Britain is going to be Tory for at least 10 years.

[JimC]

It'll be Dunkirk all over again...

[Scot Dutchy]

[

Downing Street insisted that May still had full confidence in Johnson, although he had not informed her of the content of his article. Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Johnson insisted that the UK must not pay any money to the EU for access to its markets after Brexit and made no mention of a transition period after 2019 to avoid a “cliff-edge” for UK businesses.

May is now understood to back a transitional deal that could involve payments to the EU for access to its markets during a period of two to three years after Brexit, and to accept that the UK will need to follow the single market rulebook in that time.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ous-tories

And there was I thinking BoJo had burned all his leadership boats.

Cant someone explain to May that the leaving date is 29-3-19 and there will be no transitional period after it. Art 50 does allow the leaving date to be extended but that needs a majority vote of the Council in accordance with art 218(3) of the treaty which it will never get now thanks mainly to BoJo who seems to think you can sling insults around without any consequences.

[Brian Peacock]

Her Majesty’s secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs, Boris Johnson, is an accomplished confidence man. Like all conmen, he appeals to the larceny in the blood – the wish of the mark to get an impossibly good deal. Mr Johnson’s 4,000-word job application (he wants to be prime minister) in last Saturday’s Telegraph is a masterclass in doublespeak and smarm. Almost everything it says about the prospects of a deal is palpably false, but that hardly matters. It would be worrying in any other foreign secretary, but we know better than to expect this one to share the truth, even if he is in possession of it. However, it is enormously revealing about the state of opinion in the Conservative party. He smells the larceny in the party’s blood; he knows how it wants to be seduced...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... _clipboard

[Rum]

Her Majesty’s secretary of state for foreign and commonwealth affairs, Boris Johnson, is an accomplished confidence man. Like all conmen, he appeals to the larceny in the blood – the wish of the mark to get an impossibly good deal. Mr Johnson’s 4,000-word job application (he wants to be prime minister) in last Saturday’s Telegraph is a masterclass in doublespeak and smarm. Almost everything it says about the prospects of a deal is palpably false, but that hardly matters. It would be worrying in any other foreign secretary, but we know better than to expect this one to share the truth, even if he is in possession of it. However, it is enormously revealing about the state of opinion in the Conservative party. He smells the larceny in the party’s blood; he knows how it wants to be seduced...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... _clipboard

While I am in general agreement, this IS the Grundian let's not forget.

[Brian Peacock]

Read BoJo's screed and decide for yourself: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09 ... ed-brexit/

He's a talented writer of fiction as well as Roman history.

[Brian Peacock]

Boris Johnson faced growing pressure over his intervention on Brexit as Cabinet colleagues lined up to question his actions and he was accused of a “clear misuse of official statistics”.

Sir David Norgrove, the head of the UK Statistics Authority, said he was “surprised and disappointed” to see the foreign secretary restate the controversial claim that Britain will claw back £350m a week, triggering a war of words between the pair.

Johnson hit back in a strongly-worded letter in which he accused Norgrove of a “wilful distortion of the text of my article”, claiming it was a misrepresentation and demanding it be withdrawn.

Meanwhile, a senior Whitehall official told the Guardian that Johnson’s 4,000-word vision of Brexit, which was not cleared by Downing Street, would make life more difficult for the dozens of negotiators in the department for exiting the EU.
There was anger from some Cabinet colleagues with one accusing the foreign secretary of an unhelpful move that placed “personal ambition ahead before the interests of the country”.

They said that he cared more about meeting the “discredited promises of the leave campaign” than delivering the best Brexit for Britain after the article was published without Downing Street’s agreement.

...

In a letter to to the foreign secretary Norgrove slapped down the use of the £350m figure, arguing: “This confuses gross and net contributions. It also assumes that payments currently made to the UK by the EU, including, for example, for the support of agriculture and scientific research, will not be paid by the UK government when we leave,” wrote Norgrove in a letter to the foreign secretary.”

It added: “It is a clear misuse of official statistics.”

But Johnson hit back with a letter accusing Norgrove of a “complete misrepresentation of what I said” and demanded the letter is withdrawn. “I must say that I was surprised and disappointed by your letter of today, since it was based on what appeared to be a wilful distortion of the text in my article.”

Johnson wrote in his Telegraph article: “Once we have settled our accounts, we will take back control of roughly £350m per week. It would be a fine thing, as many of us have pointed out, if a lot of that money went on the NHS, provided we use that cash injection to modernise and make the most of new technology.”...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... exit-claim

Sillytonian.

[mistermack]

Labour are quietly going further and further left, under Corbyn.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 54826.html
They seem to be getting away with it without hardly any adverse comment from the media.
They are going to reduce the minimum number of MPs needed to get someone on the ballot for the leadership from 15 to 10 percent. That will make it much easier for a far left candidate to actually stand, and with the new voting arrangements, as we've seen with Corbyn, the left are virtually guaranteed to win the election now that the members have so much power.

Like I said earlier, they now have too much democracy. It's now built in that the Labour Party will be a hard left party for long into the future.
They are also consolidating their hold on the party quietly in the background, step by step.
However, I'm not so sure that the voters have actually woken up, or been made aware by the media, just what a bunch of reds are running Labour now. They only see and hear Corbyn. And the media seem to be giving the left a very easy time of it lately. And of course, the right are not helping themselves, with Theresa May blundering over the election, and the rest of them jockying for position.

So maybe there IS a chance that we will have a hard left government, led by Corbyn and Abbot in five years time. In fact, there is a fifty fifty chance, according to the bookies.
Swap May for Boris Johnson and that would go up to odds on, I would have thought.
But what do I know? What does anyone know?
It's all very unpredictable now.

I'm forecasting some sort of drop in house prices, and a difficult Brexit. How people will be feeling in five years time is anyone's guess. A lot depends on the media, and they seem to be in love with Labour at the moment.

[Rum]

I think that is a fair analysis. I don't however think that the British public want or would tolerate a hard left Labour government as things stand. Whatever one's politics the reality is that the people tend to steer a middle course with elections.

If of course the economy goes down the toilet due to brexit or other factors a far left government might look more attractive to some people - the young and perhaps those who don't normally vote.

All of which is a bit depressing looking at the twats running the country at the moment - what a shower of self seeking bastards they are.

[PsychoSerenity]

Yeah the Labour party is really not "hard" or "far" left. They're left wing, sure, as they should be. But there's nothing coming out of there that is in any way radical. And what the fuck is "too much democracy"? How is opening up power equally across the membership "consolidating their hold"? It was Blair's select group of centrists, carefully placed in positions against the will of membership, that was holding onto power. They changed the rules for the leadership election to one-member-one-vote specifically because they didn't want the left wing union influence that had elected Ed Miliband. When that backfired and Corbyn won and they challenged him the following year they changed the rules again, disenfranchising a large chunk of the membership who had only joined or re-joined within the previous six months, yet still Corbyn won. If politically motivated people on the left want to change things in the party they can join and have their say. Better that than the top-down we-know-best approach that lost them hundreds of thousands of members and millions of voters.

[Rum]

Yeah the Labour party is really not "hard" or "far" left. They're left wing, sure, as they should be. But there's nothing coming out of there that is in any way radical. And what the fuck is "too much democracy"? How is opening up power equally across the membership "consolidating their hold"? It was Blair's select group of centrists, carefully placed in positions against the will of membership, that was holding onto power. They changed the rules for the leadership election to one-member-one-vote specifically because they didn't want the left wing union influence that had elected Ed Miliband. When that backfired and Corbyn won and they challenged him the following year they changed the rules again, disenfranchising a large chunk of the membership who had only joined or re-joined within the previous six months, yet still Corbyn won. If politically motivated people on the left want to change things in the party they can join and have their say. Better that than the top-down we-know-best approach that lost them hundreds of thousands of members and millions of voters.

Well increased democracy is fine of course, but we know who will vote for the most part. It will be the more 'radical' element. The NEC will also have four new places too - three from 'grass roots' and one from Unions. Then there's re-nationalization.

Personally I'm for a move to the Left, though as one gets older I think one gets more cautious about anything overly radical.

Whatever your politics are the fact is that the public won't vote for a Labour party that is perceived to have 'gone back to the 70s'.

[mistermack]

what the fuck is "too much democracy"? How is opening up power equally across the membership "consolidating their hold"?

So you think you can't have too much democracy? If you think that, you really don't know much at all.
So you think that every decision would be better taken by the majority, and there's no room for lifelong expertise and research?
Let the mob decide if the US should drop a nuclear bomb on North Korea? By a majority vote of all voters?
It would have already happened. And the mob in China would probably have responded by voting to bomb the USA.

That's what the fuck is too much democracy. The mob will generally not make good decisions. Give us a vote every five years, and allow the people who have the time and brains to research a decision to decide what to do.
In the case of the Labour Party, the mob will always elect someone like Corbyn. Whether that will ever put them in office remains to be seen. But it gives them a pretty shit chance, normally.

Voting Labour today is like voting for the militant tendency a few years ago. We've had that, in Liverpool and London in the past. It didn't end well.

The bookies might have it fifty fifty at the moment, but if I had to bet, I would think that as the date of an election got nearer, and the spotlight was turned onto what Labour has become, the support will drain away.
But, I wouldn't like to bet at all.
Logic has gone out of the window lately, with voting results being totally unpredictable, and changing over just a few weeks.

[Brian Peacock]

Oh the horror. The membership choosing the leader - where will it end?

I know. Let's imagine the existence if the opposition justifies all the actions of the government. Discuss.

[Rum]

what the fuck is "too much democracy"? How is opening up power equally across the membership "consolidating their hold"?

So you think you can't have too much democracy? If you think that, you really don't know much at all.
So you think that every decision would be better taken by the majority, and there's no room for lifelong expertise and research?
Let the mob decide if the US should drop a nuclear bomb on North Korea? By a majority vote of all voters?
It would have already happened. And the mob in China would probably have responded by voting to bomb the USA.

That's what the fuck is too much democracy. The mob will generally not make good decisions. Give us a vote every five years, and allow the people who have the time and brains to research a decision to decide what to do.
In the case of the Labour Party, the mob will always elect someone like Corbyn. Whether that will ever put them in office remains to be seen. But it gives them a pretty shit chance, normally.

Voting Labour today is like voting for the militant tendency a few years ago. We've had that, in Liverpool and London in the past. It didn't end well.

The bookies might have it fifty fifty at the moment, but if I had to bet, I would think that as the date of an election got nearer, and the spotlight was turned onto what Labour has become, the support will drain away.
But, I wouldn't like to bet at all.
Logic has gone out of the window lately, with voting results being totally unpredictable, and changing over just a few weeks.

I'm not as cynical about the 'mob' but in any case what the outcome will be in this scenario is that it won't be the mob that has its way but the radical class war types.

[mistermack]

Oh the horror. The membership choosing the leader - where will it end?

You COULD look at the United States to see what can happen. Except that over there, the party machine USUALLY has control. But now, with twitter and facebook, the party machine is weaker, and the membership of the United States can get whoever they want.
You might think that Donald Trump is as bad as it can get. I would say definitely not, and that as it gets more and more democratic, you ain't seen nuthin yet.

[Brian Peacock]

I guess that's why we should leave the serious business of politics to pur betters.