Westministenders: Its the waiting that kills you

[RedToothBrush]

Just waiting.

Talks between Frost and Barnier still unresolved issues. There are rumours but 'all without evidence' (the new in phrase on BBC news tonight) that the UK is waivering.

Less that two months to go.

And there is the small matter of what happens in the US than might influence events.

Peregrina
Indeed.
UK elections are old fashioned but quick and effective.

India manages to produce a result for 680m people in less than 24 hours.
The USA takes weeks and weeks to produce its results.
I hope that the OSCE give them some advice after this mess

Bush/Gore isn't comparable. There were only about 600 votes in it.

Bush/Gore also had the 'hanging chads' debacle i.e. a poorly designed form which made the voter's intentions difficult to ascertain.

There haven't been any complaints like that this time. But Trump wants people to believe that they have had the election stolen from them, even though they haven't. In much the same way that the Brexiters scream about the EU being difficult and bullying, when they are not, they are just following the process they laid down, sometimes a process which the UK helped to draft.

In our own elections the doubtful ballots are put to one side and the returning officer calls the candidates and their agents together and goes through the ballots, asking them for their opinions on which candidate has got the vote, or whether the ballot has to be rejected.

The extract of John Major's speech is taken from his Middle Temple lecture, published in the Spectator, and is an excoriating blistering account of the damage that is to be done by Brexit.
In his view, the worst foreign policy decision taken in our lifetimes.
It makes for sobering reading.

In 2000, Amy Coney Barrett was sent to Florida to fight to get GOP postal votes counted to stop voters from being disenfranchised.

Now Trump wants her to do the opposite.

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/amy-coney-barrett-bush-gore/2020/10/10/594641b8-09e3-11eb-991c-be6ead8c4018_story.html

TonMoulin
The lies have to be highlighted

John Major is wrong on his first point for a start;
"We were promised we would stay in the Single Market."

12 June 2016;
"David Cameron...said the Brexit campaign had made it clear to voters that voting to leave also meant pulling out of the single market."

www.politico.eu/article/david-cameron-bbc-andrew-marr-ill-pull-uk-out-of-the-single-market-after-brexit-eu-referendum-vote-june-23-consequences-news/

8 May 2016;
"Michael Gove says leaving EU would mean quitting single market."

www.ft.com/content/0c5c74bc-151e-11e6-b197-a4af20d5575e

22 Feb 2016;
"EU referendum: Ukip leader Nigel Farage says he doesn't want to be part of the European Single Market." ...

"Farage also said earlier in a debate with [Anna] Soubry on Channel 4 News that he wants the UK to be "independent, self-governing, making our own laws", and not a part of the European Single Market and political union which forbids "us from making our own trade deals".

www.cityam.com/eu-referendum-ukip-leader-nigel-farage-says-he-doesnt-want-to-be-part-of-the-european-single-market/

Been quite mild these past 2 days - outside temperature is saying 17C (which is was last night). And it's gloriously sunny.

Good squirrel weather.

It's just gone grey and cloudy here so I've come inside for a bit.

I agree with LQ regarding the GOP. I can’t see them really backing Donny, he’s an embarrassment and they can’t control him at all. A civil war in the US is hardly in their interests, so they’re probably hoping that a thorough investigation will show that no fraud has occurred. That would in theory appease at least the less rabid Trump supporters and hopefully there aren’t enough of the others to cause too many problems. Then maybe he’ll be pressured into going quietly?

As for the 2024 election, is Trump even likely to win the Republican nomination, let alone the presidency?

Plenty of the little furry blighters around! My cat couldn’t be bothered waiting for me to provide his tea last night, so he went out and got himself a takeaway! I wish he wouldn’t eat them in the house 🐿🤮

Queen
By 2024 The Donald will be on Rikers starting at the wall

Neither Gove nor Cameron were in a position to promise anything. The best they should have said was that they would take the issue to Parliament. Besides which, how much are Cameron's promises worth?He ran away the next morning!

As for Farage - the man who failed to get elected as an MP seven times, and has now just backed the Loser of the American election. But yes, OK, Trump nearly won, only about 5 million votes short.

As for the 2024 election, is Trump even likely to win the Republican nomination, let alone the presidency?

Could he not run as an independent?

He could run as an Independent, but his chances of getting elected would be zilch, but it might take a good few votes away from the official Republican candidate.

Ayla
Trump is no Ross Perot

And as I say, by 2024 he'll have a lot of chicken shit on his head

Gove said so much that has turned out to be complete bollocks it's useful to have a chunk of it in one place:
michael gove the facts of life say leave

"'It would not be in any nation’s interest artificially to accelerate the process and no responsible government would hit the start button on a two-year legal process without preparing appropriately.
Nor would it be in anyone’s interest to hurry parliamentary processes.We can set the pace."

"There is a free trade zone stretching from Iceland to Turkey that all European nations have access to, regardless of whether they are in or out of the euro or EU. After we vote to leave we will stay in this zone. The suggestion that Bosnia, Serbia, Albania and the Ukraine would stay part of this free trade area - and Britain would be on the outside with just Belarus - is as credible as Jean-Claude Juncker joining UKIP."

etc

Interesting on the Brexiter thread the
we'll be free to trade under WTO rules
line that shows clearly who has not read the Wiki page about the WTO

Trump running as an independent is as scaring for the Republican party as Trump running in 2024 for them.

It'd split their vote sufficiently to risk a scenario where the democrats carried enough states to make Amendments to the constitution. They could do 'controversial' things like 'standardise the voting procedures' and 'ensure that the number of polling stations per head of population was universally the same' or even enshrine 'assess to healthcare for all' in law like 75% of the population want.

Remember the GOP have won the popular vote once in 30 years.

Neither Gove nor Cameron were in a position to promise anything.

John Major is still wrong on that point.

We can set the pace

Well it's a pity then that Michael Gove didn't become PM instead of Theresa May - who signed us up to a deal we didn't vote for.

amp.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/10/brexit-uk-trade-department-faces-race-to-get-80bn-of-trade-agreements-ratified?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other&__twitter_impression=true
UK trade department faces race to get £80bn of trade agreements ratified
Deals to ensure UK can go on trading with non-EU countries after Brexit transition must be laid before parliament by Wednesday

Liz Truss’s Department for International Trade is scrambling to meet a Wednesday deadline for tabling £80bn of trade agreements before parliament, in time for them to come into force in January.

Truss’s department has signed a string of “continuity agreements” to ensure the UK can go on trading with non-EU countries on similar terms, when the Brexit transition period comes to an end on 31 December.

Under the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act (Crag) passed in 2010, international treaties have to be laid before parliament for 21 sitting days before they can be ratified.

And

DIT published parliamentary reports on two deals, with Ukraine and Ivory Coast, on Monday, and details of the Japan deal struck last month have also already been published for MPs to scrutinise. But talks are not yet completed with 15 countries, including Canada, Turkey and Singapore

Instead of ensuring continuity with existing trade deals, the department has spent its time chasing new ftas with the likes of the USA, NZ and Australia. Which would be impossible to be in place by the end of the year.

Emily Thornbury said: “Not a single additional continuity agreement was secured in the first eight months of 2020, and in their correspondence with the shadow international trade team, representatives of countries ranging from Cameroon to Montenegro have reported that no formal talks were even conducted in that period.”

And

Without a continuity agreement in place, trade with these countries would revert to less favourable World Trade Organization terms.

In theory in exceptional circumstances the government could bypass parliament (yep once again). But it still is a problem and the government are unlikely to meet a 31st December deadline even if they use every single day between now and then.

So come 1st Jan we don't just lose the deal with the EU. Its lots of other countries too.

It'd split their vote sufficiently to risk a scenario where the democrats carried enough states to make Amendments to the constitution.

Constitutional amendments have to be ratified by state legislatures ... not sure if there is a requirement to hold a plebiscite or not, or if it's by convention ?

TL;DR is they (deliberately) ain't easy.

Without a continuity agreement in place, trade with these countries would revert to less favourable World Trade Organization terms.

I thought Brexiteers were mad keen to trade on WTO.

What's happened ?

US: Trump lawyer arranges press conference in parking lot of Landscaping firm.

UK: Hold our beer -

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/10/johnsons-biden-win-tweet-contains-hidden-trump-congratulations

Downing Street’s congratulatory message to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on winning the US presidential election contains a hidden message congratulating Donald Trump for winning a second term in office.

The message, posted on Twitter as an image a few hours after the US TV networks called the election for Biden, congratulates the president-elect on his election, and Harris “on her historic achievement”.

But the image, a simple white-on-black block of text, is more than it seems. A simple colour adjustment reveals a second message hidden in the background.

(contd)

They should have run it past Dido Harding first, really.

But the image, a simple white-on-black block of text, is more than it seems. A simple colour adjustment reveals a second message hidden in the background.

It's so insanely stupid and utterly improbable (surely they realise that nobody makes images that way, it's not like we still have to re-use palimpsests), I can't help but wonder if it's actually a really clever squirrel to get everybody talking, for some 🤷🏻‍♀️nefarious purpose.

@TheElementsOfMedical

But the image, a simple white-on-black block of text, is more than it seems. A simple colour adjustment reveals a second message hidden in the background.

It's so insanely stupid and utterly improbable (surely they realise that nobody makes images that way, it's not like we still have to re-use palimpsests), I can't help but wonder if it's actually a really clever squirrel to get everybody talking, for some 🤷🏻‍♀️nefarious purpose.

At this stage you get the expertise you deserve. World-beating incompetence.