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An endless stream of culture war crap from the right wing press this week. What do they want us to ignore? 🤔

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1 hour ago, Herman said:

An endless stream of culture war crap from the right wing press this week. What do they want us to ignore? 🤔

a) Rapidly rising virus cases meaning that the unlock due on the 21st won't happen.

b) Johnson & Sunak being spanked into line by Biden ready for the G7.

c) That even Johnson's own backbenchers will no longer back his stupidty and lies in cutting the foreign aid budget, and I think actually more generally than that Johnson's increasingly authoritarian approach of continually avoiding any scrutiny by Parliament - as Surfer pointed out recently it turns out that for Brexiteers even the holy mantra of 'taking back control' turns out to be something completely different to what they were promised and expected - not that any of that should be taken as an expression of sympathy for the idiots who believed their own and other Brexiteer's lies.

But you are right that the RWNJ press are having to work overtime at the moment to deflect and distrsct from the ongoing sh*tsh*w that Johnson's government are delivering 🤣

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This morning Gavin Barwell, who as Theresa May’s chief of staff was fully involved in the Brexit talks until the summer of 2019, said it was just not plausible for Boris Johnson to claim that he did not know what he was signing up to. Barwell told the Today programme:

I  don't think the EU is ever going to think that is credible. The EU negotiating team have obviously worked very closely with the British negotiating team under both governments. They know the quality of the civil servants involved in that work, and they know that British ministers would have been have been advised in detail on the implications of what they were signing up to.

So I don’t think anyone who’s involved in the process is going to find it credible that the government signed up to something and didn’t understand what the consequences of that were.

Asked if he thought that the government was now only pretending that it did not realise how damaging the protocol would be when it signed it in 2019, Barwell said:

It’s difficult to conceive of any other explanation. When I was working with Theresa [May], Boris Johnson was foreign secretary for a period of that time. He perfectly well understood what the previous iteration of the protocol meant in terms of regulatory checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

When the deal was published and the government brought its legislation forward, the explanatory memorandum for the bill, which explained what the bill meant, was very clear  ww what the consequences would be.

And  think he and David Frost are intelligent people. I find it inconceivable that they didn’t understand what they were signing up to. They would have been advised very clearly by the civil service about that.

And I think it’s also important to consider the political context at the time. When Boris took over, he initially tried to prorogue parliament and leave without a deal. He wasn’t able to do that. So he then decided that he wanted to call an election to strengthen his position and it was clearly easier to fight that an election within an “oven-ready” Brexit deal.

So I think the calculation was sign up to whatever is on offer, and then see if we can deal with anything we don’t like down the line. I think the EU have come to the same conclusion as me and that’s why they’re taking the approach that they are now.

Edited by PurpleCanary
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1 hour ago, PurpleCanary said:

This morning Gavin Barwell, who as Theresa May’s chief of staff was fully involved in the Brexit talks until the summer of 2019, said it was just not plausible for Boris Johnson to claim that he did not know what he was signing up to. Barwell told the Today programme:

I  don't think the EU is ever going to think that is credible. The EU negotiating team have obviously worked very closely with the British negotiating team under both governments. They know the quality of the civil servants involved in that work, and they know that British ministers would have been have been advised in detail on the implications of what they were signing up to.

So I don’t think anyone who’s involved in the process is going to find it credible that the government signed up to something and didn’t understand what the consequences of that were.

Asked if he thought that the government was now only pretending that it did not realise how damaging the protocol would be when it signed it in 2019, Barwell said:

It’s difficult to conceive of any other explanation. When I was working with Theresa [May], Boris Johnson was foreign secretary for a period of that time. He perfectly well understood what the previous iteration of the protocol meant in terms of regulatory checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

When the deal was published and the government brought its legislation forward, the explanatory memorandum for the bill, which explained what the bill meant, was very clear  ww what the consequences would be.

And  think he and David Frost are intelligent people. I find it inconceivable that they didn’t understand what they were signing up to. They would have been advised very clearly by the civil service about that.

And I think it’s also important to consider the political context at the time. When Boris took over, he initially tried to prorogue parliament and leave without a deal. He wasn’t able to do that. So he then decided that he wanted to call an election to strengthen his position and it was clearly easier to fight that an election within an “oven-ready” Brexit deal.

So I think the calculation was sign up to whatever is on offer, and then see if we can deal with anything we don’t like down the line. I think the EU have come to the same conclusion as me and that’s why they’re taking the approach that they are now.

Arlene Foster said exactly the same, she even advised the outcome but was ignored.

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3 hours ago, Creative Midfielder said:

a) Rapidly rising virus cases meaning that the unlock due on the 21st won't happen.

b) Johnson & Sunak being spanked into line by Biden ready for the G7.

c) That even Johnson's own backbenchers will no longer back his stupidty and lies in cutting the foreign aid budget, and I think actually more generally than that Johnson's increasingly authoritarian approach of continually avoiding any scrutiny by Parliament - as Surfer pointed out recently it turns out that for Brexiteers even the holy mantra of 'taking back control' turns out to be something completely different to what they were promised and expected - not that any of that should be taken as an expression of sympathy for the idiots who believed their own and other Brexiteer's lies.

But you are right that the RWNJ press are having to work overtime at the moment to deflect and distrsct from the ongoing sh*tsh*w that Johnson's government are delivering 🤣

The thing is that the faction currently running the country has a focus on campaigning at all times, rather than competance in government. Very few of the cabinet are actually up to the job, so rather than delivering and standing by their record they are constantly looking for the next three word slogan or culture war battle. The truth is, when push comes to shove, they don't have anything else.

Edited by BigFish
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4 hours ago, Creative Midfielder said:

a) Rapidly rising virus cases meaning that the unlock due on the 21st won't happen.

b) Johnson & Sunak being spanked into line by Biden ready for the G7.

c) That even Johnson's own backbenchers will no longer back his stupidty and lies in cutting the foreign aid budget, and I think actually more generally than that Johnson's increasingly authoritarian approach of continually avoiding any scrutiny by Parliament - as Surfer pointed out recently it turns out that for Brexiteers even the holy mantra of 'taking back control' turns out to be something completely different to what they were promised and expected - not that any of that should be taken as an expression of sympathy for the idiots who believed their own and other Brexiteer's lies.

But you are right that the RWNJ press are having to work overtime at the moment to deflect and distrsct from the ongoing sh*tsh*w that Johnson's government are delivering 🤣

Although b and c are correct I think a is the most relevant. I have a feeling, like many, that they are going to delay unlocking so they want us fighting about something else. Don't give the feckers the pleasure. 😀

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16 minutes ago, BigFish said:

The thing is that the faction currently running the country has a focus on campaigning at all times, rather than competance in government. Very few of the cabinet are actually up to the job, so rather than delivering and standing by their record they are constantly looking for the next three word slogan or culture war battle. The truth is, when push comes to shove, they don't have anything else.

Think the point about them still being in campaign mode rather than governing mode is spot on and was I point I made myself several times on the virus thread - didn't go down well with the spokespeople for Tory party on there then but it was absolutely true then and remains true a year on which makes you think it is very unlikely to change during this Parliament, not while Johnson clings to power anyway although you never know.........

Obviously the lack of basic competence not just in Johnson's case but throughout the Cabinet is a major problem. But IMO governing in campaign mode has made the problem far worse for several reasons:

  • It's very clear that given a choice between doing the right but unpopular thing or the wrong but more popular thing Johnson will always chose the latter option. He seems completely incapable of taking difficult (and by difficult I mean potentially unpopular) decisions until he is forced into it by events, which is why last year we saw so many wrong decisions, right decisions but way too late, and a huge number of complete u-turns. Johnson's, and by extensions the Government's, judgements were appalling time after time.
  • It is not just the Government that is operating in campaign mode - the right wing press have aided and abetted and frankly the HoC might just as well had the whole of last off because they totally failed to do their job of scrutinising the government and holding them to account. In practice what this meant is that many of the worst mistakes were not one-off events but were repeated several times over because at no stage was the goverment held to account for their incompetence (or corruption) so the shambles simply carried on unabated.
  • Bizzarely the one thing that you would expect that they would get right is the messaging - a pretty important element of handling a national crisis in which you are trying get everyone to behave appropriately whether by following govt advice or legal restrictions. But in practice the messaging through the pandemic has also been extremely poor, frequently lacking in clarity, too many obvious lies, and certainly last year downright shambolic at times. Certainly no co-incidence at all that the Scots took Sturgeon's advice seriously throughout whereas in England we saw generally very good behaviour during the first lockdown but after that an increasing disinclination to take was Johnson was saying very seriously.
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1 hour ago, ricardo said:

Its the sausages that I feel sorry for.

Perhaps BK8 will buy up the ones that don't make it to NI.

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Meanwhile : I bet there are at least two options that they are not considering ....

Options.jpg

Edited by Surfer
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Just watching Peston and I am very confused.

Why is it we signed a deal that the U.K. government are saying the eu don’t understand what they have done. What complete idiots would sign a deal and then try to break it and blame the other side .

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Well it looks like Super Joe Biden BPE isn't going to put up with the Frost/Johnson horse****. 👍

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One only needs to consider the language being used by the two parties to see who has right on their side. The EU simply point out that we are expected to abide by the letter of the law of the deal that we freely signed. Frost makes no reference to law but slings  pejorative tosh about the EU being "purist", and claims the deal "won't wash". 

Here's a little sketch that I couldn't resist posting (guess which character Frost is!):

 

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There's a piece in the Torygraph today complaining that the EU knew the deal wasn't a good one for the UK and they should not have signed it.

Also says the UK signed 'under duress'.

I must've missed the picture of Barnier with a gun in one hand and a pen in the other. 🤣

Sadly some people are going to believe this absolute b0ll0x.

 

 

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29 minutes ago, A Load of Squit said:

 

There's a piece in the Torygraph today complaining that the EU knew the deal wasn't a good one for the UK and they should not have signed it.

Also says the UK signed 'under duress'.

I must've missed the picture of Barnier with a gun in one hand and a pen in the other. 🤣

Sadly some people are going to believe this absolute b0ll0x.

 

 

Everyone, including and in fact especially Johnson, knew that the deal wasn't a good one and that he shouldn't have signed it.

The under duress bit is, as you say, absolute b0ll0x. Johnson signed it for one reason and one reason only - he made big promises that he could sort out a deal and quickly, he refused to contemplate any compromises to improve TM's very poor deal, so this even worse deal was the only other offer available, and rather than lose face he signed it anyway.

And let's forget that he fought and won an election by trumpeting repeatedly that he negotiated a fantasic, oven ready deal - both total lies as many of us knew then and even to those who voted for him it should be blindingly obvious by now that they were scammed (again).

If it were in any other field than our electoral system then it would be outright fraud but it seems pretty clear after the last couple of years that fraud and corruption are not considered serious misdemeanors anymore, not when they are committed by the Tory party and friends anyway.

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On 07/06/2021 at 14:58, SwindonCanary said:

Boris signed it, but did not realize that the EU would want to punish us by their many checks 

which Boris agreed to unless he was a journalist who cant read. He certainly espoused and wrote some diatribe in his previous jobs, even got fired for it. Tell us why you so admire Kim yong Boris?

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Johnson and Frost- in fact the lot of them - signed a deal with every intention of breaking it.

Simply they are not trustworthy, honorable people. They are the antithesis of traditional British values. Scoundrels.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Yellow Fever said:

Johnson and Frost- in fact the lot of them - signed a deal with every intention of breaking it.

Simply they are not trustworthy, honorable people. They are the antithesis of traditional British values. Scoundrels.

 

 

Scoundrels indeed! 

Is there anyone on this thread who has signed a contract to perform specified tasks, then refused to do them on the grounds that you didn't think the co-signers had the right to expect you to fulfill that contract? ... Thought not! So why on earth does anyone pretend that this is anything other than Frost and Johnson continuing their long record for spivery and lying?

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22 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

Rishi beaming after the G7 finance ministers meeting but now doesn't want to include some of the banks in the new agreement.

What's wrong with his arms? They look like they are too heavy for his body. 

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Trade Minister says the EU should be more pragmatic.

Definition of pragmatism is dealing with things in a practical rather than theoretical way.

Obviously said Minister doesn't know that definition.

The theory that we will be better off out of the EU.

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On 08/06/2021 at 15:12, horsefly said:

Jesus, is that the best definition you can find? (no link or reference of course). It is not only tediously superficial, but also entirely irrelevant to my point that FOR LEGAL PURPOSES TREATIES ARE TREATED AS CONTRACTS. 

I suggest you go back and read the links I posted when you first spouted this BS. Thicko!

A treaty is a treaty. A contract is a contract. They are not the same thing. 

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2 hours ago, horsefly said:

Scoundrels indeed! 

Is there anyone on this thread who has signed a contract to perform specified tasks, then refused to do them on the grounds that you didn't think the co-signers had the right to expect you to fulfill that contract? ... Thought not! So why on earth does anyone pretend that this is anything other than Frost and Johnson continuing their long record for spivery and lying?

You're still incorrectly conflating a treaty with a contract   

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8 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

You're still incorrectly conflating a treaty with a contract   

How many times do you need to be told that for legal purposes treaties are treated as contracts. FFS I sent you several links explaining this and you still come up with this boneheaded response. 

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24 minutes ago, Rock The Boat said:

A treaty is a treaty. A contract is a contract. They are not the same thing. 

You are truly thick, just a few minutes researching this would tell you that for legal purposes treaties are regarded as legally binding contracts. Common sense alone would tell you that's why one of the major threats againsts a breach of treaty is to take the offending party to a court of law. Does nothing penetrate that thick skull?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/07/eu-has-powers-to-punish-uk-if-it-breaches-brexit-treaty-experts-warn

Edited by horsefly

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