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Brexit

Westminstenders: Going, going, cummings

995 replies

RedToothBrush · 13/11/2020 18:36

As expected he's fucking off and leaving everyone else to pick up the pieces in January. But it does look like he was eventually shown the door and left with a cardboard box. As he should have been months ago.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with Johnson needing an image change, like the shape shifting creep he is, to one that fits more with the incoming Biden Administration. In other words hes got some serious sucking up to do...

... Meanwhile in Brexit land we are going into yet another final week of talks.

Many expect Cummings departure to signal 'the cave in'. The Eu say we havent moved enough and the uk say the EU wants us to do all the moving... Except the EU have done lots of moving. Barnier is still looking for a groundsman to level his field to play. We have yet to work out we aren't Canada and distance is important to trade.

Of course if we don't get a deal, that Pfizer vaccine in Germany that we want, might be hit with delays and extra costs we just can't afford.

OP posts:
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DrBlackbird · 21/11/2020 00:07

I was thinking this week's post was particularly poignant. The hubris of going over an economic and social cliff edge to no ones satisfaction.

Not the brexiteers who started and desired it (JRM 20 years ago), nor the rest of us who saw it for its utter recklessness and stupidity.

I suppose someone will make millions of shorting the pound and be happy to add to the millions already possessed (who doesn't need another super yacht?). So that's about what, maybe 100 people happy to the 68,005,551 unhappy?

BlackeyedSusan · 21/11/2020 01:31

I am pretty sure there was discussion that when BJ protected Cummings after the Barnard castle debacle, then it would be difficult to sack/ ask for resignation of ministers if they fuck up.

ICouldHaveCheckedFirst · 21/11/2020 08:36

Queen. Twitter will apparently hand control of POTUS account to Biden on inauguration day, after which he won't be protected as head of state.
It's a long time till then though!

DGRossetti · 21/11/2020 08:37

@ICouldHaveCheckedFirst

Queen. Twitter will apparently hand control of POTUS account to Biden on inauguration day, after which he won't be protected as head of state. It's a long time till then though!
I'd also hope his personal account becomes subject to their regular T&Cs. How long before he "does a Bannon" ?
DrBlackbird · 21/11/2020 08:41

I told my teenage DD that apparently because Patel didn't realise it was bullying, it was therefore unintentional, which means it didn’t count. She said that's what you'd say to a 3 yr old. I thought that was a good way to sum up Johnson and his entire cabinet.

But a cabinet of toddlers doesn't quite capture their tone. I'm trying to think of an apt collective noun for them. A shower of bastards is the best I can do...

prettybird · 21/11/2020 08:56

I've worked for a bully. He didn't realise what he was doing was bullying. Not everyone was a target for his bullying - and outwith work he was a charming man.

Didn't make him any less of a bully.

Couldn't raise it with the levels above him because he was himself managed by a bully Hmm. One of my colleagues resigned because of the stress of working for him: all HR were interested in during her "exit interview" (in fact she left after a period of sick leave - during which I was supposed to cover her work as well as my own unsurprisingly I went off ill myself with stress shortly afterwards ) was that she left without causing a fuss and that she wasn't going to raise a case of constructive dismissal Hmm

TartrazineCustard · 21/11/2020 09:33

Apologies to be re-raising this so many days after the fact, but I've only just realised that Cummings' theatrical departure from the front door of No 10 is so that when everything goes spectacularly wrong in January, he can be called back to "help." The reason will be that everything only went wrong when the true BeLeavers were forced out by all those stab-in-the-back Remainers in Johnson's government.

It's utterly preposterous, I realise. But it's straight out of Trump's playbook, it continues the "I was driving to test my eyes," and "she didn't REALISE it was bullying," line of ridiculous excuses we've seen to date.

RedToothBrush · 21/11/2020 11:34

@pussycatinboots

The EU side believes a decision is required by UK prime minister Boris Johnson

😱🤦🏻‍♀️

David Gauke @davidgauke The report on Priti Patel has been sitting on the PM's desk since July. Had he sacked her this week (after it was leaked to the press), he'd have had a problem explaining why he hadn't acted sooner. By prevaricating over a tricky decision, a decision was made almost by default.

Don't know if there is any read across to other tricky decisions where the Prime Minister has prevaricated but will find he has to reach a conclusion (one way or another) in the next few days.

I saw a theory the other day by i think it was jon lis that at this stage, getting a deal is only of minimal political benefit to the pm as its too late to prevent problems in January.

If he fails to make a deal he at least someone to blame for disruption.

David Henig thought it wasn't an unfair assessment

OP posts:
Tanith · 21/11/2020 11:48

"I told my teenage DD that apparently because Patel didn't realise it was bullying, it was therefore unintentional, which means it didn’t count. She said that's what you'd say to a 3 yr old."

Even for three year olds, there are consequences for unpleasant behaviour.

ListeningQuietly · 21/11/2020 13:16

There are no remainers in the Tory cabinet
in fact there are no remainers anywhere

there are only realists and beleavers

its a sorry state of affairs

TartrazineCustard · 21/11/2020 17:43

Well, quite. Anyone who wasn't willing to go along with the "Willie of the People" platitudes was purged from the party. Now they're all good-news-only yes men and women, yet somehow the sunlit uplands are even further away than they were straight after the referendum.

They'll be desperate to find a scapegoat. I don't expect it to make any sense when they do.

DGRossetti · 21/11/2020 17:48

@TartrazineCustard

Well, quite. Anyone who wasn't willing to go along with the "Willie of the People" platitudes was purged from the party. Now they're all good-news-only yes men and women, yet somehow the sunlit uplands are even further away than they were straight after the referendum.

They'll be desperate to find a scapegoat. I don't expect it to make any sense when they do.

They'll blame the people that voted for Brexit, won't they. Safe in the knowledge that they will merely entrench that view even further and actually get away with. And Brexiteers will have laid themselves wide open to it by their repeated insistence that this is what they want, plus their lack of any action when things started going wrong.

So, yes. The Tory party narrative for why Brexit went wrong will be because people voted for it in the first place.

Pepperwort · 21/11/2020 18:04

They wouldn’t get away with that one, not directly at least. It was a Tory plot from the first and there’s plenty of evidence of the lies that were told.

If you’re right they’d have to be subtle about it. I’m currently wondering if the public pay freeze is an absolutely deliberate and cynical ploy to misdirect public anger against each other - there seem to be so many easier budgetary targets.

HesterThrale · 21/11/2020 18:39

Let's not forget the Tories have had over 10 years to improve people's lives, and in any assessment they were badly failing BEFORE Covid and BEFORE the Brexit fallout really hits.

Here's a thread from last year detailing 35 dreadful outcomes resulting from that decade. And it doesn't even mention Windrush.

We were clearly in no position to withstand the shock of a pandemic and Brexit.

What good things have they actually achieved?

twitter.com/uk_domain_names/status/1194580555033133056

DGRossetti · 21/11/2020 19:16

Let's not forget the Tories have had over 10 years to improve people's lives

The problem is the people that vote for them do.

Tanith · 21/11/2020 19:35

There was an interesting Leader in The Economist this week:

www.economist.com/leaders/2020/11/19/remaking-the-british-state

ListeningQuietly · 21/11/2020 20:19

Tanith
I'll read my copy in the morning

Pepperwort
If you’re right they’d have to be subtle about it. I’m currently wondering if the public pay freeze is an absolutely deliberate and cynical ploy to misdirect public anger against each other - there seem to be so many easier budgetary targets.
Look at the comments on the Little Owen Jones article in the graun
gaslight central

Arborea · 21/11/2020 21:15

This story is giving me the rage tonight: I struggle to understand why firms like this weren't allowed to tender to supply PPE earlier this year, and worry that these job losses are just the beginning www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/mersey-company-forced-lay-staff-19311174?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar

And at the same time, Election Maps UK show the following Westminster Voting Intentions:

CON: 41% (+3)
LAB: 38% (-4)
LDM: 6% (-1)
SNP: 6% (+1)
GRN: 4% (+1)

Via
@OpiniumResearch
, 19-20 Nov.
Changes w/ 5-6 Nov.

Plus Starmer slightly behind Johnson on who would make the best PM (31% vs 30%)

I despair.

Pepperwort · 21/11/2020 21:20

Thanks for that Guardian story I hadn’t seen it.

I hope we get that fecking deal and start inching away from this. Normally I’d be supportive of increased defence spending, but right now you wonder who exactly they’re going to be asked to “defend”.

Pepperwort · 21/11/2020 21:22

Starmer hasn’t impressed me much. Maybe keeping quiet and not being too offensive is what’s needed right now but it is not doing him any favours.

TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince · 21/11/2020 21:26

Starmer is very serious. Whilst that’s good he needs to lighten up a bit and use a bit of charisma.

Very wooden

Pepperwort · 21/11/2020 21:32

As far as I’m concerned the emphasis on charisma is what’s caused half of Britain’s problems. I don’t like the anti-semitism culture war that’s blown up nor do I appreciate the rabbit hole trans diversions at this time. Just stop - the world!!Smile

TheEmojiFormerlyKnownAsPrince · 21/11/2020 21:39

But a politician has to have mass appeal. Particularly a Labour politician, as this country mindlessly votes Conservative.

So they MUST have the ability to charm these stubborn Tory voters. He’s a good guy, but kind of reminds me of Gordon Brown a bit.

Blair for all his issues had 3 landslides. He had some charisma.

Pepperwort · 21/11/2020 21:46

Did he really? Or was he just not Tory after a decade of Thatcher, and not actually socialist? If you look at the vote percentages even his big ‘landslide’ victory wasn’t really. I never liked Blair either, I had the greens to vote for then. But this country is evidently too thick to look beyond the obvious now.

tobee · 21/11/2020 21:46

So agrees Obama apparently.

Fuck knows why the electorate persists in thinking the Tories are best on the economy. Media and pervasive culture of "the establishment" gaslighting I suppose!?