The Westminster Arms

[DustyDiamond]

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Welcome to The Westminster Arms!

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A non-partisan politics pub thread for political chit chat....!!

Please stick within MN talk guidelines - any posts which you think may have crossed the line, please report rather than getting into scraps on thread 😠

Political punch-ups are soooo last decade - ain't nobody got time for that 🥊❌

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Morning, all,

Today the HoC will be turning its mind to Transport (when we might get the promised statement on HS2) and to business questions to Jacob Rees Mogg as Leader of the House.

The HoL will be asking questions about the shape of the future trade relationship with the EU as well as considering the question of setting up a trauma centre at Westminster to help the victims of any future terrorist attacks.

Select committee chairs were elected by MPs with Jeremy Hunt getting Health, Tom Tugendhat Foreign Affairs, Tobias Ellwood Defence, Greg Clark Science and Tech, and Stephen Timms Work and Pensions.

Watch the Science and Tech brief. Science minister Chris Skidmore told Policy Exchange that he was ‘working at pace’ to get a UK ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) 'up and running this year’. ARPA is the initiative closest to Dmitri's heart - a high-risk high-reward pursuit of transformative research to make the UK the new Silicon Valley.

Mr Skidmore made a keynote speech at Durham University - think of all those lovely new blue seats in the NE - in which he laid out how the government is committed to doubling the public R&D budget over the next five years with the aim of spending 2.4% of GDP by 2027 to boost manufacturing and engineering research.

I'm still catching up with the newspapers but was cheered by Julie Burchill's column in the Sunday Telegraph. She was searching for a way to understand why some people are still stuck in denial, anger and depression about the result of the referendum (something along the lines of what notangelinajolie said). David Goodhart's descriptors of Somewheres and Anywheres went some way to helping but she felt a key factor was missing. Finally, she alighted on it: pessimists and optimists. Leavers are natural optimists and see the freedom that comes from opportunities and possibilities, she says, while Remainers are pessimists and see only the uncertainty of leaving the safety of a rules-based artificial construct.

Julie Burchill is, of course, a contrarian and likes to provoke. Nonetheless, I think she would enjoy a drink and a natter in The Westminster Arms, the hotbed of optimism.

Boiled eggs and soldiers for breakfast, and yes, the eggs are guaranteed to be dippy. Please help yourselves.

Kettle's on ☕️☕️☕️

Oops, sorry, it was not notangelinajolie but mummmy2017.

I do think mummmy makes a valid point.

Interesting report scary.

In so so glad that whatever goes on there is not our worry any more.

Yes, completely agree with Julie burchill on that one. There's certainly a glass half full/ glass half empty tone to the conversations I've encountered around politics in recent years.

I've heard a lot about the authoritarian strand of much of the left, and that goes with a faith in lots of government and institutions to try to make things better rather than (what a pessimist might call) a blithe assumption that people are basically good and ingenious and don't need state intervention to make them do honourable things.

Too early in the morning for me to put together a coherent thought!!

Morning all and thanks for the yummy breakfast Singing. Dippy eggs and soldiers are my favourite.

I think you are absolutely right about optimists and pessimists and it had never occurred to me before.
I think that is what makes Boris so popular. He is clearly cheerful and optimistic

"Leavers are natural optimists and see the freedom that comes from opportunities and possibilities, she says, while Remainers are pessimists and see only the uncertainty of leaving the safety of a rules-based artificial construct."
Guessing today (or the next few days) is not the time but eventually you will have to stop dividing people into "Leavers" and "Remainers". My guess is that most people aren't hardcore anything after all this but just want to move forward. And some don't, I get that. Which is not great for anyone's frame of mind.

I never thought of Boris as that.
Yet it is like an over excited school boy is hiding inside of him and leaps out sometimes, wanting to jump in the puddles the rain has made.

Agree with you, too, Bellini. Although, again, I come across a very vocal minority of people who are stuck hard fast in how we are going to hell in a hand basket by leaving the EU - their belief in the tragic folly of that course over rides all else and is mentioned at every opportunity. Whoever it was who got jumped on ages ago about the stages of grief had it exactly right at the time (and I remember the fury with which that characterisation was greeted, at least a year or two after the referendum... It was possible to stick in denial and rage until after the 2019 general election, and that's another thing for which I blame the conduct of our sergeant pepper crew. If we were going to leave, which we should have been going to do given the referendum and its result, then all that manoeuvring to try to avoid doing so was not good in so many ways, including giving everyone a chance to come to terms with that as the logical next step. Although - again - we're probably better off as we are rather than with whatever poor Mrs may and her minority government could have navigated

Like I said, coherent thought not to the fore at this time of day.

eventually you will have to stop dividing people into "Leavers" and "Remainers"

Morning, Bellini,

Not sure whether you mean "you" in the general "everybody here" sort of sense or whether you mean "you" to refer to Julie Burchill as it was of course an extrapolation of her comments.

You can't possibly mean "you" to apply to me personally. After all, my posting history shows that one thing I've certainly been consistent about is my view that we all had our reasons to vote as we did - either for Leave or Remain - and that exercising our democratic rights should be respected either way.

I've also been consistently supportive of those who voted Remain but who are, above all, believers in democracy and accept that we must move on.

So if your view is that we, as a nation, should stop dividing people into Leavers and Remainers, that is something on which I definitely could stand shoulder to shoulder with you. I'm pretty sure that most, if not all, of the regulars in here would say the same.

I do understand that people are still upset about the result and anxious about the future. I am bemused, however, by those who insist they would cut dead anyone in their family or friendship circles who had dared to exercise their democratic right to vote Leave and who now actively wish harm on their own country and their fellow citizens just to prove a point, just as I am bemused by the triumphalism displayed by Nigel Farage and others of his ilk.

It's nasty, childish and unnecessary. Some people really do need to grow up.

So yes to the grown-ups meeting in the moderate reasonable middle and yes to those who believe we should now find reasons to work together, compromise and move forward.

You plural- "vous" rather than "tu". Or maybe even "on"

Merçi beaucoup, bellini. Je comprends.

There's certainly a glass half full/ glass half empty tone

That's exactly the same analogy that Julie Burchill used, Ommward, so it's definitely not too early for coherent thoughts

Morning, Copper and mummmy.

The LL has asked me to go and source a new supplier so I'll be back later. There's fresh tea and coffee if anyone needs a second cup.

Thanks for the dippy eggs Lily, and the daily round up of events.

I had very mixed feelings watching the goodbyes to the EU. I really did not like Farage's antics at all. IMO there's no place for such behaviour in politics, least of all when we are leaving such an institution. He'd got what he wanted so just go with a modicum of dignity. It was embarrassing to watch.

Conversely, I didn't like the scarf wearing remainer MEPs' display yesterday either.
I won't forget their embarrassing bollocks to brexit t shirt display in Strasbourg, which Guy Verhofstadt enjoyed so much.
Maybe I'm just too old for today's modern politics.

Copper I agree about Boris. I first saw it when he attended the G7 meeting in Biarritz; he had only been PM a few weeks at that time. I was feeling apprehensive about his bumbling Boris reputation, but he did really well (what bit we saw) and it was clear that his presence was going down well with the other representatives, whatever they thought of him in reality.

People like to be around positive people. You see it all the time in the workplace. A positive, happy boss generally = a happy workforce.

Blimey
I’ve never been thought of as optimistic in my entire life.

Morning all 😀

Morning all
Interesting thoughts on optimists and pessimists. I don't agree that it is a Leave / Remain split. I think rather that pessimists inhabit both extremes. So the extreme Brexiteers believed the Ref was our last opportunity to Leave before being subsumed by the EU behemoth and the extreme Remainers believed overturning the Ref to be the only route to prevent turning our backs on the rest of Europe if not the World.

Irl most people I know are far more pragmatic and want to make the most of whatever outcome.

Some of the Labour Leadership candidates have talked about the problem with the 2019 campaign being a lack of a coherent positive future vision. I agree with this analysis. Unfortunately there is no sign of one emerging from any of them so far.

I also agree positivity is a big plus point for Boris but also his demonstrable willingness to take risks and make mistakes followed by an equal willingness to dust himself off and move forwards. Again that echoes strongly with most people I know irl.

Morning

I've often clarified that it's the extremes of each that are the soul-sucking, pessimist dementors of the whole Brexit journey (can be applied to extremes of any topic tbh)

As pp said, there's mostly pragmatism & a healthy mix of optimism & caution in the majority middle

Agree though with Julie Birchill's observation about optimism vs pessimism & also the notion of the Accidental Achievers being the main drivers/culprits of keeping people stuck in the middle of the grief cycle & not able to move through the stages

The GE in Dec there was a definite shift in many hopeful remainers as they finally had to accept it & (ignoring the extremists) there was a palpable feeling of relief evident that the fight was done (similarly relief for the hopeful leavers)

The extremes of anything usually seem to me to be riven with authoritarianism - and mingled with Armageddon-style, doom-mongering pessimism or kamikaze-style, overly-grandiose optimism

I'm an eternal optimist in general in life which is handy most of the time (but can bite me in the ass also...!)

howabout Unfortunately there is no sign of one emerging from any of them so far.

This is exactly the conversation I had with MrHospitality. Not a single one of the candidates has spoken a positive thought about our future out of the EU to my knowledge.

I saw ET on Peston last night, still analysing the disastrous election and how her way (2nd referendum) would have been more successful. Labour MP guest Gloria De Piero did try to tell ET that labour weren't listening, but ET wasn't listening to that either.

I've also been reflecting on big general election victories, and the way that both Blair and Johnson harnessed optimism and reaped the rewards. And that now makes me wonder about 1983, and whether Thatcher pulled off the same feat (I'm too young to have been consciously aware of whether there was that in the national mood).

There's certainly a difference between 1997 and 2019. In 1997, it felt as if everyone heaved a sigh of relief at the new direction, including many conservatives (or was I in a bubble?). In 2019, there's a very vocal minority resistance to and fury about the conservative victory, and I just don't remember that being expressed in 1997.

I think labour go all out for spend and make it better, make it fair for all, only it fails and the Tory's have to come in and be the bad guys and clean up the mess.
But for some reason labour have missed their window of power, due to Corbyn, Boris has come in on the Brexit tide and so gets to change things because David Cameron already sorted the mess labour left.

If you were in a bubble in 1997, Ommward, I was there with you. It was the one and only time I voted Labour.

The elections of 1979, 1997 and 2019 were national game-changers - seismic in my view - and each were a direct response to the common issues of a national weariness with stagnation, lack of direction, dearth of hope and a sense that the UK was facing managed decline if something didn't change.

In 1979, the country was held to ransom by the unions (three day week, electricity rationed, rubbish uncollected and mounting up in the streets, the dead unburied) and the feeble efforts of Heath, Wilson and Callaghan came to naught. Margaret Thatcher projected positivity, optimism and a sense of purpose and so people voted for hope and change.

In 1997, the tired and fractious government of a lacklustre John Major dithered itself to a standstill (Major's thoughts, as we now know, were engaged elsewhere). Tony Blair projected positivity, optimism and a sense of purpose and so people voted for hope and change.

And in 2019, after nearly four years of endless bickering and hysterics about Brexit by a government led in name only by micro-manager Theresa May and hampered by the parliamentary arithmetic did - in my view - palpable damage to the morale of the nation and to confidence of business and investors. Boris Johnson projected positivity, optimism and a sense of purpose and so people voted for hope and change.

Margaret Thatcher, love her or loathe her, changed the UK both domestically and on the international stage. She started with a government majority of 43. Boris, with a majority of 80, has no excuse now but to get on with it and repay the trust shown in him.

I actually think that Boris wants to go down in history as a game-changing PM in the style of Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher. That's why Serious Boris is more in evidence these days and that's why he continues to bamboozle those who expect only Boris the Jester. He can do both, but the overall aim is always to bring enough of the electorate with him.

Same here. Only time I voted Labour was in 1997.
And I regretted it a few years later.
But it was optimism, energy and enthusiasm that persuaded me.
#shallow

YouGov have been doing research on how Remainers feel on the 5 stages of grief spectrum. In 2016 only 20% reported Acceptance. Today it is still only 30%.

I had an exchange with Singing about this earlier and we seemed to agree. Maybe it would be a good idea not to think about people as Remainers and Leavers. Particularly when most people are " Let's move to the next stage" -ers.
I don't regret my Remain vote but this is 2020 not 2016. Tomorrow we leave. Please don't define me or anyone else as a Remainer . There is no Remain option.

a bit of a worry for those who 'lent' their vote to Boris...