Westministenders: Can you tell your Rs from Elbows?

[RedToothBrush]

This week Mark Sedwill has resigned (or was he pushed?) and David Frost (chief brexit lead) was appointed National Security Adviser in a move that enraged Theresa May. The former prime minister felt that his appointment was unprofessional and that was a political appointment not an independent one and that he lacked experience. Of course in terms of national security we still haven't had that report on Russia and I don't believe The Intelligence and Security Committee has yet been named (not sat since Johnson was appointed as PM).

We have passed the deadline for extending transition and we have now apparently said that negotiations on the end of transition will finish at the end of September.

The bill ending Free movement of people has been signed, amongst much fanfare by the Conservatives saying they have delivered on the Referendum promise. However we might have up to 3million Hong Kongers who we are willing to allow into the country which might not go down too well with those who were unhappy with 'unrestricted EU immigration'.

We also have the demonstration of utter incompetence, outsourcing and lack of coordination and communication from central government and local government in the covid-19 crisis. A national scandal that isn't being properly reported by the press and leave you with the very large question of who is this government serving? If its contract with Deloittes over testing didn't require them to report positive tests to Public Health England, what was the point in the testing? How can this be consistent with 'The Government’s new approach to biosecurity will bring together the UK’s world-leading epidemiological expertise and fuse it with the best analytical capability from across Government in an integrated approach.' and will provide real time analysis and assessment of infection outbreaks at a community level, to enable rapid intervention before outbreaks grow.?

The growing feeling that Brexit is being exploited by this government for personal interests and those of big business at the expense of the general public is one which was feared and grows harder to argue against by the day.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/03/25/oil-and-gas-giants-spend-millions-lobbying-to-block-climate-change-policies-infographic/#748e07a37c4f

"Every year, the world's five largest publicly owned oil and gas companies spend approximately $200 million on lobbying designed to control, delay or block binding climate-motivated policy.
BP has the highest annual expenditure on climate lobbying"

Oil companies have been completely unscrupulous about lobbying / bribing to drill for oil on public lands where they had been previously forbidden on environmental grounds

1bps6437gg8c169i0y1drtgz-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/CashingInOnCOVID-4.pdf

ExxonMobil and Occidental Petroleum ...^ both reported lobbying for the 45Q tax credit, a subsidy that mainly incentivizes using captured CO2 to stimulate oil production.^
Although the IRS Inspector General recently found that nearly $1 billion in credits had been fraudulently claimed under the current law,
Senate Republicans re- cently demanded that the tax credit be expanded and made permanent as part of the next corona- virus stimulus.

Yep, I thought I remembered reading that oil companies were scamming over CO2 capture
and their GOP bedmates were aiding & abettting

Shameful misuse of the Coronavirus crisis money

The corruption is just so penetrating. Seems hopeless sometimes.

It's made it to The White House www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/04/kimberly-guilfoyle-donald-trump-jrs-girlfriend-tests-positive-for-covid-19

So Cummings is bringing the internet to India (for better or for worse) www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/03/uk-buys-stake-bankrupt-oneweb-satellite-rival-eu-galileo-system. Not sure that anything could sound more like a way to use a version of Cambridge Analytica on their politics...although I seem to remember we already do invest in changing their elections and have managed to control these for some time? I wonder if this links to May's post Brexit agreement for students to come here?

That’s the same for any industry or profession. Many accidents / incidents are an accumulation of seemingly minor errors that eventually lead to a major occurrence. A fatal accident at a company I worked for had its origin traced back to someone eating an apple where they shouldn’t have

Richard Feynmans input to the Challenger inquiry showed that even the top bods at NASA had fuck all understanding of statistics. Really basic stuff like thinking the chances of 2 one in million events occurring together was 1 in a thousand billion. Their risk assessments were basically useless.

Menacing from China - they don't like the idea of their citizens escaping:

China’s ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming,

“all Chinese compatriots residing in Hong Kong are Chinese nationals,
whether or not they are holders of the British dependent territories citizens passport or the British national (overseas) passport”.

“If the British side makes unilateral changes to the relevant practice, it will breach its own position and pledges as well as international law,”

“We firmly oppose this and reserve the right to take corresponding measures.
The UK has no sovereignty, jurisdiction or right of ‘supervision’ over Hong Kong.”

I hope the UK remembers to build up its own stockpile of PPE
(100 pairs of gloves = 200 pieces of PPE etc)
as I presume this govt will continue to ignore any EMail invitations to participate in the EU one

The EU will buy reserves of masks and protective equipment in case of a second wave of coronavirus.

(Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws, quoting a Belgian minister, Philippe De Backer that
Belgium is one of several members offering to host the reserves - no shortage of volumteers !)

I know that I said the Chinese wouldn't be happy with the UK trying to act the big man any more a few threads (if not years ago).

Why aren't I foreign secretary ?

Be interesting to see Johnsons reverse ferret on this one. The UK simply can't afford to piss China off.

Of course if the UK were still in the EU, then the 3,000,000 Hong Kong residents would have been offered the opportunity to settle anywhere in the EU, which would have changed the balance a bit.

Still, I'm sure Boris knows best. And Raab probably still thinks Chinese cities are made of paper like in the 1800s. No match for the Royal Navys finest ...

You really wouldn't board your dog at a kennels run by the UK government.

I wonder what "corresponding measures" would be? Everything seems to go back to trade atm and frankly now seems to be a bonkers time for UK to eff about with that considering Brexit.

We are painting the bathroom and spraying dd's second hand bike today. I also have the job of attempting to replace inner-tubes. Feels like a job I should know how to do by my late 30's but it's a new skill being learnt. I also want to rip up the hallway carpet (odour of missed puppy pees) but suspect I'd regret that in Winter with draughty floorboards! I'll catch up later

It’s not big news that the US political system is heavily influenced by lobbying. Pharma / health has been by far the biggest lobbying group in the US (lobby spend of more that double that of oil companies over the last 20 years), and together with insurance groups has lobbied intensively to minimise public US healthcare provision. I think in the context of Covid that’s a bigger scandal.

I wonder what "corresponding measures" would be?

Just put the UK on a naughty step and say "We're not letting you into China now.".

Or simply "We can't do a deal with you until you drop - publicly drop that is - this silly notion you just had. You know where to find us when you have."

I missed it on first reading (only just got up !) but the Chinese are definitely trolling us : ... The UK has no sovereignty , jurisdiction or right of ‘supervision’ over Hong Kong.”.... If no one in the pay of the UK government has spotted that and flagged it up in a footnote for Raab, then we really are alone in a dark universe with no hope.

Really basic stuff like thinking the chances of 2 one in million events occurring together was 1 in a thousand billion.

I seem to recall a case of suspected child abuse where, on appeal, it was discovered that the so called "expert" had multiplied the two probabilities (I think it was of two different conditions) and said that therefore the odds were so low that what had happened as a result of that combination couldn't be accidental

Yes DGR I noticed that too - I was wondering if they were going to do something in relation to Ireland and our trade... A fellow remainer friend thinks our US trade deal is a dead duck "USA trade deal is dead, not going to happen. Cannot get it ratified by congress before Trump is out on his arse. Biden isn’t interested in a deal with a third rate backwater. His prize is a trade deal with the EU!".

I may be procrastinating...

Just heard a portion of Trumps 4th July speech on the Radio - filled with the normal hate..... but man he sounds tired and weak.....that's not going to help him..... he has no authority in his tone anymore

I see that in the Independent, Johnson is quoted as saying 'no deal with EU very good option'.

So we knew that no deal was the plan of the ERG all along and Johnson went along with it to garner his heart's desire of being PM.

The main strategy to manipulate a largely uninformed public (and I place myself in that category 4 years ago and voted remain on instinct) was to emphasise the UK's urgent need to reclaim its sovereignty.

And that strategy worked brilliantly along with apparently dark money, microtargeting, lies, overspending etc. And now that the UK has 'taken back control' from the EU, it is about to or wants to happily and willingly hand its soverignty over to the US.

Here is my big question, are our current politicians that thick and incompetent that they refuse to see they will have less sovereignty with a US UK FTA than we would have had with a partnership trade deal with the EU? Or... are the current cabinet going to profit so enormously from a UK US FTA that it's not stupidity and that this is all playing out quite consciously and calculatingly?

HoC Committee on the Future Relationship with the European Union

Scroll down nearly to the bottom for this gem on new IT system for goods traffic:

committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/567/html/

Q469 Chair: Could you think of any other IT systems of this nature that have been built and tested in six months,
given we have just learnt this morning that it is still in the specification phase?

Tim Reardon: French customs specified and built its system, which does exactly the same thing, in that kind of timescale.
It is not impossible and, if HMRC were to buy a licence for the French system, that would be a very simple thing to do and traders would like it.

Q470 Chair: That is interesting.
The answer is to buy French to make it happen. 😂

I think it's the second sentence of your big question Dr Blackbird.

We did have a say in how the EU was run, even though the Tories and the Mail, Express and Telegraph liked to pretend that we didn't. We will have F All say in the US.

What can we do short of pray for a miracle to happen?

It feels like watching a car crash happen in slow motion and not being able to do a damn thing about it.

My extreme annoyance at people I know who voted to Leave or voted Tory in the last election and then abrogate themselves of any inclination to actually read the news or follow what's about to happen on the basis of their choices knows no bounds!

Btw, I owe Clav an apology. I was getting s/he/they mixed up with Cendrillion. It was the latter Brexiteer who delighted in coming on the WM thread with a constant to rub our noses in Johnson's 'world beating' majority election win.

I have a twinge of sympathy for those who voted Leave in the Referendum thinking that it would help the NHS. A bit less sympathy for those who thought it wouldn't harm trade because 'No one is talking of leaving the Single Market'. I have ZERO sympathy for those who voted Tory in December 2019.

And for the "What about Corbyn? " brigade - as far as I know Corbyn isn't a liar and a cheat, who has continually wasted public money and nor do I think he is any more of an antisemite that a good number of the Tory party. I do think that many of the Tory party are racist to the core.

Yes, I think I too owe Clavinova an apology for getting her mixed up with Cendrillon. Not that I don't find the constant cut and paste utterly tedious.

I wonder how many actually voted Leave really believing they 'helping the NHS' and more it was Leave campaign's clever marketing strategy enabling the xenophobes to rationalise their less savoury motives?

I'm really not good at following the thread these days ( partly due to DH issues).

But has everyone seen that Gove said Cummings is admired for his blistering honesty.

Then prioritising the CO2 thing with £ 100m.

Then the White House style briefings. Feel like I've stepped into some weird Dali painting. Existing somewhere between nightmare and reality.

Did we see 'blistering honesty' with his trip to Durham, or his trip out to Barnard Castle?