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.

news.sky.com/story/apology-to-civil-servants-over-shocking-leak-of-job-cuts-12024198
Apology to civil servants over 'shocking' leak of job cuts
A union boss tells Sky News it is "an appalling way to treat staff who have been working tirelessly to support the country".

Mr Aiken apologised "for the way you learnt about these proposed changes" in a heated briefing, Sky News has learnt.

But he confirmed redundancies may be needed given Downing Street wants all government departments to have 30 staff or "preferably fewer" dealing with journalists.

Only 30 staff dealing with journalists means that journalists can not freely get information they request and the government can control the media. If the government control the media and there is no accountability via the media to hold the government to account, we by definition cease to be a Liberal democracy.

From wiki

Authoritarian regimes may be either autocratic or oligarchic in nature, and may be based upon the rule of a party or the military.

In an influential 1964 work, the political scientist Juan Linz defined authoritarianism as possessing four qualities:

Limited political pluralism, realized with constraints on the legislature, political parties and interest groups.

Political legitimacy based upon appeals to emotion and identification of the regime as a necessary evil to combat "easily recognizable societal problems, such as underdevelopment or insurgency".

Minimal political mobilization and suppression of anti-regime activities.

Ill-defined executive powers, often vague and shifting, which extends the power of the executive.

Also it touches on how most authoritarian regimes do have elections but they control the outcomes via different methods. We certainly seem to have some if these (though not all) going on.

(BTW watch out for Trump doing this too).

Hindrances to free and fair elections in authoritarian systems may include:

Control of the media by the authoritarian incumbents

Interference with opposition campaigning

Electoral fraud

Violence against opposition

Large-scale spending by the state in favor of the incumbents

Permitting of some parties, but not others

Prohibitions on opposition parties, but not independent candidates

Allowing competition between candidates within the incumbent party, but not those who are not in the incumbent party

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism#:~:text=Authoritarianism%20is%20characterized%20by%20highly,the%20goals%20of%20the%20regime.

The concept of "authoritarian constitutionalism" has been developed by legal scholar Mark Tushnet. Tushnet distinguishes authoritarian constitutionalist regimes from "liberal constitutionalist" regimes ("the sort familiar in the modern West, with core commitments to human rights and self-governance implemented by means of varying institutional devices") and from purely authoritarian regimes (which reject the idea of human rights or constraints on leaders' power). He describes authoritarian constitutionalist regimes as (1) authoritarian dominant-party states that (2) impose sanctions (such as libel judgments) against, but do not arbitrarily arrest, political dissidents; (3) permits "reasonably open discussion and criticism of its policies"; (4) hold "reasonably free and fair elections," without systemic intimidation, but "with close attention to such matters as the drawing of election districts and the creation of party lists to ensure as best it can that it will prevail—and by a substantial margin"; (4) reflect at least occasional responsiveness to public opinion; and (5) create "mechanisms to ensure that the amount of dissent does not exceed the level it regards as desirable." Tushnet cites Singapore as an example of an authoritarian constitutionalist state, and connects the concept to that of hybrid regimes.

The Singapore Model...

None of this is a surprise to me unfortunately. This was always likely to be the outcome of the referendum after May's fateful Tory Party conference of 2016.

I do wonder how long it will take for everyone to catch on about what's currently happening.

Re covid and the brain. The wife of one of DHs friends was hospitalised with covid. The couple said their goodbyes when she was hospitalised. She has fortunately recovered but is now having lots of cognitive problems and has developed ongoing brain related symptoms (not going to be specific about what exactly for privacy reasons). These have significant impact on her day to day life and there's no guarantee it won't be permanently disabling. She's only just turned 50. With 1 kid only just in teens who has been helping care for her mum. Bloody awful situation.

Terrifying stuff all round, Red. So sorry about your friends wife.

On Liz Truss and the WTO legal issue

Lisa O'Carroll @lisaocarroll
Two observations on this story -

- Threat of legal action from WTO will be no surprise to Gove as he admitted same risk for May plan for Ireland last year

- legal action would take years..

third point. If Liam Fox got the WTO boss job it would mean former international trade secretary being involved in official complaint against his successor.

amp.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/27/zero-tariff-plan-irish-border-could-face-wto-legal-threat-gove-brexit?__twitter_impression=true
Zero-tariff plan for Irish border could face WTO legal threat, says Gove
Environment secretary admits other nations could have a case against no-deal Brexit proposal

The Corbyn would have been worse feeling, is alive and well.

Well, let's see if Sunak makes good on his promises.

Josiah Mortimer @josiahmortimer
NEW: Nearly half of the top 50 public corporations in the UK have connections with a serving MP

In comparison, the figures for the US are 6% and 4%, respectively. Only Russia and Thailand have a higher proportion of 'politically connected' companies

blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/mps-and-outside-business-interests/
MPs and outside business interests: the value of political-corporate connections

Since DW and I have no intention of using whatever meagre scraps Sunak pushes off the top table, I wonder if there's a mechanism to somehow donate that to a foodbank, or charity ?

I won't waste a second looking, because the answer is ideologically no. In the same way I can easily imagine almost any other country in the world would have set up such a scheme along with the incentive.

I wonder if Marcus Rashford is still free ?

And five minutes later on Twitter ...

LouiseCollins said The problem that needs to be solved is to get away from the notion of the last job being the best paid and the one on which someone’s occupational pension is based. Sort out the pension implications and keep people in work.

This is the position for many (if not all) local government pension schemes - since around the middle of the last decade IIRC they have moved to a 'career average revalued earnings' model. Final salary schemes seem to be very much a thing of the past, although admittedly there will still be many people on legacy schemes who are unaffected.

LouiseCollins said The problem that needs to be solved is to get away from the notion of the last job being the best paid and the one on which someone’s occupational pension is based. Sort out the pension implications and keep people in work.

That vaguely chimes with an idea a friend modelled whereby as you get promoted you get paid less.

All of a sudden you get people avoiding promotion and (curated carefully) you can actually move the more competent people forwards.

It only works in models, because (like communism, or folk singing) you need everyone to be doing it for it it work.

However it does show that there's always other ways of doing things. If you have imagination. And we know imagination is linked to intelligence anyway.

But certainly in the UK, we've perfected the "what can I do with this hammer ?" approach to everything.

DH and I talked about this and wondered about how the scheme would work in practice.

It turns out you have to register your business for the scheme by 13th July (don't know where)

So many, many businesses won't know this and won't sign up for it. And subsequently you'll get a situation where many will continue to struggle and the response will be 'well you should have joined the scheme'. (Can you see a pattern here).

DH also pointed out what happens around here. Its well known that the local restuarants are not putting all the money through the books, with several having a reputation for laundering. (DH thinks that it could be a way of trying to get restuarants to actually go through the tax system for this reason.) One of them has been offering 10% off the cost of takeaways if you pay cash during the crisis for some inexplictable reason... Friends know one of the owners and he's told them that they have made as much money throughout lockdown via takeaways as he had with the restuarant fully open. He was selling drinks to people waiting for their takeway in the bar, before the licensed premises closure was lifted too. (Strictly unlawful) From what we hear all the other restuarants who have been doing takeout have done just as well, and the places that have lost out have been the pubs which rely on drink as well as food for their income - the pub drinkers have just switched to take out night with a bottle from the offy.

It is therefore a really (good) gimmick which will only be taken up by a small number of places within the time frame, won't help pubs who have suffered a lot more nor restuarants which were unable to offer takeout. And those who fail to take up the scheme will be told they are stupid for not doing so.

Given that, I'm wondering just how many restuarants will take advantage of the scheme (particularly locally). And I wonder how many customers will be caught out, eat their meal, get their bill and then get angry when they are expected to pay the full amount. I fear that could lead to walkouts and conflicts.

I wonder if for all the fanfare of it, whether 3 months down the line we will see reports saying how take up of the scheme wasn't as big as hoped and how much of the money allocated for it, was never used.

Sorry correction, registration for the scheme doesn't close on monday. It opens. I misread.

I wonder if its time limited registration though.

Also on the same note:

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/manchester-restaurant-group-loses-6k-18560482
Manchester restaurant group loses £6k on reopening day as 270 diners fail to show up

A manager at Gusto has pleaded with customers to pick up the phone if they need to cancel - warning that jobs depend on it

She told the M.E.N no-shows had become a growing problem, with 'a slow upward trend' over the last 12 months.

"What we're noticing is it's smaller tables now too - not just the larger parties," she said.

"I think what people are doing is booking multiple restaurants and deciding where they feel like going on the day."

I noticed at the weekend that tables at a local bar we often frequent were empty even though they were reserved and thought it was a bad sign.

We had no intention of going to the pub last weekend, however we walked past and saw the beer garden was completely empty and thought 'why not then?' I was surprised both at it being empty and me stopping for a quick drink (the bar has an offlicence and has been very busy during lock down).

More on the effects on Scotland of current "hammer" attitudes by WM from Peter Foster:

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1280766673490976769.html

"Farming, fishing conservation, environmental and animal welfare groups all note that despite the "warm words" on standards/welfare, the government is thus far allergic to enshrining those commitments in law - remember the block of amendments to Agriculture Bill?
So why does this threaten to ignite the constitutional powder keg?

Well, because when UK was an EU member, it's 'internal market' was effectively the EU's single market, with shared rules for everyone.

Then Brussels imposed the discipline. After #Brexit London must do so.
That means cutting across policy areas - agriculture, foods standards, state aid - that are currently 'devolved' competences - partly because at the time the devolution settlements emerged no-one envisaged UK leaving the EU. Now the govt must create a UK level playing field.

This would be challenging at the best of times, but when the devolved government is your implacable political opponent, as the SNP are the Tories, that is clearly a recipe for serious friction and tension as we head into next year's Holyrood elections.

As new standards emerge - say using GMOs, or accepting cheaper imports with higher pesticide residues, or egg powder raised in batter cages - the Scottish/Welsh government is in a perpetual bind: accept them, or refuse them (and get undercut)"
[...]
"in the leaked reports of 2018 US-UK exploratory trade talks, US negotiators did bring up the question of how the deal would land in the devolved administrations...and the UK basically said 'we'll get back to you' "

I am under absolutely no illusions that any "aid" will be so limited as to be useless.

Same way a lot of local authority "aid" is actually just a shortlist of the least decent builders in town. When it would be more efficient to grant the end recipient the cash and let them commission exactly what they need.

It never ceases to amuse me when DWs therapists call round, they all know immediately that the level access I made wasn't provided by the council. "Far too good a job" they say. Yes I say, and only £500, not £15,000.

RTB
Hidden in the coronavirus bill was an amendment to the Licencing act which allowed all licenced premises to do off sales
the rest is illegal
but that bit isn't

@pretty - we may have touched on this....apologies if we have. But just in regard to Peter Fosters tweet. I have felt that quite a number of comments from BJ and other Tory politicians are really barbed. I personally think Nicola Sturgeon has handled it beautifully- which has made her look the more reasonable/bigger person. How has it played in Scotland? I know what the polls are saying - but I am surprised the swing isn't bigger.

I just find it incredible that that is the tack the Tories are taking - when they need co-operation on FTA's as they are devolved issues....... food and animal welfare standards etc.

LQ, the customers were drinking in the bar on the premises though in pint glasses. Which I believe wasn't allowed. Surely it had to be sold in a closed container and consumed off the premises to be allowed under offlicencing laws?

@mrslaughan There was a huge backlash regarding school reopening plans. We were told to expect blended learning (on the order of 4 days in school every 3 weeks in some places) for the full year. They backpedaled like lightning on that one and we're now looking at full reopening, but I expect that has dampened enthusiasm. Education has been the Achilles heel of the SNP led govt for years.

Goodness me, Theresa May, demon Home Secretary as was, on the radio right now sounding like a perfectly reasonable, sensible and compassionate politician, which of course she is, at least when compared to most of the current Government.

John Lewis - by far in a way the biggest tenant in Brums "Grand Central" closing down. It's not as if they had companies queuing for units beforehand.

I'm not a massive fan of trying to rig or game markets (it's why I could never be a good communist). But that said, there really needs to be some imagination deployed around what to do with all these empty retail spaces. Because the world we once knew has gone - forever. Hanging onto retail units in the hope there will be some sort of renaissance of shoe-leather-shopping is as useless as insisting the horse carriage market will pick up after the car was invented.

It won't.

Coupled with what I am sensing will be a matching collapse in demand for office space, and we either get ahead of it, and manage the change for all our goods, or do fuck all and allow the current system that encourages property retention as a form of investment to slowly turn town centres to necrotic shells of themselves.

Arborea thanks for that, I know about CARE schemes, unfortunately it seems likely to me that people would lose out under such a scheme if they work in a lower paid role at the end of their working life, because their average career earnings will be reduced. That won’t be by as much as the difference would be if they went from earning say £100k plus per annum to earning the minimum wage but it still gets depressed.

Some sort of Career Earnings Maximum should be what gets used to calculate IMO, I’d call that CREAM (insert cat pics here) but that’d cost billions so it won’t happen.

Where is Clavinova to cut and paste something to tell us how six jobs have been created in a sandwich shop in Wigan?

@Peregrina

Where is Clavinova to cut and paste something to tell us how six jobs have been created in a sandwich shop in Wigan?

Overwhelmed ?