POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

Good question! I suspect he has the advantage of not being a blinkered right wing bigot..... But then I could be quite wrong of course. I remember the interviews he gave when he was Finance Minister during the Greek crisis, he always made sense and of course eventually he was proved right and the ECB (and Germany!) had to reconsider the matter.

[Tripps]

"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. "

In that context - this is interesting. Found it somewhere in webland, and don't know whether the figures are right, but to me it has the famous 'ring'

majority.jpg

[plaques]

The election voting percentages where the losers had a greater total vote than the winners is the basis on what the Lib / Dems have been using as their case for proportional representation. The first past the post system normally gives a clear winner but as we are now seeing sometimes it leads to a coalition and fuzzy compromises.
The referendum was a binary vote, In or Out, which cannot be compared to General Election's multiple choice.
So there you have it Tripps some facts presented without explanation to feed the tap room loud mouth.

[Tripps]

The referendum was a binary vote, In or Out, which cannot be compared to General Election's multiple choice.

That's right - I hadn't looked at it in that way.

It was ironic I suppose, that we rejected PR by means of a binary referendum.

[Stanley]

Quite right all of you. Trump won on a smaller share of the vote than Hilary Clinton.
Mark Carney spoke truth to power yesterday and our new chancellor responded by quoting the IMF which is a slightly more flattering forecast. Pound sinks to $1.21 and yet Javid says that the UK economy is 'fundamentally strong'. Really?
There will be a big test for bluster over reality this morning with the result of the Brecon by election. (LINK). It was a clean contest in a constituency that originally voted for Brexit, there were no alliances. The result is that the Tories had a large majority overturned and lost to the LibDems. Labour did even worse but that was as expected, it has never been a Labour seat. It will be interesting to see how the Tories spin this one. Whatever they say, it reduces Johnson's majority (even with the support of the DUP) to just one. That's something that can't be easily explained away.
Later, I realise that there was cooperation between the LibDems and the Greens, they stood aside so as not to split the remain vote. I thoroughly approve.

[Tizer]

Later, I realise that there was cooperation between the LibDems and the Greens, they stood aside so as not to split the remain vote. I thoroughly approve.

Plaid Cymru joined with the Greens in not fielding a candidate.

Brecon...It will be interesting to see how the Tories spin this one.

Tory party chairman James Cleverly is spinning it as: "..a very close result in a by-election in which the Lib Dems were expected to romp home comfortably" and taking the opportunity to have a dig at Labour at the same time.

Carney...Conservative MP Mark Francois says it was "not helpful" that Mr Carney "seeks to undermine" the Brexit negotiations "by intemperate comments". Iain Duncan Smith says: "This is what Mark Carney does... He's one of the architects and promoters of Project Fear." On the contrary, I see Francois and IDS as being like those nasty types on social media who egg people on to commit suicide just to satisfy their own twisted desires. Carney is the voice of reason trying to save us.

Reading about the millions of pounds being spent on last minute preparations for a no-deal Brexit I wondered how much has already been spent on Brexit one way and another. As much as £4.2 billion is being banded about but the Full Facts web site explains that an accurate figure cannot be given. However, it's going to be in the billions of pounds. What strikes me most is that we are paying billions of pounds to ruin the United Kingdom, and that doesn't include the big sum we are obliged to pay when we leave the EU. Go figure!

[plaques]

Carney...Conservative MP Mark Francois says it was "not helpful" that Mr Carney "seeks to undermine" the Brexit negotiations "by intemperate comments".

Mark Carney and the Bank of England have just revised next years growth figures down from a projected 1.6% to 1.3% a nearly 20% drop. BoE and this forecast is dependent on leaving the EU with an acceptable deal. What will happen on a No Deal Brexit is anybody's guess but I don't think it will be upwards. I notice that non of the Brexiteers are offering any kind of numerical forecast. Just vague statements like 'there maybe a slight initial dip'. Like wringing the chickens neck, this is not some chicken,some neck, more like 'Some dip'?

[Whyperion]

I suspect the amount of Brexit prep cash has been the only thing holding the economy up - those consultants need to spend their incomes somewhere. (Unless they have been buying dollars so will now be ££ in on selling them !!)
Anyway Brecon and Radnor, interesting that the LibDems indeed did not increase vote size substantially (basically its the sum of the previous LD+PC) about, Labour has problems I don't know how it can resolve enough to defeat a popularist Tory Party led by Boris, some kind of clear vision is needed. Summing Tory plus Brexit would have defeated the LDs, but one could assume that the Brexit shift (polls had indicated 20% to Brexit which was 10% in poll , with tory % increasing by the same percentage), was made up of Brexit supporting Labour Voters who would not vote Tory. Overall the turnout at 60% compares with the General Election amount of 76% so a lot staying away - some kind of curse on all your houses ? , but it is this I found odd, maybe a few would have wanted a PC or Green Candidate to take their vote and the LibDem pact did not really pick up as much as they would have like to have done from those non-voters. It was also commented that the Conservative Candidate was quite popular as a representative MP so the LD will have to do well locally to ensure some kind of retention of seat at the next generale election.

[plaques]

I suspect the amount of Brexit prep cash has been the only thing holding the economy up - those consultants need to spend their incomes somewhere. (Unless they have been buying dollars so will now be ££ in on selling them !!)

I think it has been comprehensively proved that 'trickle down' is a myth. This largesse of cash is converted into other forms of capital which produces more cash which is converted...........And so dynasties were born.

Forget voting intrigues and all the what ifs and buts, the Tories lost and the Lib Dems won and so will Labour lose if Sheffield if this comes up for grabs.

[Stanley]

I agree with both of you completely Tiz and P. And yes I heard Cleverly immediately diverting the question about Tory failure to Labour failure, totally transparent and irrelevant whether it is true or not. The salient fact is that they lost the seat. As for the reaction to Carney, dead right, a classic case of shoot the messenger. And yes I noted that his assessment is predicated on a reasonably successful negotiation and not No Deal. Humphrys was wrong to try to override him on that point, he was after a shock headline and Carney refused to give him one, a smart cookie and I have always trusted him ever since he replaced King. Note that Johnson stayed quiet and did the politically safe thing of visiting Whaley Bridge and commiserating with the victims of the potential flooding. i noted THIS report that he has promised to rehouse the people who lose their homes. I seem to remember another Tory promise made during floods. Cameron said that 'money was no object'. Don't hold your breath!
Tiz is also right about the illusion of 'trickle down'. Statements that the money spent on preparations for No Deal 'not being wasted' are bonkers. Of course money being spent on a totally self inflicted wound is a waste and no amount of spin will change that.

[Tizer]

This got me thinking...
`Man jailed for death threats to 'anti-Brexit' MPs' LINK
There has been a lot of abuse and violence aimed at Remainers - just think of the lady who challenged the government on Article 50, for instance. In contrast, Remainers themselves have endured 3 years of being told they are defeated and watching their country go to rack and ruin but they haven't been rioting on the streets or even abusing Leavers to anything like the extent the Leavers abuse them. The aggressive and threatening types are predominantly, perhaps completely, among the Leave community. What are they going to be like when Boris bounces us out of the EU and they soon find out it isn't the land of Milk and Honey that they expected?

[Stanley]

A very good point Tiz and one that subconsciously I think I had noted but never voiced. We have to be careful of course because of course anyone who opposes our views is automatically wrong and rabid but even allowing for this I think you are right.
As to a day of reckoning.... Of course there is going to be one but unless something is done to arrest the madness it will be too late and we are in for at least ten years of economic and social decline and unrest. Every believable commentator agrees about the immediate consequences of Brexit even with a deal, where they differ is in the longer term. This is what Johnson is concentrating on with throw away lines like 'of course it will be difficult' which he will remind us of later. The difficulties will be a catastrophe for the majority of people and other countries are at a loss to understand how we can believe that leaving the largest integrated trading group in the world to rely on the vagaries of as yet unknown agreements under WTO Rules could possibly be a smart move.
I believe they are right.

[Sue]

Just dropped in here, not been for a bit. What a cheery lot you are! Unfortunately realistic too. I have nothing to add , there is nothing to be said. You may just have cured my homesickness...who wants to go back to that!

[Stanley]

Good thinking at the moment Sue. Hunker down in France and ignore the ongoing farce. I don't know when you are due back but at least there may be some certainty then, no matter how bad it is.....

[plaques]

The NHS has been saved. Boris Johnson has found the keys to the secret garden full of money trees. A promise to give the NHS an extra £1.8Bn for upgrade and equipment. This is on top of Mrs May's promise of £20Bn a year by 2023.£1Bn And why is this money for repairs and up grades well according to Boris...Mr Johnson wrote: "It is thanks to this country's strong economic performance that we are now able to announce £1.8bn more for the NHS to buy vital new kit and confirm new upgrades for 20 hospitals across the country."
And yet when GDP is heading south, firms are closing, together with masses of uncertainty, the economy is on the up and up. Have I missed something?

[Tizer]

...Every believable commentator agrees about the immediate consequences of Brexit even with a deal, where they differ is in the longer term...

And yet when GDP is heading south, firms are closing, together with masses of uncertainty, the economy is on the up and up. Have I missed something?

The Brexiteers would counter this by shouting `Project Fear!' and reminding us that George Osborne had predicted doom for the days immediately after the EU Referendum. It's interesting to go back and look at what Osborne actually said and where he got it from. It came from a second Treasury report* on the likely outcome for the UK of leaving the EU. The first of the reports was for a period of 15 years after the Referendum. The second, the one quoted by Osborne, was for the period of two years after the Referendum. The actual title of the report was `HM Treasury analysis: the immediate economic impact of leaving the EU'. Note the wording `..impact of leaving the EU'. The report was not for the immediate impact of the referendum vote but for the impact of actually leaving the EU, i.e. Brexit itself - which at that time was expected to be a lot sooner than it's proven to be. At that time a Leave win was seen by many as synonymous with Brexit. I think that even in the Treasury report there is too much imprecise wording which has given the impression it was referring to the day after the Rerendum result would be announced when it should really refer to the process of Brexit for the subsequent two years.
* Treasury Report

[plaques]

Tizer, The Treasury Report makes for gloomy reading. Nearly all the charts show a downward trend except unemployment which is upwards. A very wide ranging and detailed piece of work which can't be absorbed at a glance. Reports of this magnitude require study and debate and unlike our Brexiteers response can't simply be shrugged of as 'Project fear'. One of the more telling statements is...
A.43 For the shock and severe shock scenarios, Bank Rate remains fixed over the two-year horizon. This assumption does not pre-suppose how monetary policymakers would balance higher inflation from the fall in sterling with the reduction in demand and supply. (My italics).
The presumption is for a downturn big enough to require extra government action.

[Sue]

Good thinking at the moment Sue. Hunker down in France and ignore the ongoing farce. I don't know when you are due back but at least there may be some certainty then, no matter how bad it is.....

End of August, returning via Cardiff for my brothers 50 th wedding anniversary on August 30th. Another 4 weeks of ignoring politics.

[Stanley]

Sue, what luxury! Meanwhile we will continue to grapple with the amorphous mass of conflicting statements and sheer blind stupidity.
Funny how our particular group of kitchen table pundits always agree isn't it. Either we are sharing a grand delusion or just conceivably, might be on the side of common sense and truth. The Johnson vision of the Ship of State forging purposefully ahead in calm seas is pure Henty and should be relegated to the playing fields of Eton where it was conceived. The reality is that security these days relies on being a full member of a larger well organised group and on the whole, that is what the EU is.
Dominic Cummings' statement that it is too late to stop No Deal is typical of the most dangerous man in the country. He believes he is a weather maker and political thinker par excellence. He reminds me of Bannon and Lynton Crosby, men whose only talent is persuasion and self advertisement.
All politicians are not rogues and I only hope that I am right and that somewhere in the Westminster Village there is a plan being hatched but unfortunately I wouldn't bet on it. As things stand we are committed to what I believe is a horrendous mistake and one that will reverberate down the years. For years I believed that Ireland was the supreme example of an intractable political problem, I think it has lost this ranking now. The problem is closer to home.

[plaques]

If and when we leave the EU its becoming more apparent that Trump and his Republicans will decide what we can or cannot do. His big stick at the moment is to impose sanctions and tariffs on anything they disagree with. France is now under the spotlight for suggesting a tax on internet services. Tax Should we chose to go down the same road the threat is no American trade deal. Currently Trump is flexing his muscles over Iran and Iraq. Both countries are seeing their trade in oil being restricted by spreading the sanctions to cover any country who buys their oil. We have already been dragged into these disputes by pirating an oil tanker in Gibraltar. Then we reply by sending the gun boats just like we did in the good old days. America's support of Israel to a point of illegality is only dragging us deeper into the abyss. With Dominic Raab as our gung ho foreign minister it looks like we shall do anything America (Trump) says.
Considering that Brexit was about regaining our sovereignty its now beginning to look like a huge joke.

[Tizer]

Dominic Cummings' statement that it is too late to stop No Deal is typical of the most dangerous man in the country.

Curiously, although Cummings was Campaign Director of Vote Leave, is an ardent Leaver and is now saying it's too late to make a deal people say he has always been strongly against a no-deal Brexit. Farage has said: "He has never liked me. He can't stand the ERG. I can't see him coming to any accommodation with anyone. He has huge personal enmity with the true believers in Brexit". I think he's dedicated to leaving but has more nous than the others, and knows that no-deal is the wrong way to go: and is bold enough to say so. Guardian journalist Patrick Wintour said Cummings is: "..either mad, bad or brilliant – and probably a bit of all three."

[Stanley]

Based on my current understanding (!) I gear you are right P.
Tiz, I heard a former chief adviser talking about Cummings on R4 yesterday. He was responding to the news that Cummings had called all the SPADS in for a meeting at a very early hour which has all the hallmarks of a bollocking session. However, the former adviser said that Cummings knows as well as anyone else that it is impossible to control individual SPADS as they have too much autonomy. Sounds like a stick-waving exercise and is indicative of how little control the PM has over his ministers. The prediction seems to be that as soon as the shine of the Johnson Bounce wears off he will have the same problems as May. Particularly if the current raids on the money tree don't materialise or, as in the past, turn out to be simply re-shuffling the fiscal deck chairs.
Meanwhile in another part of the forest.... Trump demonstrates what a fair weather friend he is by refusing to aid actions to protect ships in the Straits of Hormuz and is having to issue ameliorating tweets defending himself against accusations of stoking up racial and far-right tension. As one commentator said yesterday, that's all with the aid of auto-cue, question is what he says when pumped up at one of his rallies. Events Dear Boy could take a hand, the chief effect of the sanctions against China so far is to spook the exchanges, the Dow Jones fell 700 points yesterday.....
I note the sudden attraction of Whaley Bridge as a venue for photo-opps.
I note also that during a meeting of EU diplomats to discuss current affairs it was stated that the negotiations with the UK had been dialled back 3 years by Johnson and his various statements about new red lines. There is very little time left.......
Later... Some interesting contributions on R4 on the subject of food imports after a potential No Deal Brexit. Tim Lang says that there is going to be disruption in fresh food supplies, it can't be avoided and is calling for the government to come clean and inform the public immediately to try to minimise panic buying.
A senior man from the supermarket sector agreed about disruption but also raised the subject of price rises. He says that whatever approach the government takes there are going to be increases. The scale of these increases depends on the approach the government takes to what system of tariffs we embrace. Their choice is to either protect the customers or the UK producers. At the moment this is not clear and he too calls for more transparency by the government and better information. Just one of the black clouds growing on the horizon.

[plaques]

Later... Some interesting contributions on R4 on the subject of food imports after a potential No Deal Brexit.

Quietly working my way through Tizer's recommended Treasury Report. on the effect of Brexit. Considering it was written prior to the referendum vote all its forecasts are broadly correct albeit out of sync with the time scale. Inflation will go up like a balloon. People will stop buying not because they don't want to but because they have to. The shutters go down on trade and all of a sudden its a downward spiral into the abyss. No wonder there's talk of a snap general election before the rot becomes apparent.

Trump demonstrates what a fair weather friend he is by refusing to aid actions to protect ships in the Straits of Hormuz

. It was only the other day that Raab was joining the gunboat protection force with the US. Hormuz. The EU countries backed out because they didn't want to get involved with the Americans. And now has Trump backed out? Will Raab see sense and let the Gibraltar tanker go and calm the tensions down?

[Stanley]

Raab and Common sense..... I think that's a non sequitur.

[Tizer]

I'm glad you've mentioned Dominic Raab...every time I see his photo it makes me think of an actor and underpants. Now I've realised why. He reminds me of Simon Cadell, and Cadell always reminds me of his part as the civil servant Dundridge in the televised version of Tom Sharpe's `Blott on the Landscape'. Why underpants? It was one of the funniest comments I remember on TV. Dundridge drives to a house party and drinks too much and he can't remember anything. He awakes the following morning sitting in his car and wondering how he got there. His first words are `Oh, my God, my underpants are the wrong way around!'

Blott on the Landscape:
TV series: LINK
Book: LINK
(Sue, it's not all doom and gloom here! )