POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

Martha sent me this LINK this morning. Worth reading, I think he has it about right.....
Obama promises he will do all he can to facilitate the change over to the Trump presidency in the next 100 days. I believe him but it will be through gritted teeth. This man has said that he will roll Obama Care back and examine all of Obama's Executive Orders. (The process available to the President to overrule the Senate and the House in exceptional circumstances). Then there is the question of the replacements on the Supreme Court.....

[Tizer]

I wonder how the Trumpeteers will react when they are faced with the results of Trump's policies? He hates Apple and Silicon Valley and the Internet. The US IT companies are full of Democrat supporters and we could see an outflow of employees to other countries, perhaps the companies themselves might migrate - after all, a lot of them already have bases abroad. They may lose their experts and companies involved in renewable energy because he doesn't believe in climate change and supports the coal industry instead. His wish to stop immigration and his attitude to other races means America will lose some of its most creative people as well as those do much of the legwork to keep the economy running.

I heard of one bright spark in all this gloom. Trump still wants to build his wall between the US and Mexico. When Mexicans were interviewed on this a surprising number of them were in favour of building the wall - not because they want to keep out Americans but because they know it will create jobs for them. America might provide the engineers for the project but Americans won't want to do the hard work. Mexico won't pay for the wall so Trump will have to pay Mexicans to build it!

A couple of BBC articles about Facebook's involvement in promoting Trump tell an interesting story and show how people are sourcing their information now; also how false news is being propagated and how - wait for it - the dreaded algorithms are playing their part.
`Was it Facebook 'wot won it'?' LINK 1
`'Crazy' to say Facebook helped Trump win - Zuckerberg' LINK 2

[Stanley]

I've just been speaking to Paulette, Uncle Bob's wife and she told me that Bob is depressed about the Trump win. Not surprising, Bob is the best sort of Democrat as anybody who reads Bob's Bits will know. He is dreading what Trump will do but I told Paulette to tell Bob that I have a suspicion that when he finds how little power he actually has his paranoia will kick in and he will react against the Republican majority in both houses. There is a good chance that this mercurial and unstable man could implode. We must wait and see but it will surprise me if there isn't an element of this in how he acts. One of his daughters is a judge.... candidate for the Supreme Court? Before you laugh I think you'll find that George Bush tried to do just that......

[plaques]

Trump is frightening enough but when you look at all the right wing extremists in the senate who will be pushing for their own private agendas that is really frightening. Hopefully, and this is really a long shot, there will be one or two senators who can see beyond the short term and reel them in a bit.

[Tizer]

The more your read about Trump the more you realise he's energised by publicity, any publicity, good or bad. His ghostwriter, Tony Schwarz, describes how his first encounter with trump was in the 1980s when he was commissioned to write an article about Trump buying up blocks of old houses and forcing the residents out. The article was scathing and Trump told Schwarz to meet with him. He got a surprise when Trump said "Great article, wonderful, I want you to write my book". He realised then how much trump loved publicity and liked being made out to be a tough guy.

Now I've read another story by a journalist who covered stories about Trump and Salmond in Scotland, the golf course and the Libyan bomber. During the interview Trump threw him out. He wrote a hard-hitting story and got on the first page of the paper and had people thanking him for revealing what trump was like. But then he found out that when Trump was shown the paper by his advisers he broke into laughter and said what a great story it was - again, it was just what he wanted. The journalist said "What Trump appreciates most is idiots like me who publicise him in the papers".

Trump did another bullying act when he forced out residents from their old houses to make way for his Scottish golf course. He said they were dirty and living in slums. One of the fishermen said: "Trump is a loud-mouthed clown". There speaks a wise man.

[Stanley]

I heard that Schwartz interview also. The wild card with Trump is his instability and that may be his Achilles' Heel..... Everyone is debating what he will or will not do but it is all speculation. We will know the size of the problem when we see him operating in January and the reaction of both houses and the public. Until then, he is an unknown quantity.
I see Jeremy was making a speech yesterday in which he actually went openly on the attack against the government. We need more of this! See THIS BBC report. We need a constant barrage of truth like this, if you look at what he has said he is perfectly correct. It cheered me to see him do this.....
Just a random thought.... What is it that Private Eye knows about Mr Adam Werrity, Liam Fox's friend? They keep slipping in mentions about him..... (LINK

[Stanley]

In the absence of any news at all from our leaders I was forced to go the the BBC politics news page. It makes dire reading! I chose THIS report of La Pen on the Andrew Marr Show as being representative of some of the worrying trends we are seeing post Trump. Unfortunately, even though I abhor her party's principles I have to admit that there is an element of truth in what she says about the reaction against 'normal politics' by the far right wing. As the producer of the show said when his choice of her as an interviewee on Remembrance Sunday was questioned, she is a genuine contender for the presidency of France.
Then there is the case of the odious Farage who seems to be trying to jump onto the Trump bandwagon by putting himself forward as a conduit between the government and the new president.
I think we have all been aware of the thread of protest in recent elections in Europe and of course the Referendum here. This has resulted in the relatively benign rise of Tsipras and his party in Greece to the definite increase in the influence of the extreme right elsewhere. Are we really moving into a political era where what we used to call Fascism fights for control? The last time this happened in the UK in the 1930s it didn't turn out well at all mainly because we tolerated their views and in some notable cases, supported them. I note that at last Jeremy Corbyn seems to be fighting back but we need a more joined-up opposition to extremism before it is too late. Can anyone see any signs of a serious counter-movement? I'm afraid I can't......
On another level.... Reading Private Eye is never a cheerful experience particularly if you judge the veracity of their reporting using the evidence of the lack of litigation against them. On that evidence, they are telling us the truth and those who are attacked daren't go to law because it would only result in even wider exposure of the allegations. Once you accept this you are forced to the conclusion that finding an honest competent occupier of any of the higher offices of state is impossible. If you don't believe me, go and have a look! I find this very depressing, I can remember a time when we saw policies driven by politicians that actually led to improvements. I can't find any now.....

[plaques]

Donald Trump has just appointed a new British Prime Minister. They call him 'Nigel Farage'.

[Stanley]

That is too close to the truth to be funny P.
I listened to May telling the City why people were asking for change and she ascribed it to the way Globalisation was working. She didn't mention the prime cause, complete disaffection with politicians who are obsessed with outdated economic solutions, completely dismissive of the electorate unless they need their vote and interested more in their own advancement and income than basic political principles. This is why the Expenses scandal was so significant. (Remember that?) The classic example at the moment is the way the Labour MPs are fighting to stop the power given to the membership by Ed Milliband when he altered the electoral process for leadership opening the way to de-selection. The idea of being influenced by their constituents appals them!
Many of the policies promised by Trump in his pre-election speeches are very similar to the Isolationist policies the US favoured in the 1930s. They soon found out that in order to keep world war away from the American mainland the best thing to do was to fight in Europe. In this and his protectionist trade proposals Trump is wrong and would do well to look at the lessons of history.

[Bruff]

A few random observations.

The less said about the Drumpf the better, though it was amusing to see Farage and is new best billionaire mate gurning for cameras in a golden lift, their ‘men of the people’ credentials laid bare for all to see…

Interesting trade visit to India last week. Seems the Indians wanted to talk about lifting visa restrictions. Which probably confused the heck out of Leavers as they seem to be under the quaint impression trade negotiations involve us telling folk what we’ll sell them and then saying they can sell us this. Sadly, things are rather more complicated than that and it looks rather like with respect to India, unless we talk and agree on the visa arrangements we aren’t going anywhere. Oh dear. Still, many Brexiters seem to lap up all this ‘poker’ analogy stuff when it comes to trade negotiations. That a trade deal is a zero-sum game where each side holds all their cards close to their chests and then the reveal at the end decides the ‘winner’. Oh dear again. I would have thought that in the main, trade negotiations are conducted openly and with courtesy, between allies, with positions laid out and compromises reached. It’s about trust and a mutual appreciation that each side are of their word and that they can be trusted. Secrecy, duplicity, the pulling of rabbits out of the hat strike me as rather counter-productive.

News this morning, denied of course or at least not recognised, that the Cabinet has no single plan for Brexit. No single plan is probably worse than no plan for an issue as complex as this. The complexity being why the same report suggest an extra 30,000 civil servants will be needed. That’s not surprising; I said on here it’d be boom time for the civil service and bright young things that can be bothered to join. This is a massive, massive challenge.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

I absolutely agree Richard and yes, you did forecast that the CS would need more staff. As for the trotting out of the old formula "I don't recognise this report" trotted out by Number Ten yesterday, what exactly does this mean? Typical of the obfuscation of any response to a question which is seen as a defence, do not say anything that could be quoted later on ascribing culpability!
Indian trade talks. I think the Indian government was quite puzzled as to why May was going over there and making such a big thing about what should be a straight diplomatic matter, free access for bright young people into our country to gain experience and in the process contribute to mutual advancement and prosperity. (See the CEO of Google.....) If truth be told this was part of the Brexit Exit strategy, massage public opinion in the UK to persuade us that Brexit is going to be fine. Sweetheart deal with Nissan is a prime example. Whatever you do don't publicise the massive fall in the tax take which is forcing the government to borrow even more than Ossie did.
At the same time we have Liz Truss defending the indefensible when she attacks the prison officers for making life difficult for a government that. in the name of austerity, cut staffing levels to a point where they were warned what would happen. This is not a result of drugs, mobile phones and drones, it is a simple matter of manning levels and adequate pay to retain staff. (Since 2010 there are 6,000 fewer prison officers) I'm sorry, but it makes you wonder at times just what the strategy is. On the face of it these people are only concerned with maintaining the appearance of governance. If they think this is going to work they mustn't have two brain cells to rub together!
Like you Richard I am fed up with the second guessing of Trump but have a look at THIS report about Professor Frank Navarro being suspended for giving a lecture to his students in which he drew attention to the parallels between Trump's language and the views of Hitler in the 1930s. He was interviewed on the World Service this morning and said that in the same circumstances he would still give the same lecture. He said that his students regard the allegation made in the email complaint that they were adversely affected by the lecture as risible.
Later, is it really acceptable for Keith Vaz to sit on the Justice Select Committee when he is currently under investigation on possible drug charges? Further, is he fit to sit on any committee at all? Moral compass? Ethics and principles? Forget it, we're talking politics here.....

[Tripps]

Perhaps the promise to 'drain the swamp' resonated with American voters? There's a bit of drainage required here too. Mr Vaz seems to have a charmed life, but I feel his time is up.
Indulge me here with this long item which I filed away some time ago. This lady is once again at the heart of this Tory government, and is chair of a select committee.

Let me tell you about a woman who lives on state benefits.
She owned a house in an expensive bit of London, but after she got a public sector job in 2005 she got us to pay her mortgage interest AS WELL AS her salary.
She invited her parents and her brothers to live with her, her husband and children in this lovely, taxpayer-funded home. They all visited her at the weekends in a second house in the countryside that she could afford to rent privately.

She twice increased her mortgage, first by £100,000 and then by £50,000, to fund refurbishment on this home where her entire family were living five days a week.

She claimed between £1,400 and £1,900 a month, every month, for four years.

She claimed despite the fact she was fairly wealthy – she had worked in advertising and marketing, her husband was a solicitor, and her new job she had a basic starting salary of £59,095. Her pay rose, over four years, to £64,766 – a increase of 9.5%, and comfortably placing her among the top 5% of earners in the UK.

In 2009 there was a big scandal about a man in the same sort of job as her, who had claimed for a home his parents lived in, and who resigned in disgrace. At exactly the same time, the woman stopped claiming.

Shortly afterwards she was promoted to a junior managerial role and got a pay rise to £89,435. Two years after that, she was promoted again to a job earning £134,565.

All was quiet until a journalist pointed out the taxpayer wasn’t supposed to house extended families of people who work in the public sector. The journalist, being responsible, knocked on the door of the house to inform them about the article and ask for any response or clarification. The woman’s father opened the door, and chatted happily for ten minutes to the reporter telling her he really liked her newspaper.

A few hours later, an assistant who worked for the woman rang the journalist to complain, claimed the father was distressed, and suggested the woman had it within her power to make the journalist’s job much more difficult. Despite the threat, the story ran and it led to a formal inquiry by the woman by the authorities, which are often reluctant to investigate until there’s a headline.

The woman’s claims were investigated by a taxpayers’ detective, but she failed to properly co-operate. She did not answer all the questions, could not produce all the paperwork, and got her figures wrong. She even employed a lawyer to write expensive letters saying the detective was not following the rules. Her obstructions and delays meant the inquiry dragged on for 16 months.

She told the detective the rented cottage was the “centre of my family life”, even though her entire family lived in London. She said she could have claimed more than she did, but then admitted she had claimed for £5,800 more than she ought. The detective’s initial report said the woman should not have claimed for the house; that she should not have increased her mortgage; and that she owed the state £45,000.

This evidence was presented to the woman’s colleagues, who agreed she had broken the rules, that she had obstructed the inquiry, and the detective had acted perfectly reasonably throughout.

The colleagues agreed the woman had got her main homes the wrong way around, but decided it didn’t matter.

They said it was “improper” her mortgage had increased, but despite a lack of documentation to prove it, decided it didn’t matter.

They agreed with the woman’s own estimate that she had only to pay back £5,800, and said it was more important the woman had been rude to their inquiry.

When journalists pointed out the subsequent apology was very short, wasn’t very remorseful, and by the way she’d now sold the house for £1.2million profit and wasn’t some of that due to be repaid to the taxpayers who’d funded the whole enterprise, the woman’s friends said this was unfair .

Righto, let’s talk about “unfair”.

Unfair is working Monday lunchtime to Thursday lunchtime in the capital, and insisting you need an extra house because you spend Fridays somewhere else.

Unfair is using the taxpayer’s money to fund refurbishments and speculate on the housing market, then trousering the profit.

Unfair is looking at the MPs’ code of conduct that says they must comport themselves in the public interest, and then deciding the best way of doing that is to get an extra house out of it.

Unfair is claiming a second house when your constituency is only an hour away by train. Unfair is pretending this is about sexism, witchcraft or homophobia when it’s simply about right and wrong.

Unfair is pretending to be clean by setting up an independent standards commissioner, then ignoring them.

Unfair is taxing the bedrooms of the disabled, sick, dying, and widowed while feathering your own nest with as much of the taxpayer’s cash as you think you can get away with.

But then, as an old chief reporter used to tell me, life isn’t fair: get over it.

The job of MP or cabinet minister is surely, regardless of your political beliefs, to make life more fair, not less. Whether left or right, they need to be people of honour, vocation, and skill.

Maria Miller has no honour, or her apology would have been heartfelt. She has no vocation, or she’d be driven to do better for others.

And she has no skill, because the only culture she’s cultivating is a plague experiment in whether she’ll be sacked before she infects the whole nation with a desire to burn Parliament to the ground.

It’s telling, perhaps, that she has been supported by colleagues whose own expenses aren’t exactly benign – Jeremy Hunt, who repaid £9,500, Sir George Young who got his daughter on the public payroll, and Iain Duncan Smith who likes £39 breakfasts.

And David Cameron, the Prime Minister himself, who has for years been getting us to pay the interest on a £350,000 mortgage when he has a mortgage-free home in Kensington rented out at massive profit, and two free houses while he’s Prime Minister.

It’s not that MPs have to live in two different places, or employ staff, or eat breakfast, which bothers people.

It’s not even the fact they could manage with one house and a B&B, and don’t realise these are state benefits same as the pension, disability allowances or child tax credits.

It’s the fact that they seriously expect to make laws for other people which they have no intention of following themselves; that they genuinely cannot see a fiddle on their second homes puts them in the same category as a housing benefits cheat.

The rule of law applies to everyone equally, or it doesn’t apply at all. And that is the exact opposite of unfair.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/

[Tizer]

That's a powerful article, Tripps, well worth the time reading it. Keep it on file!

Matthew Parris has written about Trump's election in The Times last Saturday but has taken a different view to most commentators. He refers to the general opinion about why people voted for Trump as the `Cry of Pain' hypothesis and thinks this is the wrong conclusion. He cites Professor Eric Kaufman of Birkbeck College, London, who has analysed the results of a poll to find out people's reasons for voting the way they did. He got them first to rate themselves as pro-Trump or anti-Trump then questioned them on what they considered the most pressing issues facing the country. Both sets were concerned about the economy in general but only one group was hugely concerned about poverty and inequality. He found that 40% of anti-Trumpers rated poverty and inequality highest; only 4% of pro-Trumpers did. The best identifiers of a pro-Trumper were linked: immigration and terrorism. He concludes that the story about rising inequality is important but it isn't the electoral force that drove the Trump and Brexit votes. We have to face up to the uncomfortable truth that racism, in the form of anti-immigrant and anti-immigration, is behind the rise of the populist right.

[Stanley]

And Maria Miller is the Chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee. Don't apologise David, it illustrates perfectly my beef about MPs spending more time on self advancement and milking the system..... I remember the case, it was fully reported in Private Eye. See their present comments about Amber Rudd.... even more damning!
Tiz, I think that's a point well made. Discrimination takes many forms and is alive and well. It ranges from class and regional matters like Wilfred Pickles being taken off news reading during the war because of his Northern accent to outright racial and religious discrimination. Much of it stems from embedded attitudes learned when young but even more is down to bad primary education. Like so many other things we need to set people on the right path when their minds are open, as children. This is one reason why I am suspicious about 'Faith Schools' which teach the underlying assumption that whatever 'faith' is being promoted is the correct one. I went to a CofE school and for years believed that the Empire ruled the world, all Englishmen were upright and honourable and the King could do no wrong. I am happy to report I have overcome these difficulties!
Looking a bit deeper into the subject the most dangerous outcome of any discriminatory process is the breeding of contempt for others. I class Andrew Mitchell's little spat with the police, 'Plebgate', as an example of this. Think of the Bullingdon Club and the assumption that certain educational paths automatically lead to 'natural leaders'. Worth going back to E P Thompson's work on class and recognising that no matter where you look on the social scale, societies build their own hierarchies and class systems within their own community, think prisons, slums and of course the 'Public Schools'. During the recent controversy about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party there was so much hypocrisy, of course there are anti-Semitic individuals in Labour but there are just as many in any other party or organisation. We are constantly told that 'Class is dead' but I am afraid that it and it's despicable cohorts are alive and well and on recent evidence, on the rise. Confused people seek scapegoats. Put a yellow star on a Jew and they become an easy target, Hitler recognised that only too well. The same applies to skin colour, headgear and even a beard! We have a long way to go before this flaw in society is abolished!

[Tizer]

I wonder if the `Leavers' have any understanding of what they've got us into...
A quote from the newspaper:
Marc Allera, chief executive of EE, the mobile phone company, said that top of his wishlist would be assurances on the continued movement of labour within Europe. "At EE, we are in the middle of the largest network expansion anywhere. The majority of engineers working on our mobile network are non-UK. Almost all are from EU countries because we can't get the engineers here, " he said, adding that the company could not do the work without them. He said that it would take 20 years to train up sufficient numbers of British workers.

[Stanley]

That is a good example of the thousands of such concerns Tiz. Apart from mystification in industry (Which leads to planning for worst case) we shouldn't forget the constitutional implications, think of Northern Ireland where as Bruff pointed out, membership of the EU and its associated organisations is inextricably bound up with the Good Friday Agreement. All we hear about that is that May has reluctantly admitted that the devolved parliaments should have a part in the 'discussions'. I'll bet that doesn't half reassure them..... I have to go back to what I said a few days ago, you can't unpick and reorganise 40 years of legislation in two years! A common fear expressed in the EU has been that UK Brexit might trigger off similar moves in some other EU countries. I don't think they need worry! When the other members see the mess we have got into it will be a strong incentive for keeping quiet and fighting for change within the EU.
Meanwhile, governance of the UK and flawed policies introduced since 2010 are not being addressed. The disaster of the cuts to the prison service has hit us. Now who was it who worked out that Cunning Wheeze to save money....
See THIS for a BBC report on the crisis in 'affordable housing' whatever that is! I say that because the government keep shifting the goalposts to give the impression that the need for accommodation is being addressed. However, local authorities are estimated to be spending £3.5billion annually on temporary and totally unsuitable bed and breakfast type accommodation. Despite this the number of homeless and rough sleepers is rising. This a growing social disaster caused by the refusal to recognise that even families with 'good jobs' are becoming homeless because they can't afford housing costs. Much is made of the number of people in employment but nothing is said about the fact that probably 50% of this work doesn't bring in a realistic living wage. We chuck money at vanity projects like aircraft carriers we are forced to rent out to other countries because we can't afford to run them. Indeed, see THIS report on the fact that we can't even afford to arm our present ships adequately. (How many type 26 frigates are serviceable? If PE is to be believed, none of them.)
We all know what the solution is, recognition that the world has changed and there are no longer enough unskilled jobs paying decent wages to support those who have been left behind by a market oriented economic system which favours the top 1% of the wealth holders and leaves the other 99% behind. Instead of leaving the poor to rot we must institute progressive taxation to distribute wealth in a fairer manner. This view is described, with contempt, as 'the politics of envy'. read Piketty at al and recognise that it is nothing of the sort. It is the politics of survival for society. Stresses are building that will take decades to address even if we started now. I am convinced that this is the greatest political danger we face at the moment.
Yes, I am angry! I can't remember mismanagement on this scale even in the worst years of Thatcher. End of rant..... Is anyone listening?
Later after reading the BET. Volunteers at 'The Shop' in the Victory Centre at Nelson who run a community hub which distributes food free to anyone who needs it got a shock when the landlord, GPO Properties Ltd repossessed the premises without warning last Friday. This is not a food bank, they do not ask for referrals from Social Services but give food, including hot soup, to anyone who asks for it. It looks as though GPO properties has acted illegally as the rent was paid up to date and the lease didn't run out until the end of this month. Leaving that aside what does it say about the cruelty and lack of compassion in our market-led society?
Significantly, not a word about this from our Tory MP. He rabbited on in his usual anodyne way about a safe subject, Remembrance Day. Time he remembered his poor constituents!

[Bruff]

Report of the latest European politician emphasising the reality to the UK. This time, Herr Dr Schauble the German Finance Minister who with impressive consistency repeats simply what he said prior to the vote. Report here:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ost-brexit

This follows very similar points being made by an Italian Minister this week, following discussions he had with our Foreign secretary. The Italian Minister finished off with the withering observation that he felt insulted to have to debate at the simplistic level Johnson wanted (Boris was banging on about prosecco sales). The Dutch finance Minister has also described the UK’s position as espoused by Boris as intellectual impossible and simplistic.

I think the EU has taken the decision to ramp up the reality now as they have realised they are in effect dealing with a particularly dim yet recalcitrant child. Eventually perhaps, the reality will sink an and we can begin to behave sensibly. Whether we will be sensible enough to accept and take responsibility for what seems to be the only option of a hard Brexit (and not whine about the EU ‘bullying’ us) I don’t know. But it certainly seems that it’s coalescing around hard Brexit or nothing. As it should do – as yet another, this time Belgian, Minister said: the UK was in the EU and wanted opt-outs and when out of the EU wants opt-ins. No. You can’t as yet another one said, this time Poland’s Mr Tusk, have your cake and eat it.

What a palaver. A part of me has taken to an imaginary hill where I can watch and point and laugh at the daftness, the absolute daftness, of it all.

Richard Broughton

[Stanley]

I've been on that hill for a while Richard, you are welcome to join me! All an individual can do when faced with forces as deep and fundamental as these is to shout as loudly as possible pointing out the flaws in the public discussion. re. Boris, I heard a discussion on R4 last night during which a 'friend of Boris' defended him saying that the FO are really excited at the gale of fresh air he has brought to the department. At the same time another contributor pointed out that Boris had reinforced his buffoon image in Europe and an Italian government member pointed out the prosecco example exactly as you report.
Mind you, I am painfully aware of the fact that what we are told is not an attempt to inform us but pure spin to massage the standing of our present leadership and their policies. Acceptance of the fact that the liabilities don't stop when we leave sit badly with efforts to maintain the myth that we are in the middle of an economic miracle. Acknowledgement that once Article 50 is triggered we lose all bargaining power and become a supplicant asking for an easy ride blows the sovereignty principle out of the water. This being the case, can we believe that there are actually hard-headed negotiators working on a real, pragmatic plan in full knowledge of the difficulties? Is there a core of realists who are ignoring spin and addressing the real politic? If there is we have no evidence that this is the case and in its absence all we can do is assume that our leaders are perhaps as incompetent as they appear. Boris is a buffoon, May is under the illusion she has power. Leaving aside the Brexit negotiations our leaders seem to have their heads buried in the sand, ignoring the horrible consequences we see already in our society of the effects of austerity. Think housing, prisons, education, NHS, defence etc just for starters. Perhaps their heads are just as deep in the sand with regard to the EU.
In the absence of any other certainties I am convinced of at least one thing, our leaders are not being honest and transparent with us. They doubt our capacity to understand complicated matters. Propaganda is preferable to honest facts and assessments. We are passengers in a ship of fools and the person at the wheel is demented. Tin hats on lads......

[Stanley]

Trump watching blankets out sensible reporting of domestic issues. We are in a fog of indecision and doubt.

[Stanley]

See THIS for Theresa May's version of clear leadership. Nothing concrete, just the old language of aspiration plus a tax cut.......
Later.... I note the dire news this morning, I shan't inundate you with links, you're quite capable of finding them. We are assured that the NHS is now in deep crisis and major cuts are planned at local level. The main reason is the failure of the Social Care system due to underfunding of local councils (The government say they have given the councils permission to raise Council Taxes. In other words we pay for health care.) The navy has hit the headlines with reports that we have too few ships and many of them are coming up for replacement. No mention of the news item the other day reporting that we can't afford to arm the existing ships and of course the scandal of the vanity air craft carriers. Then there is the small matter of the Type 26 frigates which, if PE is to be believed, are all tied up and out of service waiting for faults to be cured. Then there is a report about the number of people in poverty due to austerity even if there were to be no further cuts, and remember that many of the existing cuts are still working their way through the system.
I could go on couldn't I.... My question is how far can this go before we start to see irrevocable breakdown in society. Has this already started to happen? How long can government borrowing continue to rise? What happened to the 'Economic Miracle'? Then there is Brexit.... the government is seizing on any minute encouraging movement in the finance figures but ignoring the fact that pre-2008 they would be regarded as disastrous. Am I simply wrong or are we watching a nation skidding out of control towards the edge of a cliff? My only consolation is the fact I shall soon be dead.... but what a legacy we are leaving our kids!
I am reminded of Kipling; "And if they ask you why you died, tell them that your fathers lied".

[Stanley]

Trump is starting to flex his muscles.... I see this morning he supports the appointment of Nigel Farage as UK ambassador to the US. I hope this is treated with the contempt it deserves! (LINK)

[PanBiker]

The reply was that the position was not vacant.

[Tizer]

Trump is starting to flex his muscles.... I see this morning he supports the appointment of Nigel Farage as UK ambassador to the US. I hope this is treated with the contempt it deserves!

It tells us something about the quality of Trump's judgement!

The good people of the state of California are getting agitated and there is talk of a `Calexit' by some, while others are suggesting that the Pacific states of California, Oregon and Washington State should make a move to align with Canada. Clinton outvoted Trump by a big margin in California, a margin second only to the one she got in Hawaii. The state has few in the `white working class' category, has a large Latino population and the whites mainly work in the IT industry and other high tech areas. However, as one senator has said, California has moved to strengthen gun control whereas Trump supporters probably have the most guns. Being out-gunned doesn't bode well for secession.

[Stanley]

Stranger things than that have happened Tiz. But don't hold your breath.......
Hammond and the November Statement. Why are the words Titanic' and 'deck chairs' running through my head?

[Stanley]

Hammond and the autumn statement..... John McDonnell was quite right when he stood up and said that we had just had confirmation of the fact that economic policy since 2010 had failed. What struck me was that Hammond admitted that the level of government debt is higher than at any time since the 1960s. That isn't the whole story (it never is!). In 1960 we were on the verge of tremendous technological change in manufacturing and the digital revolution, never mind North Sea Oil! I do not see those benign prospects now, for this reason alone we are far worse off. It annoys me that all pronouncements are geared to those in work, not a word about the very worst off who have no jobs, a number which is far higher than the official figures suggest. They are much worse off and sinking. In addition, did anyone notice that the projected 'improvements' for the low paid workers don't kick in for another five years?
Now for a serious recommendation.... Have you ever heard of 'Hyper Normalisation'? Please look at this LINK, I stumbled on it last night and ended up by staying out of bed until midnight. I highly recommend staying the course and watching almost 3 hours of devastating assessment and opinion. Like you, many things puzzle me today and the only conclusion I have come to is that the world is going mad. I buy the general thesis of the programme, it reminds me of Naomi Klein. It is not us who are mad but the politicians who have manipulated reality to the point where even they can't recognise truth when they see it. In addition they have given their power away by reliance on a corrupt financial system and devolving responsibilities to The Market. They have lost control of the commanding heights!
Don't take my word for it, please watch it and see if it rings the same bells with you......
Trump belatedly recognises that he has stirred up forces in the US which will not return to 'normality' quickly. Too late now Donald, you rode the wind and now you have to deal with the whirlwind. (Lots of interesting stuff about Trump in the BBC programme.....)