Westministenders: Festive Edition

[RedToothBrush]

Good King BBBBaBoris looked out,
on the Port of Dover,
There the shit lay round about,
Deep around the stopover;
Brightly shone the moon that night,
Tho’ the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight,
Delivering stuff for Yule.

“Bugger SAGE and stand by me,
We've all stuff that needs selling,
Yonder peasant, who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?”
“Sire, he lives a good league hence,
The other side the EU;
Though relations maybe tense,
He's trying to get goods through.”

“Oh god I need another wine,
I have many crisis to consider:
We must tell them its all fine,
I must not be seen to dither.”
SAGE and monarch, forth they went,
forth they went together;
Through the nation's sad lament
and really crappy weather.

“Sire, our plight is darker now,
And the covid transmission stronger;
Fails my heart, I know not how;
To keep Tier 2 much longer.”
“Soon we can drop their wage.
And treat them all more coldly
In Britain's new chrony age
A time to rob more boldly.”

In their master’s steps they trod,
On the quest to get minted;
Each and every last sod
Needs to be fingerprinted.
Therefore, Christian men, be sure,
DWP claimants are processing,
Ye who now will bless the poor,
God its all so depressing.

this is why I and so many Welsh speakers are in despair at what is happening under our noses

Basically, we've gone back to about Edward I and quasi-Norman rule of England. So basically fuck the Scots (Malleus Scotorum) and double-fuck the Welsh (Prince of Wales and all that japery).

Next stop: "the North". Which the Normans never liked, and given the excuse of some whinging, they pretty much removed 2 generations from history. Which it seems the Tories are on course for again - picking up where Thatcher left off.

However we're also experiencing something of a dissolution of the monasteries too.

All setting the scene for another bout of conflict between toffs that peasants will fight.

The British have their own conservatisms - they are distinctly anti-socialism, but they are anarchic conservatives. Or conservative anarchists.

If we have learned but one thing these past years, it's that there is no such thing as "British" - legalistic quibbles aside.

There is Scottish, Welsh and Irish, all surrounding a mongrel race that has deluded itself (with fuck all evidence) that it is somehow "Anglo-Saxon". And because that race has managed - by luck and guile - to occupy the best bits of the island, it's grown to outnumber it's brethren.

The logical conclusion of Brexit is the elimination - either politically, or militarily - of the odd little bits that have foreigners in them. Because make no mistake, to a hardcore Gammons-supporting Breixteer, Scots and Welsh are just as foreign and deserving of being sent home as any other nationality or race.

@BestisWest Yes, it's amazing to see the growing number of indy curious Welsh citizens. My area in the Western valleys is a Labour area since the party began. Higher than the 52% that voted for Brexit in 2016 and, judging by social media, many are quite right leaning in their views. It's a disaster for us that we don't have a strong Welsh media, reporting on things that have a direct impact on Wales, rather than everything from an England viewpoint.

@52andblue

Trying to make out what The Boy Gav is saying but it's a muddled mess?

I don’t think I’ve ever heard him speak a coherent sentence.

That should have said higher than 52% of voters in my constituency voted for Brexit.

Unfortunately no amount of education will protect one from believing in any old nonsense if one feels so inclined, neither will it prevent one from being a horrible human being if that’s one’s nature. This is currently being demonstrated very clearly in Trump’s America, unfortunately.

From my cossetted English viewpoint, the trick to nationalism is to make it multi faith, so to speak. The Tories current winning tactic against it in Scotland is to go "But Sturgeon ..." in the same way "But Corbyn" won them the 2019 GE.

Independence really needs to be treated as a cross-party issue, so you can swerve voting SNP but still be nationalist if you want.

I have no idea how to do that. Which is why I'm wasting time here, not running the country

@bornatXmastobequiet

Unfortunately no amount of education will protect one from believing in any old nonsense if one feels so inclined, neither will it prevent one from being a horrible human being if that’s one’s nature. This is currently being demonstrated very clearly in Trump’s America, unfortunately.

Fear of the devil and ones immortal soul though ....

I don't think that 'But Sturgeon' gains nearly as much traction as 'but Corbyn' did.

@Peregrina

I've never once subscribed to the "Can't happen here" school of doing things. Anything can happen anywhere.

Absolutely. Think of the once mighty Empires which have collapsed. British Empire, Spanish Empire, Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, and that's all in the last 150 years or so. Strangely enough, although the Spanish Empire was over by 1898 it wasn't formally dissolved until 1976.

Same here. That is what worries me. It feels like an unstable point in history again.

Louise Thanks for sharing your opinions, I don't agree with many of them but it is good for all of us to see another's point of view and that there is some common ground.

@Peregrina

I don't think that 'But Sturgeon' gains nearly as much traction as 'but Corbyn' did.

Not living amongst Caledonian folk, I can only surmise ...

But my point stands. People didn't really vote for Boris, so much as against Corbyn.

Whereas in 1979 there was no disguising the fact that people clearly did vote for Mrs Thatcher.

I don't think there's much to be done from here. Just manage the decline and hope it's our great grandchildren that pick up the tab over our grandchildren. Although modern life has accelerated to the point that violent change can happen within generations, rather than over them.

All of which bothers the Chinese not one jot, of course. In fact the slow decline of the West is simply a given for their culture.

Re: the earlier corruption discussion, the government does seem particularly corrupt at the moment. All those dodgy contracts and trying to subvert laws.

The Tories current winning tactic against it in Scotland is to go "But Sturgeon ..."

Do you think so? I claim no knowledge of Scottish politics, but certainly among English voters there is widespread admiration for her political abilities even among people who (like me) are opposed to independence. I don't think "but Sturgeon" has anything like the salience of "but Corbyn".

Same here. That is what worries me. It feels like an unstable point in history again.

The elephant in the room is 7 billion and counting humans (so over doubled since I was born). More people, shrinking and unpredictable resources means we are guaranteed increasingly violent and desperate conflicts until we're back to a more sustainable level of human population.

And if we baulk at doing it on our own - either through systemic euthanasia, or just mass warfare, then have no doubt, and have no fear, nature will correct the situation.

Again.

If you lack imagination, and have a desire to go to interesting places with no skiing, then en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruins_of_Gedi are well worth a treat. The Wiki article is noticeably vague as to why they were abandoned, but when I visited with someone who lived nearby, they told me it was simply "because the water ran out". And indeed all the wells are dry.

Not that you need to travel that far to see places where a changing climate has affected human habitation. There are plenty of places in the UK where it's clear humans had to abandon them because of climate change. Which is clearly an ongoing process that mankind is affecting. It's hard to see how anyone could not think that.

I think one of the posters on here is of the "but Nicola" school of thought, given her recent post suggesting she needed to "shut her geggie"...

Whoop-de-doo! Power cuts in 5 years if they're still dribbling on about fish!

John Lichfield
@john_lichfield
Scoop...Britain faces dearer electricity and occasional black-outs if it bans EU fishing boats from its waters after 2026. This de facto power over the UK power market is handed to the EU in the post-Brexit deal which MP’s will wave almost unread through parliament today. 1/10
10:42 AM · Dec 30, 2020·Twitter Web App
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John Lichfield
@john_lichfield
·
7h
Replying to
@john_lichfield
The trade deal enshrines a link between continued EU access to British waters and UK frictionless access to the EU power grid and gas network. This has scarcely been noticed though it was mentioned and brushed aside by last night’s statement by the ultra-Brexiteer ERG. 2/10
John Lichfield
@john_lichfield
·
7h
The link – drawn to my attention by a senior EU source – is spelled out in dates, not words. The fisheries part of the deal grants EU boats continued access with a 25% cut in quotas over five and a half years until 30 June 2026. After that there are “annual negotiations” 3/10
John Lichfield
@john_lichfield
·
7h
The energy part of the agreement allows the UK virtually unchanged access to the continental electricity and gas markets. But that expires on exactly the same date as the fish deal - 30 June, 2026. After that (guess what?) there are “annual negotiations". 4/10
John Lichfield
@john_lichfield
·
7h
Coincidence? Not at all, my source says. The link is “more than implicit”. The energy deal “ends by default” unless both sides agree to extend it.
If the UK bans, or severely restricts, EU boats in British waters from June 30, 2026….easy access to EU energy will also end. 5/10
John Lichfield
@john_lichfield
·
7h
Does this matter? Yes it does. Britain is a net importer of electricity from the EU through cables to Fr, NL and B. About 7% of total UK demand comes through those connectors. European prices are generally below UK prices. We also import European gas.
6/10
John Lichfield
@john_lichfield
·
7h
Bloomberg reported in Nov.: “Without a (UK-EU energy)deal, costs for British consumers could go up by £2bn.” The UK could “ lose 7% of its electricity supply and would struggle to find an easy replacement. It could even lead to rolling blackouts at times of peak demand.”
7/10
John Lichfield
@john_lichfield
·
7h
It was widely reported in recent weeks– initially I think by
@tconnellyRTE
– that the EU was using its energy market as leverage for a better deal on fishing. As far as I can tell no one has yet pointed out that this leverage is now enshrined in the deal signed by Johnson. 8/10
John Lichfield
@john_lichfield
·
7h
Thus…The deal includes other penalties - tariffs on British fish exports and even tariffs on other goods – if UK tries to cut EU fisheries access from June 2026.
But the de facto power to switch off lights and increase electricity bills is, er, much, much more powerful. 9/10
John Lichfield
@john_lichfield
·
7h
June 2026 will be exactly a decade after the Brexit referendum...
The ERG has noticed this fish-electricity link but played it down in its statement last night.
The UK is “taking back control”. Nothing can be permitted to disturb that narrative.
10/10

One argument made for Brexit is that the UK (or arguably GB) will be free to make choices.

Except that

1. its choices are already constrained by the agreement just signed
2. choices will also be constrained by circumstances
3. choices have consequences, and the consequences don't have to be palatable.

Ha! From twitter;

Tell a man a lie and he'll vote Tory,

Teach a man to lie and one day he may become a Tory MP!

.

Some people on here might not realise that while the SNP are the minority Government in Holyrood, they are not the only Indy supporting party in the Scottish Parliament . The Scottish Greens were also elected with an explicitly Indy supporting mandate. So their 6 seats, added to the 63 SNP seats, means that there is already an Indy supporting majority in the 129 seat Scottish Parliament.

(BTW: the Scottish Parliament's voting system was designed not to have any one party in overall power, supposedly to encourage consensus politics)

Thanks for that, Hannibal, I had no idea about the link between fishing and energy.

The more details I read, the less I like it.

@DGRossetti

The British have their own conservatisms - they are distinctly anti-socialism, but they are anarchic conservatives. Or conservative anarchists.

If we have learned but one thing these past years, it's that there is no such thing as "British" - legalistic quibbles aside.

There is Scottish, Welsh and Irish, all surrounding a mongrel race that has deluded itself (with fuck all evidence) that it is somehow "Anglo-Saxon". And because that race has managed - by luck and guile - to occupy the best bits of the island, it's grown to outnumber it's brethren.

The logical conclusion of Brexit is the elimination - either politically, or militarily - of the odd little bits that have foreigners in them. Because make no mistake, to a hardcore Gammons-supporting Breixteer, Scots and Welsh are just as foreign and deserving of being sent home as any other nationality or race.

@DGRossetti

There's no such thing as Welsh, Scottish and Irish for that matter - in as much as any country is made up of individuals with very different views and personalities. Nor is a mongrel 'race' a thing. If you're a mongrel you don't have any one 'race'.

English people generally have 20% Irish genes in dna tests regardless of where they are located in England, 20% French/German (general European) ancestry and also some Scandinavian. There's not much more 'Anglo-Saxon' than there is Irish, French/German.

My point stands however, that the cultural obedience seen in Nazi Germany would not have been possible in France or the UK - no matter which part.

(BTW: the Scottish Parliament's voting system was designed not to have any one party in overall power, supposedly to encourage consensus politics)

At one time I had hair faith in the electorates ability to circumvent biased electoral systems - the 2010 elections suggesting that if the system won't accommodate the centre, the centre will find a way.

Subsequent criminal (at the time and retrospectively legalised) events have rather shown that to be naive in the extreme.

I notice the new legislation includes a provision that as long as a Minster says something is necessary for Brexit, then it's job done. No need for oversight. Or indeed courts.

English people generally have 20% Irish genes in dna tests regardless of where they are located in England, 20% French/German (general European) ancestry and also some Scandinavian. There's not much more 'Anglo-Saxon' than there is Irish, French/German.

I seem to have no Irish genes whatsoever. However, the latest Ancestry update gives me 16% Welsh genes and 24% Scottish genes (maybe enough for citizenship ), despite me having no known family association with the latter.

@HannibalHayes

Scoop...Britain faces dearer electricity and occasional black-outs if it bans EU fishing boats from its waters after 2026. This de facto power over the UK power market is handed to the EU in the post-Brexit deal which MP’s will wave almost unread through parliament today. 1/10

I don't know how MPs missed this, as I have said this several times on here!

It's the link between fish and energy that was behind the argument over fishing not the fishing itself. The EU wanted (and has achieved) the ability to impose tariffs on the UK in future if the government restricts access to its waters. The UK said it would accept tariffs on fisheries but not in other areas such as energy.

The crux being that the EU expects the UK to renege on fish at some point in the future or at least to use it as an ongoing negotiating tactic. The EU has basically determined that if Boris dicks about with fish they will turn the lights off.