POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

P, 'wasteland' seems a bit strong..... Mind you, I've looked at the deprivation figures and I can see why you say that....
Once again, as so often in our history, Ireland is a problem. I note that the Brexiteers are, as usual, blaming it all on the Irish! No good looking to me for an answer, at the moment the only legal possibility is a hard border between The Republic and Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. If the Republic doesn't want that, tough!
What strikes me is that it's a perfect example of the Law of Unintended Consequences swinging into action. Did Cameron see this coming when he triggered his Cunning Wheeze to defuse opposition in the Tory Party to his policies? Of course not, there wasn't enough room on the fag packet! Along with the rest of the can of worms Brexit has thrown up.
As for criticism of Corbyn.... I said when he first appeared on the scene that what I liked about him was that he told the truth as he saw it instead of doing what all the other politicians do, follow an agreed line. It's the grit in the oyster that makes the pearl and I reckon he's doing a good job, consistently speaking truth to power. That's why the bastions of the establishment fear him. That's right, the driver isn't hate (although that exists) it's mainly fear. If we survive at all in the very long term it's the Corbyns of this world that will drag us back to reality.

[Stanley]

See THIS for the latest moves in the concerted efforts to defend Damien Green. Amazing how much trouble you can get into by speaking truth to power. That is assuming that the former police officers are telling the truth. I suppose we shall have to wait for the verdict of the Cabinet Office inquiry into the matter.
Worth reading THIS BBC report on the resignation of Alan Millburn and other members of the Social Mobility Commission. This is more important than at first sight it means. It is one more example of Downing Street words being just that, no action. This is a symptom of the irrelevance of the health of society as a whole to this government and their policies. Time and time again promises are made which turn out to be hollow. This is corroding our social fabric and will eventually lead to political and social instability. Piketty warned of this in the context of the lack of progressive taxation to redress the balance in wealth. It applies equally to loss of opportunity and decent standards of living.

[Tizer]

I don't know all the details of the Damien Green `porn on computer' trouble but it seems to boil down to Green's word versus that of the retired police officer. Where is the computer now? Where is the evidence in the form of a complete copy of what was on the hard disk? How do we know the police (who bear a grudge against Green) didn't put the pics on his computer disk. Was the computer protected by a strong password? Did anyone else know the password?

It was good to hear Alan Milburn on the radio this morning, he was making some of the most sensible comments that I've heard for a while.

Claims on the news that Cameron wants to return to make a come back. Before he tries that he should explain why he so foolishly put the EU membership question to a referendum and ducked out on his duty to uphold the UK's representative democracy by having Parliament make the decision. (Or just concluding that there was no decision to make and getting on with the important issues requiring a Prime Minister's attention.)

[plaques]

Yanis Varoufakis The Greek economist, you'll know him when you see him, Link.. Talking about various aspects of the Brexit. Worth listening to and follows some logical steps in the analysis of each subject. The bottom line is that he doesn't think that either the EU or the UK will ever reach an agreed conclusion. His thoughts are that the EU in requiring a mandatory step by step process to a preset agenda would guarantee it to fail. Similarly Mrs May's stance on fixed positions plus David Davis's nothing is agreed until everything is agreed would result in failure. On the Irish border question he thinks this will never be settled within the current time table and only a slow calm approach over some years will produce an acceptable solution. Has he puts it the current negotiations are a "dogs Brexit".

[PanBiker]

He was on Question Time this last week and one of the most measured and coherent in his replies.

[Tizer]

Yanis Varoufakis The Greek economist....The bottom line is that he doesn't think that either the EU or the UK will ever reach an agreed conclusion.

I'm glad he agrees with me! He could add into that mixture the Irish border which reminds me of a materials science demonstration. You put down two sheets of glass, one on top of the other, and then show that you can stand on the glass without it breaking. Then you take off the top sheet, put a grain of sand on the bottom one and put the top sheet back. Then stand on the glass - BANG! - glass shatters all over the place. The Irish border issue is the grit between the EU and UK under pressure from Brexit.

[Stanley]

Lovely analogy Tiz (Or is it a simile.....)
Yanis Varoufakis... Like you P, I like the bloke and always have done. He reminds me of Stiglitz, he talks such eminent good sense.
As for Cameron, I heard one of his constituents defending him and blaming all the problems on Osborne.
Did you hear Blair making his bid to get back into the running. I recoil automatically from that but have to admit he is talking sense.
04:00. The early news on World Service is that Brussels is in an upbeat mood as over the weekend diplomats have reached agreement on Citizen's Rights and the initial cash offer on the so-called Divorce. The outstanding matter is Ireland but they are 'looking for an agreed form of words' on that.
My reading of the entrails is that they have recognised that the Irish solution depends in large measure on what the eventual trade agreement is and it makes sense to find a way round this.

[Tizer]

The Britain First (BF) deputy leader Jayda Fransen has been in Poland whipping up support. The far right has a much stronger presence there than it does in the UK but BF will be learning from them and benefiting from their support. With the Tories in meltdown the danger is that right-leaning voters here might choose to support BF instead of Labour.

[PanBiker]

Theresa May is now between a proper rock and a hard place. PM in Ireland is all for the deal but the DUP have pulled the plug and will not accept any concessions that treat Northern Ireland and different to the rest of the UK as proposed to get the deal done. The narrow margin of majority diminishes and you could see it in her face when she exited the talks. Certainly wiped the grin that she arrived with.

On the Rowntree report regarding folk in poverty. No wonder with the elderly as our pension is one of the meanest in Europe. I have just signed a petition on this issue. State pension in Germany £26,000, France £15,811, UK £7,488. Link to 38Degree petition at the bottom of the article.

Stand by your Nan

[Tizer]

I'm OK, I received my £10 pensioner's bonus today. That'll go 33% of the way towards paying off my £30 `bus gate' fine.

[Stanley]

I saw the news about Ireland late last night. May and Junker make noises about getting past the impasse but don't hold your breath! The main thing that struck me was 'what a can of worms' and so easy to have avoided it in the first place. Parliament should have voted such an obviously bad idea down. Still, too late for that! The Redwood brigade are cock-a-hoop, they can see their goal in sight.
See THIS BBC report for a good summary.

[Stanley]

There is a strong suspicion that the reason why the DUP were so shocked when they saw the final draft of the 'get out of gaol free' proposals is that they were never consulted on the final draft and hadn't realised that what was being proposed was a different status for Northern Ireland.
The putative PM, Arlene Foster, refused to come to see T May but sent her deputy instead. It would appear that the tail is wagging the dog and T May is of course, quite rightly, getting the blame for that. At the moment there is no obvious way out of this and as they say 'The Clock is Ticking'.
Meanwhile IDS helpfully suggests that now is the time to walk out of the talks. I never did rate him and this is quite obviously the single worst thing to do. Problem is he is not alone. Is Parliament really going to stand aside and watch this race to oblivion? Time for a vote of No Confidence, no matter how damaging it is. The alternative is unthinkable. It would be hard to think of anything the Tories can do that is worse than their present stance. They are a party in chaos and I suspect panic is beginning to set in at Number Ten.
Later.... I've been listening to Sir Keir Starmer on Today explaining Labour's position and his views on the stalemate and he sounds to be talking sense to me.

[plaques]

To quote:- 'The reason politicians have tongues is so that you don't know what they are thinking,' The recent declaration on the Irish border issue fits in very nicely with this statement. "Its all sorted because we can have 'Regulatory Alignment'. (whatever this means). Unfortunately, the DUP, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and London have all seen through this smokescreen of words. It may have been good enough to bamboozle the Plebs, (think £350M per week), but thankfully we have people around us that can recognize Bull .... when they seen it. Mrs May's ' with one mighty bound our hero was free' has totally failed. I doubt if the Tories will even offer her a blindfold before she steps on the trapdoor.

[PanBiker]

Did anyone else get the feeling of de ja vu when Theresa May exited the meeting and made her statement the other day. Reminded me of Neville Chamberlain and his slip of paper, or have we this moment yet to come.

I can only see a couple of ways out of this, reunification of Ireland with them as part of the UK or as an independent island and the other is to pull the plug on brexit and fight our corner from within.

I personally think that when the referendum vote was taken and the bill for leaving passed, Parliament should have been dissolved in favour of a cross party coalition to administer the break off. This on the understanding that once severed from the EU an immediate General Election would take place. It would then have been collective responsibility for the good of the country (as in war) and the electorate more fully engaged in the process.

[Stanley]

I'm sure you are right Ian and as you know I have argued for a coalition all along. From the very beginning Brexit has been run as a Tory Party 'Cat Fight', even the EU saw that.
Did I hear Junker saying the EU had to help prevent the UK government falling?
Time for the Opposition to get together, throw this useless bunch out and form a coalition of the talents to extricate us from this mess. Did you see Davies admitting that no proper cost analysis had been done on any of the consequences to manufacturing industry? You couldn't make it up! 'Farce' ans 'trousers down' spring to mind......

[plaques]

Davies admitting that no proper cost analysis had been done ...

This statement is approaching criminality. He also claimed that the complexity of the variables interacting with each other would go beyond human understanding therefore in his view its better to remain totally ignorant and drive by the seat of your pants. Way back in 1949 long before mainframe computers people were building Hydraulic simulators Link. like MONIAC (Monetary National Income Analogue Computer) which though a series of water tanks, pipes and inlet/outlet controls which could on some financial simulations be calibrated to an accuracy of ±2%. Is Davis saying that the Treasury or the Bank of England don't have the wherewithal and expertise to to model these functions? Its understandable that long term predictions will get a bit fuzzy the farther forward in time you look but this is no excuse for not doing anything.

[Stanley]

I didn't know about MONIAC P! What a brilliant idea and how effective.
When you have a financial ethos that is ultimately governed by people whose qualifications are who they know and which school they went to you get a position where, when their risk management people warn them about the possible effects of powerful algorithms and derivative instruments, can only make simplistic decisions. In commerce it is "Will it make a profit?" in the Treasury it is can we get the sanction of Parliament. When Davies made his shameful statement what he was actually saying was we don't understand it and there is no way we are going to give executive power to those that do because they are too low a pay grade. There will be software engineers tearing their hair out when they hear him.
I would draw his, and Our Leaders attention to the numerous studies of innovation in industry. The vast majority of the successful ideas that lead to greater efficiency and profit do not come from inventors in attics (wonks) or Top management, they originate on the shop floor amongst people facing the problems daily and understanding the processes. I rest my case!
Did you hear Powell the old Downing Street chief of staff explaining the use of 'constructive ambiguity' in language used in briefing papers during the negotiations leading to the Good Friday Agreement? In effect he was saying that all depended on the impression that certain words conveyed and that this was the skill of drafting such papers. Bordering on chicanery. Snake Oil salesmen come to mind.
Breaking news as I write. T May is leaving for Brussels for a press conference within two hours. The assumption is that they have squared the circle in time for next Thursday's meeting of the EU leaders.
Meanwhile May burns up the telephone lines trying to persuade Arlen Foster to let her run the UK her way! Another brilliant Tory strategy to retain power that went wrong!

[PanBiker]

DUP and the Irish PM say that there is still a lot of "detail" to work out. Apparently the plan, (although there are no details yet) includes a fall back option? I wonder if this will involve the magic money tree that the Tories seem to conjure up when events go tits up! It's another Neville Chamberlain moment, (they seem to be coming thick and fast), "I have just returned from "insert country of choice" and I have in my hand this slip of paper that guarantees" ..... Yeh right.

[Tizer]

Way back in 1949 long before mainframe computers people were building Hydraulic simulators Link. like MONIAC (Monetary National Income Analogue Computer) which though a series of water tanks, pipes and inlet/outlet controls which could on some financial simulations be calibrated to an accuracy of ±2%.

Thanks for that Plaques. Now I know where Terry Pratchett got his similar device, The Glooper, in his book `Making Money'. Here's a bit from a review of the book: "And in the basement, a Mint worker has managed to build The Glooper, an analogy engine that represents the economic life of the city through water-filled glass tubes. But analogies have power in Discworld, and The Glooper may now be controlling the city rather than vice versa." LINK It's worth remembering that Pratchett's book was published on 20 September 2007, so he wrote it just before the Credit Crunch.

[Stanley]

The thought that was uppermost in my mind as I tried to avoid the hype about St Theresa was thaT NOW WE HAVE RECTIFIED THE MISTAKES SHE MADE IN THE BEGINNG (bLOODY DIFFICULT WOMAN) (bugger caps lock....) the really difficult parts of the negotiations can start...... You ain't seen nothing yet!

[Tizer]

Everyone should have to read this article by Chris Morris, the `Reality Check' correspondent for BBC News...
`Brexit talks: Where next for negotiations?' LINK

He was on the Today programme this morning giving the facts (real facts, not Trumped up fake facts). The first thing he pointed out was that amidst all the Brexiteer cheering about the so-called deal we shouldn't forget that any one of the EU member countries can veto a deal. This is just one of the points that Bruff made on OG long ago, before we'd even held the Referendum. And the converse is that once we exit the EU we can no longer veto EU plans. Someone on the radio this morning said `It's great that we're getting out of the EU now because they're going to set up an EU army". If he thought a little further he'd realise that while we were in the EU we could have used our veto to stop a plan for an EU army. When we've left they can do whatever they like, right on our doorstep, and we can't stop them.

It was useful to listen to the Belgian politician, also on Today, giving an EU view of the current state of affairs. It was very different to what we're being told by our own government and much more realistic. They must think we've addled our brains with all that warm beer!

[Stanley]

I heard both of them Tiz and liked their straightforward presentation of the facts. I'm afraid our politicians, by and large, must have a very poor opinion of the electorate. We are not trusted with straight facts and transparent processes and this of course stokes the 'ignorance of the masses' we often comment on. We are still in the 19th century concept of the masses as fodder for the factories, cannons and political lobbies and are managed as such.
Listening to politicians explaining how the triumph of Brussels is due to the fact that the EU suddenly realised they were looking into the muzzle of a loaded gun I can't help thinking they demonstrate their own stupidity and their low opinion of us. We are expected to swallow this nonsense! The same people say that from now on it is plain sailing and straight negotiation. Really? In a pig's ear......

[plaques]

We now hear that Mrs May's negotiating skills have got the EU over a barrel, more likely its our turn to be in the barrel. The circle has been squared, we can now have our Pie and eat it. Like the mythical blind giant Orion her guiding servant is David Davis who unfortunately has never used Sat Nav and hasn't got his Boys Brigade navigation certificate is blundering about in the catacombs having let go of the string. The divorce settlement has been agreed? £40B at the last count but nobody really knows how much the final tally will be. Then through the transition period? everything will continue as normal just as though we are still in the market but without the ability to pull any strings. Through this period it looks like the EU will control everything. Immigration will still be the same with all the benefits handed over as usual. Laws will still be issued by Brussels including any new ones during this period but without our input. Looks like an open cheque book on the red lines she originally drew up. Finally there will be NO hard Irish border. What an excellent move! Why didn't she say this in the first place. All it needs now is for her to explain how to do it. Another fine mess you've got me into Theresa.

[Tizer]

"EU looking into the muzzle of a loaded gun" and "we've got the EU over a barrel" are both phrases that IDS is using. He's an absolute menace, that man. He seems to confuse negotiating with the EU with fighting ISIS. Perhaps it's not surprising for someone whose main experience of life before politics was in the Scots Guards. He should be sent back to them for a posting to somewhere far from Europe and out of contact with European politics.

[Tripps]

This is how the matter was regularly reported a while ago -

"Iranian authorities allege Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe was plotting to topple the government in Tehran - but no official charges have been made public."

Then Boris 'blundered' - saying publicly that she was teaching journalism rather than the official line that she was 'visiting relatives'. Michael Portillo said at the time, that 'Boris didn't pick that expression from a blue sky'. Now today it is widely reported that she is in jail for 'spying'.

Boris's latest intervention has failed to get her released and home in time for Christmas.

Confused - yes

That's my official line - actually I'm not, but it's just based on guesswork.