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.

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.

I still disagree. We're already seeing a similar level of obedience in England. Making it clearly distinct from Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

I'm not talking about shibboleths like mask wearing. I'm talking about 521 MPs out of 650 singing the same song on the steps of the parliament. A greater percentage than those that passed the Nuremberg laws*.

*(I'll do the same as 95% of people that read that will do, and not bother checking. If you can't beat 'em ... join 'em)

Dr oliver - What Happened To Truth?
@laughingginge
·
5h
Mark Francois refers to brexit voters as ‘Spartans’ forgetting that they all died when Greece made them follow democracy Man shrugging

#BrexitBritain

We're already seeing a similar level of obedience in England. Making it clearly distinct from Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

Please don't lump Ireland in when discussing constituent countries of the UK. As you know, we are an independent country that has been screwed over by the UK on multiple occasions

Ah, the standard of thinking of the average Brexshitter hasn't improved...

@QueenOfThorns

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.

I think it depends on the test. Ancestry.com dna tests seem to lump Irish/Scots together as general Irish. Scotland, Wales and NI have more Irish genes then the English but the English have roughly 20%. Other tests, perhaps more sensitive differentiate genetic clusters for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

I'm not sure what 'Scottish genes' mean given Scotland was populated by the Irish over millennia and share a language.

From Michael Dougan;

Michael Dougan

Twitter logo
3h, 15 tweets, 3 min read
After my first reading of the draft EU-UK trade and cooperation agreement, here is a short thread with some initial thoughts:

1. this is a massive and complex document, covering very diverse & highly specialist fields. No single person could ever plausibly claim properly to master/understand it. So I’ve focused on my own (“big picture”) interests. Not, eg the (in fact marginal) details of fishing quotas
2. Let’s start with how draft treaty is being framed by UK Gov & client press. They compare it to “no deal” & thus treat it as some sort of triumph. Well: even on own terms, that is far from accurate: for many sectors, draft treaty is barely better than no deal at all
3. But of course: such UK Gov framing of draft treaty = entirely if sadly typically misleading. Real comparison should be draft treaty versus what UK already enjoyed for 45 years as a Member State of the EU. And judged by that benchmark: Johnson’s proposed deal is truly pathetic
4. Draft treaty gives UK nothing it didn't already enjoy, in relations with EU, as a Member State in its own right. Eg Johnson boasts about “zero tariffs and zero quotas” – even though we had that already for decades and Brexit simply risked throwing even those basic things away
5. More important than slim pickings offered by draft treaty = what it doesn’t cover & therefore what will be definitively lost. In that regard: some media attention, e.g. about UK deliberately turning back on Erasmus & (equally bizarrely) on structured foreign policy cooperation
6. But the losses go much, much further: eg no more free movement of goods (tariffs & quotas being only the most obvious & easiest trade barriers); no more free movement for services (indeed hardly anything at all for most sectors); almost total loss of movement rights for people
7. So: all this draft treaty offers is a few scraps from the table of what we previously enjoyed as full members of the club. Otherwise: Brexit takes away vast numbers of our rights, freedoms, benefits and opportunities; to be replaced by new barriers, costs, closures and losses
8. That damning analysis is reinforced by basic legal structures of draft treaty. Within the EU, rules & obligations = concrete rights for individuals & businesses that we can assert & enforce for ourselves. Our legal freedoms & protections are vested directly in us as citizens
9. By contrast: under draft treaty, even such meagre rules & obligations as will exist = only between EU & UK as international actors. We, individuals & businesses who are actually meant to live with those rules, can claim / enforce nothing for ourselves from / under this treaty.
10. So not only is Brexit the modern world's biggest exercise in cross-border economic & security segregation. It’s an equally serious legal disenfranchisement of the citizen – effectively stripped of myriad legal protections, right across Europe as well as within UK itself
11. And all of that is besides long term damage to UK’s leadership in Europe/influence across rest of world; UK reputation as trustworthy international actor; UK internal cohesion thanks to shocking treatment of Scotland & Wales – none of which this draft treaty even touches upon
12. What benefits do Brexitists offer as compensation for so much damage? “Sovereignty”. Something they had never lost in first place. & which in reality means: freedom to diverge [ie deregulate social standards] & strike trade deals with US [from position of relative weakness]
13. In any case: even most fanatical Brexit loon can’t believe we’ll ever forgive their cruelty to EU & UK migrant citizens, indifference to stability in NI, contempt for basic values of honesty/integrity, debasement of UK democracy – again, none of which draft treaty can repair
14. Johnson might think he "settled" UK's place in Europe “once & for all”. Starmer might be happy to play along. Those of us with principles & backbone think otherwise. As Brexitists lie in bed at night let’s make sure they're plagued by a little voice: “we’ll rejoin one day...”

I still disagree. We're already seeing a similar level of obedience in England. Making it clearly distinct from Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

I don't think we are at all. The English are intensely divided. There's not obedience so much as a failure of opposition and democracy which is not the same thing at all.

NI Unionists disagree with Republicans on Brexit. The former were initially obedient but eventually rebelled May's deal. Ireland and Scotland have had great leadership, which has been sorely lacking in England. We haven't had a Sturgeon to stand up for Remain/ers.

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.

DGR - you're actually not wrong there

Holyrood is allegedly an example of just this: there were suggestions back in 1999 that the hybrid d'Hondt system that was put in place was designed to ensure that the SNP never got anywhere near power that worked well

After winning enough seats to form a minority government in 2007, the SNP then "broke" the d'Hondt system in 2011 (they actually won more seats than they "should" have done using the proportional d'Hondt system), winning an overall majority - before the hybrid system went back to working in 2016, hence another minority government.

Can I just say a quick "thank you" to everyone who I've been in discussions with for the last couple of years at least on Westministenders. In particular Red; DGR; Peregrina; Prettybird Auld and many others whom I've now consumed too much to remember the names of.

If the threads continue into 2021 then I'll likely continue posting for sure but this seems a good point to thank everyone for such a fascinating series of threads and bid all the best to anyone who might be ducking out now that our fate is sealed ahem, I mean a deal has been ratified.

@TatianaBis - Ireland and Scotland have had great leadership

Ireland's leadership is really irrelevant to the way brexit has been handled in the UK.

[quote OchonAgusOchonO]**@TatianaBis* - Ireland and Scotland have had great leadership*

Ireland's leadership is really irrelevant to the way brexit has been handled in the UK.[/quote]
It is insofar as if England had had politicians of the calibre of Varadkar and Sturgeon (and also media commentary of the quality seen in Ireland) we might not be in this mess.

Louise
Thank you, too, for your input and the moderate, reasoned way you always convey your perspective despite holding a very minority view on the WM threads.

That is true. Varadkar and Sturgeon are a significant improvement on English politicians.

The English are intensely divided.
As seen by Farage and his latest anti lcokdown/anti vaccine stance.

Not that you need to travel that far to see places where a changing climate has affected human habitation.

Jared Diamond’s book Collapse has a number of good accounts comparing societies that succeed or fail.

Also Varadkar exercised key influence in the Brexit negotiations. Making the drive to avoid a hard border a crucial issue.

He absolutely infuriated Brexiters which is good enough for me.

Of course, not everyone agrees that Sturgeon is an improvement. But to my mind, the way that Holyrood does not rely on FPTP means that the vote in Scotland is more genuinely representative of what the majority of Scots want. So those being upset that she doesn't speak for all of them need to consider how we of the 48% feel when we were written out of the script altogether.

Also Varadkar exercised key influence in the Brexit negotiations.

As did many other EU politicians.

@DGRossetti

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.

Terrifying thought but I think you are right, climate change will lead to increasing instability, unless we make significant changes now. I wish there was the will for it.

Gedi looks interesting, I like visiting historical sites.

Re: the electricity and fish link, I didn't realise they were connected. Looks like the EU have us by the balls. It makes sense, given how reliant we are on Europe for continuity of our energy supply - there massive infrastructure projects connecting us to the mainland for this purpose and they are there for a reason.

I think the capacity for rebellion is another thing sapped by an education system that doesn’t properly teach citizenship or our particular form of democracy and focuses on the wearing of correct uniform and myriad pointless rules rather than the ability to think properly. An example of this insanity is schools that focus on uniform regulations so kids freeze in classrooms with the windows open in the middle of a pandemic, not allowed to wear non-uniform fleeces under any circumstances (an example I was given yesterday by my best ever ex-TA). Anyway, the result of this is a populace that considers not doing up its tie properly or wearing too short a skirt or having pink hair as a revolutionary act and never gets off its arse to actually rebel, or even think how it might do so, the occasional pointless riots excepted.

@OchonAgusOchonO

Also Varadkar exercised key influence in the Brexit negotiations.

As did many other EU politicians.

Sure, but he had specific clout on issues that relate to the island of Ireland.

@LouiseCollins28

Can I just say a quick "thank you" to everyone who I've been in discussions with for the last couple of years at least on Westministenders. In particular Red; DGR; Peregrina; Prettybird Auld and many others whom I've now consumed too much to remember the names of.

If the threads continue into 2021 then I'll likely continue posting for sure but this seems a good point to thank everyone for such a fascinating series of threads and bid all the best to anyone who might be ducking out now that our fate is sealed ahem, I mean a deal has been ratified.

I hope the threads will continue: I have learned a lot (e.g. DG Rosetti's wiki links will usually show me something I have never heard of before!)

A big thank you too for the person who mentioned Joseph E Stiglitz's excellent book The Price of Inequality which makes for depressing reading 10 years on in that so many issues have not resolved, e.g. UK politicians have been emboldened to facilitate 'rent seeking' behaviour of the 1%, the inadequacy of social media companies to root out 'fake news' etc. I'll be looking out his later books.

I suspect that Johnson / ERGers couldn't care less about fishing and are therefore not worried about possible denial of energy. The latter will never happen because the former will be dropped as an issue.

They've got what they want in shifting power to the executive, having a docile majority of MPs, no more EU holding them to any minimum standard and parliment had one day to scrutinise the deal.

What is in it or not in it that makes them so happy? Were financial services deliberately left out? Is the City about to become even more of a tax evasion haven? Will it be all guns blazing on the judiciary now? We know that Fox is looking to restart a UK channel plus there's been an application for another tv channel... BBC in the cross hairs...

If this all comes to pass with the primary means to hold govt to account are immobilised then are we seeing the Tories in for another 50 years? To think I arrived here in 1997 when Tony Blair was young and held such promise. A long time ago now.

Bizarrely, twitter seems to be awash with Tory MPs claiming that they've finished Thatcher's project!

This level of stupidity is what we've got to live with for the next several years...

A big thank you too for the person who mentioned Joseph E Stiglitz's excellent book The Price of Inequality which makes for depressing reading 10 years on in that so many issues have not resolved, e.g. UK politicians have been emboldened to facilitate 'rent seeking' behaviour of the 1%, the inadequacy of social media companies to root out 'fake news' etc. I'll be looking out his later books.

Try The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, it might be in a similar vein, it's about how fairer societies are better for everyone, regardless of income.