How did we ever get to have such an incompetent government?

No untrue aspertions- just responding re your post on promises on manifesto.

Dress it up whatever way you like, this government will go down in history as incompetent - that isn’t a party political statement just a reflection of poor and weak leadership, misguided decision making and failure to listen to the people who voted for them.The same has applied to other governments of all persuasions going back centuries, but this one will be in the all time bottom 5.

biba70 I have never said that I agree/approve of the bill that has now been thrown out of the H of Ls twice.

I suggest you reread my posts before casting untrue assertions.

GrannyGravy13

I have yet to see any political party make good on all its manifesto promises, this one has had the added crisis of a world pandemic.

As a Conservative I am not 100% happy with some of their decisions/actions and there is definitely room for improvement in the coming months/years.

This was not about 'manifesto promises' - but about the basis for a massively important Referendum. As Sir John says, it was sold as a 'win win' - partly based on pure lies, and later, other promises reneged on. Including an International Agreement that throws the reputation of Great Britain in the gutter. The whole world sees it, the EU sees it, Biden sees it - even if you refused to.

GrannyGravy13

Tony Blair was elected with 35.2% of the vote, the smallest percentage ever and had a majority government.

Where you all up in arms about the unfairness of that result?

I think not!

It's difficult to tell who was up in arms when Blair won - very little social media on the internet then. However, I can assure you that many people, despite being LP supporters would have preferred a different system of voting. When Thatcher won in 1979 the Tories had 43.9% of the vote and the combined Labour and Liberal percentage was 50.7%.

FPTP is not a good way of choosing a government but nor was the Alternative Vote system - the subject of a referendum in 2011.

growstuff I think that there will be a reshuffle once the Covid Vaccine roll out is underway, and the WA transition period ends (hopefully with a deal).

GrannyGravy13

I have yet to see any political party make good on all its manifesto promises, this one has had the added crisis of a world pandemic.

As a Conservative I am not 100% happy with some of their decisions/actions and there is definitely room for improvement in the coming months/years.

You're not the first Conservative I know who has made similar comments GrannyGravy. I'm sure there are some competent Conservatives around (well, I expect there are ). How did we end up with this lot? Do you think in the next reshuffle, some slightly less compliant MPs might be brought in?

Jaberwok

If the coastal states insist on the same unfettered access to our fishing grounds as they had pre brexit, then a deal will clearly be unobtainable. We have offered a three year period of adjustment, which is certainly more than we were offered!!! We are asking for the same deal as the EU and now we have with Norway, but to no avail! It would appear for the EU that it is all or nothing! The EU have broken the WA by not negotiating in a fair and equitable way particularly over fishing and clearly have no intentions of so doing!!

The EU hold all the cards.

Always have done, always will do.

They have taken control.

Little countries have to put up and shut up if they want to trade with a bigger economy.

It is called capitalism and apparently keeps the world spinning.

I have yet to see any political party make good on all its manifesto promises, this one has had the added crisis of a world pandemic.

As a Conservative I am not 100% happy with some of their decisions/actions and there is definitely room for improvement in the coming months/years.

Brexit was sold to the nation as a win-win situation. It is not. We were promised we would stay in the Single Market. We have not. We were told trade with the EU would be frictionless. It will not be. We were promised we would save billions in payments to the European Union: a bus was driven around the country telling us so. Not so: Brexit is costing billions – not saving them.

Sir John Major

Sara70 ''Saying that people were gullible at the last election in believing all that the Tory party put out is insulting to many millions who vote in this country.''

what Sir John, see above at 10.24.59 - is saying, is not that people were gullible, but that they were misled and lied to, and made promises that are now not being fulfilled, and worse, deliberately ignored and over-turned. Very different angle.

So how did we get such an incompetent government?

If the coastal states insist on the same unfettered access to our fishing grounds as they had pre brexit, then a deal will clearly be unobtainable. We have offered a three year period of adjustment, which is certainly more than we were offered!!! We are asking for the same deal as the EU and now we have with Norway, but to no avail! It would appear for the EU that it is all or nothing! The EU have broken the WA by not negotiating in a fair and equitable way particularly over fishing and clearly have no intentions of so doing!!

Ilovecheese

I saw on the news that the Government wish to reinstate the clauses in the bill that mean we will be breaking international law because of a promise they made in their manifesto. I don't know what they are referring to in their manifesto. Can anyone explain?

That isn’t true, there was nothing in their manifesto that said that they would be prepared to break the GFA or even international law

Tony Blair was elected with 35.2% of the vote, the smallest percentage ever and had a majority government.

Where you all up in arms about the unfairness of that result?

I think not!

I saw on the news that the Government wish to reinstate the clauses in the bill that mean we will be breaking international law because of a promise they made in their manifesto. I don't know what they are referring to in their manifesto. Can anyone explain?

Rosalyn69

I believe the majority of people voted for them.

No, the majority of those who voted voted against them.

The sham democracy in the UK is shameful.

The UK has said it is hopeful of securing a comprehensive deal modelled on the EU's arrangement with Canada, but Sir John said it was "disingenuous" of ministers to pretend they were not seeking far deeper commitments in key areas, such as energy and aviation.

He said he feared, as a result, the process would end up either with no deal or a "flimsy and bare-bones" agreement that created new barriers to trade and would be a "wretched betrayal" of the promises made to British voters during the 2016 referendum.

"These costs and complexities are the certain legacy of Brexit," he said. "This is as a result of our negotiating failure - and it is a failure.

"Because of our bombast, our blustering, our threats and our inflexibility - our trade will be less profitable, our Treasury poorer, our jobs fewer, and our future less prosperous."

He added: "It now seems that on 1 January next year, Brexit may be even more brutal than anyone expected."

Sir John, from BBC News.

10s of 1000s of those who voted for Brexit were lied to, betrayed in a massive way. There are some, a small proportion, some right here on GN- who would have voted for it whatever the consequences, whatever the cost, whatever the damage. But I estimate it to be currently a very small minority. Even Rees Mogg admitted it would never ever pass today, now people know, that all the promises listed above by Sir John, were either pure lies, or Johnson and co have changed things since. They would have never voted for a Withdrawal Agreement signed with fingers crossed behind the back and every intention to break International Law. Johnson just pretended to sign the WA on agreed basic terms for the negotiations- and has now totally scuppered our chances of a fair deal, and ruined the reputation of the UK for generations to come. Few would vote for that NOW- knowing what they do.

Yes, I know there is a handful here on GN who would. It surely says a lot about their principles and ... other stuff.

The Lords are not trying to reverse Brexit. They are, very rightly, deeply concerned that the UK government is intending to break international law, contrary to the principles of the Rule of Law. By doing so the government would put us outside the pale of civilised law abiding nations. That people don't care that we are putting ourselves on the level of a banana republic is appalling. I am angry that my country has descended to this level.

Insulting, ill informed rants about 'elderly, unelected self serving pompous, sanctimonious remainers' are contemptible.

I notice deafening silence on the matter of the corruption inherent in £billions of our money being poured into the hands of government cronies and tory party donors and the fact that top level appointments are being handed out to the same group of people with no competition and no consideration of their fitness for the posts.

It's extraordinary what the Brexit cultists are willing to turn a blind eye to.

Rosalyn69

I believe the majority of people voted for them.

No, they didn't though, 44% of the people who turned out voted for them. Not a majority.

I think the Cabinet were picked in the main, not on ability , but on yes man ship. They were picked as they were strong Brexiteers, never mind most of them are useless.

I believe the majority of people voted for them.

I can’t say I’m happy with every individual member of our government and some do let us down in my opinion. However I am happy to have a Tory government and look forward to the vaccine stamping out Covid so that this government can put their plans in to action to drive forward the levelling up of our independent country.
They should be given a chance to prove themselves outside the confines of Covid.
The electorate voted for Brexit over and over, most conclusively in December 2019.
We live in a democracy so it is incumbent upon all of us to accept the will of the people, by all means encourage the opposition to hold the government to account where it is deemed to be failing but to try to reverse the democratic decision of the people at every turn is not only arrogant but also ignorant.

I totally agree with jaberwoks posts in this thread. Saying that people were gullible at the last election in believing all that the Tory party put out is insulting to many millions who vote in this country. The Labour Party lost the last election partly due to the continuous squabbling and infighting in the party, but mainly due to the fact that very many who for so many years have been the Labour Parties core supporters deserted the party as many within Labour no longer spoke for them and therefore the Party was seen as irrelevant in those core supporters lives.

Many people now find themselves employed on casual zero hours contracts or Gig economy terms with no chance of owning their own home or even having secure rent of a house or flat. Outside of Corbyn who in the Labour party spoke out at the last election for those people, the answer no one. Instead, chattering, class dinner party, Claret drinking so called socialists talked of nothing else but overturning the Brexit vote that many of Labours core supporters had voted in favour of.

At the "Fulfilment Centre," I have just returned home from working at, over one thousand four hundred people are being employed there this week and there are now hundreds of such centres throughout Britain. Many of those workers are employed on casual zero hours contracts and therefore have to wait for their phones to ring each day to see if there will be any work for them that day or night and how many hours they will get. The system strongly resembles the dock workers of the early twentieth century who had to stand and wait to be picked out by the gangmasters before getting any work, or very often finding there was none at all.

Until the Labour Party reconnects with such working people and speaks up strongly for them they will never be elected to government, for in that, to such people the Labour party will remain a total irrelevance in their lives.

Jaberwok was incorrect in saying it is the left in Britain that has got it very wrong. It is not the genuine left who are the chattering class socialist that has brought the Labour Party so far from its roots and core support. The true left remains alive active within the trade unions, and that has to be where a true party for working people has to be rebuilt from.

Boris Johnson’s plan to break international law over Brexit has been overwhelmingly rejected by the House of Lords.

Peers voted by 433 to 165 to strip out clauses in the Internal Market Bill which would allow the UK to renege on its obligations in the withdrawal agreement signed with the EU.

The defeat, one of the largest of any government in the Lords since hereditary peers were slimmed down in the 1990s, means that Johnson will have to weigh up whether to reinsert the clause in the House of Commons next month.

In another overwhelming show of strength, the Lords also voted by 407 to 148 to remove any breach of the northern Ireland protocol in the EU withdrawal treaty.