POLITICS CORNER

[Tripps]

A change at the top usually gets no more than a yawn from me. However this is getting interesting. I get a similar feeling to the time when Anthony Charles Lynton Blair arrived in 1997. Memory fades - don't ask for detail, but I recall thinking 'wow things are starting to happen'.

Mr Boris is making many commitments that cannot possibly happen. I heard a guy on radio this morning saying the biggest problem with the proposed increase in police numbers was that there weren't enough lockers for all the modern equipment they have to keep. He also mentioned that in London the number of Police Stations they had sold in the last few years.

I heard a Canadian journalist yesterday say the the 'negotiators' that visited Canada were so bad, that the Canadians had to help them out. We have not negotiated such things for years - leaving it all to the EU, and consequently have no one who knows what to do. The Canadians also pointed out that we didn't matter as much as we thought, compared to the USA, Asia, and the EU.

The current situation will appeal to those that think 'Zulu' is the best film ever made. We'll show 'em.

Can I suggest that both main parties are well past their sell by date, Labour fighting battles that were won long ago, and the Tories . . . .well. . .

[PanBiker]

There is an element of Boris appreciating that the Labour Party Manifesto is an election winning one. Probably why he is promoting all the stuff in it himself?

[Stanley]

Mr Johnson is pursuing a classic election campaign by stealing Opposition policy ideas as they fit in with his new friendly and energetic image, best to be prepared just in case....
At the moment it's a waste of time attacking him openly (Although it has to be seen to be done). Everyone is waiting for the balloon to burst and it will do have no fear.
It's what happens then that matters.
At the moment, given the fact that he has openly attacked the EU by demanding the removal of the backstop and reneging on the £39.5billion deal. You could say by appointing Raab as chief negotiator as well as the EU regard him with contempt. Therefore we are committed to No Deal. When it happens he will blame the EU for not being reasonable and seeing it our way. He has already flagged that up.
The Brexiteers have succeeded by making it impossible for Tories to do anything but vote for a disaster.
I sit here watching the train wreck developing in slow motion and can do nothing.

[Sue]

Well it seems UK is going to be a Utopia, we all get everything we want or need. Can’t wait to get back home now. In fact my friends who live here in France permanently are already packing the removal van and searching for a house...

[Stanley]

I think an irony alert is indicated. Looking behind your post Sue I detect a modicum of scepticism and I applaud it. Of course we all want the sunlit uplands but I fear they are nowhere near in sight. I see nothing but small black clouds and am waiting to see how they develop. There is too much about Johnson's rhetoric which is redolent of pre-election boosting we have seen in the past. Optimism is good, but what we need to see are concrete signs of policies and how they progress. At the moment I see no signs of this and at heart the Tory backbenchers who are baying for blood in the best parliamentary tradition know this as well. They could be baying for Johnson's blood very shortly. The Tories are still a divided party.
Trump says that he and Johnson are already discussing a post Brexit trade deal. Only one thing is certain about this, America First!The NHS is the major target.

[Tizer]

...and Trump is saying the deal will lead to `a five-times increase in trade'. But we know that pig's fly in Trump land and I guess they do in Boris land too. Boris is going around promising whatever anyone wants no matter whether he's contradicting himself all the time or not. He'll end up leader of the Labour Party at the same time as Tory PM if he carries on like this and the gullible keep on believing him!

[Tripps]

Pendle's Andrew Stephenson Esq M.P. (OK Jacob?) has been named a Minister of State within the Foreign Office and Department for International Development, with special responsibility for Africa.

andre stephenson MP.jpg

Master of all he surveyed - especially Africa.

[Tizer]

Pendle's Andrew Stephenson Esq M.P. (OK Jacob?)..

Ah, so you too have got wind of the Rees-Mogg style guide sent out to departments. It's good to see Jacob's dealing with the most important matters first. I'm all for clarity and accuracy but I can't support his demand for the use of Imperial measurements in place of metric. We haven't even left the EU yet! Although he is known as the `Minister for the 18th Century'...

[Sue]

Well it seems UK is going to be a Utopia, we all get everything we want or need. Can’t wait to get back home now. In fact my friends who live here in France permanently are already packing the removal van and searching for a house...

Irony, what do you mean Stanley

[Tripps]

I'm all for clarity and accuracy

Former editors of the world unite. You have nothing to lose but your split infinitives.

[Stanley]

Both that image of our chocolate teapot MP and Jacob's 'style guide' speak volumes for the world view of certain people, and God help us, some of them are in positions of power. I would remind both of them that we live in the 21st century and would refer them to the list of pressing matters J Corbyn Esq. noted in his farewell to our recent lady Prime Minister. Could they be taking the piss? Or do they really believe that this is reality.
I note that Johnson followed a long line of Tory ministers promising things to the North. The best help we have had in recent years is the EU funding for deprived areas and they are trying to make sure that stops in October. I suspect that decision will be implemented long before any of Johnson's Fairy Dust settles on us.
Feel the power of the farce!
I went for a furtle on Google and found THIS hilarious exchange on the feminine equivalent of Esquire. I feel it should be drawn to the attention of Rees Mogg.

[plaques]

Wasn't it George Osborne who about five years ago promised £billions towards a Northern Powerhouse and a new rail link from Lancashire to Yorkshire? Then we have the story of Dominic Cummings. Cummings who appears to be a master of spreading fake news has been drafted into Johnson's team as an adviser. There will be NO snap general election. And that's a promise. etc etc.

[Tizer]

The only good thing coming out of Johnson's coronation is that many people are realising for the first time that we really are going to throw ourselves out of the EU with no deal arranged - jump off the ship into a stormy ocean with no lifebelt. There's a resistance beginning among folk who've been too quiet so far but now see the time has come for action.

[Stanley]

Isn't it funny how Tories can issue definitive statements about there being no snap election based solely on what they decide. They haven't quite grasped the fact that we live in a democracy and events can mean that the decision is taken out of their hands. (Two days until the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election.....)
You are right Tiz and Gove's article yesterday didn't reassure anyone. It becomes more and more clear that the agenda is actually to engineer a No Deal by antagonising the EU. Johnson's Chuckle Brothers tour of the union is a smoke screen. He's refreshed another dimension of speculation, a split-off of the Scottish Conservatives.
I note that the Money Tree has been found again. Glib talk of billions being injected by the treasury but none of it going to the places where it is needed in real life.

[plaques]

The five year Parliament act means a term of five tears years unless the House votes by a two thirds majority to hold an interim election during this term. The Tories alone don't have these numbers so they will be relying on Labour (Corbyn) to vote it through. Fixed Term.

Johnson's Chuckle Brothers tour of the union is a smoke screen. He's refreshed another dimension of speculation, a split-off of the Scottish Conservatives.

'BBC report'. 'Boris Johnson wants renewal of 'ties that bind UK'. This will involve another bung of tax payers money to bring them into line. 'During Monday's visit he will announce £300m of new funding for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.'.Bung.
To paraphrase an old aphorism . Boris Johnson has grown from a promising young man into a man of promises.
The general outlook is that we are heading for a NO Deal Brexit. Gove is giving it priority treatment. Under the World Trade Organisation rules (WTO) high tariffs on goods will be applied across the board along with customs checks. Is it a coincidence that there is to be a recruitment drive for 20,000 more police. I get the feeling this is not to stop knife crime.

[Tizer]

Listening to Boris and his ministers I realised this morning what seemed so familiar. It's just like those newsreel films you see of WW1 and WW2 when the government lies, obfuscates and mis-informs in a campaign of propaganda. They regard it at the time as acceptable because of the circumstances. After the war we eventually hear the truth and condemn what went on - and wonder how so many people could have believed it all at the time. That's what we'll eventually think about Brexit, Boris and the Brexiteers.

[Big Kev]

Someone needs to do something (anything) to break this stalemate. Personally I've gone past caring what is done, if it gets broken we can all blame Boris and get it fixed. A simplistic, possibly blinkered view but I'm bored with it all now.

[PanBiker]

The way it's going it will be nothing to do with TM's flawed approach or Boris's insistence that the EU will renegotiate the perfect deal. When that goes belly up, it's all going to be the "Johnny Foreigners" fault.

[Stanley]

I sympathise Kev but it isn't boring to the car workers at Nissan and what used to be Vauxhall. The Tories reckon to be the 'Party of business, fiscal management and law and order'. They were crap before 2010 but since then they have compounded their incompetence in spades in all those fields. The only thing they are interested in is the financial system and themselves, their treasurer is a serial financial crook and their current raids on the Money Tree are going to prove that they have served them badly as well. Money laundering and dodgy business practice will have to be the mantra from now on.
My beef is with a political system that allows mismanagement on this scale and that includes Blair and his government's policies, if you remember it was that and reliance on what they fondly called 'the new economics' that allowed us to be blind-sided into 2008. I could go on but that would bore you even more Kev.
Nicola Surgeon has always had my approval and her summing up yesterday of Johnson and his policies was spot on. Ruth Davidson has seen through him as well. It may well be that at long last even the most rabid Tories are going to start questioning the ethics and policies of a political philosophy that is so obviously flawed.
I can see nothing but trouble and heartache ahead.
Later.... The pound is wavering as No Deal makes investors nervous.....

[plaques]

Isn't democracy amazing! WE (royal we) voted the Tories in to look after us, Then we see that they are taking us into the abyss where everything could come crashing down. And there's nothing we can do about it. The Tories are holding all the cards and pulling all the strings. The Tories won't ditch there leader and will stop in power to the our bitter end. That's what we voted for and that's what we've got.

Later, A little quiz for you. Who said this in a speech about the Conservative Party?

...We know perfectly well what to expect - A party of vested interests, banded together in a formidable confederation, corrupt at home, aggression to cover it up abroad, trickery of tariff juggles, the tyranny of a party machine, sentiment by the bucketful, patriotism by the imperial pint, the open hand at the public exchequer the open door at the public house, dear food for the million, cheap labour for the millionaire.

► Show Spoiler

Winston Churchill 1904.

[Stanley]

Anybody in opposition in the last 200 years P. Has a ring of Disraeli about it (and I haven't looked at the spoiler).
Wales' First Minister Mark Drakeford followed Nicola Sturgeon and said basically the same thing about current policies. There are no no broad sunlit uplands ahead and yesterday's fall in the Sterling Exchange Rate shows that the markets have decided this is the case also. The currency exchanges at major airports in the UK had the Pound at parity with the Dollar yesterday.
Johnson is being quite open in one way. It is patently obvious that he is actually engineering a definite No Deal by the way he is attacking the EU saying that if it happens it is all their fault. P is quite right, the UK got the invitation to decide, were fed a load of bunkum and put a gun to their heads. We got the result our system deserves. I can only hope that in some smoky back room wiser heads are constructing a Cunning Plan to halt this Gadarene stampede towards the abyss.

[plaques]

Boris Johnson has taken up an amazing negative negotiating position. ie; he will not negotiate, its up to the EU to make offers which he will look at. The free duty boarder to the Irish Republic will go. Trump says "if it goes then forget trade deals with the US". This is like the condemned man saying saying when the firing squad fires he will be OK but everybody else is wrong and its them who will suffer.

[Tizer]

I read the interview with Dominic Raab in Saturday's issue of The Times. It confirms everything we believe about Johnson and his Brexit team. Raab wants to get rid of the Irish backstop. He's not suggesting ways around it such as using technology (which we know doesn't exist anyway) but simply wants it binned. So it's not only Brexit that we face but Goodbye Ireland, Goodbye Scotland...even the Welsh are getting fed up with Westminster rule regardless of getting the Brexit that 52.5% of them voted for (although, to be fair, like the rest of us they hadn't been given the full facts about Brexit).

[Stanley]

Exactly right I reckon P. (Was it Disraeli?)
Tiz, you are also spot on. I heard Raab on Today and listened to the full interview. The man is totally ignorant of history and the consequences of the line he is parroting.
What has always struck me is the fact that a slim numerical majority in the referendum is always described as 'the democratic will of the people'. If I remember rightly 40% didn't vote so how can it be regarded as a clear expression of intent. Further, it was always understood that the result was advisory and not a mandate like a General Election. Add the fact that a false bill of goods was presented and you have the worst kind of political manipulation.
The consequence under our flawed system is that we are now committed to No Deal, a fact now accepted by the markets and industry. We saw the news yesterday of the collapse of investment in the car industry and this is being repeated right through manufacturing and the other avenues of investment in the wider infrastructure. I predict that it won't be long before we hear news that the rating agencies have downgraded the economy as a whole as Sterling falls on the world markets, how long until a run on the Pound?
I heard Yanis Varoufakis talking common sense on Today a couple of days ago and see THIS article from the Irish Examiner giving him even more exposure. I think he is right, now is the time for the Opposition to clearly state the problems with what we now know is the Johnson line. Go bull headed for No Deal and rely on guff and bluster to get through. It won't work, so much is obvious but if it isn't stopped now the damage will be immense. This includes what you suggest Tiz, the collapse of the union and not only that, the end of the Good Friday Agreement and the eventual reunification of Ireland.
Boy! Didn't Cameron do a good job of ensuring a memorable legacy! Incidentally it will also be the end of the Tory Party as we know it. The Scottish Conservatives will hive off into a separate party and what will happen to the Welsh and Irish Tories and Unionists?
On every level, this is the policy of madness and I have never seen anything like it before in a long life of observing the Westminster Bubble.

[plaques]

(Was it Disraeli?)

Stanley, Under the spoiler. Winston Churchill 1904. This was after he had crossed the floor and gone to the Liberals.
I like his reply to questions he had made in supporting the Conservatives in the past. His answer went something like "I had to say a lot of stupid things when I was a Conservative that's why I became a Liberal".
This one could apply to Boris Johnson. Boris doesn't tell lies (not a word that can be used in the House of Commons without censure) Winston said it was a " “terminological inexactitude." We tend to hear a lot of these nowadays.

later. Reading through the Yanis Varoufakis article. The obvious question is ' why is it that someone outside the country can see exactly what is going on while we sit here with blinkers on all confused?'