Spot on analysis there on the basis of having just started to watch.
He is a windbag but he's right. Parliament's rules mean the government can't keep bringing exactly the same proposition to MPs in an attempt to bully them into voting for it in the same session.
Although it might have been helpful if he'd pointed that out explictly last week, there is an argument that if May's government was even vaguely competent, they wouldn't have adopted "keep trying our luck" as a strategy.
There are workarounds. If the next version of the deal is different, then it should be allowed. (This depends on the EU though). Or they can end this session of Parliament and start again. This would enable them to bring forward MV3. The same amendment can be submitted again provided the original motion is different. So there further chances for votes another Ref, indicative votes, a customs union etc.
All we need now is for the EU to tell us where to stick our extension request ... We are so screwed ... Thank you MPs everywhere.
I think it is going to be very difficult for him to allow amendments which call for referenda etc now as well.
Provided the original motions are different, it looks like the same amendment can be submitted repeatedly. But who knows ...
I can't really believe that the same amendment enacted on different legislation/motions can be the same. That seems daft to me.
But I don't know exactly how this parliamentary precedent works in practice - it doesn't appear to have been mentioned/threatened for 100 years or something.
Treeza seems intent on trying to go ahead anyway with her MV3, and possibly even MV4, daring Bercow to rule her out of order.
This is her default behaviour: faced with a brick wall, just keep banging your head against it. It hasn’t worked so far, but then she’s not one to learn from experience, is she?
So where are we at the moment? Treeza cannot bring her deal back but there is no other deal. Parliament decided to take no deal Brexit off the table but that doesn’t actually mean it is not going to happen. We are going to ask the EU for extra time but we don’t know what we are doing with the extra time. Some MPs who voted against the deal are now saying they will vote for it.
That seems clear enough😒
I suspect the interests of the HoC at large would be best served by the majority of MPs uniting in the opinion that the Speaker is a pompous windbag. Extolling his virtues when he apparently does something that a certain minority agree with seems to me to be to light a fuse below a problem which is likely to explode in their faces.
I suspect the interests of the HoC at large would be best served by the majority of MPs uniting in the opinion that the Speaker is a pompous windbag. Extolling his virtues when he apparently does something that a certain minority agree with seems to me to be to light a fuse below a problem which is likely to explode in their faces.
Well, yes, but something exploding in their faces might actually do some good, given that most of the Toddlers also appear to be pompous windbags.
YMMV.
I'll get me coat, and make sure the light is switched off....
I think the entire farce shows that the system we have is not really up to the job. We need a workable, democratic system.
The current bunch - whether I agree with them or not - are not working together for the country. They should be, and we need a system that encourages this.
How is this fucking government still in power? It is patently obvious that it does not have majority backing and that the HoC is split across the parties on the most important and pressing issue of the day.
The government cannot magic or drum up a majority. There is nothing else to discuss in this particular cul-de-sac.
Now FFS read the writing on the wall and piss off. How hard can that be?
That depends on how stubborn they can be. Treeza cannot face another vote from her party this year, the vote put forward by JC came out in favour of the government. Treeza is bloody minded. She could be there forever.
About as mysterious as 'why aren't there large parts of her press calling for her resignation ?'.
This government is still in power, because they have convinced people they have a god-given right to be there, and bribed a lot of media to argue the same.
This government - and many of those around them - are utterly corrupt, utterly anti-democratic, and determined to hold onto power. Power is what drives them. Not the good of the country. not even wealth - just power.
Right a leaked document from the EU says they have been advised to either give a short extension (up to the date of the EU election) or a long extension meaning the UK will have to field MEPs in the said election. Treeza will ask for a short one and try to get her bloody deal through again. Put it away Treeza we’ve all seen it and din’t Want to see it again.
Interesting that she started to attack parliament itself, as indulgent, and so on. So it's parliament versus people, dangerous stuff, also massively ironic.
Well possibly. Even deciding to go with Hard Brexit would be a positive choice, but she seems to think that the country is cheering her on in a delusional act.
There is absolutely no evidence that this deal would ever pass.
I’m appearing this evening to explain that nothing that has gone wrong is my fault; everything that has gone wrong is because Parliament is opposing me and using arcane procedures to kick the can down the road, which of course I have never done.
Although I have been told I can’t do it, I intend to bring back the same ‘deal’ that MPs have already rejected twice, because I am the only person who is on your side. And although I have been told that I can’t postpone Brexit later than the middle of May, that is just what I intend to do.
We are a zombie nation. That is why we don't know where we are going and why we have a non leader. We are stumbling forward empty headed, propelled by nothing other than the force of our own stupidity. At the moment I include myself in this because to this day I have no idea how to resist this utterly obvious madness.
We are a zombie nation. That is why we don't know where we are going and why we have a non leader. We are stumbling forward empty headed, propelled by nothing other than the force of our own stupidity. At the moment I include myself in this because to this day I have no idea how to resist this utterly obvious madness.
I think we are all clutching at straws now - the chances of anything other than a Hard Brexit are diminishing by the minute.
I have respect for anyone trying anything to stop it, but it does feel so inevitable now that I kinda want to fast forward to the part where we plunge into the deep shit.
Yes, I think we are being swamped by madness, and I have no idea what to do, except hunker down. Laing had a great joke about mental hospitals, when someone asked how you tell who is staff, he said, well, the patients get better.
She can't be made to go, though, can she? Hasn't she secured her Tory party leadership for another nine months or so, or did I dream that?
Her own party can't make her go for another nine months, that's the rules of the Conservative Party. There isn't a corresponding Parliamentary rule regarding the Opposition calling a vote of no confidence, if a few Tories decide enough is enough and vote against their own government then I can't see any way by which she can remain as PM. I can't see how she can do anything except resign and let someone else lead the Conservatives into the election should that happen.
As I said above; in this stage of any PMs career, you would expect a significant part of the press to have been baying that they should go for a number of months. That that hasn't happened is rather indicative.
I’m appearing this evening to explain that nothing that has gone wrong is my fault; everything that has gone wrong is because Parliament is opposing me and using arcane procedures to kick the can down the road, which of course I have never done.
Although I have been told I can’t do it, I intend to bring back the same ‘deal’ that MPs have already rejected twice, because I am the only person who is on your side. And although I have been told that I can’t postpone Brexit later than the middle of May, that is just what I intend to do.
Did she really say that? Crikey - she's beginning to sound like Trump, but with better grammar.
This government is still in power, because they have convinced people they have a god-given right to be there, and bribed a lot of media to argue the same.
This government - and many of those around them - are utterly corrupt, utterly anti-democratic, and determined to hold onto power. Power is what drives them. Not the good of the country. not even wealth - just power.
That is dictatorship behaviour.
Can I suggest that the May government is not in power, but in office?
Can I just add a hellish note about the role of the BBC here?
It is quite unbelievable the way that they send a correspondent to - totally unnecessarily, in my view - maul the NZ PM and yet in the same programme handle people who are still talking utter crap about WTO rules with kid gloves.
Can I just add a hellish note about the role of the BBC here?
It is quite unbelievable the way that they send a correspondent to - totally unnecessarily, in my view - maul the NZ PM and yet in the same programme handle people who are still talking utter crap about WTO rules with kid gloves.
Quite unbelievable.
Yes, in general I agree that they have behaved very badly, acting as cheerleaders for the government over the whole affair.
The easy ride that so many interviewers on both radio and tv have given ministers - not to mention evil clowns like Farage, Mogg and Johnson - has been quite disgraceful.
It is quite unbelievable the way that they send a correspondent to - totally unnecessarily, in my view - maul the NZ PM and yet in the same programme handle people who are still talking utter crap about WTO rules with kid gloves.
They've been doing this for months on this topic. Typically someone like Redwood will go on the Today program and have a chummy chat with Humphrys while trotting out nonsense about WTO rules/GATT/etc. and then just before the hour Humphrys will interview someone else and do run with his polite disbelieving voice "So you don't agree with John Redwood when he says <blah> <blah>" and inevitably the explanation will be abbreviated by the top of the hour. The inevitable impression given is that this is just a disagreement about interpretations, and so it really comes down to who you want to believe.
When nothing else is happening politically, that then sets the agenda for the rest of the day.
This cannot go on. Teeeza is not fit to govern. Something has to happen. Brandy at the ready for the next few days.
"If the Prime Minister is sincere in what he says, and let us suppose that he is, then he is too stupid to remain Prime Minister."
That was Nye Bevan on Sir Anthony Eden at the time of the Suez crisis. But Eden was ill at the time. It's worse now as May isn't taking any of the responsibility, unlike Eden.
It's a corruption of the political process, basically disowning of responsibility and blaming others. However, that is her MO, and she cannot change. Normally, you would demand a replacement, but they are equally bad.
It's a corruption of the political process, basically disowning of responsibility and blaming others. However, that is her MO, and she cannot change. Normally, you would demand a replacement, but they are equally bad.
If you mean other members of the Tory party, then yes. I can't help thinking that Corbyn, for all his faults, could hardly do a worse job.
If Brexshit was the subject of a Jack Chick tract (!), I wonder what Deus ex machina he'd come up with to sort the mess?
It's a corruption of the political process, basically disowning of responsibility and blaming others. However, that is her MO, and she cannot change. Normally, you would demand a replacement, but they are equally bad.
If you mean other members of the Tory party, then yes. I can't help thinking that Corbyn, for all his faults, could hardly do a worse job.
I'm sure Corbyn would do a far better job, but the press have in for him, and any Labour politician, and the BBC parrots press opinion as if it is credible news.
It's a corruption of the political process, basically disowning of responsibility and blaming others. However, that is her MO, and she cannot change. Normally, you would demand a replacement, but they are equally bad.
If you mean other members of the Tory party, then yes. I can't help thinking that Corbyn, for all his faults, could hardly do a worse job.
I'm sure Corbyn would do a far better job, but the press have in for him, and any Labour politician, and the BBC parrots press opinion as if it is credible news.
Corbyn would do a substantially better job. But he is as fixated on Brexit as May, and he has no way of making it happen either.
He is better but still wrong on the most crucial issue facing us.
[The BBC] sent a correspondent to [...] maul the NZ PM ... (my bold)
Why, for heaven's sake? Because she's shown in the last week that she could knock the rest of the leaders of the Civilised World™ into a cocked hat?
[/tangent]
[The BBC] sent a correspondent to [...] maul the NZ PM ... (my bold)
Why, for heaven's sake? Because she's shown in the last week that she could knock the rest of the leaders of the Civilised World™ into a cocked hat?
[/tangent]
Why what?
I have no idea why the BBC thinks it has a remit to hold other country's politicians to account. It was a highly inappropriate interview.
Mrs May's statement last night was deeply shocking.
As others have noted on the other thread, it had more than a flavour of Mussolini to the way she framed things. Her inability to take any responsibility for the situation is stunning. That in itself makes her unfit to hold high office. As a counterpoint, I give you the much-disliked Anthony Blair. Iraq was a disaster; for what it's worth, I think he did it for the right reasons but got himself stuck in a worldview that was wrong. But at no point in the intervening 16 years has he pretended that he wasn't responsible for that decision. He even met with the families of British soldiers killed in Iraq. That must have been incredibly challenging but he faced up to the consequences of his decisions.
Mrs May seemed to have no sense that she was in any-way responsible which given that she is, you know, the FUCKING Prime Minister is a little hard to swallow. What worries me most is I don't think she was acting - I think she actually believes it's Parliament's fault....
Couple that with her deeply irresponsible assault on Parliament and the Speaker... It is breathtaking. Many MPs have received credible death threats and it's not exactly a long time since an MP was actually assassinated.
She has - until now - always looked good compared to D. Trump - no more. This was uncannily like him...
She is totally unfit to be a Minister of the Crown.
I to think she believes Parliament is at fault. She so focused on the bloody deal that she is totally blinkered to anything else. Today’s headline in the Evening Standard basically said a lot of MPs are miffed about the speech and want her out. Certainly if she gets a third vote and looses she will be expected to fall on her sword. Even the ERG are trying to put some space between her and themselves.
Oliver Letwin and his cross party group seem to be in the ascendence.
Macron is reported as estimating Treeza’s chance of getting her ‘deal’ through Parliament next week at just 5% - to be honest I think that’s a bit on the high side.
To call her delusional doesn’t begin to explain her behaviour. Stark, staring bonkers is nearer the truth. And this lunatic is holding the rest of the country to ransom.
Comments
I can't really believe that the same amendment enacted on different legislation/motions can be the same. That seems daft to me.
But I don't know exactly how this parliamentary precedent works in practice - it doesn't appear to have been mentioned/threatened for 100 years or something.
Doesn't this, err, create a precedent for not following precedents?
This is her default behaviour: faced with a brick wall, just keep banging your head against it. It hasn’t worked so far, but then she’s not one to learn from experience, is she?
That seems clear enough😒
Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil's Dictionary, suggested that patriotism is the scoundrel's first refuge.
He seems to have a good deal more sense than the Toddlers over whom he presides.....
I suspect the interests of the HoC at large would be best served by the majority of MPs uniting in the opinion that the Speaker is a pompous windbag. Extolling his virtues when he apparently does something that a certain minority agree with seems to me to be to light a fuse below a problem which is likely to explode in their faces.
Well, yes, but something exploding in their faces might actually do some good, given that most of the Toddlers also appear to be pompous windbags.
YMMV.
I'll get me coat, and make sure the light is switched off....
The current bunch - whether I agree with them or not - are not working together for the country. They should be, and we need a system that encourages this.
The government cannot magic or drum up a majority. There is nothing else to discuss in this particular cul-de-sac.
Now FFS read the writing on the wall and piss off. How hard can that be?
What a total clusterfuck Treeza and her cabinet of fools, incompetents and hoodlums has created.
About as mysterious as 'why aren't there large parts of her press calling for her resignation ?'.
This government is still in power, because they have convinced people they have a god-given right to be there, and bribed a lot of media to argue the same.
This government - and many of those around them - are utterly corrupt, utterly anti-democratic, and determined to hold onto power. Power is what drives them. Not the good of the country. not even wealth - just power.
That is dictatorship behaviour.
AFZ
*In PMQs today she claimed that it was time Parliament got on with something other than Brexit...
There is absolutely no evidence that this deal would ever pass.
I’m appearing this evening to explain that nothing that has gone wrong is my fault; everything that has gone wrong is because Parliament is opposing me and using arcane procedures to kick the can down the road, which of course I have never done.
Although I have been told I can’t do it, I intend to bring back the same ‘deal’ that MPs have already rejected twice, because I am the only person who is on your side. And although I have been told that I can’t postpone Brexit later than the middle of May, that is just what I intend to do.
Oh, God, please make it stop!
I think we are all clutching at straws now - the chances of anything other than a Hard Brexit are diminishing by the minute.
I have respect for anyone trying anything to stop it, but it does feel so inevitable now that I kinda want to fast forward to the part where we plunge into the deep shit.
Don't get sick seems like a good place to start.
Buy as many Euros as you can before the money in your bank account is worthless.
If the UK goes down, the EU is going to have to move very quickly not to go down with it. I can easily see the whole EU being pulled into the hole.
I think she can be forced in various other ways to go. It looks like it is getting to the point that a good number of Tory MPs have had enough.
As I said above; in this stage of any PMs career, you would expect a significant part of the press to have been baying that they should go for a number of months. That that hasn't happened is rather indicative.
Did she really say that? Crikey - she's beginning to sound like Trump, but with better grammar.
Can I suggest that the May government is not in power, but in office?
It is quite unbelievable the way that they send a correspondent to - totally unnecessarily, in my view - maul the NZ PM and yet in the same programme handle people who are still talking utter crap about WTO rules with kid gloves.
Quite unbelievable.
Yes, in general I agree that they have behaved very badly, acting as cheerleaders for the government over the whole affair.
The easy ride that so many interviewers on both radio and tv have given ministers - not to mention evil clowns like Farage, Mogg and Johnson - has been quite disgraceful.
They've been doing this for months on this topic. Typically someone like Redwood will go on the Today program and have a chummy chat with Humphrys while trotting out nonsense about WTO rules/GATT/etc. and then just before the hour Humphrys will interview someone else and do run with his polite disbelieving voice "So you don't agree with John Redwood when he says <blah> <blah>" and inevitably the explanation will be abbreviated by the top of the hour. The inevitable impression given is that this is just a disagreement about interpretations, and so it really comes down to who you want to believe.
When nothing else is happening politically, that then sets the agenda for the rest of the day.
"If the Prime Minister is sincere in what he says, and let us suppose that he is, then he is too stupid to remain Prime Minister."
That was Nye Bevan on Sir Anthony Eden at the time of the Suez crisis. But Eden was ill at the time. It's worse now as May isn't taking any of the responsibility, unlike Eden.
If you mean other members of the Tory party, then yes. I can't help thinking that Corbyn, for all his faults, could hardly do a worse job.
If Brexshit was the subject of a Jack Chick tract (!), I wonder what Deus ex machina he'd come up with to sort the mess?
I'm sure Corbyn would do a far better job, but the press have in for him, and any Labour politician, and the BBC parrots press opinion as if it is credible news.
Corbyn would do a substantially better job. But he is as fixated on Brexit as May, and he has no way of making it happen either.
He is better but still wrong on the most crucial issue facing us.
[/tangent]
Why what?
I have no idea why the BBC thinks it has a remit to hold other country's politicians to account. It was a highly inappropriate interview.
As others have noted on the other thread, it had more than a flavour of Mussolini to the way she framed things. Her inability to take any responsibility for the situation is stunning. That in itself makes her unfit to hold high office. As a counterpoint, I give you the much-disliked Anthony Blair. Iraq was a disaster; for what it's worth, I think he did it for the right reasons but got himself stuck in a worldview that was wrong. But at no point in the intervening 16 years has he pretended that he wasn't responsible for that decision. He even met with the families of British soldiers killed in Iraq. That must have been incredibly challenging but he faced up to the consequences of his decisions.
Mrs May seemed to have no sense that she was in any-way responsible which given that she is, you know, the FUCKING Prime Minister is a little hard to swallow. What worries me most is I don't think she was acting - I think she actually believes it's Parliament's fault....
Couple that with her deeply irresponsible assault on Parliament and the Speaker... It is breathtaking. Many MPs have received credible death threats and it's not exactly a long time since an MP was actually assassinated.
She has - until now - always looked good compared to D. Trump - no more. This was uncannily like him...
She is totally unfit to be a Minister of the Crown.
AFZ
Oliver Letwin and his cross party group seem to be in the ascendence.
They don't seem to have received the memo that in a Hard Brexit this is exactly what they'd get anyway.
To call her delusional doesn’t begin to explain her behaviour. Stark, staring bonkers is nearer the truth. And this lunatic is holding the rest of the country to ransom.