Westminstenders: What the winds bring

[RedToothBrush]

The next few weeks are crucial. Eu talks, covid handling, the US election and any other unexpected events (its nearly November, lets face it will probably be the weather).

It feels a little like the car crash in slow motion is about to hit the wall of reality. I guess that just means all there is left to do is to brace for impact.

@Shrillharridan

What's the word on driving lessons?

No idea but getting a test has proved impossible for months! DS theory will run out at this rate.

@borntobequiet

I’d have more faith in a trained dog’s ability to be Leader of the Free World or Prime Minister of the UK than either Donald Trump or Boris Johnson. But hey ho.

^^ This

Be the end of all our problems

Never fear, Farridge is back.

The Brexit Party is going to be relaunched on an anti lockdown / pro herd immunity ticket.

Is this Farridge smelling dissent in the ranks and jumping on the next populist bandwagon?

Well the poor man does need a purpose in life.

Meanwhile his dear friend across the pond reportedly plans to announce being the winner before votes are actually counted. He must be relying on Fox News working the same magic as it did for Bush.

There just isn't any positive news that's going to come out of this election, is there.

@ListeningQuietly

Zazie Pretending that everybody will return to 5 days a week in city centre offices is deluded. Chances are it will NEVER go back to how it was. Those properties should be vacated and then new businesses move in at a later date.

Cruise ships and their shore based offices - ditto
Airlines and airport retail franchises - ditto
B&M shops in malls - ditto

If those employees got their P45s now but received a decent level of UC right away
then people could look forwards rather than sitting in limbo.

@ListeningQuietly I think you missed my point, apologies if it was somewhat opaque. I didn’t say that it was right to keep the commercial property sector afloat. I wasn’t advocating for it. But I do think that doing so factors into current decision making a great deal, for both bad and good reasons.

My point was that how employment/business support is being designed at the moment is to keep money flowing to commercial property owners, at least in the short term.

The cynical part of me thinks this has a lot to do with the fact that super-rich people back the Tory party, people with huge property portfolios.

The less cynical part of me realises that pension funds are major players in commercial property.

In truth there’s probably an element of both.

Commercial property has been a very unsustainable cash cow for a long time. A rebalance is needed between the amount of space given to residential vs commercial property, and corrections to how much commercial space costs and where it is located.

But that’s a lot different to 1) the Tory party turning off the cash taps sharpish to some of their vested interests and 2) dramatic and sudden crashes to pension funds at an already highly volatile time.

I also think a shift to different work patterns for those who can is brilliant in many ways, but am also aware it could carry a very dark lining wrt to outsourcing to cheaper places once a need for geographic proximity is removed from many workforces. There are plenty of people who look at increased WFH as an opportunity to maximise profits rather than improve their employees work-life balance. Not every employer is like that, but enough are to seriously alter the labour markets in several fields.

Wonder how long it will be before we have The Reform Arms. You can go in, get slimmer, deport whoever it is that's stopping you living your "best life", you can have 3 channels on the telly, it'll be awesome.

You can go in, get slimmer, deport whoever it is that's stopping you living your "best life", you can have 3 channels on the telly, it'll be awesome.

This is genuinely very funny.

Though I'm genuinely curious about the Mumsnet intersection between Brexit cheerleaders and anti-lockdown types.

I don't think these two groups are the same people. The most enthusiastic brexiters on social media are often older/retired, and my impression is that older people are on average rather more pro-lockdown than the general population.

So I suspect that Farage is going to get some column inches, but ultimately the zen diagram overlap between those who supported him on Brexit and the lockdown sceptics may not be as large as he thinks.

I hope you are right Mistigris but yesterday the Daily Mail carried a huge anti lockdown spread on the views of the right wing Oxford “Scientists” (one is an oncologist ) who signed the Barrington declaration and have already been shown to have links, including funding, to US right wing lobbyists including Koch. It’s bad enough they have been wheeled out in the name of false balance by the BBC etc but this was presented as unopposed Science. They don’t have a peer reviewed study on Covid between them and the article would not stand up to scrutiny by a virologist, epidemiologist, economist, statistician but who needs experts. They are total outliers to the rest of the scientific community yet they get quoted by the swivel eyed Tory loons and now the Daily Mail have given them a platform. Their narrative is catching hold.

@SabrinaThwaite

Never fear, Farridge is back.

The Brexit Party is going to be relaunched on an anti lockdown / pro herd immunity ticket.

Is this Farridge smelling dissent in the ranks and jumping on the next populist bandwagon?

How far do you think The Car Park attendant will get with this?

His core followers are more concerned about lockdown due to their age whilst those who dislike lockdown most are under 25 and tend to hate him.

He can go after the protest vote about incompetence but he's got a bit of an uphill struggle on the demographics to contend with.

I don't disregard him, but i do think its worth pointing out and the fact he tried to relaunch last year and that failed.

The man is a grifter and an attention seeker. Of course he is going to try and do this every opportunity he can. Its how he earns his money. He needs to stay in the media and relevant to maintain his appearance fees.

Also his job opportunities in the USA maybe more limited in the near future or he may feel its becoming to dangerous to be campaigning for Trump in such a high profile manner even if Trump does win...

I mean launching the new party two days before the US Election? Interesting eh?

I’d be cautious about assuming that older Brexiteers are pro-lockdown - all the older very Brexitty people I know are very anti-lockdown.

Plus Farridge being Farridge will mean he’s got a good chance of plenty of prime time BBC exposure.

Farridge had announced that he was going to launch the Reform Party after last December’s election.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/election-2019-50704706?__twitter_impression=true

Maybe he’s just been waiting for the most populist trend to hang his latest hat on?

@SabrinaThwaite

I’d be cautious about assuming that older Brexiteers are pro-lockdown - all the older very Brexitty people I know are very anti-lockdown.

Plus Farridge being Farridge will mean he’s got a good chance of plenty of prime time BBC exposure.

Oh I know some are, but lots won't be so he's kind of spliting his own voters on this.

Best not to give him the air time anywhere tbh.

There were suspicious looking threads about yesterday on this as it was.

three channels ?

I can't see the Brexiteers being that thrilled with BBC2. Art, culture, learning. Not really their bag, is it ?

THe Reform Party from the start of the year is quite a fun story
suffice to say I managed to get Private Eye to investigate them

I’d be cautious about assuming that older Brexiteers are pro-lockdown - all the older very Brexitty people I know are very anti-lockdown.

I bet there is a class split in there somewhere, because all the old brexity people I can think of in my real life are petrified of covid!

Reporting on the obvious, the Graun is reported today on how journalists reporting on finanical crime and corruption outside the UK faces nearly as many threats of court action in Britain as they do from all other European countries and the US combined.

I think you are right about Farridge’s chances of splitting his supporters by attempting to fill the leadership vacuum for the anti lockdown / maskers but there is a worrying Venn diagram here that brings together Leave voters, the less educated, left behind and those who are against lockdown for reasons varying from the economic damage to full on 5G / anti vaccine conspiracy theories. This survey showed how widespread these beliefs were in April, they will surely be worse now. And in my experience they are surprisingly common in the 40 - 70 age groups (and actually in those most at risk to Covid, overweight males)

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-5g-conspiracy-theories-man-made-uk-poll-bleach-a9484066.html%3famp

And in my experience they are surprisingly common in the 40 - 70 age groups (and actually in those most at risk to Covid, overweight males)

These people were already pretty brexity so this is not really a change.

In the U3A-attending, Tory-voting set that both my mum and my ILs move in, people are scared of covid. This is a very brexity group.

My uncle who is very, very Brexity is still wiping his groceries and leaving his post untouched for 3 days - he won't be joining Farridge on this new voyage ;)

Never was Kipling more apposite, than when writing about Farage.

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

@DGRossetti

Never was Kipling more apposite, than when writing about Farage.

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.

A little unfair to the Danes given its the 2021 Valet Boy we are talking about.

This link about how Farage should not be dismissed is interesting. He sees a gap and exploits it, as he did when he saw that no one was making a positive case for the EU.

This is interesting, just popped in the Guardian live feed.

"Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, has attacked over-centralisation by Westminster and called for English mayors and devolved administrations to be given seats in a reformed House of Lords."

First impression, I like the idea of regional representation in Westminster, but not sure how it could work in practice. I'm from a country with an appointed regionally representative second house of parliament, and it's mostly used to reward cronies, and just rubber stamps the lower elected house's legislation. My preference would be an American or Australian style regional elected second house.

@TheMShip

This is interesting, just popped in the Guardian live feed.

"Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, has attacked over-centralisation by Westminster and called for English mayors and devolved administrations to be given seats in a reformed House of Lords."

First impression, I like the idea of regional representation in Westminster, but not sure how it could work in practice. I'm from a country with an appointed regionally representative second house of parliament, and it's mostly used to reward cronies, and just rubber stamps the lower elected house's legislation. My preference would be an American or Australian style regional elected second house.

From memory, Douglas Ross isn't really much of anything. Makes loads of noises when he's in Scotland about representing Scotland, and then disappears up the back of whoever is in power in Westminster when he gets over the border.

On the note of a reformed upper house, I am still a big fan of my own idea that when you have a constituency election, you send the runner up to the upper house with less power, but oversight. No need for extra elections, and enough jeopardy in the system to maintain a nod towards overall balance.

I'm still undecided about how to decide on Head of State, once the Monarchy has gone. Direct elections, some sort of electoral college, or a more complex system from both Houses of Parliament ?

(Apropos of Royal gossip, Private Eye noted that Boris has wriggled out of being given a Right Royal Rollicking by conducting the weekly happy hour via phone, where Her Madge daren't say anything out of line ....)

Ross attacking "over-centralisation by Westminster"?

That's dangerous talk! Who knows where it might lead to?