POLITICS CORNER

[Whyperion]

What I don't get about this is that there is no direct evidence here, none that would stand up in court anyway, it's all circumstance and supposition.
What they have is a few CCTV pictures of two blokes in Salisbury. Claimed traces of the nerve agent in their hotel room. If that's the case why aren't the blokes in intensive care? Apparently everyone else who has come into contact with it has either been extremely ill and made miraculous recoveries from a deadly and non survivable substance (which in itself is a bit weird) or are indeed dead (but the victim was medically compromised to start with).

I'm puzzled, it may well be as the government says, however, without evidence to charge and convict this is now a non story costing millions to the taxpayer and I reckon now is only being used to take the public eye off the main event, our nearing plunge into the abyss. Bugger the Russians, even if true it looks like a spook on spook hit and not a very good one at that. To elaborate a plot, as I said before much easier ways to get shut if that is the aim.

Supposedly there is evidence, and I think the press are mis-reporting , I assume if the agent is effectively a two-pack organophosphate what is in the hotel room were the components to create, rather than the finished product. But as you say, if it requires exposeur to be applied and one assumes there is no evidence for discarded safety suits or similar, then why did the claimed pair not themselves get ill ?

[Stanley]

I find myself agreeing with what Spreadsheet Phil said yesterday when he endorsed what Christine Lagarde of the IMF said. I think she is spot on, any Brexit deal will impinge on UK economic performance (even in the most optimistic scenario) and no deal or a bad deal will have a very serious impact. As we get closer to March the fog starts to clear and I am even more certain now than I was when I voted to Remain.
Of course, we have had these shocks before and the one that comes to mind which is of the same magnitude is WW2. We recovered from that in about 25 years but mainly because we got the benefit of a huge technological revolution. I don't see anything beneficial like that on the horizon. True there is still immense progress but as far as I can see this is mainly benefiting the already wealthy global corporations and the wealth holders. They have the power to channel all the results of improvement their way.
The thought that strikes me is that perhaps the catalyst for change which benefits the underdogs this time could be a collapse of the markets. This is, according to the best advice we are getting, inevitable in the present circumstances. After all, WW2, though a global tragedy, was what dragged us out of the inter war depression.
Sorry, that's the limit of my fading optimism.
Later.... A quote from Vince Cable speaking at the LibDem conference..... "Brexit The erotic spasm of fundamentalists who don't care about the economic damage." I think that covers it nicely!

[Tizer]

I've been saying all along that the simple answer is for the government to exercise its powers and responsibility and declare that Brexit is the wrong route to take and that we should stay in the EU. The majority of MPs agreed that we should stay in. But I usually got the response "We can't go back on it now because there'll be riots on the streets". Well now we are being told that Brexit itself will result in civil unrest and the police are preparing for it. So we might as well go for No Brexit.

[chinatyke]

BOO...

Better Off Out.

[Stanley]

You're dead right Tiz and exactly what Thomas Piketty predicted even without Brexit.
Remember the last wave of riots and arson? Nobody except some historians came clean at the time and pointed out that the root cause was an underclass of angry young people kept in poverty with no hope of progress. They were in despair and had no other way of venting their feelings. Allied of course to the world wide demonstrations against the way the capitalist system was operating. Both essentially the same root cause.
Later..... News that the EU is prepared to 'modify' their proposals on customs in an effort to help Mrs May before the Salzburg conference. Problem is that from the sound of the concessions they don't go far enough to satisfy the UK position. This is not exactly a New Dawn!
Jaguar Land Rover do nothing to endear themselves to the government. They are bringing a scheduled closure for deep maintenance forward to March so that they can assess the post-Brexit position at the same time. The Mini plant is going on to a three day week as well. Add the escalation in the US/China tariff war and you have a real chance of 'events dear boy'. Not a very stable outlook.

[Stanley]

Later..... news from T May of £2billion of long term investment from 2022 in social housing. In addition she says that council house tenants should not be denigrated. It's worth pointing out that this view is largely the result of a deliberate government policy under all parties that I think started in the late 1960s whereby council housing was to be prioritised by the need to house 'problem families'. Never specifically voiced but this was what happened and the result was the epithet 'sink estates'.
This is a hopeful start but this residual stigma should be addressed vigorously. Perhaps a start would be to drop the term 'social housing' and stick to 'affordable housing'.

[Tizer]

I was brought up in a council house in Blackburn but it wasn't on an estate, it was a group of 6 semis far from any `council estate'. These small groups of council houses usually seemed to be free of trouble. Some of my relatives lived in a small terraced cottage on the other side of town next to the Shadsworth estate and they got constant trouble from people living on the estate. But that doesn't mean all the folk on the estate were bad. A small number of families were a law unto themselves and caused grief for everyone else living there. All those other people were living a poor quality of life due to the small number of real bad `uns so the whole estate seemed depressed and angry. The council and police should have dealt with the real troublemakers but they didn't.

[Stanley]

I agree. That was a result of the switch in attitude towards housing problem families. When I lived in Bacup there was just one rotten apple in a large council housing estate but the police reckoned they were responsible for almost 50% of their work load.
May in Salzburg..... Tusk makes it quite clear she is not going to get an instant solution to Ireland. Add too the fact that the much vaunted speech is limited to ten minutes. The bottom line is don't hold your breath, we are getting awfully close to crunch time and I can't see the Seventh Cavalry coming over the hill.
That bloke Gove is creepy........ It's fairly easy to identify the other members of the ERG as deranged, buffoons or Colonel Blimps but Gove is a slippery enigma.
Later, reading the runes of what news is coming out of Salzburg, all from EU sources! When this process first started I said that what the government had failed to realise was that as soon as the Article 50 letter went in we passed all the advantages to the EU and they would be in charge of the outcome. It's obvious now that this was right, May has only one card left in her hand, the threat to walk away. True, the EU is desperate to get a deal and a resolution but they will not abandon any of their red lines. One EU politician said after the speech that what most EU members wanted was a second referendum reversing the decision of the first. May has again boxed herself into a corner by saying that will not happen.
We have all the classic ingredients for an impasse and someone is going to have to give way if there is to be any resolution. As things stand, this looks impossible. I've always talked about Cameron's Catastrophe and I hold to that view.
One odd piece of information that came to me via Private Eye. Bojo gets £266,000 a year for 46 articles for the Telegraph.....
See THIS Guardian article on the report by the Office of Road and Rail which goes for the department of transport and Grayling saying that the timetable chaos was due to the fact that nobody took charge. They also say another enquiry isn't needed, all that has to happen is for Grayling to actually do his job. That man is a walking accident zone.....

[Tizer]

`Donald Tusk: Theresa May's Brexit trade plan won't work' LINK
`Theresa May's proposed new economic partnership with the EU "will not work", the head of the European Council has said. Donald Tusk said the plans risked undermining the EU's single market. He was speaking at the end of an EU summit in Salzburg where leaders of the 27 remaining member states discussed Brexit. Mrs May said her proposals were the "only serious credible" way to avoid a hard border in the Northern Ireland. Responding to Mr Tusk's remarks, she said: "Yes, concerns have been raised and I want to know what those concerns are." There was "a lot of hard work to be done", she said, but added that the UK was also preparing for having to leave without a deal. Mrs May reiterated that she would not accept the EU's "backstop" plan to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland, and said the UK would shortly be bringing forward its own proposals....'

[Stanley]

Tiz, it's being regarded as 'news' but the rejection was flagged up clearly enough. May faces her own cliff edge now. She is sandwiched between the EU and Parliament, both of which are telling her she is wrong.
I heard a Brexiteer saying that cliff edge and WTO rules is supportable. My question is by Whom? OK to say that if you are wealthy. And this on the same day that the local councils warn that we ain't seen nothing yet on the cuts to services......
The word is that 48 letters to the 1922 committee is now almost certain. Are the Tories really going to trigger a leadership election and lose 3 months of direct action out of the six months we have before Der Tag!? If they do it will trigger a General Election. Result, the worst of all possible worlds for everyone. The Cameron Catastrophe.....
Chris Grayling on R4 this morning explaining that Brexit will be OK. That's really chilling! Look at his record, what could possibly......

[Stanley]

Notice the language that is being used in the right wing media to describe the EU actions at Salzburg. Brutal, gang bang, betrayal, humiliation. So despite the fact that May went there with a proposal that she already knew had been rejected, the EU are the bad guys. Just what Richard predicted a long time ago. No talk of dire mismanagement or mistaken policies, 'it wasn't me guv!' it is all down to the dastardly EU.
Think back, the EU stated their terms, publicised them and have never wavered from that decision. Where's the beef? Who carries the blame? Who is going to be brave enough to admit the truth?

[Tizer]

Macron has stirred the pot by saying, quite rightly, that the Brexit campaign leaders have been lying to us all. LINK
(And Burnley gets a mention in that article! )

Stanley, I know why you call the present problem `Cameron's Catastrophe' but it's really the culmination of decades of neglect by our political leaders failing to address the fundamental problems, especially immigration, and not putting more effort and money into education.

[Whyperion]

The Mini plant is going on to a three day week as well.

Wasn't the last 3 day week under a tory administration too?

[Whyperion]

"We can't go back on it now because there'll be riots on the streets".

Strange really, one can protest about other govt (local or national) policies and still get ignored

[Stanley]

Tiz, you are right of course but the present problems are a direct result of Cameron and his weak leadership. If I was to give a full history I'd be typing for a week!
The recriminations are flowing thick and fast. This isn't negotiation it's a full blown bout of megaphone politics. Trump gets away with it because there is some truth behind many of his rants, May has none and no collateral
to back her up.
The Tory conference could develop into a bloodbath, I don't think they can 'manage' this one.... A cough sweet won't cure it......
I've been listening to a discussion on World Service 'The Real Story' on the Good Friday agreement and during it they discussed what is the 'elephant in the room' as far as the UK is concerned. This the Reunification of Ireland. If the hard border in the Irish Sea was accepted it could be the trigger for this to happen eventually and we need a discussion about whether this 'break up of the Union' would necessarily be a bad thing. God knows but this has been a thorn in the side of Great Britain going back beyond the 16th century.
At the moment we have nothing but a knee jerk reaction against it from almost everyone in Parliament but would it necessarily be a bad thing? I realise this is heresy but then at one time the concept of a monarchy controlled by Parliament was as well. I know this is ancient history but it's an example of how at times the solution is original thinking. We may be at one of those tipping points now.

[Tizer]

UKIP membership is soaring and Farage is talking about making a comeback. We shouldn't rule out their chances - after all most people thought Trump would never become US president. Something is going to happen and it will trigger big changes. The youngest generation of adults is beginning to take more interest in politics and they seem to have more concern for their future than did previous generations.

[Stanley]

"Something is going to happen and it will trigger big changes."
Dead right Tiz and the kids do well to take notice. As to what the change is, nobody knows yet and even Reunification of Ireland isn't an impossible outcome together with Scotland having another referendum, declaring independence and applying to rejoin the EU. We are in for interesting times. The Tories could rewrite Churchillian pieces about 'standing alone'. They aren't fit to run a booze up in a brewery but they don't see it like that!
What we could end up with is a seismic shift in politics, question is, will it be an improvement?

[Tizer]

Speak of the devil! I shouldn't have mentioned the name Farage, it conjures up the man himself...
`No-deal Brexit 'no problem', Nigel Farage says at Leave Means Leave rally' LINK
Note that they've sandwiched him between Kate Hoey and David Davis, the Labour Brexit Bulddog and the Tory Brexit Bulldog. Is this an attempt to give Farage a bit more respectability? Will these people be the new `Brexit party' that Jeremy Hosking is planning to finance? LINK

[Tripps]

Just watched a bit if the Labour party conference. The bit where they announce the result of the ballot to decide what to discuss. Separate votes for Party, and Unions - they get to choose four debates each. Very democratic. Can't give the numbers from memory, but they gave a lot more votes to debate Palestine, than social care. I don't understand that.

[Stanley]

David, perhaps because social care doesn't need debate, everyone is agreed on what the problem is. Palestine is different and has a bearing on the Anti-Semitic row. Too often sympathy for Palestinians is automatically regarded as criticism of Zionist treatment of a minority which has nothing to do with Judaism. There's an argument for saying all future Jews were Palestinian Arabs before Abraham.......
Today's Cabinet meeting could be bigger news than the Labour Conference.

[Tizer]

For once I feel sorry for the news media. They're trying to work out what Labour is going to do about Brexit but they get different stories hour by hour. We keep being told that they agreed: `If we cannot get a general election Labour must support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote." But what happens if we do get a general election? If Labour get elected will they proceed with Brexit or will they hold another referendum? If they proceed with Brexit what form will it take? If they don't get elected will they continue as above, i.e. `Labour must support all options remaining on the table, including campaigning for a public vote.'? Let's have a bit of clarity please.

[plaques]

If they proceed with Brexit what form will it take?

I don't suppose anybody really knows. This will subject to negotiations but set against a background that they want to stop in the customs Union. How they can achieve this I don't know. Try listening to this short YouTube Link.

[Stanley]

Brexit..... As was the case with the referendum they are having to make a decision without knowing what the enemy is. Covering all the bases and a bit of wait and see looks to be the only option.
Not surprisingly I like the attitude on private ownership of the commanding heights, high time we had a government prepared to take on the responsibility of ensuring we have well run services. Did you hear the cheer when McDonnell spoke about Clause 4?
THIS CBI response to Labour plans for employee participation in industry came as no surprise. Note that when asked about the fact that Germany has made it work she avoided answering. This is the stock response to any move to make industry include their workers in their plans. She also dodged the comparison with partnership schemes like John Lewis by drawing attention to the difficulties they are having at the moment which are nothing to do with their structure but simply market place conditions.
She reminded me of the egregious Angela King who has surfaced as spokesperson for someone (I forget who) so watch her. They argue in defence of the indefensible and get paid a lot of money for doing it. Remember AK defending banking?
On a general point, the impression I get is of some responsible moves at Conference to shake off the ghost of Blair and re-orientate the party nearer to its roots and so they will automatically get flak from the Right Wing who fear them. Handy for T May, it diverted attention from the shambles she is presiding over. Hardly a word about that beyond an anodyne statement that the Cabinet must 'hold its nerve'. Steady as she goes when we are heading straight for the iceberg of Brexit.....

[Stanley]

Later..... THIS Opinion in the Express about Labour plans for water was entirely predictable. They say that utility bills will go up £2,000 annually. Really? I suspect that this is pure knee-jerk reaction. Just think how the segment of the water deal which says that the top men will have to reapply for their jobs at 'realistic' wage levels went down in the board rooms.
About time too!! This same principle should be applied to many more fields of public life, top pay levels are completely out of control right across the board, making a mockery of the austerity mantra, 'we are all in it'.
In a pig's ear!!
John Prescott on Today just now is well worth listening to. A breath of fresh air!

[Tizer]

The Cabinet has decided to treat EU immigrants the same as non-EU. Matthew Parris writing in The Times on Saturday quoted the Government's Migration Advisory Service figures showing that on average each EU migrant contributed about £2400 to the UK whereas each non-EU migrant' contribution was minus £840. The difference is said to be due to a large proportion of the non-EU migrants being dependants and not contributing.