LET ME JUST HAVER A LOAD OF TORY NONSENSE TO YOU FOR A MOMENT
Month: September 2022
WE NEED A MIDWEEK LAUGH
IS LABOUR SAYING THE UK IS NO LONGER A DEMOCRACY?
So, Mr Murray, we had a referendum on Scottish Independence in 2014.
You guys, UKOK, or Better Together, won. By fair means or foul. I mean although you did promise all manner of goodies for a Scotland that was staying in the UK, pretty much nothing was delivered.
Your ex-boss, Gordon Brown promised that if we voted “No” we could be a federal state within two years. That would have been by 2016.
Of course, at the time of that promise Gordon Brown was a mere backbench opposition MP with no power to do anything at all, but he had been asked to help out David Cameron by appealing to Scottish voters, whom Mr Cameron admitted (correctly), didn’t much care for him. He was the immediate past PM. People thought his word carried authority.
And so people took Dr Brown at his word.
Of course, this was as stupid of them as was his idiotic promise.
Simply, you cannot have a federal state without all parts of that state agreeing to the federal principle. Whilst it was not impossible that Northern Ireland, Wales and England would vote for that, it was by no means certain and it was definitely not in Dr Browns remit to offer it.
Instead, after The Better Together coalition of Tory and Labour got the result they wanted, the Tories ripped up the promises they had made, or had allowed to be made by Better Together, and set up a commission to look at what should be devolved. A Federal state was never mentioned again.
And in that commission with 10 members, 6 unionist and 4 independentist, the Labour Party voted for virtually no new devolution at all. Even the Conservative and Unionist party voted for more. Federalism by foot!
Home Rule supporter Kier Hardie would have been appalled.
And other things have changed too since 2014.
One of the main planks of UKOK’s argument then was that independence would mean that only the successor state would remain in the European Union. That would have been the rest of the UK.
So Scotland would be out. Alistair Darling’s Better Together repeated this over and over and told us it would be a disaster for Scotland.
It was also brought up in debate that if the Tories won the next election (and they did), Cameron had promised that there would be an In/Out referendum on EU membership. What, asked Nicola Sturgeon of the then Scottish Secretary in a tv debate, would happen if England voted Leave and Scotland voted Stay.
Alistair Liar Carmichael lived up to his reputation by telling her it wouldn’t happen.
Personally, I’m not sure that it would indeed have meant Scotland being thrown out. Fitting all the entry requirements for EU membership, I suspect that Scotland would have been able to make a pretty seamless move to membership.
The much peddled idea that Spain would veto Scotland’s entry because of the Catalunya situation, which again they dined out on, was finally revealed to be untrue… as they indicated that, as long as independence was obtained lawfully and in accordance with the British Constitution, they would have no problems at all with it.
It certainly frightened people at the time. Particularly EU immigrants who would have found themselves living in a genuinely foreign country with few rights (a bit like they did anyway under the UK).
So, now we find ourselves, 8 years later, living in a broke bin of a country. The admittedly Tory, government has trashed the economy, partly because of Brexit, partly because of Covid and partly because they are a bunch of third rate fascists being led by someone that only 10 years ago no one could ever have imagined holding a post in government, never mind prime minister.
And, in a union of equals, we find that we are not equal to Northern Ireland. Firstly because they have an internationally agreed entitlement to a border referendum once every seven years and it seems that we have no rights to change our minds.
And secondly because they remain partially within the European single market, which is boosting their economy while the rest of the UK takes a nose dive.
Now you, Mr Murray, said yourself, that a democracy must allow people to change their minds.. otherwise it ceases to be a democracy.
So, are you and Sir Keir saying that under Labour, Britain would not be a democracy?
RANDOM THOUGHTS
The Earl Marshall, that’s the prat in fancy dress (above) was caught driving while using his phone. A lawyer for the duke, who claims to be a descendant of Queen Elizabeth I (the virgin queen???) and believed to be worth £100m, told magistrates on Monday that losing his licence would lead to “exceptional hardship”. Awwww.
He has just organised the funeral of the queen, and is now charged with organising the crowing of prince Grumpy Face, and said it would be very hard for him to do that without a licence. Encore Awwww!
Even though the case was heard in private (why?), the judge obviously didn’t give a damn. Six months ban. Ha ha ha!
Munguin suggests that the pompous self-important old fool should do what Munguin does and get himself a chauffeur. On £100 million, and with the latest budget bringing in an estimated extra £55,000 a year, that shouldn’t be beyond even his blue-blood-impaired intellect.
Either that or don’t bother crowning big ears. Who actually cares?
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Trickle Down
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It seems that poor old Graham Brady never gets much of a break from Tories being discontent with their prime minister (do you wonder?). Having had to deal with letters about Johnson, it seems that already, within a couple of weeks of her appointment, letters are going in to the 1922 committee, calling for Truss to resign.
Embarrassing much?
To make it worse, Truss has just announced that she intends (as Dave mentioned yesterday) to increase immigration… No, really!
The vote for Brexit was, I imagine, largely won in England, on the promise that “foreigners won’t be able to come here and take our jobs, places in our schools and hospitals or claim our benefits and speak foreign in our shops”.
I seriously doubt that anyone thought much about the freedom of movement of finance, services or goods. It was, I suspect, “them foreigners” that caused the problems for vast numbers of English, despite the rather obvious need that they had for them.
Nigel Farage and the hard right wing press hate foreigners and spared no effort to do them down during the campaign.
Unfortunately the four freedoms come as a block. Get rid of one, you get rid of them all. So we’re left with no freedoms.
Also unfortunately, Britain needed these people to work in our hospitals, care homes, farms, shops and so on.
So now dumb Truss will be issuing visas for people to come and work in the UK (if anyone is desperate enough to do so). Only this time they won’t be Europeans. And, I’d make a guess that if there’s one thing the hard right hates more that European immigrants, it’s African and Asian immigrants.
But hey, them’s the breaks when you talk on a job that is 25 levels above your competence.
Also, unfortunately, her Home Secretary, the incredibly unpleasant Braverman, who seems to hate absolutely everyone with passion, but most especially foreigners, disagrees.
Resignation of Braverman soon? Or will Truss be the first to go?
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JUST FOR A LAUGH
“Last night I had Kasparov over for dinner.”
“Cool! And how was it?”
“It was nice and all, but we had to eat a cold meal.”
“Why’s that?”
“We had a chequered tablecloth and it took him an hour just to pass me the salt.”
4.
Why do the French eat snails?
They don’t like fast food.
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The other day I rode my bike to the liquor store. I bought a bottle of scotch and put it in the carrier basket. Then I thought: ‘What if I fall off? The bottle will break.’ So I finished the bottle before riding home. Just as well. I fell off seven times before I got home.
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DON’T be worried about your smartphone or TV spying on you … your vacuum cleaner has been gathering dirt on you for years.
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All generalisations are dangerous, even this one. – Alexandre Dumas
17.
Munguin’s thanks to Andi, Brenda, John, Erik, Jim, TM, Graham.
SOPPY SUNDAY
Thanks, as ever, to John, Kay, Dave, Andi.
ALL OUR YESTERDAYS
Thanks to Dave, John, Marcia.
THIS COULDN’T WAIT FOR SUNDAY
WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT THE EXPRESS?
Promises, promises
Point No 1. Wrong and couldn’t be more wrong. Who could have believed that you could leave the club and retain all the benefits of it without complying with the regulations or paying the fees?
Seriously, you’d have to be massively stupid.
Even those who had little or no understanding of international relations or of trade agreements, surely must have been able to understand that if you leave the golf club and don’t pay your “£350 million a week subs”, you don’t get to play golf there; you don’t get to have a drink in the subsidised bar; you don’t get to eat in the restaurant; you don’t get to go to the Christmas dinner dance or take your kids to the children’s party.
That should have told them something.
On point No 2, it is true that there were some small trade deals ready to sign as soon as Britain was free to sign them. But they were spectacularly unspectacular. The deal with the Faroe Islands comes to mind.
Some of them were near roll overs of EU deals (so no better off) and some had lesser value that the EU deals. Or had conditions like the Australian and New Zealand ones which meant they were good for them and bad for us.
(Do you remember that Call Me DOCTOR Fox, the disgraced ex defence secretary wanted a yacht so he could sail around the world getting these deals… I think he suggested that Kate Middleton could accompany him. Makes a change from Adam Werritty, I suppose.)
On point number three, we were promised £350 million a week for the National Health Service. A feet of magic money treeing there, given that we didn’t pay £350 million a week in the first place, and out of what we did pay, we received back a considerable proportion of it in grants for education, science, social care, farming, construction, etc… So far everything that used to receive money form the EU has got very considerably less from the UK.
On point four, the Northern Ireland Protocol has made changes in the relationship that the province has with the UK, The Tories’ insist that they will break the deal that they signed with the EU, bringing the UK into further disrepute and risking the Belfast Agreement and peace.
Again, the question: How could anyone be stupid enough to think that they could take back control of their borders without including the NI/Ireland border? And how do you take control of a border that goes through the middle of gardens and factories and shops? And a border which people, going from one town to another, cross maybe 4 times on their journey?
I’m not sure what “rights” they are talking about in No 5, but in England, the right to protest has been greatly reduced and they are talking about leaving the jurisdiction of the ECHR.
British rights? Can you just imagine?
Incidentally, the Belfast Agreement has a tie in to the ECHR, so leaving that will be another kick in the teeth to the international treaty business… and Britain’s reputation.
Cooperation on security hasn’t been maintained. There are issues that European police and government cannot share outside of the European area.
The integrity of the union has not been protected. Two of the countries in the union voted to remain in the EU. Two did not.
No one in the British government made any effort to address that, despite the fact that it is not undoable. Denmark has three integral countries: Mainland Denmark, Faroe Islands and Greenland. Denmark is in the EU. The Faroes and Greenland are not. But the UK never considered it and refused a least the Scottish government the right to sit in on any talks.
So, there’s a large divide for a start.
Then the Tory Party pulled themselves apart over Brexit with more sensible middle of the road now calling what remains in government as “The English Nationalist Party”.
We’re seeing far more interest in independence in Wales, as Nigel pointed out the other day.
And for the first time ever, the largest party in the Assembly in Northern Ireland is Sinn Fein. And it is only the DUP’s intransigence that stops them for leading the government and making their leader the First Minister. Heaven knows why… maybe that’s closer than it would be most places. Possibly the ghost of Ian Paisley thinks that God would think it was an abomination for Sinn Fein to lead NI, or maybe they are just petty minded little people who thought that NI was theirs forever.
Science, at number 8, has lost a lot of funding and a considerable amount of co-operation and our universities in Scotland and elsewhere will have lost funding for projects.
For No 9, I suppose they were out by the end of 2019 but only because Boris Johnson lied to the queen and had parliament prorogued illegally…so, well done, them. They didn’t say how they would do it. They just said that they would.
Although, even though they have signed and sealed the deal, much remains unsettled.
As for the last point, I’d agree that immigration is well down. Unfortunately we are desperately short of people to work in a wide variety of occupations and we will have to encourage people to come from outwith the EU to fill the desperate shortages in all manner of employment including doctors and dentists, farm workers and care assistants.
A new trade deal with India may well provide us with at least some of that labour, although I have a feeling that we may have to do what Greenland did when climate change brought about a tourist boom and they needed people to work in the trade… Go to the Philippines.
So much for their promises.
MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 