I think a-c is pointless. Get the Tories to self-destruct then all the other nonsense becomes moot.
Fat chance. We have seen in the last few days that the Tories will argue policy and vote against the government but when it comes to staying in power, they will meekly lick some low part of the party's anatomy and, yet again, put party before country.
No constructive contribution whatsoever, just selfish grandstanding.
I don't know. I've watched a lot of the recent debates - and I strongly believe that the DUP would stop supporting the Tory government if the draft deal passed. On top of that there are maybe 20-30 who might have serious doubts about whether to remain in the Tory party.
That's enough to bring the government down.
You're right about the DUP. Doing a deal with them indicates just how desperate she was. Frankly, a minority government would have been no worse and could have brought about another election within weeks with a more decisive outcome. But that's all in the past.
I think a-c is pointless. Get the Tories to self-destruct then all the other nonsense becomes moot.
Fat chance. We have seen in the last few days that the Tories will argue policy and vote against the government but when it comes to staying in power, they will meekly lick some low part of the party's anatomy and, yet again, put party before country.
No constructive contribution whatsoever, just selfish grandstanding.
I don't know. I've watched a lot of the recent debates - and I strongly believe that the DUP would stop supporting the Tory government if the draft deal passed. On top of that there are maybe 20-30 who might have serious doubts about whether to remain in the Tory party.
That's enough to bring the government down.
And what then? General Election, another hung parliament (there are those who say they should be hung....) with the Tories as the biggest party (yes, really, I think that's what would happen) and round we go again...
I think a-c is pointless. Get the Tories to self-destruct then all the other nonsense becomes moot.
Fat chance. We have seen in the last few days that the Tories will argue policy and vote against the government but when it comes to staying in power, they will meekly lick some low part of the party's anatomy and, yet again, put party before country.
No constructive contribution whatsoever, just selfish grandstanding.
I don't know. I've watched a lot of the recent debates - and I strongly believe that the DUP would stop supporting the Tory government if the draft deal passed. On top of that there are maybe 20-30 who might have serious doubts about whether to remain in the Tory party.
That's enough to bring the government down.
And what then? General Election, another hung parliament (there are those who say they should be hung....) with the Tories as the biggest party (yes, really, I think that's what would happen) and round we go again...
I don't think it would be the same situation. Partly because I think the parties would have to have much clearer policies on the EU relationship for another election.
So it has all gone quiet. I am not sure if that is a good sign.
It's a bad sign. Treeza is running down the clock again in a foolish attempt to bounce everybody into accepting her deal or be faced with a no-deal, no-implementation-period catastrophe.
Basically she's holding the entire population of the country to ransom in a futile attempt to get her own way; but since she thinks that she is always right, then it follows that her lying, greed, prevarication and incompetence are somehow justified, and stuff everyone else.
Isn't she also using no deal as a threat against the EU? Some countries will also suffer from blocked trade routes, and maybe she thinks they will beg Brussels to offer some chickenfeed for MPs to swallow. Poker, really.
Sweet Jesus, is there no end to this ridiculous nonsense?
If this were a Jack Chick tract, something would have happened by now (The Second Coming/Nibiru/the triumph of Satan/Islam/Liberalism/The Gayz - delete as appropriate).....
Sweet Jesus, is there no end to this ridiculous nonsense?
If this were a Jack Chick tract, something would have happened by now (The Second Coming/Nibiru/the triumph of Satan/Islam/Liberalism/The Gayz - delete as appropriate).....
No, there is no end to it. Once we finally get something that the MPs can agree on, which won't be soon I suspect, there'll be even more fuss about what comes next, and it will keep Parliament busy for the next decade at least.
People who don't realise that no deal doesn't mean staying in but crashing out of the EU without anything in place, or people who do realise that but buy into no regulation and hope to make a(nother) killing on this.
People who don't realise that no deal doesn't mean staying in but crashing out of the EU without anything in place, or people who do realise that but buy into no regulation and hope to make a(nother) killing on this.
Mostly the former, I think. The latter are disaster capitalists, who are less likely to be in a QT audience.
Apparently, on Question Time, there were loud cheers, when someone spoke up for no deal. Who are these people?
Probably people who think "no deal" means "seeing off the EU after it came snivelling and begging for concessions to be allowed to keep its nasty claws dug into the mighty UK".
This is where I stop weeping and start shouting. A nation of fuckwits has fucked itself on the sharpness of its wit. Oh look, I'm stuck in it. Oh joy.
This is a nation with the leader it deserves.
ETA: Well, it's a nation with a leader it hasn't managed to avoid, or get rid of. Therefore, we must deserve her, even if a fair proportion of us wish her a one-way trip into total oblivion.
People who don't realise that no deal doesn't mean staying in but crashing out of the EU without anything in place, or people who do realise that but buy into no regulation and hope to make a(nother) killing on this.
Mostly the former, I think. The latter are disaster capitalists, who are less likely to be in a QT audience.
People who don't realise that no deal doesn't mean staying in but crashing out of the EU without anything in place, or people who do realise that but buy into no regulation and hope to make a(nother) killing on this.
Mostly the former, I think. The latter are disaster capitalists, who are less likely to be in a QT audience.
Contrariwise, I imagine they are the same people who post Leave Means Leave all over Facebook anf say "we voted to leave, norlt for a deal! Just leave! We voted!" etc.
They know what it means. They just think it's a good thing.
People who don't realise that no deal doesn't mean staying in but crashing out of the EU without anything in place, or people who do realise that but buy into no regulation and hope to make a(nother) killing on this.
Mostly the former, I think. The latter are disaster capitalists, who are less likely to be in a QT audience.
Contrariwise, I imagine they are the same people who post Leave Means Leave all over Facebook anf say "we voted to leave, norlt for a deal! Just leave! We voted!" etc.
They know what it means. They just think it's a good thing.
It's like a mix between the Black Knight in Holy Grail (who doesn't know when he is beaten) and mentality behind the Charge of the Light Brigade.
These people seem to see nothing wrong with in effect shouting to the whole world
"Haha! I've shot myself in both legs! And I'm holding this gun to my own head! Not so clever now, are you, you cheese-eating surrender-monkeys!
And you Crouts seem to forget that we won Two World Wars! So you can take your ideals of democracy and freedom and solidarity and shove them up your arse. If we want to push our country back to the stone-age, we'll sodding well do it, thank you VERY much."
I was chatting to one guy, who actually said, we should break all contact off with the EU. I said, you mean close Dover and Eurotunnel? No reply.
Yeah, that's exactly what we should do. And we should welcome back home all those tens of thousands of people from retirement in the EU who can die miserably and slowly in our cold, damp little pigsty which was once a country of note.
FFS. Why are we pandering to this? Why are people allowed to spout the most inane drivel on national BBC channels - as if somehow the two available options are that we can get all the things that 'we' want from the EU or simply slam the door like a petulant child?
The thing is they don't seem to realise they've shot themselves at all. They really seem to think a wonderful world lies just after the 29th of March as long as we "just leave". They really seem to think that all the negotiations, votes and whatnot are about reversing Brexit. This is why they are so against a second referendum - not because they fear losing it, because of course what they think is what nearly everyone, except a few "remoaners", thinks, but because it's just all part of trying to deny them what they voted for. Hence they keep on repeating the accusation that a second referendum is about repeating the process until the "remoaners" get the result they want.
They have, and want, no concept of the complexity. It's reduced to simple "we leave" for them. I don't think they ever envisaged a deal would be part of the process. They thought it'd be just giving notice and leaving - no deal Brexit. It's what they thought they were voting for, and it's what they want.
Clarification - this broad, sweeping generalisation is about the constituency that cheered loudly as referenced above. It is not intended to cover all leavers, only the headbangers.
Clarification - this broad, sweeping generalisation is about the constituency that cheered loudly as referenced above. It is not intended to cover all leavers, only the headbangers.
One thing that we have learned from this episode is how immensely dumb a large percentage of the British public actually are.
A total lack of understanding about what we gain from being in the EU. A total lack of understanding about how life would change if there was no-deal. A monumental lack of understanding about the reality of the British place in the world.
I think the EU is terminally bad at communcating about what it does and how, and that this is at least part of the reason for the Leave vote.
I've already noted that the biggest dividing factor between Remain and Leave voting is levels of education, but I would hesitate to confuse levels of education with stupidity.
I think the EU is terminally bad at communcating about what it does and how, and that this is at least part of the reason for the Leave vote.
I've already noted that the biggest dividing factor between Remain and Leave voting is levels of education, but I would hesitate to confuse levels of education with stupidity.
I believe that's very largely because the Leave vote was (often) highest in areas of deprivation. And deprivation is often related to education for a variety of reasons - including that bright people get the hell out as quickly as possible.
As it happens, I've been doing some interesting reading about attitudes in this area (the South Wales coalfield) during another crisis, the slump in the 1920s and 1930s.
It's interesting because people believed in themselves so much, to the extent that they made decisions that were against their own interest.
Two interesting examples; in one, a local GP wrote about how people in incredible need would refuse help, even when they obviously needed it.
According to him, it was because people believed they deserved things and accepting charity meant that they were somehow lesser human beings, deserving of pity and handouts from the "same people" - never really defined or explained - that forced them into drudgery, poor living conditions and illness.
In another, an article spoke about how people could be socially ostracised for participating in a scheme for unemployed miners. As it happens, the scheme was designed to help people in absolute poverty grow food to eat - but miners believed that they had a "right" to have food to eat, so having to grow it in this way was degrading.
These are nearly 100 year old attitudes, but I think we see similar ways of thinking with regard to deprived communities and the EU.
It doesn't matter how much the EU does. Whatever is done, whatever benefits the EU offers, whatever advantages poor communities are given - they are undermined because the local way of thinking is against the idea that it needs help.
And this in turn leads to a focus on what the EU is not doing (for example that there is a high level of unemployment and low-paid jobs) rather than what it is doing.
That's a form of deep-rooted ignorance and stupidity.
For the last thirty years, the majority of the "popular press" has done nothing but print stories about how the EU is terrible and wants to make us proud Brits eat straight bananas.
Unless you expected the EU to somehow prevent that ("interfering with the free press" or "shameless EU propaganda").
For the last thirty years, the majority of the "popular press" has done nothing but print stories about how the EU is terrible and wants to make us proud Brits eat straight bananas.
Unless you expected the EU to somehow prevent that ("interfering with the free press" or "shameless EU propaganda").
Ignorance *is* stupidity.
If it wasn't so painful, it might actually be a good thing for Brits to experience what life is like outside of the EU.
I've already noted that the biggest dividing factor between Remain and Leave voting is levels of education, but I would hesitate to confuse levels of education with stupidity.
Though I'm not sure to what extent this was a proxy for age, with older people less likely to have lived in the age of mass higher/further education. I've looked at a number of different sets of figures (Yougov, Ipsos Mori, etc.) and this doesn't seem to be proved one way or the other by any of them.
The difference between ignorance and stupidity is a matter of the possibility of improvement, so if no attempts at improvement are made then they are functionally identical.
I can't see EU President Tusk rushing to attend Treeza's funeral (O! Unhappy Day! May it be long delayed!).
Or, IOW, Europe is becoming (ISTM) a more readily-identifiable unit ('we're all in this together'), apart, of course, from this miserable little shitshow of a country.
For the record, I'm proud to say that I'm not really English at all. My mother's family is Scottish/Irish, and my father's family conquered you Saxons by helping William of Normandy a few years back....
For the record, I'm proud to say that I'm not really English at all. My mother's family is Scottish/Irish, and my father's family conquered you Saxons by helping William of Normandy a few years back....
Bloody immigrants, ruining thing for all those pure-blood AngloSaxons.
Attempts at improvement are unlikely if one simply qualifies all those that don't come to the same conclusion as oneself as "stupid".
One might hope that people's responsibility for improving their knowledge or understanding is their own, and over-reaction to external objective commentary just makes they fucking idiotic crybabies.
O, send me back! PLEASE, send me back! Normandy or Scotland or Ireland - I don't care! Any of those eminently Civilised Places will do very nicely, thank you....my wants are modest....
French CHEESE and WINE.....Scotch and/or Irish WHISKY/WHISKEY...deep-fried Mars Bars/soda bread....what's not to like??
'Bloody Immigrant' - what a wonderful accolade! Thank you! Thank you!
Normans, yes, they were relatively late invaders, but the Anglo-Saxons invaded too, after the Romans and before the Vikings. It's the Picts and the Celts who were here first, weren't they?
Basically we're all mongrels* says someone else who'd like to find another European country to take me back, but thinks the chances are slim.
* acknowledged Scottish/Saxon heritage with some interesting unacknowledged likely diversions
Celts - hard to say. The Celtic languages replaced earlier unknown neolithic and Bronze Age languages (of which Basque may be a survival) but whether there was significant population change is more questionable. But there were people here before there were Celtic languages.
As some one who grew up on a council estate I can say that poverty and stupidity are in fact not really linked. Many poor people are intelligent they just lack opportunity. Anyway lots of pro Brexit supporters interviewed on the TV and those in parliament, such as Reese-Mog are posh and have money.
Bloody immigrants, ruining thing for all those pure-blood AngloSaxons.
Bloody Anglo-Saxons, ruining things for us honest Celts. You just manage to worm your way out from under the Roman jackboot (military sandal?) and another bunch of hairy louts shows up to steal all your stuff...
The *clever* people who are supporting Brexit are making a killing on the stock markets. If Brexit is cancelled, they will be crying all the way to the bank. If it isn't, they have plenty of time to offshore all their money. It's a win-win situation for them.
Comments
You're right about the DUP. Doing a deal with them indicates just how desperate she was. Frankly, a minority government would have been no worse and could have brought about another election within weeks with a more decisive outcome. But that's all in the past.
And what then? General Election, another hung parliament (there are those who say they should be hung....) with the Tories as the biggest party (yes, really, I think that's what would happen) and round we go again...
I don't think it would be the same situation. Partly because I think the parties would have to have much clearer policies on the EU relationship for another election.
Especially as the calls for talks were all a stunt: https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1085863854654046208
It was also clear it was a stunt last night, but at that point our Political Commentators could still pretend it wasn't.
From your keyboard to God's ear. And all sensible people said Amen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilary_Benn
Not quite as distinctive a character as his Dad, but.....
It's a bad sign. Treeza is running down the clock again in a foolish attempt to bounce everybody into accepting her deal or be faced with a no-deal, no-implementation-period catastrophe.
Basically she's holding the entire population of the country to ransom in a futile attempt to get her own way; but since she thinks that she is always right, then it follows that her lying, greed, prevarication and incompetence are somehow justified, and stuff everyone else.
If this were a Jack Chick tract, something would have happened by now (The Second Coming/Nibiru/the triumph of Satan/Islam/Liberalism/The Gayz - delete as appropriate).....
No, there is no end to it. Once we finally get something that the MPs can agree on, which won't be soon I suspect, there'll be even more fuss about what comes next, and it will keep Parliament busy for the next decade at least.
Brexit - the gift that keeps giving!
But that, I suspect, is a forlorn and useless hope....
Not people - ostriches.
Mostly the former, I think. The latter are disaster capitalists, who are less likely to be in a QT audience.
Probably people who think "no deal" means "seeing off the EU after it came snivelling and begging for concessions to be allowed to keep its nasty claws dug into the mighty UK".
This is a nation with the leader it deserves.
ETA: Well, it's a nation with a leader it hasn't managed to avoid, or get rid of. Therefore, we must deserve her, even if a fair proportion of us wish her a one-way trip into total oblivion.
Mostly the former, I think. The latter are disaster capitalists, who are less likely to be in a QT audience.
Contrariwise, I imagine they are the same people who post Leave Means Leave all over Facebook anf say "we voted to leave, norlt for a deal! Just leave! We voted!" etc.
They know what it means. They just think it's a good thing.
It's like a mix between the Black Knight in Holy Grail (who doesn't know when he is beaten) and mentality behind the Charge of the Light Brigade.
These people seem to see nothing wrong with in effect shouting to the whole world
"Haha! I've shot myself in both legs! And I'm holding this gun to my own head! Not so clever now, are you, you cheese-eating surrender-monkeys!
And you Crouts seem to forget that we won Two World Wars! So you can take your ideals of democracy and freedom and solidarity and shove them up your arse. If we want to push our country back to the stone-age, we'll sodding well do it, thank you VERY much."
Yeah, that's exactly what we should do. And we should welcome back home all those tens of thousands of people from retirement in the EU who can die miserably and slowly in our cold, damp little pigsty which was once a country of note.
FFS. Why are we pandering to this? Why are people allowed to spout the most inane drivel on national BBC channels - as if somehow the two available options are that we can get all the things that 'we' want from the EU or simply slam the door like a petulant child?
They have, and want, no concept of the complexity. It's reduced to simple "we leave" for them. I don't think they ever envisaged a deal would be part of the process. They thought it'd be just giving notice and leaving - no deal Brexit. It's what they thought they were voting for, and it's what they want.
Clarification - this broad, sweeping generalisation is about the constituency that cheered loudly as referenced above. It is not intended to cover all leavers, only the headbangers.
One thing that we have learned from this episode is how immensely dumb a large percentage of the British public actually are.
A total lack of understanding about what we gain from being in the EU. A total lack of understanding about how life would change if there was no-deal. A monumental lack of understanding about the reality of the British place in the world.
We really are that thick.
Don't tell me what to think.
There is plenty of information - people in other countries in the EU seem to understand quite well what it is all about.
Despite a large number of things coming from EU funds in this area, people still thought membership was a waste of money.
That's blind stupidity.
I've already noted that the biggest dividing factor between Remain and Leave voting is levels of education, but I would hesitate to confuse levels of education with stupidity.
I believe that's very largely because the Leave vote was (often) highest in areas of deprivation. And deprivation is often related to education for a variety of reasons - including that bright people get the hell out as quickly as possible.
As it happens, I've been doing some interesting reading about attitudes in this area (the South Wales coalfield) during another crisis, the slump in the 1920s and 1930s.
It's interesting because people believed in themselves so much, to the extent that they made decisions that were against their own interest.
Two interesting examples; in one, a local GP wrote about how people in incredible need would refuse help, even when they obviously needed it.
According to him, it was because people believed they deserved things and accepting charity meant that they were somehow lesser human beings, deserving of pity and handouts from the "same people" - never really defined or explained - that forced them into drudgery, poor living conditions and illness.
In another, an article spoke about how people could be socially ostracised for participating in a scheme for unemployed miners. As it happens, the scheme was designed to help people in absolute poverty grow food to eat - but miners believed that they had a "right" to have food to eat, so having to grow it in this way was degrading.
These are nearly 100 year old attitudes, but I think we see similar ways of thinking with regard to deprived communities and the EU.
It doesn't matter how much the EU does. Whatever is done, whatever benefits the EU offers, whatever advantages poor communities are given - they are undermined because the local way of thinking is against the idea that it needs help.
And this in turn leads to a focus on what the EU is not doing (for example that there is a high level of unemployment and low-paid jobs) rather than what it is doing.
That's a form of deep-rooted ignorance and stupidity.
Unless you expected the EU to somehow prevent that ("interfering with the free press" or "shameless EU propaganda").
Ignorance *is* stupidity.
If it wasn't so painful, it might actually be a good thing for Brits to experience what life is like outside of the EU.
Though I'm not sure to what extent this was a proxy for age, with older people less likely to have lived in the age of mass higher/further education. I've looked at a number of different sets of figures (Yougov, Ipsos Mori, etc.) and this doesn't seem to be proved one way or the other by any of them.
Not all. Some were very very clever.
A large number were manipulated by clever people because, sadly, they were ignorant.
https://bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46930974
I can't see EU President Tusk rushing to attend Treeza's funeral (O! Unhappy Day! May it be long delayed!).
Or, IOW, Europe is becoming (ISTM) a more readily-identifiable unit ('we're all in this together'), apart, of course, from this miserable little shitshow of a country.
For the record, I'm proud to say that I'm not really English at all. My mother's family is Scottish/Irish, and my father's family conquered you Saxons by helping William of Normandy a few years back....
One might hope that people's responsibility for improving their knowledge or understanding is their own, and over-reaction to external objective commentary just makes they fucking idiotic crybabies.
French CHEESE and WINE.....Scotch and/or Irish WHISKY/WHISKEY...deep-fried Mars Bars/soda bread....what's not to like??
'Bloody Immigrant' - what a wonderful accolade! Thank you! Thank you!
Basically we're all mongrels* says someone else who'd like to find another European country to take me back, but thinks the chances are slim.
* acknowledged Scottish/Saxon heritage with some interesting unacknowledged likely diversions
Bloody Anglo-Saxons, ruining things for us honest Celts. You just manage to worm your way out from under the Roman jackboot (military sandal?) and another bunch of hairy louts shows up to steal all your stuff...
The *clever* people who are supporting Brexit are making a killing on the stock markets. If Brexit is cancelled, they will be crying all the way to the bank. If it isn't, they have plenty of time to offshore all their money. It's a win-win situation for them.