Government Watch - 2

Further to the AFD

Dunt argues that when Cameron invited them to become part of the Conservative MEP parliamentary group he gave them a legitimacy that they had not previously had and they were able to build from that to get 13% of the vote in Germany.

Thanks Cameron yet another of your misguided decisions. Is there anything you did that we can look back on and say that was good?

theconversation.com/theresa-may-in-florence-little-room-and-no-view-84534

Caroline Lucas's thoughts on the speech.

After days of speculation Theresa May’s speech was extremely underwhelming. Though she has finally started to face the fact the Britain will need to contribute to EU bill in order to unlock a decent trade deal, she still hasn’t been honest about how much we’ll need to pay. She should be less afraid of the hardliners in her own cabinet, and more truthful to the British people.

When it comes to the transition period it is welcome news the Prime Minister finally has recognised this will be needed. But a cliff edge doesn’t become less treacherous because it’s two years away in the future.

Continued membership of the single market and freedom of movement will be essential pillars of a successful transition and it’s good to see the Government acknowledge this – but the Prime Minister should have laid down a real plan for the long term protection of the rights of EU citizens in Britain, instead of simply offering warm words.

The Prime Minister also, spectacularly, failed to give any more details about the kind of Brexit she’s leading us towards. The noises from some in the cabinet suggest we’ll be cast out into the Atlantic begging Trump for a trade deal, while more moderate ministers reject this economic catastrophe.

Theresa May is, in theory at least, this country’s leader – yet like so many Tory Prime Ministers before her she’s hamstrung by a group of ministers with ambitions, all of whom put furthering their views on Europe above the national interest, while at least one seems far more intent on his own prime ministerial aspirations than with standing up for what’s best for Britain.

This excuse for a government would find it very difficult to persuade many people that the economy is safest in their hands.

www.fareshare.org.uk/fareshare-welcomes-tescos-partnerships-with-suppliers-to-tackle-food-waste/

One good thing to happen today. For those who have to use fareshare. It's getting Tesco to look at food waste.

My daughters in law hope that the government will pay for them to be sent back home, as they both want to visit their parents.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/21/uk-banks-to-check-70m-bank-accounts-in-search-for-illegal-immigrants

Lots of mistakes are expected to be made.

Checking immigration status.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/sep/22/home-office-errors-already-leading-to-people-being-denied-bank-accounts

Lots of immigrants are denied bank accounts because of mistakes being made by the home office.

I trust the government isn't supplying the banks with information!!

Data protection and all that. I am sure May/ Rudd would not want to break the law.

What are they being checked against?

Just reading about the 70 million bank accounts to be investigated.

Truly this is getting more like a fascist state by the day.

I am not at all clear how this investigation is going to tell the fascists anything.

I do not recall giving my nationality when I opened my accounts.

If only, Maizie.

If nobody turns up again, will it be very short --I resign.

I wish!

The speech May is unlikely to make tomorrow in Florence:

amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/21/theresa-may-brexit-florence-speech

He did start by saying she was weak. The 'limping in a straight line' seemed to be the best he could say about her.

Anyone watch her speech in US? No one else did. The room was practically empty.

Irrelevant to all is Maybot

Just heard Martin Amis describe May as 'limping in a straight line'.

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/

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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