On merit alone they are not equal at all. Starmer is an appointed QC whilst Pidock went to Man Met which should be enough to discount anyone (apologies to anyone who also went, not for my statement for the fact you went there)
Brexited | the worst threads live the longest
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It can but there is no majority at the moment for a referendum.
That's typical Tory deflection though and it get's a few laughs. What we're talking about is the erosion of notice periods, protections around unfair dismissal and the rights of women returning to work after pregnancy, for example. I'd absolutely not put it past the Tories to screw over workers to please their industry paymasters.
You say with the Labour party positioning itself to the left...but neglect the fact that the Tories have moved equally to the right. The fact that the Tories' first action on the end of austerity was to cut tax for higher earners tells you everything you need to know about how much contempt they feel for the working person.
Well said Sir. Hear, hear.
I highly doubt they'll roll back maternity rights, there's too many women about for that. They can get away with policies that affect smaller factions of the population though.
There's also talk today that fracking could end in the UK soon, which doesn't really tally with the bonfire of environmental protections that the Tories are supposed want to carry out.
Ge is going to be hard to call if brexit party are standing as well...
Anybody getting a majority looks unlikely but how the results will actually fall is going to be interesting
Have to expect SNP and libs will do well
Northern Ireland will probably be dominated by local parties
Brexit would probably cut into both labour and conservatives
And the leaders of the two main parties are pretty devisive figures
And if there is any workable coalitions I don't know
Brexit will insist on WTO
Boris will insist on his deal
Nobody will work with Corbyn
Libs will demand a referendum
SNP will demand freeeeedom
Rights are never eroded so publically no one expects them to raise a bill to lower standards. What happens is when legislation gets passed as part of that you'll have stuff that doesn't have the protections enshrined in EU law and over time it results in a lowered standard. Most of those will be ambiguous wording that relies on others to make a decision, pushing responsibility for decisions is Tory 101 see council cuts forcing closures and the BBC now being blamed for dropping free tv licenses.
Changed my mind, we need to make sure we leave before the 31 October
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Yeah possibly. My worry with Starmer is that what Boris is for Leave, Starmer is for Remain. Picking Starmer as leader is giving up on politics and going full force into the weird and awful world of Brexit cultural war. In every sense Starmer is a manager type, it only takes a couple of looks into this thread(Leave voters are stupid, we can win with Google searches etc) and the marches to see this is the type of politician ultra Remain people are dying for.
Which ok if playing this empty spectacle game is whats needed to get Labour into power with a left wing manifesto, then fine whatever. But politicians like Starmer have been losing all around the western world(And certainly not winning in the global south), the only two who are succeeding are Macron who at the moment is watching on as the french police kick the heads in of public sector workers and the guy in Canada who won't stop doing black face. There's really nothing to suggest that he would be a success.
Worried they'll lose their seats?
I will never be the same again.
They aren't stupid, it's utterly insane for Labour to go into an election without Brexit sorted, especially with Corbyn as leader.
It's not prevented the gender pay gap. I'm not talking about a 'bonfire' of regulation, I said erosion of rights that goes under the radar.
Fracking was never going to be big here. It's one thing fracking shale in the North Dakota desert, but a uneconomic and a massive vote loser under English greenbelt or urban areas.
If Labour go to an election with Brexit sorted BoJo will crush them with the leave vote as the man that delivered Brexit and the Brexit party will be irrelevant and likely just endorse him. The Lib Dems will crush them with the remain vote as they’ll be seen as the party that facilitated Brexit. If Brexit is done it’s lose lose for Labour only while it’s now up in the air they can stay relevant by trying to stay in the middle of it all and pushing their policies.
It’s lose-lose for labour whatever happens then
Why would it?
Brexit sorted is absolutely lose lose they will probably come third. Brexit not sorted they have a dithering chance.
It just goes on and on and the divisions get worse.
The once in a lifetime referendum result is going to last a lifetime to work its way out.
You are right. The forthcoming GE is not likely to solve anything. And actually, given the policies of the major parties, a majority government might be even worse.
It is becoming more apparent that a second referendum could be the only way of resolving the ongoing stalemate. And only Labour are offering this.
Didn't work for Churchill though, he delivered victory in 1945 but got kicked out nonetheless.
Absolute disgrace it hasn’t.
Depends on the terms of leaving. If it's a no deal then Johnson will be punished in the polls as the downsides quickly become clear to even the most optomistic brexiter.
With the current deal and the cliff edge pushed back to jan 1st 2021, then yes he'll probably get away with it by having an election before then. That's what he'll be banking on anyway, as labour can't wait over a year to agree to an election.
Labours best chance now, unless ref2 can be secured, is a new leader who the media don't have time to smear into oblivion before the start of purdah.
You don't have to look tbf
A dithering chance? I like that
Put it past? It will be a plan. It is bad enough with the EU protecting ordinary people. Without that protection things are going to get much worse and quickly.
Australia is laughing at us. Hardly suprising.
https://amp.theguardian.com/comment...ry-strand-of-his-deliberately-unfeasible-hair
https://amp.theguardian.com/comment...ry-strand-of-his-deliberately-unfeasible-hair
That's what you get for sitting on the fence - in an attempt to please everybody you end up pleasing nobody. If that is what occurs then it serves them right - Machiavellian tw*ts.
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Interesting peice if not a little depressing
From the Guardian..
So the government don't believe we need an extension, but also aren't actually going to bother trying to push their bill through parliament?
Ah but they only aren't because the MP's are not allowing their terrible deal through. How dare they.
Utterly pointless. Nothings going to get resolved, in any way, anytime soon. GE won't solve anything. A 2nd ref would, but would be divisive again and the worry is that leave voters would have dug their heels in even more, depsite all evidence, because parliament are "standing in the way" of their dream deal, or crashing and burning out to teach the EU a lesson.
I reckon this thread ends up on 20k pages before we get close to past it all.
Sorry for the rant, but this is depressing. And we have Boris Johnson in charge of it.
So if the EU don't agree or don't reply the Uk slips out the back door - just as well Corbyn took no deal off the table.
Why do you get the feeling that Cummings strategy is working? Nobody expected Boris to get a deal, even try for one, but all seemingly convinced the Benn Act will stop a 'no deal', when in reality it only stops the 'no deal' on the 31st Oct. not at the end of any extension that may or may not be granted, or may or may not be accepted.
In the event, Boris did however, despite all predictions manage to land an agreement over a new (or nearly new) WDA with the EU. In the process though he throws the DUP under a bus, in the sure and certain knowledge that they will kick up a fuss and even more than that, they will to punish him. Punish him they do by voting against him twice, helping to delay the Bill, hoping he will re-think things... well maybe!
The EU, not surprisingly are getting sick to the back teeth of the 'Grand Old Duke of York' act and whilst they will want to go the extra mile to avoid a 'no deal' they will want to see, in granting any extension, an actual end to it all. The problem is what is a further extension for?
A second referendum gets us nowhere unless millions of people change their mind (either way) which now seems completely unlikely and the opposition unite completely, which they have so far not been able to do. Even a GE, may solve nothing, if it is a hung parliament, or even more likely an unholy alliance between Tories and the Brexit party, might occur, to take up the deal; if the their numbers are big enough, they could take the 'No deal' option after all. In the extreme, a massive shift in the Lib-Dem vote might enable them to move towards a revoke solution, but its highly unlikely, since they would still face, Tory/Brexit Party and disillusioned Labour MPs and have no guarantee of uniting what's left of the opposition.
So you can understand why Macron is reputedly saying "enough is enough" (or the equivalent in French), advise the EU takes the hit, knowing or at least believing in will be worse for the UK and get on with the rest of the EU pressing business.
In the event, Boris did however, despite all predictions manage to land an agreement over a new (or nearly new) WDA with the EU. In the process though he throws the DUP under a bus, in the sure and certain knowledge that they will kick up a fuss and even more than that, they will to punish him. Punish him they do by voting against him twice, helping to delay the Bill, hoping he will re-think things... well maybe!
The EU, not surprisingly are getting sick to the back teeth of the 'Grand Old Duke of York' act and whilst they will want to go the extra mile to avoid a 'no deal' they will want to see, in granting any extension, an actual end to it all. The problem is what is a further extension for?
A second referendum gets us nowhere unless millions of people change their mind (either way) which now seems completely unlikely and the opposition unite completely, which they have so far not been able to do. Even a GE, may solve nothing, if it is a hung parliament, or even more likely an unholy alliance between Tories and the Brexit party, might occur, to take up the deal; if the their numbers are big enough, they could take the 'No deal' option after all. In the extreme, a massive shift in the Lib-Dem vote might enable them to move towards a revoke solution, but its highly unlikely, since they would still face, Tory/Brexit Party and disillusioned Labour MPs and have no guarantee of uniting what's left of the opposition.
So you can understand why Macron is reputedly saying "enough is enough" (or the equivalent in French), advise the EU takes the hit, knowing or at least believing in will be worse for the UK and get on with the rest of the EU pressing business.
Topcat9 from guardian comments:
Brexit is the dodgy surgeon who promises you a penis that’ll touch the ground, and delivers this by ... chopping of your legs.
Brexit is the dodgy surgeon who promises you a penis that’ll touch the ground, and delivers this by ... chopping of your legs.
How interesting that the Tories were goading Labour to call an election. Chicken was the rediculous description of G Cox.
And now that it is the other way round and Mr Bumble wants an election because parliament voted down the timescale for approval of his deal, they are sitting on their hands.
Who is chicken now...
And now that it is the other way round and Mr Bumble wants an election because parliament voted down the timescale for approval of his deal, they are sitting on their hands.
Who is chicken now...
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So remainers are clearly going to support Labour.
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Yup... Can see the libs getting more votes than them in the next election.
There is no way many leave voters want a corbyn type deal that would be even closer ties than Johnson's
And I think today they just shredded their last pretence at credibility with remainers
They can fish in the small pool of people who actually bother to vote and don't see brexit as the major political issue at the moment
Allow me to introduce Dominic Slack-Oxley. Never heard of him, I hear you cry. Oh but you have. You hear from him every time you pick up a newspaper or turn on the TV news. Slack-Oxley is everywhere. More than Facebook or Vladimir Putin, he is the most reliable source of fake news in Britain.
When you read about ‘Downing Street sources’ saying with absolute authority that Boris Johnson would never send a letter to Brussels to extend the Article 50 deadline, only for him to do just that, Slack-Oxley is to blame. When political correspondents boast of their exclusive access to ‘Number 10 sources,’ ‘Government sources’ and the ‘Prime Minister’s official spokesman,’ they mean Dominic Slack-Oxley is using them to push out the latest propaganda line.
Like many fantastical fictions, Dominic Slack-Oxley is not one man but many. A part of him is Robert Oxley, Boris Johnson’s press secretary, and a former spin-doctor for Vote Leave. Here is how he operates. On 24 August, the Observer revealed that Johnson was considering closing Parliament to avoid scrutiny of his Brexit plans. Oxley told political correspondents attending the G7 summit the story could not be more wrong. They dutifully reported a ‘government spokesman’ as saying the ‘claim that the government is considering proroguing Parliament in September in order to stop MPs debating Brexit is entirely false.’
I phoned those correspondents up and they told me that Oxley was the ‘government spokesman’ in question. I passed the information on to Observer readers, and it was not denied.
A few days later Jacob Rees-Mogg persuaded the Queen to suspend Parliament on Johnson’s behalf.
When you hear ‘the Prime Minister’s official spokesman’ promise that X will happen, only for Y to happen within hours of his announcement, you are usually hearing the voice of the unimprovably-named James Slack. Any sensible Conservative politician would run a mile from him. While he was working at the Daily Mail, he wrote the copy for its ‘Enemies of the People’ attack on the judiciary of November 2016, before being appointed as the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesperson by Theresa May. Nothing did more to radicalise liberal opinion and turn moderate conservatives against the Brexit right. As a result, most people on my side of the argument believe Brexit is no longer just a fight about membership of the European Union but a defence of the British constitution against its enemies. But then Johnson has to appeal to the portion of the electorate lost in raging conspiracy theories about the ‘Remainer elite’ and I suppose it isn’t a surprise that he didn’t sack Slack or cut out the Slack, but kept him in the job instead.
Behind them both lies Dominic Cummings. The Downing Street press operation fears him as a loose cannon but dares not contradict him. I suppose it is to the credit of Westminster journalists that they actually acknowledge Cummings exists. And for this chink of transparency – this one glimmer of light amid the murk – their readers and viewers are doubtlessly grateful. I doubt, however, if one reader or viewer in a 100,000 knows the names of Oxley or Slack.
And that’s just the way Dominic Slack-Oxley likes it. By extending the protections afforded to whistleblowers (whose jobs would be at risk if they were identified) to official government spokesmen who take no risks and whose actual job, paid for by the taxpayer, is to speak out for their employer, journalists create a propagandist’s paradise.
Paragraph 14 of the Special Advisers Code of Conduct says: ‘Special advisers must not take public part in political controversy… They must observe discretion’ and ‘express comment with moderation’. It accepts that special advisers charged with dealing with the press are allowed ‘a degree of political commitment’. However, ‘briefing on purely party political matters must be handled by the Party machine’.
It forgets to note that, as long as journalists are the eager conduits for unattributed spin, the code is unenforceable.
Here are two newspaper stories that make the point for me. The first appeared in the Mail on Sunday at the end of September. Number 10 ‘sources’ claimed Remain MPs were engaged in ‘foreign collusion’ with the French government and the EU in a ‘plot to allow John Bercow to send a “surrender letter” to Brussels asking for a delay to Brexit’. The second story should have appeared but didn’t. It reported that Oxley, Slack or Cummings or a Dominic Slack-Oxley combination of the above ‘claimed’ that a plot was afoot.
Between the two stories lies the difference between a free press and a courtier press. Openness allows politicians and their sidekicks to be held to account when the story is revealed to be ‘party political’ garbage. It was always likely that it would in this case. The Mail on Sunday piece even admitted that ‘No 10 declined to discuss what evidence they had’. And as a point of fact, Johnson forgot his promise to ‘die in a ditch’ rather than ask for an extension and sent the ‘surrender letter’ himself.
Reform should begin at the editorial level. Reporters would not dare stand up to Downing Street on their own, so editors, particularly editors at the TV stations, must take two steps. They must insist that when the Prime Minister’s official spokesman (or his counterparts in the opposition parties) gives a briefing he must be named – as he is in virtually every other modern democracy. Editors would then have to decide whether to blow the whistle when a ‘Downing Street source’ consistently fed them fake news, or quietly ban their reporters from speaking to him or her again.
You may retort that the pack of Lobby correspondents contains some of the best journalists in the country – and you would be right. You could say that Westminster journalism has always offered the protection of anonymity to ‘sources’ who don’t need it. And you would be right again. The trouble with the Johnson administration is that it has taken existing conventions and pushed them to the point where political correspondents are complicit in disinformation campaigns. In the end, their viewers and readers will lose trust in them. Indeed, many already are. As Robert Harris said recently ‘the quality of Brexit coverage would be vastly improved if Dominic Cummings was named as the source each time he briefs a journalist. In 40 years I’ve never seen so much hyperbolic garbage treated as serious news.’
The Lobby has allowed Dominic Slack-Oxley to become Westminster’s equivalent of Macavity the Mystery Cat, who can never be caught or held to account for his crimes. If T.S. Eliot were covering the Brexit debacle, he could update Cats and write:
‘Slack-Oxley, Slack-Oxley, there’s no one like Slack-Oxley
There never was a cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare:
At whatever time the deed took place – SLACK-OXLEY
WASN’T THERE!’
When you read about ‘Downing Street sources’ saying with absolute authority that Boris Johnson would never send a letter to Brussels to extend the Article 50 deadline, only for him to do just that, Slack-Oxley is to blame. When political correspondents boast of their exclusive access to ‘Number 10 sources,’ ‘Government sources’ and the ‘Prime Minister’s official spokesman,’ they mean Dominic Slack-Oxley is using them to push out the latest propaganda line.
Like many fantastical fictions, Dominic Slack-Oxley is not one man but many. A part of him is Robert Oxley, Boris Johnson’s press secretary, and a former spin-doctor for Vote Leave. Here is how he operates. On 24 August, the Observer revealed that Johnson was considering closing Parliament to avoid scrutiny of his Brexit plans. Oxley told political correspondents attending the G7 summit the story could not be more wrong. They dutifully reported a ‘government spokesman’ as saying the ‘claim that the government is considering proroguing Parliament in September in order to stop MPs debating Brexit is entirely false.’
I phoned those correspondents up and they told me that Oxley was the ‘government spokesman’ in question. I passed the information on to Observer readers, and it was not denied.
A few days later Jacob Rees-Mogg persuaded the Queen to suspend Parliament on Johnson’s behalf.
When you hear ‘the Prime Minister’s official spokesman’ promise that X will happen, only for Y to happen within hours of his announcement, you are usually hearing the voice of the unimprovably-named James Slack. Any sensible Conservative politician would run a mile from him. While he was working at the Daily Mail, he wrote the copy for its ‘Enemies of the People’ attack on the judiciary of November 2016, before being appointed as the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesperson by Theresa May. Nothing did more to radicalise liberal opinion and turn moderate conservatives against the Brexit right. As a result, most people on my side of the argument believe Brexit is no longer just a fight about membership of the European Union but a defence of the British constitution against its enemies. But then Johnson has to appeal to the portion of the electorate lost in raging conspiracy theories about the ‘Remainer elite’ and I suppose it isn’t a surprise that he didn’t sack Slack or cut out the Slack, but kept him in the job instead.
Behind them both lies Dominic Cummings. The Downing Street press operation fears him as a loose cannon but dares not contradict him. I suppose it is to the credit of Westminster journalists that they actually acknowledge Cummings exists. And for this chink of transparency – this one glimmer of light amid the murk – their readers and viewers are doubtlessly grateful. I doubt, however, if one reader or viewer in a 100,000 knows the names of Oxley or Slack.
And that’s just the way Dominic Slack-Oxley likes it. By extending the protections afforded to whistleblowers (whose jobs would be at risk if they were identified) to official government spokesmen who take no risks and whose actual job, paid for by the taxpayer, is to speak out for their employer, journalists create a propagandist’s paradise.
Paragraph 14 of the Special Advisers Code of Conduct says: ‘Special advisers must not take public part in political controversy… They must observe discretion’ and ‘express comment with moderation’. It accepts that special advisers charged with dealing with the press are allowed ‘a degree of political commitment’. However, ‘briefing on purely party political matters must be handled by the Party machine’.
It forgets to note that, as long as journalists are the eager conduits for unattributed spin, the code is unenforceable.
Here are two newspaper stories that make the point for me. The first appeared in the Mail on Sunday at the end of September. Number 10 ‘sources’ claimed Remain MPs were engaged in ‘foreign collusion’ with the French government and the EU in a ‘plot to allow John Bercow to send a “surrender letter” to Brussels asking for a delay to Brexit’. The second story should have appeared but didn’t. It reported that Oxley, Slack or Cummings or a Dominic Slack-Oxley combination of the above ‘claimed’ that a plot was afoot.
Between the two stories lies the difference between a free press and a courtier press. Openness allows politicians and their sidekicks to be held to account when the story is revealed to be ‘party political’ garbage. It was always likely that it would in this case. The Mail on Sunday piece even admitted that ‘No 10 declined to discuss what evidence they had’. And as a point of fact, Johnson forgot his promise to ‘die in a ditch’ rather than ask for an extension and sent the ‘surrender letter’ himself.
Reform should begin at the editorial level. Reporters would not dare stand up to Downing Street on their own, so editors, particularly editors at the TV stations, must take two steps. They must insist that when the Prime Minister’s official spokesman (or his counterparts in the opposition parties) gives a briefing he must be named – as he is in virtually every other modern democracy. Editors would then have to decide whether to blow the whistle when a ‘Downing Street source’ consistently fed them fake news, or quietly ban their reporters from speaking to him or her again.
You may retort that the pack of Lobby correspondents contains some of the best journalists in the country – and you would be right. You could say that Westminster journalism has always offered the protection of anonymity to ‘sources’ who don’t need it. And you would be right again. The trouble with the Johnson administration is that it has taken existing conventions and pushed them to the point where political correspondents are complicit in disinformation campaigns. In the end, their viewers and readers will lose trust in them. Indeed, many already are. As Robert Harris said recently ‘the quality of Brexit coverage would be vastly improved if Dominic Cummings was named as the source each time he briefs a journalist. In 40 years I’ve never seen so much hyperbolic garbage treated as serious news.’
The Lobby has allowed Dominic Slack-Oxley to become Westminster’s equivalent of Macavity the Mystery Cat, who can never be caught or held to account for his crimes. If T.S. Eliot were covering the Brexit debacle, he could update Cats and write:
‘Slack-Oxley, Slack-Oxley, there’s no one like Slack-Oxley
There never was a cat of such deceitfulness and suavity.
He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare:
At whatever time the deed took place – SLACK-OXLEY
WASN’T THERE!’
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I don't treaty many polls with much significance/credibility in the present atmosphere but this does at least suggest that Johnson's humiliating failure with his 'do or die' pledge to secure Brexit by the end of the month is going to harm him come an election.