POLITICS CORNER

[PanBiker]

Censorship is rife over in Tory Facebook land. All comments have been deleted on a post over on the Pendle Conservatives Facebook site regarding the blatant lies published on there about the Development Management Committee meeting last Monday that refused permission for the proposal to build the 100 houses down opposite Greenberfield locks.

A number of people posted including the leader of the council Cllr Iqbal but all comments have been deleted. Seems like they must have run out of arguments to support their lies. About right for this dodgy lot.

[Big Kev]

Not sure what happened to democracy and free speech. Is there an option to report their page, Facebook might shut it down

[PanBiker]

I was thinking of reporting the post Kev as it is just a pack of lies and does not concur with what went on at the meeting.

[Big Kev]

I was thinking of reporting the post Kev as it is just a pack of lies and does not concur with what went on at the meeting.

I may well do the same even though I wasn't at the meeting.

[PanBiker]

Neither was I but a number of comrades were.

[Stanley]

Don't discount letters to local papers about Tories and 'False News'. It's all exposure....
Before you dismiss this, Stephenson's PR people use them, his face was all over BET this week.
Rumours abound in the Westminster Village that Boris is to make a speech calling for a short time limit on May's Leadership unless she develops a 'buccaneering attitude' towards Brexit. This is a symptom of the fact that the Leavers are disturbed by what they see as dilution of Hard Brexit. In other words.... confusion.

[Tizer]

This man in this Larsson cartoon symbolises Mrs May's present situation...

[Whyperion]

I think I liked much of the words Jeremy Corbyn used this morning on the Andrew Marr interview, problem is I am not sure if 70% of the existing MPs and 60% of existing local officials and 35% of local membership actually do.

[Stanley]

I like the cartoon.... Problem with the present situation is that they are all in the boat with her and any frenzy affects all of them. On that basis, looking at the possible winners and losers. Many commentators are pointing the finger at Gove and that fits. Don't discount Jeremy Hunt either.
What seems clear to me is that the Leavers are at the root of this by refusing to accept anything but a hard Brexit and damn the consequences. Old Tory DNA is still the most powerful influence in their Party and I am convinced that the long term goal is to get as close to the Laissez Faire attitudes of the 19th century as possible with the workers well under control. Every policy since 2010 points to this.

[Tizer]

Apparently Gavin Willamson wants to be PM, too, but I'm not sure anybody else wants him to be!

The political situation now fills me with foreboding. The Tory party is in a mess and the government looks like collapsing or morphing into a more right-wing version. It might be a chance for Labour to get in but I have serious reservations about Team Corbyn too. The one thing that buoys me up is that Emmanuele Macron's party didn't exit before 2016 and look where he is now. Could this happen in Britain perhaps?

By the way, Macron made a smart move for the Davos meeting and he could teach our politicians a trick or too. He organised a big bash at the Palace of Versailles on the night before the Davos opening and invited about 140 senior world business leaders for a Michelin starred dinner. He gave a long speech about how he is transforming France to be a more business-friendly country - effectively describing how France is going to replace Britain in the business world as the link between Europe and the USA. His speech went into technical and financial details and was well-received. Reports say the audience was very impressed. Meanwhile, Mrs May made a quick visit to the Davos opening, spent 14 minutes talking to a meeting of British business leaders, spent more time with a few leaders of foreign based businesses and then left. The British business contingent was under-whelmed and very disappointed in her performance.

[Tripps]

I came across this today -it was all so simple and straightforward then. . .

Brexit - The beginning



PS - in response to the French business pitch - I remember posting this in 2015- good luck with that.
Postby Tripps » Sat Mar 14, 2015 12:56 pm
Robert Peston's one off on France was interesting. I was surprised to see that French employer/employee relations were ruled by a book call 'Code de Travail', which has 3,600 pages, and weighs 2 kg.
For example women can have as much maternity leave as they wish, and do not have to tell their employer how long it will last. Two and three years was mentioned.The job has to remain open for them to return throughout.
They can resign at any time within the leave period. Then if they don't like their new job - any time within a year, they can return to the original job.

Peston asked 'how can businesses make plans if that is the case. The French lady replied - 'c'est impossible'

[Tizer]

Macron is dismantling all those extreme rules and making French business much more competitive, which is why he's currently the darling of the business world.

[plaques]

effectively describing how France is going to replace Britain in the business world as the link between Europe and the USA.

We effectively handed over the batton to the French when we voted to come out of the market. The EU will now be in a better position to strike a deal with the USA than we will out of the market. This logic also applies to any trade deals with China. Its about time Mrs May started to put some figures to these so called super deals.

Censorship is rife over in Tory Facebook land. All comments have been deleted on a post over on the Pendle Conservatives Facebook

. Popped a comment in there late saturday night explaining the background to these bloated housing figures. My post #18 has since been deleted. Mr Stephenson MP is being disingenuous in trying to pass these blame on the Labour councilors for not reining in the Conservative planning proposals. I was disappointed that they didn't vote along with the Liberals to reject the Core Strategy but abstained. Unfortunately not having a Strategy would have allowed the Conservative government to impose its own plan which may have been worse than the one we have got.

[PanBiker]

My original comments also deleted Plaques.

On another matter Pendle CLP has finalised it's shortlist of Prospective Parliamentary Candidates. With the ongoing and current wriggling of the PM with her position it begs the question whether we will have time to get to the hustings and selection on the current timetable as planned. I hope so, we need to see the selection through to completion if at all possible. Members will be notified and may now be canvassed by the candidates prior to the hustings.

[Stanley]

You may remember that I pointed out a long time ago when T May was telling us how she she would be a 'bloody difficult woman' and was going to make mincemeat of the EU negotiators that she was in error on two counts. a) She wouldn't be doing the negotiating, it would be done in back rooms by apparatchiks and b) That once we put in the Article 150 letter the EU was in the driving seat and we were supplicants trying to ease the pain of leaving with no power. This is what is happening.....
Notice also that the EU 27 met for ten minutes and rubber-stamped the negotiating directive which is their fixed position. They were demonstrating their unity and inviting comparison with the UK stance which is to make up policy on the hoof and think on their feet, hampered all the while by internal strife over what their negotiating position should be. Game set and match to the EU!
Regarding the overly optimistic statements that are being pumped out, backed by dodgy statistics, 'proving' that we are the most vibrant and successful economy in Europe. Go back to Thomas Piketty and his 'Capital In the 21st Century' and read again what he said about the fact that GDP growth had to be approaching 3% per annum in order to stand still, anything lower than that was regression.
Ponder on who you think is most likely to be right on the economy. Remember Harold and 'Events Dear Boy' and then reflect on the fact that the whole of the Brexit debate has been couched in terms of economic imperialism, never a word about the benefits of closer cooperation with the rest of the world. Anyone who 'mentioned the war' was derided as hopelessly old-fashioned and attacked using ageist language.
My conclusion is that the Brexiteers are the dinosaurs. They don't take the trouble to read the history or the economics but try to retreat from reality and progress by trotting out the old mantras embedded in their DNA. Evolutionary Theory tells us that this dooms them to extinction and they are taking us with them.
As for any doubts about Corbyn forming a government. Look how he has dragged Labour into something resembling a battle line and ask yourself could he do the same thing with the country? He could hardly do any worse! His heart is in the right place and his policies make sense. I look a long way back and remember the forecasts of doom that accompanied the Labour victory of 1945, the Tories said exactly the same thing then and conducted a 'fear campaign' comparing Labour to the Gestapo.
See THIS for the results of a government report that in any scenario, UK economic performance will be damaged by Brexit. You couldn't make it up.

[Stanley]

The government rubbishes the report on the economy saying it doesn't take account of the gold-plated exit deal they are going to get. Don't hold your breath!
T May tells reporters on the plane to China that she isn't a quitter, so that's all right then.
Car production down 3% in 2016, both home and export sales have dropped.
The stock markets appear to be wavering slightly, overall the rise on rise is slowing. What goes up must come down.
Meanwhile, in the US Trump makes his State of the Union address and produces a classic 'American Dream' speech calling for support. This volt face from his Twitter feed is not convincing his opponents. Oh, and he is reversing Obama's decision to close Guantánamo Bay.....

[Stanley]

I listened to T May making her speech in China and waxing lyrically about a golden age of Anglo-Chinese trade. Do you think she really believes all this? More importantly, are the Chinese going to fall for it or do they see a UK so desperate in the future they will be open to exploitation?

[Tizer]

I've read a 2-page article by Roger Boyes, a Times correspondent with much experience, discussing the much improved Russian military and it's a sobering picture. They're much further ahead than the West in the shift to modern techniques and strategies and with development of certain weapons to suit their view of the future. Russia held its 4-yearly Zapad military exercise last September with 130,000* men and apparently it took 4000 railway wagons to transport everything for the exercises which were staged from the European border to the far eastern regions. Boyes has been talking to military leaders in the east European states about Zapad and they've explained to him how the Russians have learnt from their fighting in Ukraine and Syria; much more than we learnt from our recent foreign excursions. They're far ahead of us in cyber warfare and it's no wonder Gavin Williamson warns that they could kill many thousands of people in the UK alone. The Estonian military leader told Boyes that Russian special forces personnel now play an important part in designing much of the military equipment and operational techniques. They're now very capable in disrupting and manipulating communications. In Ukraine they were sending false and misleading message to the smartphones of the Ukrainian soldiers (and also to the phones of the peace-keeping forces later on). They tracked and killed the enemy through its comms, while using their own special tactics to prevent the enemy doing the same to them, for instance by very rapidly and frequently changing positions. They also use messages to sow discord and confusion among the enemy. Another technique is not new but being used more often and with greater effect - the use of mercenaries and surrogates to achieve their objectives without the opposition being able to link it to Russia. The military in the west now looks outdated by comparison - the Estonian leader said "If the US military is IBM then the Russian is Apple".

*News reports were of 130,000 men deployed in Zapad-17. This was disputed by Russia because international law prohibits exercises of more than 13,000 men. They claimed much lower figures and later news reports stated 12,000 to 13,000. Boyes explains that the Russians carefully split the exercise into about a dozen separate sectors, each below the prohibited level and thus avoided breaking the rule.

[Stanley]

It's a complicated old world isn't it Tiz and just when we ought to be cooperating more closely with Europe what do we do..... You couldn't think of a worse strategy. Especially as our defence forces are in disarray, from ships and subs we can't send to sea to an aircraft carrier that has no aircraft and recruitment falling behind wastage....
Bit rich of Osborne to be making speeches about more investment for the Northern Poorhouse when it was him that made the cuts in the first place.....

[Tripps]

Tiz -that's all very worrying but - and here's a serious question - what should I do about it?

[Stanley]

My defence is to reflect that I am too old to do anything more that survive. I need my energy for the important things in life and survival is one of them.

[Tizer]

Tripps, the simple answer is, I don't know. As Stanley hints, this will be made all the more dangerous by us moving away from our European allies. There's one thing I can do and that's to vote Labour at the next general election if the Tories haven't improved and if no new party appears over the horizon like the US cavalry. As you know, I don't have much confidence in Corbyn and Labour but I guess I've been forced into the same problem as many Americans have recently been - loss of trust and confidence in both main political parties. - and the only answer seem to be to disrupt the status quo to show my anger and frustration.

In fact there's a more general point here. I listened to the Radio 4 programme `Brexit Britain: Two Rooms Revisited' about the Boston Leavers and Brixton Remainers who were interviewed in the first programme shortly after the 2016 referendum. What struck me most was the similarity to the divisions in America at the Trump election. In both cases the underlying problem was the dissatisfaction of a major part of the population with, in their eyes, the failure of the politicians to run their countries properly combined with a general breakdown in the performance of organisations, both public and private. The election of Trump and the vote for leaving the EU were both turbocharged by the desire to protest by people who felt they were being ignored by the political class. To make matter worse, the politicians have misunderstood the motivation of these people by looking for simple reasons. For example, they think that the Boston Leavers are motivated by fear of the many Polish agricultural workers when the real reason is they know those workers are needed on the farms but they are angry that nothing has been done to integrate the workers into the local community. All I can say about the future is that if the politicians don't get a grip (and I doubt the present lot ever will) there's bound to be a major disruption that will force change upon us all.

[Tripps]

Tripps, the simple answer is, I don't know

Me neither. I don't think we're moving away from our European allies though - we're still in NATO, and may avoid the new EU force. As the EU seeks to expand further eastwards I can see problems arising. Why poke the bear with a sharp stick, by cosying up to Ukraine?

SCG says just look after yourself, and don't worry - realistically I guess that's all you can do - but I get a touch of 'survivors guilt' if that makes any sense?

Always finish with a

[PanBiker]

There's one thing I can do and that's to vote Labour at the next general election if the Tories haven't improved and if no new party appears over the horizon like the US cavalry. As you know, I don't have much confidence in Corbyn and Labour but I guess I've been forced into the same problem as many Americans have recently been - loss of trust and confidence in both main political parties. - and the only answer seem to be to disrupt the status quo to show my anger and frustration.

You may be pleasantly surprised Tiz.

Taking a hint from Tripps post,

[plaques]

As the EU seeks to expand further eastwards I can see problems arising. Why poke the bear with a sharp stick, by cosying up to Ukraine?

I'm sure you know that the Ukraine is virtually the bread basket of Europe. Take this access away from Russia and the slightest climate changes could push Russia and possibly Poland into famine. They would then have to turn to America and Canada for their food. Lets face it America are still trying to create their own world empire and don't care too much what happens to the rest of us.