Government Watch - 2

I think you should put that David Allen Green thread on the 'sovereignty' thread, dj. It just might bring home to some the logical consequences of May's power grab bill, in a more understandable way.

(Though I have a nasty feeling that it also might just start a completely irrelevant Corbyn hate-fest...)

Do you think I should say that it hasn't actually happened, except in reverse?

More of May believing she holds the Sovereignty here:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/11/tory-dup-1bn-payment-needs-parliaments-approval-after-gina-miller-challenge

Parliament will need to approve the release of £1bn in funding for Northern Ireland promised to the Democratic Unionist party by Theresa May to secure its support after the general election, the government has conceded.

Well, that's interesting, GG2.

Will the DUP be allowed to vote in support of the government when parliament's approval is sought?

Just been reading that. As the tories and the DUP will have to declare an interest, neither should vote on it!

If they are allowed to vote we will certainly see the consciences of the Conservative MPs. It will be a case of who dare's put democracy ahead of the party.

At the moment it is the fact that the DUP, with their confidence and supply agreement, that is giving the Tories their 'justification' for having control of the committees. It is the usual Tory inability to manage, just as they have shown an inability to manage the economy. They think if they keep telling us they know better than we do we will believe them - not likely in my case.

Nothing like a cynical government.

www.24housing.co.uk/news/government-buying-into-affordable-homes/

The only reason they are buying into the idea is because they need the votes of those under 40.
I don't think those people I know who are under 40 will change their votes just because of this. I think they are too intelligent to be taken in by it.

Fear that I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning to the realisation that I'm living in a country where democracy has died.

Not that far from the border, though. You could always go further north and breathe freer air.
Scotland could be one step closer to independence.

If it wasn't for my family being down south, I would.

My grandson wants us all to move to either Scotland or Denmark.
It used to be the US until trump happened.

My daughter still has her flat in Edinburgh ...

May has lost the plot. In question time she said Corbyn promised students he would deal with their debt and he has let them down. Is she unaware that her party is in government and his isn't? I think she is in a very dangerous state of mind if that is the case.

His reply: The Institute of Fiscal Studies now reports that English graduates have the highest student debts anywhere in the world. [The] poorest students now graduating with an average debt of £57,000. Who is responsible but her party and the Liberal Democrats for that situation?

Mr Speaker, we're in the middle of an economic slow-down. The OBR says there is a growing risk of recession under her watch. Growth is slowing, productivity worsening, wages falling, jobs becoming more insecure, personal debt increasing, savings falling and homelessness rising all over the country. And it's forecast, by the end of this parliament five million children in this country, the fifth richest country in the world, will be living in poverty. Isn't it true that not only is our economy at breaking point but for many people it's already broken as they face up to the poverty imposed by this government.

GG I thought TM was very peculiar in how she behaved in the Commons today. Most of thos things she said about Corbyn he was in position to do anything about. I was surprised he did not reply to her in that vein and decided I was losing the plot! I was in and out of the room as getting lunch at the same time!

She couldn't answer any of the questions. The SNP question was right, that she was supposed to answer questions, otherwise what was the point of PMQ.

Just come across this article from of all places Vanity Fair -

www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/09/theresa-may-takes-her-darkest-most-desperate-turn-yet

Good heavens, Welshwife.
This from the Hansard Society, too.

"The normally rather sober Hansard Society, an organization dedicated to promoting and strengthening democracy, has called the “broad scope of the powers in the Bill, the inadequate constraints placed on them, and the shortcoming in the proposed parliamentary control of them” a “toxic mix” that will undermine Parliament’s ability to hold May to account or to meliorate the most damaging policies arising from Brexit."

Obviously this hadn't been read before the vote.

Reading Stephen Bush in The New Statesman:

The 'magic money tree', once derided, is now flourishing, with no one at the to of the government able to exert any control over whether it bears fruit. "The government is like a doughnut. It has no centre" is how one senior Conservative put it".

There are people in this country who still keep telling us that the economy is only safe in Conservative hands. This was never true but is even less so now. The Brexiteers continue to drive toward the edge while the question of whether we will have another economic recession by 2020 is asked more and more frequently - and nobody is really in charge of the government.

Without fail we will get the repeat of 'Labour always taxes and spends' comments. If you have a man who is beaten and starved it will cost money to get him fit an well. Exactly the same will happen when the Conservatives finally cannot hide from the fact that this is what they have done to the country. I have no doubt they will then run and hide just as Cameron did, leaving others to clear up the mess.

Can't believe (well, I suppose I can) that, with all the mess we're in, Boris et all are happily embroiled in leadership power struggles.

Some Gransnetters have amused themselves greatly by creating a scenario in which the UK will become some sort of goosestepping totalitarian state if Labour gets into power. However, it could be argued that such dystopian nightmares are not exclusive to the left and, at the present time, are more likely to occur under the prime ministership of Theresa May.

For those who prefer not to read links, this is an extract from the above Vanity Fair article by Henry Porter (and he is not the only person expressing concerns about what is happening):

"Last Monday, the House of Commons voted in the early stages of the European Union Withdrawal Bill to give the government sweeping powers to make laws without parliamentary scrutiny. These powers are named after Henry VIII, England’s most authoritarian monarch, but they in fact bear a greater resemblance to Hitler’s Enabling Act of 1933, which allowed the Fuhrer to bypass the Reichstag and govern by proclamation.

"Allusions to Nazi Germany are generally overwrought, but this is no exaggeration: Prime Minister Theresa May does not have an absolute majority in the British Parliament, just as Hitler didn’t in the Reichstag in 1933, which is why she has been forced to resort to his strategy. If the withdrawal bill is passed as it stands, May will be able to make laws by decree and reverse and adapt primary legislation without consulting Parliament. It is the greatest attack on the British constitution in at least a century. "





now more likely to occur under the present government.

Meanwhile , our esteemed foreign secretary continues to undermine his own government. Why doesn't TM give him the boot?

I started a separate thread to focus on this very point, Eloethan, Sovereignty and 'bring back control. Most people seem unaware of the implications and Brexiters are totally unconcerned. They care far more about destroying our links with the overhyped EU monster than they do about the destruction of British democracy and the sovereignty of parliament.

Of course the Brexiters are unconcerned Maizie. They voted didn't they? The did their emoting so are you really asking them to understand politics and economics too.

All you can really get from them is 'I want my country back' which seems to have little to do with parliamentary sovereignty but much to do with wanting to feel superior as they believe people in this country once did.

It's about how superior they felt as small children, believing we were superior to the continent because 'we had won the war' - they played at this part of history as children -and now feel inferior when they see how well those who 'lost' have done.

It's about how they or their parents felt superior to the rest of the world because we still had an empire and how they now feel inferior even seeing those people making their countries the ones who will be leading the way in the future.

It about how they could feel superior to their parents because they had a better education and better jobs but now decry the increasing education for the current generation because it doesn't set them up (so they say) for mental arithmetic and going into industries that no longer exist.

Oh and it's about how was clever it was to feel superior toward people of another race because we had stolen the riches of their countries but what have we now? These countries are all being talked about as if they were the future! and, for heavens sake, they are even turning the tables and coming here to work - not to rape countries as we did - but still ...

... and if all else failed then at least in those days the men (and a lot of the loud voices I hear are men) could feel superior to their wives and children either by oh so politely infantilising them and taking away their power as their own or by actually beating them to keep them in their place. Now they dare to have their own and a growingly equal (or possibly better!) place and what they see they want from the men in their lives has changed.

There are reasons I hear for challenging what the EU has become. A few carefully explain something that sounds as if it is thinking not emotion - the rest will call those who don't agree with them 'unpatriotic' but the rest are simply emoting their inferiority complex and we are allowing this to change ours and our children's futures.

'I want my country back' would be more believable if they were challenging May's power grab but they seem totally at ease with that. Their vote had so little to do with sovereignty but much to do with their own feeling of age and inferiority.

For anyone who wants to have a good laugh at the Tories.

evolvepolitics.com/the-tories-just-launched-an-utterly-incredible-tirade-against-themselves-for-being-too-socialist/