It is proving difficult to explain to some politicians how negotiations work. If you want to buy someone’s house you do not say you want to buy it whatever the price, and then pay up when they take advantage of your folly. If they ask double the market value you refuse.
So it has to be with political deals. A Supply and confidence agreement with the DUP would be helpful. People would know in advance that the government has a majority to get through spending plans and to see off any No Confidence motion. If we do not have a formal agreement it is still very likely the DUP will vote with the Conservatives, given their views on Brexit and Mr Corbyn. There is a lot of common ground on the EU, the Union and the economy.
The main issue that has held up an Agreement seems to be money. How much extra can we afford for Northern Ireland, and what will be the reaction of the rest of us representing English or Welsh or Scottish constituencies?
I am relaxed with or without a deal. I think the government will have a majority to pilot the main legislation through, even allowing for the likelihood that Labour will be difficult and seek to undermine the very Brexit they proposed in their Manifesto.
June 22, 2017
The overriding obligation is to deliver Brexit so however weak and vacillating the government intends to be, it must not fail in that regard.
June 22, 2017
Hear hear. Brexit is a unique policy – never before has government received a specific instruction from the people. When it has carried it out it can think what else it would like to do.
As for the DUP, if government is conducted in good faith then it will not lack support.
June 22, 2017
JR, the Tories won the election and those who voted for it presumably supported the manifesto or large parts of it. Yet your party has dropped almost all of its contents. What did they vote for?
History demonstrates most parties do not stick by manifestos in any event and push through controversial subjects like gay marriage without its inclusion in either the manifesto or Queen’s speech (May did this previously you will recall, and Cameron arrogantly rejected 600,000 people who protested against it on an online petition to get it debated). However, as Boris was made to look a fool yesterday on the BBC, the question now needs to be asked: what does your party stand for and what can we expect?
Hammond is on manoeuvres to get EU light and stay in the EU as long as possible, presumably to get a reversal or second referendum, Carney in Support. Where was this in your manifesto. If Hammond is so off message why is he not sacked or resigned. The MSM in hyper drive to support his view.
The DUP appear to be clear what they stand for and its manifesto appears good to me. When you talk about a deal or bad deal no one knows what your party stands for.
Do you think it is about time the public had a clear consistent message? Your party will be in the wilderness once more unless someone gets a grip ASAP.
June 22, 2017
They will surely deliver something they call “Brexit”, but will it be a real? I suspect not if Hammond has much to do with it.
Also can we achieve a real Brexit and still avoid Labour winning the next election under “magic money tree”. “have whatever you want if you vote Labour”, J Corbyn (or someone else equally dire). J Corbyn would clearly turn the country into an economic basket case like Venezuela, in no time at all.
Just the threat of him now is damaging investment in the UK. I am far more reluctant to invest there and thousand of others will be too now that T May has shot herself in the foot.
June 22, 2017
We completed on the disposal of by far the larger(and economy sensitive) of our two remaining UK direct investments last week(phew!).Nothing to do with Brexit-we had backed a management buy-in and having achieved the anticipated turnaround,the business has been sold broadly inline with our expected timeline-but mightily pleased are we!
June 22, 2017
Somebody bought them for a good price, it would seem.
House prices still solid in the UK.
June 22, 2017
Unless you live in a block of flats higher than four stories, which is full of Buy-to-Let (BtL) landlords. Grenfell Towers is going to be the death knell of high rise BtL. Think of the insurance premiums!
June 22, 2017
Not in prime central London where it had been hit by 15% stamp duty, enveloped dwelling tax and similar (and a total lack of confidence in the May coalition Government, and its high tax interventionist approach).
June 22, 2017
So some 600 towers have similar insulation panels fitted due the green religion obscession. How on earth can such obvious and multiple mistakes happen with all these building regulators, fire experts, local authorities and all the fire risk assessments? Quite alot of building regulators and experts involved them, perhaps thousands yet no one stopped it.
Doubtless all these “BBC think” lefty, magic money tree economists will all be thinking that putting this cladding on (and then taking it all off again) will be a great boost to the economy. In the digging holes and filling them in economic theory.
In the real world however, it is just pissing tax players money down the drain (and putting lives at risk in the process) – yet again. How can well funded governments and well paid experts be so breathtakingly incompetent?
June 22, 2017
And there is no justifiable reason why the government should buy our independence. Pay no further bill, its demand is just insolence. We’re already about to give the EU an extra net c£18 billion for free anyway (2 more years in the EU than was necessary).
No deal is the best deal – give 12 months diplomatic notice and walk. The government lost the opportunity to do that last summer – instead, prevarication for months, then a pointless election. So do it now, before circumstances change again and we get trapped in for ever. Don’t let Mrs Dither write the epitaph of the Tory party.
June 22, 2017
I think you are correct. No deal is the best deal except Ireland, Gibraltar, bases in Cyprus, and UK citizens resident in EU. A virtual frictionless customs does not need to be negotiated, ‘just’ operationalised.
June 22, 2017
She certainly is in danger of burying the Tories for 3+ terms again, just like Major and leaving the country to become the next Venezuela – under the dire Corbyn or someone even worse.
June 22, 2017
Agree Mrs May and our Government does not want to be held to ransom by the DUP, EU or anyone else.
Support the DUP (or anyone else) by all means if some of their policies are in the National (UK) interest, but not if it will create a greater imbalance than we already have with some other parts of the UK.
June 22, 2017
Well the DUP have improved her socialist agenda already. A shame they could not get her to withdraw from the Paris Accord, scrap HS2, Hinkley C, cut the green crap and abandon her silly gender pay agenda, workers rights and daft interventionist landlord/tenant proposals.
June 22, 2017
LL
Paris accord and HS2 are to do with the EU.
For HS2, Google the, TEN-S Network.
June 22, 2017
But we are leaving so drop them now or put them on hold.
June 22, 2017
Good morning
The DUP will not allow Labour into Number 10. This is because of past associations between, Corbyn and the IRA.
I think it only reasonable that the DUP extort more money from England. I mean, everyone else does ! This is what happens when you create uneven power structures, with the English being totally unrepresented. The Nationalist parties will seek to use their position to get more money to spend on their supporters.
As for BREXIT I think that this a done deal. The only doubt in my mind is the final outcome. Will we be a sovereign nation once more or, as some believe, an Associate Member of the EU ? The DUP will of course seek to make sure their supporters are well cared for 😉
June 22, 2017
The problem with JR misleading view about constitutionencies is that we of course are not allowed an English parliament or English representation. Cameron lied in front of No.10 Downing Street telling us only a Conservative party could deliver EVEL, he then failed and tried to claim a sham was a success when the Scots still votes on issues only related to England!
Come on JR, your party has no values, no convictions, no vision, all politically correct clap trap with no substance. Swinging to the left all the time. Promise the world and deliver nothing. Central plank to the economy was eleminating the deficit by 2010, Hammond has no such intention. 0.2 percent reduction in spending cuts. The real squeeze is the vast amount of people from mass immigration on public services without a substantial increase in spending to match the numbers. This is the reality. Hammond wants to stay in the EU until when 2023 as some form of transitional scam to keep us in.
Your party is failing the electorate at the referendum and the two recent elections. You cannot even keep us safe and have not made any attempt to do so. May and Rudd failed their primary duty to us. Your party stands for nothing, turns at every stage let’s down its voters for foreign causes, foreign powers and foreign people imported here. We should not have to change they should by accepting to come here!
June 22, 2017
Mark B – “I think it only reasonable that the DUP extort more money from England . . . everyone else does!” How true. And England is itself just a pensioner of the South-east (as JR noticed a few weeks ago), so in reality a minuscule part of the UK staggers along under the appalling burden of the rest.
It’s sometimes said that the UK is really a city state with a whole island for its hinterland. Yet what is London itself but a heavily subsidised majority living on the backs of an incredibly productive minority?
This is, of course, the handful of “fat cats” – barely 300,000 in all – who are the especial target of the rage and loathing now propelling an astonished but delighted Mr Corbyn to Downing Street. Truly we live in interesting times.
June 22, 2017
Indeed remainers seem not to have a clue about negotiation and deal making. It is a great shame T May and her dire Manifesto team made a complete and utter mess of the election campaign, as a far worse EU deal is now likely to follow. If indeed we actually get any real Brexit with loads of people like P Hammond, Clark Greg & Ken, A Soubry, N Morgan and the likes still as “Tory” MPs.
The Queen’s speech however was much improved, as the government had to drop all sorts of very silly ideas they had be pushing before. Such as fox hunting, energy price caps, the dementia tax, attacking pensions & the winter fuel allowance are all gone.
A great shame they still have HS2, are still pushing the green crap and sticking to the Paris Accord (and keeping the bonkers Climate Change Act). May’s absurd gender pay drivel will cost business, kill jobs and damage productivity as will the living wage agenda and her worker on boards drivel.
The proposed new red tape on “unfair” letting fees and limiting deposits. These will just reduce supply of properties to rent, increase the rents, inconvenience landlords, tenants and letting agents and create lots more parasitic jobs for pen pushers, regulators, lawyers, accountants and the likes. Well done T May – damages everyone, just so you can virtue signal.
Why does the government not go the whole way and insist on one approved letting contract, choose the wall colours, the furniture, the size of the fridge & cooker, the type of heating, the carpets ……… then again you could just let the landlords and tenants agree things between them. Which do you think might be more efficient dear? Or go the whole hog and make all privately rented property illegal and let the government nationalise it and run it all.
We still have the daft and expensive energy performance certificates/red tape too yet another total waste of time and money for tenants to pay.
June 22, 2017
Skating on thin ice John. I wouldn’t be inclined to worry about Scotland and more money. Don’t they already get enough? The main focus must be Brexit, trade (when are we going to hear who wants to trade with us) and making sure we don’t give more money to Brussels. Surely the money that Ireland wants could come from the exit fee the EU are demanding from us?
June 22, 2017
If the government looks at the gender pay statistics properly and then adjusts for the different subjects and jobs that men and women, on average, choose to study and do. Plus the different work life balance choices they make, especially after having children, then it is very clear that there is no real gender pay gap at all.
Even if there were the pay of most working men goes towards the wife & family anyway. Is she perhaps suggesting that female footballers should get the same as male ones or should we let the market and paying customers decide which they want to watch?
But politicians would much rather “virtue signal” and force anti-male discrimination and the threat of litigation on to companies. Hopefully the PM is not still going “to build on EU workers’ rights” as this would just harm the workers, productivity, wages, the economy and kill jobs even further.
June 22, 2017
Most intelligent people realise where the DUP is coming from and where it’s going to. A Supply and Confidence agreement is just what the doctor ordered.
June 22, 2017
As a Catholic, I feel, oddly, very much in sympathy with the DUP over a number of issues. Pork barreling matters to us outside London. If only we could be connected to the railway system…
June 22, 2017
The biggest problem will be the unelected HoL.
Its time this cesspit was cleared out.
Corbyn although a lifetime outer will try and bring down the government so he can have a go.
Farage is watching closely in the wings and UKIP or similar will be back on steroids.
The British public don’t like being made mugs of.
June 22, 2017
The government have left it too late to initiate a simple Bill to reduce the period for which the Lords can delay future Bills from the present thirteen months to, say, just three months. They should have produced Bill that in tandem with the Bill to give the government further authorisation to trigger Article 50.
http://www.parliament.uk/about/how/laws/parliamentacts/
I doubt that Labour MPs would have dared to oppose such a Bill to further limit the powers of the unelected House, so it would have been passed by the Commons; but if the Lords had chosen to oppose it then it would have become necessary to use the existing Parliament Acts to by-pass them with the thirteen month delay. But there is no longer enough time to do that before March 2019, too much time having been foolishly squandered with an unnecessary and disastrous general election.
So if the Lords do have the temerity to wage the “legislative war” threatened by Farron back in March:
https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=%22legislative+war%22+farron
the only answer will be to ask the Queen to create hundreds of new life peers, enough for the government to be sure the legislation would be voted through.
June 22, 2017
But does Mrs May now have the status to do this, or the guts?
June 22, 2017
A good question, on both points.
June 22, 2017
Mrs May had the guts to call an election at a very silly time . She already had the mandate for Brexit. She has the status and her husband in his trillion pound empire has the influence. How she uses it is another matter.
She cannot win for some though. She is even being blamed for the tower block fire disaster. Such tragedy I will never be able to comprehend , but it wasn’t Mrs Mays fault.
June 22, 2017
Let’s say 800 new life peers?
How much does that cost on an annual basis?
Where do you find 800 suitable people unlikely to undermine Brexit? (Discount Clegg, Cameron, Salmond …)
June 22, 2017
“Where do you find 800 suitable people unlikely to undermine Brexit?”
There must be a fair few suitable candidates posting here !
June 22, 2017
If the right people are chosen then they would only have to sit and vote for a few years, long enough to push through Brexit plus also pass a Bill to reduce their number as well as curtail their powers. They could keep their titles for life, but not their seats in Parliament.
June 23, 2017
Brexiteer Lords could abolish the HoL, as in the UKIP manifesto, or just change the name to House of Cronies. Can’t see Strongnstable risking the Old Crone status when she is shown the exit.
June 22, 2017
Matthu: “Let’s say 800 new life peers?”
No no! Surely we don’ t want 800 more leaches?
Let’s just eject the dregs of the commons from the Lords, leaving the rump of 92 hereditary peers. As they drop off their perches, just put their seats up for election.
June 22, 2017
Farmers say they are suffering a UK migrant shortage in harvesting their vegetable crops.
1/ Where are the missing migrants working? ( wish to go pick strawberries there )
2 Is it that strawberries which were regularly ploughed back into the fields in Kent in the 1960s as one farmer’s son told me because “Tomatoes and strawberries, we can’t give them away!” ar enow priced at £2 er punnet? Ridiculous!. I can grow my own on my window sill or by agreement at the side of a farmer’s main crop.
3/ Can farmers try growing non-labour intensive crops? Any sensible farmer would choose this option instead of losing money and carping on about it. Try trout-tank fish growing..theres a fortune in it. Little land required, very low maintenance, low labour costs. Try bee- keeping too. I can make more money out of my back garden than most farmers make on several acres.As usual farmers deliberately employ people on the side and on the dole ( Hush Hush! ), also under age workers as they did in “Spud-picking” days, and, the unemployed without fines )
Farmers should pray I do not become Agricultural Minister! They will need to work for a living as the rest of us have to, instead.
Yes I do live in a farming area and once considered having my own farm. I was offered a place without any trouble at a famous Agriculture and Horticultural college. But I prefer to work.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40354331
June 22, 2017
Your government should bring its own no confidence motion forward.
The DUP and others can then choose between support or a Labour minority rule followed swiftly by another election where more duped youngsters may be persuaded that Jeremy will make their lives easier.
It is becoming increasingly apparent that your leader and her cohort lack political skills.
June 22, 2017
I think historians will look back and recognise that Theresa May’s final rise to the office of Prime Minister was largely accidental, and perhaps she lacked skill in detecting bad advice when it was being offered, in some cases quite deliberately.
June 22, 2017
The BBC now has it as standard operating procedure to use Labour’s language of ‘austerity’ to describe any constraint on the growth of public expenditure. As readers of this blog know the UK has not since 2010 seen any ‘austerity’ in the true sense understood by people in countries such as Greece, as public expenditure has risen every year.
The interesting thing about the hung parliament is opposition parties are going to have to take a position on each of the issues in the Brexit negotiations. Had the govt got a majority they could just have opposed everything and urged such incoherent positions as remaining in the single market and customs union whilst leaving the EU. Now they won’t be able to do that, they will be held accountable for the positions they take by voters.
June 22, 2017
Austerity, as May correctly said “is living within ones means”. The Tories have now abandoned this it seems. So we are living off the never, never or future generations and largely pissing the money away on complete nonsense like green crap, HS2 and payments to augment the feckless, endless daft red tape and the likes.
June 22, 2017
And putting flammable insulation panels on tower blocks – then taking them all off again it seems.
June 22, 2017
Dear Lifelogic–Wretched insulation made of wretched plastic–I remember taking the view on last house purchase that a “bad” score on that house buying form was Way To Go because it meant that the house hadn’t been buggered about with. Old houses were built to allow free movement of air within the walls to combat damp and rot and stuffing those walls, perhaps going on a thousand years old,with modern crap, filled me with horror. I wonder how many people have seen their fuel bills drop after retro insulation. Not many and not much I’ll wager and in any event with long payback. And now we read that the “fibre glass” (?) “insulation” placed increasingly thickly on loft floors is flammable (seemingly not fibre glass, which is horrible stuff anyway) and results in globules of molten flaming whatever it is dropping through the ceiling. If I ever have to live in a high rise I’ll only do so happily if the outside is plain and simple solid concrete. I did like the idea of high rise buildings having to be built in pairs with each acting as an external fire escape for the other.
June 23, 2017
PS Here we (don’t) go again
June 22, 2017
The real question is surely how can it be that we have armies of bureaucrats inventing and enforcing building regs, thousands of lines of regulation and yet a £10m refurbishment of a building includes c £3m to clad it in flammable material? It is an horrific and tragic case of public expenditure which would have been far better not spent, and the utter uselessness of a culture of regulation (doubtless green ones played a role) trumping common sense.
June 23, 2017
The Building Regulations were simplified by Mrs T to a couple of clear sentences in English. Immediately, HMG had to publish guidance about what the clear sentences meant in Approved Documents. These were far bigger than the original building regulations. Today, I had a look at Part B which covers fire escape and materials in flats. The number of pages has expanded to 166 and, as even the inquiry into the previous fire in S.London concluded, are just about incomprehensible. I will put the link on below if JR would like to ruin readers day.
My favourite is on p.34. Number of escape routes per person . Up to 600- 1, 600-2, over 600-3. That extra one must have a bad leg. For external walls in flats, it’s B4. Building inspectors are supposed to understand it. Manufacturers guides give some interpretation. These were around before the EU got involved by the way.
June 22, 2017
Caroline Lucas always said there would be lots of jobs in the green economy.
June 22, 2017
Agreed, it is total common sense. I cannot understand why there are any talks at all. If the DUP wants to bring down a fellow Unionist Party, so be it.
Minority government means minority government.
The same applies to the EU, it is disappointing that Mr. Hammond’s unequivocal no to the single market and customs union did not extend to no deal better than a bad deal.
June 22, 2017
Our political class surrender to everyone in advance. It’s just what they do. Unless they are Libya’ Syria or Afghanistan of course.
June 22, 2017
My main concern is brexit and the possibility that the new circumstances will lead to some compromise half in half out deal instead of the full brexit I voted for. I think Mrs May’s original plan of out of the customs union and the single market and control of borders and immigration and an end to ECJ jurisdiction was the right one, but I fear it is now in jeopardy and we may end up with some deal which will leave everyone unhappy.
June 22, 2017
One can’t help thinking it was jeopardised wilfully. Seeking a mandate on full Brexit when there was one already and whilst cocking up the rest of the manifesto and campaign.
June 22, 2017
I’m inclined to agree it has been deliberately jeopardised, but maybe not by Theresa May herself. Legal actions, bad advice, leaks to the media and briefings to try to cause disruption and undermine support for Brexit, deliberate attempts to damage the reputation of the UK government both at home and abroad – all these certainly look like elements of a systematic campaign by a pro-EU fifth column running throughout society, but she may be their passive tool rather than being an active part of it. As one of her constituents for two decades I can say that she always expressed support for EU membership whenever she was challenged but it was rather lukewarm support, about enough to keep her within the official party line.
June 22, 2017
Indeed Anymouse, far too many unfortunate happenings, all working against a smooth exit. Too many to be just a coincidence.
Just like Cameron, TM is not working for the electorate.
June 22, 2017
Absolutely, let’s just get on with it. Labour’s high will not last very long because they remain a less than impressive potential government.
Let the government concentrate also on making people feel that they are working for something and not just to survive from one day to the next.
June 22, 2017
Corbyn and other malcontents to sensible normalcy cite “Making the UK into a tax haven ” as Tory Party policy.
Firstly, I’ve never heard a Tory express this desire.
Secondly, what’s wrong with being a tax haven?
Is there an EU boycott on Switzerland, Juncker’s Luxembourg and Hong Kong? Pre-Independence America secreted money away to Latin America into tax havens to criminally avoid paying taxes to the British treasury. And they still owe it us, plus interest, never mind the hooligan activty in ditching tea. They still hate paying taxes even to their own government. Not honestly paying your way in the world appears to be the American Dream.
June 22, 2017
Well the UK was indeed a very good tax haven (but only for Non Dom’s) this benefitted the UK economy hugely over many years.
But the economically illiterate IHT ratter Osborne largely stopped this. He should actually have extended these benefits to everyone instead. This by cutting IHT, other taxes and the likes, but this was way beyond his grasp of economics.
June 22, 2017
“… but this was way beyond his ( Osborne’s ) grasp of economics.” But when he entered the position of Chancellor he had no knowledge whatsoever of economics. He learned very quickly…basics… but for quite a time he made elementary mistakes in his terminolgy proving he was still learning. He improved massively and quickly by the time I saw him in one Committee Meeting in Parliament but he only spouted certain terms and analyses which had featured three weeks before in the economic sphere. I hightly suspect a question was fed to him beforehand so he could research the answer and deliver it off pat. Afterwards he looked around him with his customary grin. He has an astonishing memory albeit a non-analytic mind.
Now he thought he would try being Editor of a major newspaper. No doubt he will do just as well in this profession of which he knows absolutely nothing. Mind you, I tried something not entirely dissimilar but I was kind of pushed into it. He volunteered to look daft..
June 22, 2017
Due to the uncertainty of political careers, they may be more concerned about creating future career opportunities for themselves?
June 22, 2017
Exactly, why pander to those DUP types.. as arlene foster once famously said herself if you feed the crocodiles they will keep coming back.
June 22, 2017
With the DUP it is all greed.. just another form of sinn fein..ourselves alone
June 22, 2017
When it comes to the dup what do you expect? generations of successive british governments have been pandering to their every wish.. and now we see the result
June 22, 2017
A deal with the DUP means no Corbyn ; it is essential we do everything to stop any sort of rush to Labour Politics and their brand of Communism .
We have been over generous with the Scots in the past at the expense of tax payers in England , Wales and Northern Ireland ; now it is time to re-address revenue allocation and favour those who are a genuine part of the Union . If the DUP support our ambitions for a successful Brexit then I have no objection to the sort of demands are making .
June 22, 2017
A fair point.
June 22, 2017
N.I already gets more money per head under the Barnett formula than anybody else.
The English get nothing and pay for it all. Enough is Enough !
June 22, 2017
Yes ,and if offered to the ROI they would not be able to afford it such is the degree of subsidy already in place .
So we are stuck !
June 22, 2017
If we pay even £500 billion to Northern Ireland and get a real Brexit and avoid Corbyn it will be well worth it!
June 22, 2017
A bargain in fact!
June 22, 2017
I noticed that coverage of the Queen’s speech indicated it promised various things for the devolved administrations. My immediate thought was ‘what about England?’ and I won’t have been the only one. You do right to signal that no deal is better than a bad deal as the English, already chafed by the Barnett formula, will be likely to react badly at the next election if they see yet another hefty bribe paid out while England’s social care and NHS struggle.
June 22, 2017
We will check out of the EU in March 2019 but when will we take back control?
Hammond & Co want a long term perhaps never ending transition to our independence.
In addition the House of Lords, SNP, Lib Dems and Comrade Corbyn all will be unhelpful not to mention our friends in the EU.
The obstacles would be formidable even if we had an overall majority. The pressure at the top of government must be enormous. Consequently there must be a temptation for many ( and it will grow ) to kick BREXIT into the long grass and come to all kinds of agreements with the EU which mean we never take back control never really leave.
June 22, 2017
Most people pay no attention to the details of international treaties and so will be unaware that it’s commonplace for them to include transitional provisions.
This is why it’s so easy for the pro-EU media to stir up unnecessary public concern about the very likely scenario that our new treaties with the EU and its other member states will include provisions for the gradual implementation of some aspects. But provided these transitional provisions are clearly “time bound”, to use the description adopted in the DUP manifesto*, and the stated periods are just a few years, then there is no need to get wound about it.
* On page 24 here:
http://dev.mydup.com/images/uploads/publications/DUP_Wminster_Manifesto_2017_v5.pdf
“23. Effective, time bound transitional arrangements where necessary”
I would get a lot more worried if it was not a matter of transitional provisions in the new treaties taking us out of the EU but instead treaties taking us to some kind of supposedly transitional state such as continued membership of the EEA, which could be presented by its advocates as a temporary or interim arrangement but then could easily turn out to be the final destination.
June 22, 2017
What do you mean by taking back control..i can tell you michael that it won’t matter one bit to you as to who has control..your life like mine will be just the same..same old same old..as i have said..just like the rest of us taxed to the eyeball..inflation going up and the value of real wages and pensions going down..the eu will be out of our reach, gone will be days of cheap hols to spain, while the old tory grandees slip away on their annual hols to the bahamas and other more exotic places.. thats if they are not already out having aftetnoon tea out on the afternoon lawn at home with finger cute cucumber sandwiches.. taking back control..indeed
June 22, 2017
The DUP is keener on Brexit than the average Conservative MP. Perhaps, they have seen Mrs May replace Leave ministers with Remainers, without telling David Davis. Now she is reported to be accepting and unusual invitation to participate in the new EU defence conference and, incredibly, is going to sign up, committing the UK to expenditure into the future and possibly replacing NATO with German and French lead defence and merged armies.
The DUP may well be thinking that it would be unwise to enter into an agreement with a prime minister or party that is showing all the signs of ignoring the referendum or otherwise being totally incompetent.
June 22, 2017
The DUP is keener on Brexit than the average Conservative MP. Perhaps, they have seen Mrs May replace Leave ministers with Remainers, without telling David Davis. Now she is reported to be accepting an unusual invitation to participate in the new EU defence conference and, incredibly, is going to sign up, committing the UK to expenditure into the future and possibly replacing NATO with German and French lead defence and merged armies.
The DUP may well be thinking that it would be unwise to enter into an agreement with a prime minister or party that is showing all the signs of ignoring the referendum or otherwise being totally incompetent.
June 22, 2017
What a perfect excuse for the Conservatives to sit back and not propose any changes the to taxation and governance of the UK, we’ve only just had a budget, it will be nice not to have the deckchairs moved around again in October and March.
If you want to ease of austerity somewhere it will be interesting if you keep the motion simple if Labour vote against it you can make political hay.
There are many thousands of Labour voters I know that are hard Brexit types if Labour shenanigan about the Brexit deal sit back and watch the dominoes fall. Open them up such as the best chess players do by exposing their demands and who votes for what and let their local populace know by key social media targeting.
June 22, 2017
Can we believe what we read in the papers? What has come out would suggest that NI and to a lesser extent Wales, get a bad deal out of Barnett. Would be interested in your views on this.
June 22, 2017
Hammond is a genuine threat to full Brexit. The guy needs reining in. Pro-Brexit Conservative MP’s need to use their leverage to threaten May and Hammond or else
How will we know if we have the left EU and reverted back to being once again a fully independent, sovereign, self-governing nation?
Will there be a definitive document to confirm and prove our exit beyond argument?
I have grown to despise Hammond and May and their tedious media games. it defies belief that a Conservative Chancellor could even play such games with our nation. The guy’s a disgrace to our country
June 22, 2017
Hammond also clearly loves to increase taxes and tax complexity at every turn, just like Osborne (and attack the gig economy and continues to rat on the IHT promise).
The Queen said yesterday:- “My government will continue to improve the public finances, while keeping taxes low. It will spread prosperity and opportunity across the country through a new modern, industrial strategy.”
Well for this we need lower & simpler taxes and far less red tape and other misguided interventions – so Hammond must surely go and please take “lets run down the UK at every turn” Carney with him.
June 23, 2017
@lifelogic
Mark Carney worships at the altar of Globalism, which explains his lack of objectivity. His determination to trash GBP is a case in point.
June 22, 2017
One word sums up where Philip Hammond’s empathy appears to belong – “Achtung!”
June 22, 2017
Two very silly discussions on Today radio 4 just before 9.00 even by BBC standards.
The contributors nearly always all have BBC views – so lots of people on the wrong side of any argument all basically agreeing with each other.
First, John Simpson absurdly saying 2017 was the worst year for Britain in my lifetime. What a silly remoaner he is. Going about Terrorism, Joe Cox, Grenville, Carney running the UK down and the likes, no sense of history, scale or perspective at all.
Then we have Jon Snow and someone else on Universities and who should pay for student fees. “Society” he said (as lefties always do). “Everyone in higher taxes” is what he means.
He even said that university fees (as opposed to grants, benefit the rich). Quite the reverse Mr Snow. If you revert to grants the people who gain are the higher earning graduates, who now do not have to pay back the loan. The lower paid ones do not pay back anyway. Also those usually lower paid who did not go to University at all, through higher taxes. Can he really not see that is plan taxes the poor and benefits the rich?
Needless to say no one pointed this out to him.
June 22, 2017
LL. It should be pointed out that repayment of university fees based on the current structure is basically a marginal tax rate and will therefore only apply to the better paid and it is assumed that the government of the day can alter the tax band and rates at will. What’s not to like about that?
June 23, 2017
@lifelogic A well known economist once said “If socialists understood economics they wouldn’t be socialists.”
I wonder who will replace Snow as C4 News’ resident…. Lily Allen, Bob Geldof or Gary Lineker perhaps?
June 22, 2017
Corbyn and May on TV now in Parliament.
Their speeches did not command respect.
Iain Duncan Smith’s comment DID.
He suggested that “improving” Tower Blocks was not the way necessarily and more family orientated accommodation would be better.
He would have been a better Prime Minister.
I know personally, spinkler systems hardly were rebuilt in many Blocks before they and the lifts were vandalised. Sprinkler systems dismantled , stolen for scrap…ongoing!!!!! Furniture abandoned on floor levels by the tenants themselves, left in stairwells, and the whole building open spaces used as urinals and worse. Councils and landlords and workmen could not cope with the speed of such theft and vandalism. I have seen it across the country and any John Citizen’s gut reaction would be “Get these people out, they deserve no better than a tent” irrespective of race colour and creed. I have heard senior housing staff at all levels frustratingly say the same things in many areas and not without justification.
People like May and Corbyn never visit after 5pm such places if at all. Corbyn’s accusations that these people live “in poverty” is disgusting political stupidity and abject ignorance. There is no Poverty.Just votes for Labour for saying so.
Can you believe I once saw a motor bike, a field bike, being driven down stairs ( I can’t remember which floor ) of a Tower block and frequent fires lit by resident youths on stairways and lifts. I saw them!!!!!!
We need politicians who have lived.
June 22, 2017
Oh, and before anyone says: it is okay for you to say such things but I bet you live in luxury. No I don’t. I live in circumstances worse than any of those in Tower Blocks. I have reached my present “political” opinions by having my mindset, broadly socialist, even anachist stripped brutally away from me concept by detail by concept over decades via my own experience. It’s hard admitting you were totally wrong and a dreamer. But I do. I’m now too old to profit for my late growing up.
June 22, 2017
Philip Hammond has today said that he wants a three or four year transitional period for leaving the EU. His metaphor is that when you move into a new house you do not move everything in on the first day!
Er – yes you do! Although it may take a few days to unpack etc.
He needs reminding that we voted in the Referendum to leave both the single market and the Customs Union, as does Mr ‘talk down Brexit’ Carnage at the Bank of England.
Playing the lead fiddle out of tune does not improve the outcome!
June 22, 2017
Beecee. The Daily Mail reminded us yesterday that it was Philip Hammond who was Transport Secretary when the order for new Thameslink trains was placed with Siemens in Germany and he said he couldn’t reconsider it. It seems a bit obvious where his sympathies reside.
June 22, 2017
As you point out his analogy is very poor.
However if we left the EU, but then under the new treaty there was a period of three years allowed for adaptation before some change or other finally came into complete force, then that would not concern me.
As I’ve mentioned before, six countries agreed to set up a common market through the 1957 Treaty of Rome, but they wrote into the treaty that they would establish it in stages over twelve years rather than all at once.
June 22, 2017
If MP’s want civil war to break out they are going the right way about it.
The 52% who voted Brexit last year will not take it lightly to their decision being “cancelled” or “watered down” so that we remain in the EU in all but name. Even many “Remainers” have accepted the fact Brexit is happening. It is just the vocal minority stirring up trouble yet again – and I would highly suspect many of those are the same rabble who plan to march on Whitehall to oust Theresa May. The undemocratic minority would be an apt description.
What can’t MP’s seem to understand about “leaving the EU”
This does not a involve half- hearted leaving of the EU where we are still subjected to their laws and Freedom of Movement. We voted last year to end all that and regain FULL sovereignty.
The likes of Anna Soubry and Kenneth Clarke need to learn to toe the party line, otherwise they will just be handing Corbyn an open invitation to No10 – and no one of sensible opinion wants that.
The EU has progressively ruined this country over a number of years. Now is our opportunity to take it back and make it great again!
June 22, 2017
No deal is better than a bad deal should be obvious to even to the most intellectually challenged. Apparently it is not like so many other statements that are equally as unequivocally true but often result in derisive counter opinions. However that does not mean that a no deal does not come without problems that will need to be addressed.
In the case of Brexit they are few but serious as a hard border between North and Southern Ireland brings with it political problems that will exacerbate an already fragile power sharing agreement. All custom controlled borders in the short term at least will bring about unacceptable delays in goods and people crossing them. The position of expat UK and EU nationals will be unresolved although I suspect by mutual consent for now things will go on as before for those who are already resident in other countries. Apart from that it is the EU who will be the most disadvantaged which no doubt they will quickly come to realise and will quickly wish to complete a deal that the UK will be happy to accept.
The DUP deal or no deal brings with it a set of problems of Theresa May’s making by her poor performances as prime minster and in her supervision of the election campaign. Given the facts at the time she was right to call it but then manged to turn a strong winnable situation into a defeat. Now the Conservative government finds itself in a very tenuous situation even with DUP support. The slightest mishap and with Theresa in charge an all too possible likelihood of one or many occurring then it will be Conservatives out and Corbyn and his band of Marxist and terrorist sympathisers in. A prospect that is horrifying to contemplate.
June 22, 2017
I am concerned at Mr. Hammond’s comment on the Today programme about ‘transitional arrangements’.
On the Marr show he clearly stated no deal is better than a bad deal and that we are definitely leaving. All fine though the media mostly chose not to listen and cherry picked the speech to suit their agenda.
Transitional arrangements can drag on too long or – worse – become a status quo by default.
This must be avoided at all costs.
June 22, 2017
It’s the potential for an unsatisfactory, but supposedly only temporary, arrangement to “become a status quo by default” that is really worrying.
June 22, 2017
His analogy with buying a house means the contract is signed up front. But it doesn’t go far enough. Mrs May by contrast wants to test out furniture layouts and changes to the decor before signing the contract. It is the worst possible approach.
It is not difficult. Above all UK needs to cut itself free as soon as it can so it can re-organise. Industry and individuals do not need details. Delegate them to working or steering groups to complete and implement under the direction of the ministers AFTER a governing treaty has been agreed. This should be strictly confined to:
1. A clear statement of the end state to be achieved in terms only of the essential elements (which will depend very much on Liam Fox’s trade negotiations outside the EU)
2. The starting point. (free trade as is but with ECJ jurisdiction strictly confined to actual operations and sales within the EU)
3. The timescale, including milestones where appropriate
4. The process, including delegation to subordinate groups of secondary issues, details and implementation, monitoring progress and taking any necessary corrective action.
5. Dispute resolution (not the ECJ but via the Vienna Convention).
That is exactly what is required and there is still precious little sign that Mrs May understand this.
June 22, 2017
No problem here. Agree to DUP demands, close out Brexit in the UK’s favour! Once Brexit is completed, renege on promised agreement and we are done.
….I mean, it is not like the UK Government has not had vast experience in double-dealing…..isn’t that what the UK Governments have done in the past to its citizens, said one thing to win the election and then when in office do something completely different?
There is no political moral high ground here….so unless one wishes to bring down the Government in a “Day of Rage!” with a million people, chuckle!…..let’s get on with Brexit PDQ!
June 22, 2017
Providing the DUP don’t actually vote against government (e.g. a 5-5 split or 10 abstentions) the government should still win any vote, shouldn’t it?
This assumes Sinn Fein don’t take seats.
June 22, 2017
JF
My understanding is that in order to take their seats, all MPs have to swear, or affirm allegiance to the Monarch. Would Sinn Fein do so?
Reply No
June 22, 2017
It was a rhetorical question!
June 22, 2017
Being slightly concerned with the BBC portrayal of the winning/losing Conservative government, I decided to consult Hansard. During the period May 2015 – June 2017 there were 467 Commons divisions, the vast majority of which were “won” with <318 votes. The higher counts were normally associated with topics all parties agreed with.
https://hansard.parliament.uk/search/Divisions?endDate=2017-06-01&house=Commons&includeCommitteeDivisions=False&startDate=2015-05-01&page=1
June 22, 2017
The Government should always spend enough in Northern Ireland to balance up the economy with the rest of the UK. There is no particular reason why unemployment has to be any higher than anywhere else in the country. We are all in the same currency union.
Of course, if the Govt overdoes the spending in NI, or any other region, we’ll see higher than desirable levels of inflation. So a sign of too much spending/too little taxing is too much inflation.
So on that basis would you say it is London and the SE of England that needs more spending/less taxation or Northern Ireland?
June 22, 2017
Remind this Englishman when We had a referendum on being Regionalised?,
Just EUSSR lines in the sand.
June 22, 2017
I’m just wondering if the Government is caught between the Devil and the DUP 🙂
June 22, 2017
If dup are, as they always claim, to be part of the conservative and unionist family then surely they should be more than willing to help mrs may and without extra payment
June 22, 2017
The DUP claim is very understandable given the outrageous handouts made to Scotland by Mrs May’s predecessor to bribe the Scots not to leave the Union. Why should NI lose out?
However, you are quite right JR to believe the DUP would not vote against the Government when it would mean Corbyn moving into number 10. Mr Corbyn’s affiliation to the IRA would be enough to put off any Protestant party working with him and prevention is always preferable to cure.
June 22, 2017
Almost anything is better than this drifting to the middle, politically correct dripping wet Conservative government. And they think Ruth Davidson is their savior – can anyone name anything remotely conservative she has said or done ?
If JR had any integrity he would resign from the red Conservatives and run as an independent.
June 22, 2017
JR, there’s a chap who writes for the Times who has also got his current propaganda effort published in the Wall Street Journal here:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/britain-still-believes-in-fantasies-on-brexit-1498083171
“Britain Still Believes in Fantasies on Brexit”
Is there any chance that our Foreign Secretary in London might instruct our Ambassador in Washington to keep an eye on the US media and rebut this kind of rubbish?
Or is the UK government happy for its reputation to be trashed around the world?
June 22, 2017
Paranoid.
June 24, 2017
Who, or what, is paranoid?
June 22, 2017
Firedoors are made of wood.
Only, fire resistant, not fire proof glass. Best that Health and Safety is not debated by Parliamentarians. They believe from what they are saying that flammable materials should not be used in Tower Blocks. What do they believe the floor tiles on the stairs are made of and what they are stuck with? What non-flammable paint is used on the walls? In fact every material used? Is it Kryptonite? It would have to be to meet their NOW safety requirements.
Massive non-reassuring grandstanding! And always the Corbyn mob accompanying anything to do with it. Corbyn is more inflammatory than neat alcohol, with meths.
June 22, 2017
Remainers are out in force today saying UK farms will go under without EU workers. Please everyone make the following points;
1) We managed perfectly well before Blair’s immigration tsunami.
2) Brits will work on farms where wages are reasonable, but not for appalling slave wage levels.
3) British youth pick fruit the world over on their travels, from Australia to Spain, Israel to Thailand.
We must counter the relentless Remain myths.
June 22, 2017
Farmers didn’t want their workforces mini-bussed in. They didn’t want to pay the tranport costs and wanted the workers either on site or sharing rooms nearby.
Otherwise UK workers were doing these jobs and getting up darn early to do them.
June 22, 2017
Well, the underlying fallacy is that if we regain control over immigration from the EU then that will automatically and inevitably create shortages of various categories of migrant workers. Even if part of our new immigration policy was to continue to invite enough of the right sorts of people from the EU to come and work here, either for temporary periods or for indefinite periods, somehow they would no longer come. Presumably that would be because their dictatorial governments would refuse to grant them exit visas in order to stop them leaving their home countries … meanwhile our government lies back and allows all manner of stupid fallacies to circulate, it just cannot be bothered to rebut them.
June 22, 2017
Agree totally Richard.
A new market for labour value will emerge.
Relying on endless supplies of min wage staff supported by the State is not the best way of running an economy.
Growers will manage or even invest in machinery and more automation.
June 22, 2017
Yes RB!
The BBC’s Anti Brexit Propaganda Dept has been in overdrive today!
Fruit picking in crisis? Just to say that a week or so ago, there was a news item announcing that a machine for picking strawberries had been developed! The same announcement said that robots for gathering all types of horticultural products would not be far behind!
Also today, there was a BBC News Headline that reported Tusk as saying the ‘UK would be welcome back in the EU!’ Probably so, but what Tusk actually said was that he could imagine the UK re-joining – a long way from the FACT headline! But that is the MO of the Neoliberals, – get the Big Lie out there – it is damned difficult to counter – who reads the small print of a retraction!
Is it time to update the BBC’s motto? Perhaps:
“The Corporation Shall Speak Fake News Unto the Nation”
June 22, 2017
I read your speech, excellent. That 70 billion trade gap figure, the opportunity to repatriate it and its potential effect on the uk economy needs to be shouted as loud and as often as possible not the least because soft Brexit seems to being replaced by Hammond et al remainders, promoting the idea of a lengthy withdrawal with interim measures meaning that our budget payments will not cease in 2019 nor will we be able to trade where it will be most advantageous for us, delaying us getting at that 70 billion.
I presume in the next budget, money will be found for the NHS and surprise surprise some sweeteners for the home countries, thus ensuring that the D U P do not vote it down. You also made the point about more support etc for students. Maybe you could remind the Chancellor that the EC contribution could go in this direction thus politically a boost for the Tories and him. This could help ‘concentrate’ his thinking.
June 22, 2017
There is no getting away from it.
The General Election was a monumental disaster.
Laura Kuenssberg can now goad the PM that she went to the country for a Brexit mandate and ended up with it reduced.
To object to this is to sound petty and churlish and a politician can survive many things but being ridiculous is not one of them.
The election was Brexit’s Ratner moment and – like Ratner – totally unecessary.
June 22, 2017
It seems surreal that we are now talking about deals with the DUP.
This is desperate.
June 22, 2017
Its an interesting thought that my hard Brexit MP will currently be trying as hard as she can ton take money away from her own constituency and hand it to N Ireland
June 22, 2017
OMG I read now that the SNP will vote against May in the commons to thwart Brexit. When will it ever end? If the DUP, SNP, the Welsh or Fanny Adams want to vote against the will of the people then do we really want them on our side anyway? Why not tell them all to go and jump – wherever. The public are sick of politicians playing games with our lives. Enough is enough as Mrs May said so do something about it.
June 22, 2017
So mrs may is going to talk to the 27 eu tonight and say that the eu citizens in uk will be treated according to uk laws but i fear that that wont be acceptable to the eu side..
They are likely to take the view that eu citizens in the uk will still have recourse to the eu courts as eu citizens.. this might include for all uk citizens ad well who want to hold onto their eu status???
Then we have the question of irish nationals living in northern ireland holding irish eu passports.. they already have rights to the irish courts and eu courts as eu citizens undet the belfast agreement so i dont know how that circle is going to be squared.. one half of the population showing alliegance to europe the eu and the other to the uk..looks to me like a right old mess
June 22, 2017
According to God (David Dimbleby) on QT if we give the DUP money we have to match the money given to the other devolved nations. This means giving away hard earned money to everyone except England..
June 22, 2017
It is too easy to to abandon principle and pay the money. Doing so wold set the most dreadful precedent for the next two years. If there is one thing that must be preserved at all costs it is the twin principles of sovereignty and the freedom of individuals under the rule of the law of the land as they give consent to be so governed.
We voted to Leave the EU to assert these principles. We reject pork-barrel politics. That is the way of EU governance.
Paying to buy the cooperation of the DUP would reinforce the belief held by the EU’s negotiators that Britain will simply pay to buy concessions from them. All they need do is make the divorce bill even bigger in order to frighten UK more.
No, Mrs May, don’t even think about it. Remember Mrs T. No, no, no. And then say nothing more. Stay silent the one time you must.
June 22, 2017
BBC Question Time was….Where do they find the audience? Hard to believe such people are allowed to go anywhere unaccompanied without a responsible adult. The Labour MP said five million of us are starving to death. No he wan’t speaking by video link from Somalia or Yemen. Even in those places there are not five million people starving to death….nor even one million. Anyway most of the typically unbiased audience cheered when he said it, as much as they could, due to chronic malnutrition and their hand and arm muscle atrophy. If only they had had the strenth to crawl to the polling station and vote , their stomachs would be full now.
June 23, 2017
We might do better asking the DUP how they see the Good Friday Agreement evolving and whether they are desperate to retain Stormont. If I were a Northern Ireland Unionist, I wouldn’t cry too much if Sinn Fein excluded themselves from government for eternity. Direct Rule would be OK if it was championed as a permanent system of government, with some decisions devolved to county and city level.
If it’s just a question of offering extra public expenditure to Northern Ireland, then that would have to be multiplied by five (a similar amount for Wales and three times that for Scotland), not to mention the wishes of the long suffering English. Best to restrict the bung to expenditure on military ships.