Questions Of The Day (Politics)

[Wile E. Coyote]

I doubt the ERG has as much influence as it did, it's a single issue group whose moment has passed. This issue is of no interest to the majority of voters anywhere other than Northern Ireland and, even if it was, there is no equivalent Brexit party (Reform hasn't caught the imagination) for voters to switch over to. If the politicians in Northern Ireland were actually meeting in Stormont then they might have more influence, but they are not, so it will be a fudged agreement between Ireland, EU and Brits, whilst the locals claim "sell out". Do you think Starmer will vote against any fudged deal? I don't think so.

[Mick Harper]

[Mick Harper]

Good grief, you know politics is back to normal when the main talking point is whether the police are being misogynistic revealing Nicola Bulley's personal details. "Would they have done that if it were a man?" trills the ineffable Yvette Cooper. Of course they would have, dearie, after the time that had elapsed there was no chance she would be personally embarrassed (even if she were in hiding) and it was obviously germane to whether she fell in the river or not. The police are incompetent enough without people laying more of these finely nuanced burdens on them.

Talking of which, with half the county constabulary out looking for the body, questions will surely be asked as to how come it was eventually discovered in the precise spot it would most likely to be found -- a mile downriver from the last sighting. "We didn't have the manpower," the chief constable explained later. "We were fully stretched keeping out all the amateur sleuths off the internet."

[Mick Harper]

Rishi might be that rare prime minister: a lucky prime minister. For instance, he's been served up with an open goal. The EU have indicated they're prepared to let bygones be bygones and be good neighbours. They'll swallow a few shibboleths if Britain will. A fish quota here, a red channel there and all of a sudden both sides have the best of both worlds -- a functional free trade area just like the old days but with none of the soppy bollocks of the old days. Brexit lives! Brexit rules!

All Rishi's got to do now is point out to the DUP and ERG they've got nowhere else to go, so sign up or fuck off. Will he do that? I assume so but with recent Tory prime ministers you can never be sure. The last four got lucky and then threw it all away.

[Mick Harper]

The revelation that the judge in the Boris Drinkiepoos Case was bent means he'll have to re-instated. Whether the ministers sacked by his two successors get their jobs back as well is something still to be determined. The outcry about civil servants joining the Opposition means that Keir Starmer -- who left the Crown Prosecution Service to become a Labour MP -- will have to go, and Jeremy Corbyn re-instated.

It will be quite like the old days when insanity ruled.

[Mick Harper]

Rishi's run of luck -- or astute prime ministership -- continues. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the government's policy of digging in and refusing the unions' demands that their members at least get back what inflation has taken away, is working. Gradually, each group is being bought off by being given an extra one per cent here and a promise to do something about it next year there. Leaving the die hards on the railway to continue their age old strikes which everyone has grown used to and are met with grim resignation by all.

This is remarkably similar to the General Strike of 1926 when everyone came out, the government stood firm, the Strike collapsed and the miners were left all on their ownsome. To give up a few months later. And the Tories were in power for the next twenty years.

[Mick Harper]

Are We Becoming A Third World Country?

[Mick Harper]

Can I request a moratorium on 'criminal gangs preying on desperate people'? There are no criminal gangs, not in northern France anyway. There are people supplying boats for other people who are prepared to pay for them. It's not exactly your high street branch of Boats'R'Us but not far off.

[Wile E. Coyote]

The cost of an inflatable dinghy is low, so why are the migrants simply not buying their own at commercial prices? Why are the migrants paying extortionate prices to travel on often severely overcrowded vessels? Why take the risk of overcrowding? Presumably they are paying for the maritime pilot. That's the offence they really need to selectively target.

[Wile E. Coyote]

You have to like Gary Lineker. I do hope the BBC doesn't shut him up. He is so much better than Partridge.

[Mick Harper]

There's a fair amount of mysteries here. The most obvious being how the French police can miss large(-ish) groups of people wandering around with big(-ish) inflatable boats along a small(-ish) stretch of coastline. It would certainly pay the Brits to send a few of their own bods over there, not with arrest powers or anything like that, just a mobile phone on speed dial to the local plod. (It's le plod by the way.)

It is tempting to say it pays the French to let them cross (which is true) but we were reminded on Newsnight that Home Secretary Michael Howard got the French onside by pointing out that as soon as migrants knew they wouldn't be able to make the crossing to jolly old England, jolly old France wouldn't have the problem in the first place. We were also reminded that, technically speaking, Britain is at complete liberty to return migrants to whichever EU country (a) they first arrived in (b) were allowed to pass through and (c) had them last.

But the other aspect is the supply of boats. I cannot believe the number of builders (or sellers) of such relatively specialized craft is so vast that the combined muscle of Britain and France can't have a quiet word in their shell-likes. Though this may explain the 'criminal gang' aspect. It never ceases to amaze me how these impoverished wretches can always find an extra few hundred sovs down the back of the sofa wherever they find themselves. (I do not wish to appear heartless, it is a genuine mystery.)

[Grant]

It’s not a mystery at all. 99% are economic migrants and have already paid thousands to get to Calais.

Answer is to shoot them out of the water. But I am a psychopath so don’t listen to me

[Mick Harper]

Grant, if you would stop trying to live up to your legend for a bit you might spot some of the errors of your ways. Re-labelling them economic migrants does not affect anything at all. There is no dispute (is there?) that they are (a) poor (b) have already paid out large sums to get through other parts of the journey from start to nearly-finish and (c) have spent most of that time in environments in which carrying substantial amounts of cash is not recommended.

[Mick Harper]

HS2 Is Over

The announcement that
(a) the Birmingham-Crewe section is to be postponed for two years and that
(b) the London end may not initially be Euston are
(c) unambiguous signals that 'Concorde End' is nigh.

What happened à la Concorde was that everyone eventually realised it was a duff project and had to agree on how to bring it to an end in the best way possible. This is never straightforward with big projects that have acquired a fair amount of velocity. In the case of Concorde it was decided to build just sixteen aircraft, fly them into retirement, and accept a billion or so in losses. Plus put up with endless French moanings.

With HS2 it is to complete the London to Birmingham section (too advanced to be worth scrapping), scrap everything else and save a bit more by using Oak Old Common as the London terminal rather than Euston. Ironically this last is not such a bad thing. Nobody lives at Euston and Crossrail means everyone can get to Old Oak Common just as easily.

Plus put up with endless northern moanings.

[Wile E. Coyote]

I can't see any advantages of High Speed at all. Every time I go on the train every person who has a seat has a phone or a laptop and is happily grooving away, or watching Netflix, or working. They are using their time productively, 30 minutes or so quicker, so what? It's the folks without a seat and poor reliability that are the issues, you just need more carriages on the trains. Again, with freight, high speed is simply not important.

It was the same with Concorde, majority of folks just wanted cheapness, reliability and comfort, not high speed.