BBsq69

OK I am going to have to assume you're trolling. Or you don't understand English.

Read the European Political thread.

Original post

That was mainly process - dipped very briefly into populism - but that was a good post.

I refer the honourable gentleman to my reply above. The mods did not start the thread, I did. There is another thread to discuss this.

Clearly I do because you cannot get the message how often I repeat it which I have done several times. I started this thread and was explicit about it what it was for Perhaps you believe threads spring out of nowhere. There is a European Political Thread which people seem unable to see. I have deliberately tried to avoid the politics. It is not my fault you can't understand that. Please start a thread so I can corrupt that.

So last night was probably uniquely British. It is no good people being surprised that a parliament designed to be confrontational is confrontational. One thing I do not understand and this goes on both sides that when a question is asked the PM or the Leader of the Opposition can simply fail to the answer. It should be up to The Speaker but I guess that is not parliamenentary procedure for some reason. How then can there be scrutiny. FOUR times last night Boris was asked the same question. Each time it was asked with another question which enabled him to answer another part and give the same answer as Gove had earlier when being asked when the subtitle (or title) of Yellowhammer had been changed and who authorised it which was that the facts were base but the scenario was not, but that was not the question. It is a weakness not just of the UK's democracy but I am certain of other ones as well. In the US you can plead the 5th which is at least understandable. If you give a speech that will have an impact you MUST use emotive language. But now parliament is televised then you can expect politicians to be addressing people outside the house which really they should not be doing because a debate is taking place (well not last night) and the only people who can vote are already supposed to be listening to it - MPs are the only constituents here. On another note it is depressing to see the same group of probably less than 50 of the 650 (-Sinn Fein and The Speaker) MPs - far too many as everyone knows - speaking durin these debates. Those who put questions to Gove and the Attorney General were very much the same as those asking Johnson once the 4 (or 5) main party leaders had had their turn. Also, and I might be wrong about this, but the Tory Rebels seem to be sitting on the Government side whereas the DUP are sitting opposite the PM which seems bizarre. The Speaker goes from side to side so this ends up with 3 pro-PM and then 3 anti-PM questions.

THIS THREAD WAS ABOUT PROCESS I HAVE MADE THIS CLEAR ON A NUMBER OF OCCASIONS THERE IS A EUROPEAN POLITICAL THREAD TO ARGUE ON OR START YOUR OWN!

Sounds like a challenge but on the L&P thread I did used to be the biggest picture poster sometimes posting 100 pictures at a time. Today's posters are small fry. Meanwhile: THANK THE GODDESS!

Tempted as I am to launch my enormous collection of The Goddess on this thread. I would be using time I could spend watching the RLC deity as she currently is.

Boris refuses to deny he had an affair with an American he gave more than a 100K of UK public money to. Of course it is not news that Boris has had an affair (let's face it, people say he's not even sure how many children he actually has) but this is corruption if true which as he won't deny it... but then with Grant Shapps (if indeed that is his real name because we know he goes by others) and the Pritti Patel in his cabinet, then maybe that's the norm.

The Tory Party has lurched to the right. It is a process that started in the early 2000s, checked by Cameron who with Osborne was still financially right wing, but his been gathering apace as alarming as the Labour Party's shift to the left. This leaves are massive gaping hole for the Liberal Party to fill. Thanks to Brexit they are starting to pick up the left wing of the Tory Party and the right wing of the Labour Party. However I do not agree with their policy of ignoring the referendum. I am not even sure it is legitimate to have another referendum yet. It delegitimises referenda in the general. The SNP clearly have absolute ZERO respect for the result of their own referendum which was run entirely on their times and they still lost by a convincing margin. My view is very clear that referenda should require a much high bar, either 50% of the electorate, or 60+% of the vote simply because of the phasic nature of binary options. If you held an EU referendum pre 2008 it would have convincingly lost and if you held one now the result would be probably overturned - the only reason it mightn't would be people who voted Remain yet respect the Leave victory. Similarly the SNP are absolutely desperate to hold a referendum now because of the political turmoil at Westminster despite saying at the time there wouldn't be another one for a generation which I took as 30 years, most Scots took as 25, the extremists took as 15 and Sturgeon thinks of as 5. The point is they chose to hold a referendum with YES on the ballot paper (psychologically that is worth about 2%) and Cameron didn't stop them and when they were hosting The Commonwealth Games, the oil price was high and of course on the 600th anniversary of Bannockburn which according to Scots is the greatest victory in the history of the world although Scots were on both sides and very few English were fighting at all ... but their propaganda story means far more to them then any facts. Despite all that they lost by 10%. Holding a repeat referendum on the EU would in certain eyes legitimise calls for another one. So back to the Liberals who would simply remain in the EU. A policy (their previous one) of holding another referendum would not actually make LEAVERS do everyting to defeat but simply tear up Article 50 (the notice that the UK is leaving the EU) would focus the LEAVERS minds on doing everything to stop the Liberals so I really think this policy is self-destructive. I can foresee in constituencies which are Tory/Liberal marginal, all of the Leave vote going to the Tories. Similarly in Labour/Liberal marginals, while they won't be a deal Brexit Party supporters and even Tories, who would previously have voted tactically for the Liberals, may well now vote Labour ... unless Corbyn comes off the fence. Corbyn is way more committed ideologically to leaving the EU than Boris but his party isn't and so he does everything he can to prevent his party backing any kind of Remain. I thin k the Labour Party should have backed May's deal and the only reason they didn't is because Corbyn's focus was not the good of the country but his idea that somehow he will win an election out of the chaos, entirely failing to recognise his own party are seen as part of that chaos. However if the Tories did not have such a fanatical right wing they would have left on March 29th anyway. It is not up to the Opposition to help the Government win votes, that is the Government's job. The plain truth is that reason we are in this mess is due to the self interest and party politics of almost every single MP.

In the UK we have parliamentary democracy and cabinet government. In theory the PM should not have much power. Now a strong personality like Thatcher (and crucially the fact she was a woman which in all honesty meant some of the men did not know how to deal with her) can make it look they have power but thinking back on it she did respect parliament. The first one who didn't was that other strong leader, Blair, who decided that PM's Question Time would be at his convenience and because he felt he had a mandate from the country he didn't have much time for his cabinet except Labour had another powerful figure to counteract him in Brown but again this is not how British democracy has to work. Brown having deferred to and then waited impatiently for Blair to decide he had enough timed his accession very badly. Had he gone straight away to the people he would probably have come back with a majority but unfortunately he was in charge when the financial collapse happened. He then seemed to go go into a sulk because he knew he could not do all the things he had longed to do. It must have been a tremendous disappointment to him but this is what happens if you don't regulate the banks properly and he was responsible for that. OT Labour were too slow to cut - almost paralysed - which led to their ultimate downfall. It was nothing to do with Labour's spending in 2008 but a lot to do with their spending in 2010 and the fact that taxes since the 90s had been too low (direct taxes anyway) which still hasn't really been addressed. Cameron took over a very different situation and we were largely back to cabinet government and parliamentary accountability. Then he made a series of bad mistakes and won the election only because the Labour Party have made poor choices in their leadership allowing the unions to gain more power despite their vastly diminished numbers. May took over and appeared to have the respect of absolutely nobody but again she had respect for the institutions. Now we have Boris who thinks he's the fucking president and wants to speak directly to the people but as the Scottish lawyer pointed out to the Supreme Court, he was only personally elected by his contingency representing about 100,000 people. He governs by the will of parliament so appealing all the time to the public (and TBH 35% of public which is what he thinks he needs to retain power) and treating parliament as his enemy and ignoring almost all his cabinet when he makes decisions is fundamentally against British democracy. In the US and France it may be legitimate to think you are in charge (although the US constitution is maybe overly good at putting checks and balances on Presidents) but in the UK he cannot act the way he has been doing.

Well this is the problem. With Boris you cannot tell what will happen. Boris possesses no beliefs so is only driven by his own ambition and he demonstrated this while at Oxford when he would flip to whatever view was the most popular or would put him in the best position. For example when May said she would stand down within weeks if she won the vote on her deal, Boris having declared he would do whatever the DUP was happy with, immediately (and absolutely immediately) switched to supporting her deal followed by the bulk of the ERG (European Research Group who wanted the most complete break possible) who worked out they could take control of the process. Boris knew the power was shifting to the right so he decided that in order to capitalise on that he would support the Leave campaign - and given his talent for publicity he rather than Farage or genuine Eurosceptic (but hitherto liberal) Gove became the face of the campaign. My personal feeling is Boris will get a deal because now he has to. Without the "No Deal" option which many on the right favour even though it wasn't really mentioned during the referendum he cannot just let "No Deal" happen - well he can but not in any way that would not lead him into difficulty - which may well have been his plan.And remember this is not because he believes in democracy but because he feels it is a position he can defend to the people who might want to support him. I often criticise politicians who are weighed down by dogma just because they cannot be flexible but someone who does not care about any ideals can be dangerous. As for what is going in the Supreme Court - an idea Blair got from the US although it is not political, at least in theory - I don't see it as having any big effect on Brexit. All the proroguing (suspension) of parliament meant was that those against "No Deal" had to act very quickly and they did so the effect should not be that much. It is designed mainly to embarrass Boris but I think that might be impossible anyway. Boris has now put his ( almost certainly not his) ideas to the EU but, even if he turns up with something concrete, the Commons may still reject any deal he does although my feeling is they won't but we'll see.

Singing and looking unbelievably happy. She just gives me that warm feeling that no-one else can.

The Goddess looking so sexy just looking at her phone. Those that don't recognise how special she is are missing out.

Anything that shows off her arse is more than welcome. Personally I love girls dancing and exercising, particularly unclothed. I might even prefer that to bating.

But again that response is political. There is another thread

Actually Rob and you will probably agree with me on this, it was a reference to what a ****ing cock-up our politicians have made of the whole situation. Whatever side anyone is on, we can all agree the process has been a shambles.

This is the place to discuss the political view of Brexit unless you want me to start a new thread? Boris has been lying to The Queen just like May did before about the support she had from the DUP although you could argue she was being misleading and I suppose say the same about Boris. To suspend parliament days before possibly the most crucial decisions facing the UK in its history is not normal and everyone knows that. If Boris thinks he can lie to the Head of State or indeed MPs like he lies to the public - and there was a court case about that but it was thrown out as I guess where do you stop with politicians lying to the public although personally I would like to see politicians officially called out for lying and in fact Boris has already had that happen to him to no consequence so he repeated the lie - he is deluded. Will Boris get his way? Possibly, because the opposition parties were too stupid to coalesce around an alternative which they could have got through parliament and it is a bit late now. There should, as one of May's whips said, been all party talks 2 years ago after May fucked up an election she called - actually despite running the worst campaign in history (and many senior Tories have admitted that) she won 43% (I think) of the vote which under normal circumstances would have done the trick but then the Lib Dems were still in recovery so Labour hoovered up the vote and for a few minutes May even made Corbyn look like the statesmen he obviously isn't. The opposition should have got behind the softer Chequers deal, which the EU may not have gone for although they would have looked like the bad guys, and then, when even William Rees Mogg and Boris voted for it, the May deal. It is not a great deal but still a compromise the Labour Party should have been able to stomach.

No Brexit is political but I explicitly said this thread is about process or questions about process. You have seen what becomes of political threads and I have said before the correct place for that is elsewhere (European Politics) otherwise this becomes like a Trump thread.

I must confess I did used to watch our version just to see if I could second guess the banker. It wasn't that hard and he mostly got away with murder possibly because the contestants couldn't do the Maths. One thing is for sure if you asked me who would be the worst celebrity to be in charge of Brexit, Noel Edmonds would be high on the list.

This isn't a political forum that's European Politics. It was supposed to be more an explanation of what's going on.

Well Micheal Dobbs who wrote "House of Cards" all those years ago is in The House of Lords and may possibly even believe in No Deal. I just wonder if Boris makes use of his Machiavellian touch. Never watched the American version but do remember Ian Richardson's brilliant performance in the lead role of the original British version. But really Armando Iannucci ("The Day Today"(*), "The Death of Stalin", "The Thick of It" -> "Veep") could not have made this up. * But surprisingly not "Brass Eye" which Chris Morris wrote with the "Father Ted" team - now that I didn't know.

Definitely LOL