could be quite well-paid, back then. I wonder what the going rate would be today, given its an-around-the clock job? You would have to opt out of the working time directive and the need for maternity leave too.

This is all sounding too Handmaid’s Tale for me.

I am not looking forward to the shitty consequences for us as a country, but it's going to be fun to watch the penny drop with the Cabinet when they finally realise the extent of their negotiating power.

There is no reason to carry out the same checks and training as for adopted children.

Babies aren't products to be bought and sold, and there is every reason to carry out checks on people who treat them as if they are.

This is all sounding too Handmaid’s Tale for me.

That's the danger with dystopian predictions. Some people read them and think "you know what ? That's not a bad idea ..."

I'm a firm believer that everything balances out. Eventually. But it can be shitty in between .

Wet nurses could be quite well-paid, back then.

Would it be enough to compensate effectively become an indentured servant ?

Babies aren't products to be bought and sold

That's your view. I can guarantee that there will be people out there who think that is exactly the situation.

while local people shout abuse in a range of accents would do anything to help the situation.

Not the specific situation but
a) it would cheer up the locals
b) it would get pfeffel out of his bubble and given his 'anything for an easy life' model would chip away at his reliance on cummings - bringing the latter's demise and consequent collapse of government closer

Babies aren't products to be bought and sold, and there is every reason to carry out checks on people who treat them as if they are.

Agreed. There is no comparison between a child who, for whatever reason, cannot live with its birth parents and needs adoptive parents. That child is already born and the best possible must be done for it, including checking prospective parents. This is entirely unrelated to the commissioning and purchase of a child yet to be conceived. Babies are not products. Women are not rentable "carriers".

I think Boris is going to be an absentee Prime Minister.

This is all sounding too Handmaid’s Tale for me.

Handmaid's tale was about authoritarianism. A lot of dystopian fiction is about authoritarianism. Our society is leaning towards authoritarianism.

The natural outcome of this is predictable.

Women always fair particularly badly under authoritarianism.

Carrying a baby for 9 months has nothing to do with being a good parent. People shouldn't be made to go through years of checks and training as a form of punishment, but because it's needed, as in the case of those wanting to adopt children who are likely to be highly damaged due to neglect and abuse.

Any PM has to stand up and be accountable, has to reassure the public, whether that is after floods or fire or terrorist attack

Even - maybe especially - if their policies have contributed to the disaster or its scale.
e.g. after 7/7, Blair had to face relatives who might have blamed his Iraq policy, although it turned out that it was mostly just Livingstone & co who actually expressed this.

Even BJ can - hopefully - not dodge his duty for current or future disasters

And surrogates in the UK only have their costs covered.