Bad beat/Moaning/Venting thread - Mammy told me not to come.

[shrapnel]

May-Day.

the irony of it being UKs cry for help

[Denny Crane]

Tax authorities seem to have given us back tax. It's a strange country for tax. Pay 23% of every penny in social charges (pension, healthcare etc) and then tax is paid as an additional amount. But there's so many tax breaks that it seems only gimps pay tax. Now they are processing tax rebates. It's a crazily low tax country if you have a family. Not sure financially how I'd move back to Ireland. Earn about €25k more here and pay about 20% less tax. Think the breakeven on an Irish move would be about €200k.

Bit of a weird system if all the single people have to cover the tax take?

[DeadParrot]

May-Day.

is
May’s deal just adds more poison to Brexit

MPs should recognise that a half-in, half-out arrangement is a gift to the grievance culture of hardcore Leavers

Young people intent on media careers sometimes inquire whether I’ve any advice on how to make their names as celebrity columnists like (they suggest) Boris Johnson. In reply one tends to waffle. Practical suggestions rarely occur to me.

Recently this has changed. I tell my inquirers to hang on for a few months, watch the progress of Brexit, and see whether Britain is going to end up with a “deal”. Theresa May’s deal, perhaps; or some sort of Norway-style membership of the European Free Trade Area (Efta) to which moderates on both sides of the House may in the weeks ahead “pivot” when (as is likely) they vote down Mrs May’s deal next week.

If so, I say to my young aspirants to a Fleet Street reputation, you’ve got it made. If you don’t mind publishing lies and distortions, your big issue stares you in the face. Looking to this future I see a score of vacancies in every part of the media for young, would-be Borises. A half-in, half-out “deal” with the EU prepares for them a veritable smorgasbord of over-egged Euro-horrors.

“You won’t need tousled hair or rumpled suits,” I say, “or a faux-chaotic persona. You just need one central, durable driving theme to your commentary. And with this European ‘deal’ you’ve got it: the same theme that fuelled Mr Johnson’s many-staged rocket through the media and into the halls of fame where he still flares and splutters.

“Your theme will be this. ‘Brussels is screwing us over and we’re cornered’. Be it straight bananas or the axe hanging over the British sausage . . . be it any bossy diktat you care to report or invent, the particular half-truths or lies are immaterial because you will be playing to what evolutionary biologists call a ‘meme’, a contagious idea that chimes with our fears and irritations, finds a welcome, a tut-tut or a chuckle wherever it goes, and spreads through minds like wildfire.

“Basically, your meme is that Johnny Foreigner is trying to push us around. Because that’s what May’s deal, or Norway, or ‘Norway for now’, gifts you. But in this Mark II Brussels-bashing crusade you’ll have an advantage Boris never had. We’ll be vassals, not members, of the European Union. Britain will have no role in the framing of European rules. We’ll be a satellite, a colony to the EU. Every new thing Brussels does that we can’t stop will be grist to your mill.

“So the spirit of the Boston Tea Party will rule. And you’ll find a whole tribe of Tory Brexiteers in parliament to hook up with, working themselves and their party into a lather about Britain’s subjection to a bloc which we’ve nominally quit but from which it has become extraordinarily difficult to break free. ‘Rip it up and start again!’ will become their cry, as former Remainers and journalists like me struggle hopelessly to defend the dismal ante-room in which Britain is stuck.”

I’ve been dispirited in recent days to read colleagues in the press, and hear friends in the Commons chamber, slipping into defeatist talk just as we approach a final fence which it lies within our power to clear. Too many who should know better, who see all too clearly the absurdity of moving from being a member of the EU to being a satellite of the EU, but who have been scared by nonsense about “no-deal”, are wriggling away from the only rational response to where we are in January 2019. The response is that we must try to stop Brexit.

They talk instead about finding a compromise, a way to bring our politicians and our country “together” this year, a way to “heal wounds” and end the political civil war.

Heal wounds? Come together? End the civil war? This year? Substitute “this decade” and it still defies likelihood.

Do these backsliders think that on the morning when the United Kingdom enters a halfway-house associate membership of the EU, bound by the rules but with no voting rights, the European Research Group of Conservative MPs, Nigel Farage and assorted Brexiteers are going to invite everyone to tea and announce that they’ve got enough of what they want to justify their disbanding, accepting the compromise and “coming together” with former Remainers in order to “heal wounds”?

Who could believe this? Come on, fellow Remainers, you know you don’t. Within literally minutes the Brexit brigade would be agitating to get Britain fully out of the EU, bring the implementation phase to a close, renege on the Irish backstop agreement on which Britain has given its word, and damn the consequences. The Eurosceptic press will find all the ammunition it wants to decry and ridicule the shackling of our country to a bloc we aren’t even part of. Every development in the EU that touches us will be seized upon as evidence of our humbling.

And those of us who value good relations with our European former partners and want Britain to stay close will be on the back foot, sounding unpatriotic, wishy-washy, half-heartedly defending whatever it is the EU is up to, or blaming a fait accompli for our new vassalage; to which the Brexiteers will reply “Hear, hear! Let’s show Brussels a clean pair of heels.”

It could happen on March 29. These are our last days in which to stop it. Remainers would lose for ever our strongest suit: a calm, principled and precautionary defence of the status quo. So-called “transition” will be carnage. We, or our part of the Conservative Party, will be done for. “Oh dear,” some of my backsliding fellow-moderates whimper, “how about Norway then?”

Bugger Norway. We are not Norway. We may no longer be a great power but we’re an important European power. On a range of things, joining Norway in the European Free Trade Association (Efta) offers no advantages over May’s deal; and on some it’s worse. The Irish backstop would, of course, have to apply to British membership of Efta because the problem would be unchanged: how to leave a customs union without imposing border controls. Norway brings nobody together; like May’s deal, it moves the trenches but leaves us in an intensified trench war.

My critics will be quick to point out that I have not mentioned that we had a referendum. We did. But when we voted we were uninformed about the consequences of a Leave vote. As an electorate we made a mistake. In a parliamentary democracy our representatives need the guts and the self-respect to tell us so. Next week will offer them the chance to be honest, and brave.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/passing-mays-deal-would-add-more-poison-to-brexit-sps3db96k

Love this

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

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[Raoul Duke III]

the irony of it being UKs cry for help

Nice planted story in the Sun earlier. 'The Germans are crumbling, will give UK whatever it wants - including unicorns'.

Swiftly demolished by ze Krauts.

[DeadParrot]

Austrian MEP was on Sky news just now.
Openly laughed in the face of reporter asking is concessions were still possible

[ComradeCollie]

He has to be taking the piss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3VfceGEgu0

Spoiler just as pic is large

SPOILER

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...

[Raoul Duke III]

He has to be taking the piss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3VfceGEgu0

Spoiler just as pic is large

SPOILER

He notoriously eats fast food for dinner every day - hence why he's so obese.

[Kayroo]

He has to be taking the piss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3VfceGEgu0

Spoiler just as pic is large

SPOILER

Saw that pic with the caption "House of Carbs".

Enjoyed that.

[Denny Crane]

He notoriously eats fast food for dinner every day - hence why he's so obese.

Does he still do it in the WH?

[Solksjaer!]

Was somewhat entertaining to watch.
Gavin Smith . I don't read back too far so maybe posted already.

RIP

[Raoul Duke III]

Does he still do it in the WH?

You've seen the pics. And the man himself sez:

Asked whether he preferred McDonald’s or Wendy’s, he noted: “If it’s American, I like it. It’s all American stuff,” Trump said. He added: “No matter what we did, there’s nothing you can have that’s better than that, right?”

[DeadParrot]

He has to be taking the piss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3VfceGEgu0

Spoiler just as pic is large

SPOILER

Look how chuffed he is.
Silver platters with dipping sauce still in the plastic containers.
Another high water mark in trump land.

[luckforsome]

Was somewhat entertaining to watch.
Gavin Smith . I don't read back too far so maybe posted already.

RIP

...Wasn't mentioned... Sad to hear, seen him on tv a few times and always seemed a decent guy...

https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news/23544-poker-champion-gavin-smith-dead-at-age-50

[Denny Crane]

We'd never have got this level of entertainment outta Hillary.

[Raoul Duke III]

We'd never have got this level of entertainment outta Hillary.

Brexit!

I just turned on the TV on mute. Saw a news show with a panel debate - was able with 100% confidence to pick the hardcore Brexiteer just on appearance.

[Denny Crane]

Some system

[Solksjaer!]

Look how chuffed he is.
Silver platters with dipping sauce still in the plastic containers.
Another high water mark in trump land.

See nothing wrong there . Would eat then bang 1st and 2nd ladies . (He's probably done so )

[ComradeCollie]

230, a nice round number.

[Keane]

#Rekt

[ArmaniJeans]

Good as gold, but stupid as mud
She'll carry on regardless
They'll bleed her heart 'til there's no more blood
But carry on regardless

[DeadParrot]

We'd never have got this level of entertainment outta Hillary.

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[Raoul Duke III]

Just hoping the country stops descending into the bear-eats-bear landscape it deserves to become for next 36 hours.

If you really want to start panicking.

SPOILER

Boris has got a prime ministerial haircut.

[Raoul Duke III]

Why would anyone ever give concessions to the dead duck (one level up from lame duck) that May so evidently is?

[Raoul Duke III]

[Guest]

I assume the Tories lose quite a lot of seats in the next GE, will Labour be the primary benefactor or has Corden lost a lot a public support during this?

[balfejohn]

If you really want to start panicking.

SPOILER

Boris has got a prime ministerial haircut.

Haircut based on his new 30 year old girlfriend

[Lao Lao]

Jesus wept, there is some amount of shite generic wedding bands out there!

[6starpool]

I assume the Tories lose quite a lot of seats in the next GE, will Labour be the primary benefactor or has Corden lost a lot a public support during this?

Corbyn is as bad as May, if not worse. If there was a general election (which there won't be) there is nowhere sensible to go in terms of a vote.

[Raoul Duke III]

I assume the Tories lose quite a lot of seats in the next GE, will Labour be the primary benefactor or has Corden lost a lot a public support during this?

The media have demonised Corbyn. Quite likely Labour lose seats to the next Tory leader imo.

(mad and all that it is to think that anyone could possibly be worse than the Tories)

Anyway, NC motion will get voted down tomorrow. May will make a ritual pilgrimage to Brussels and get slapped down hard. And then we're back to Square One.

The only semi-sensible thing to do is extend Article 50 which seems a no-brainer. And then....who knows.

[RichieM]

The media have demonised Corbyn. Quite likely Labour lose seats to the next Tory leader imo.

(mad and all that it is to think that anyone could possibly be worse than the Tories)

Anyway, NC motion will get voted down tomorrow. May will make a ritual pilgrimage to Brussels and get slapped down hard. And then we're back to Square One.

The only semi-sensible thing to do is extend Article 50 which seems a no-brainer. And then....who knows.

Labour could trigger a vote of no confidence in corbyn beforalso to the vote of no confidence in the govt.

Would be the best outcome really.

[NewApproach]

Can someone explain how GBP strengthened on the back of the vote?

[Raoul Duke III]

Can someone explain how GBP strengthened on the back of the vote?

Markets think Brexit is delayed

[NewApproach]

Markets think Brexit is delayed

But does it not also indicate that ultimately getting to a ‘No Brexit’ position is more challenging than may have been envisaged?

[Raoul Duke III]

But does it not also indicate that ultimately getting to a ‘No Brexit’ position is more challenging than may have been envisaged?

You think FX traders look beyond the end of the day?

I don't think there will be a No Brexit, there will be an extension followed by a vague recognition of reality, followed by Crexit. Followed by 'err, now what' and a good decade of hard negotiation and national decline.

I wonder what year was Peak Britain? Think I will go for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee. It's been a gentle downhill slope ever since with some exciting sections of plummeting. This is definitely a plummet.

[Guest]

Assume the French gilet Jaunes are several steps above the dopes involved in the Irish one?



The protest was titled ‘Not My Taoiseach!’ and a Facebook event advertising it said it was being organised specifically in response to “bad management and poor decisions” by Leo Varadkar.

“Leo Varadkar needs to know that the people of Ireland are repulsed by him. We did not vote him in and we have had enough,” the Facebook page stated.

[Guest]

Genuinely shocked that Clarkson is a remainder...wow

[Zod]

[Zod]

Genuinely shocked that Clarkson is a remainder...wow

Clarkson is best mates with Cameron.

[Solksjaer!]

Big mistake by May. She should have ordered 600 burgers for the ol vote. A few big macs. (can I use this term) Wendy's and an Eddie Rockets . . None of yer salady stuff

[Solksjaer!]

Jesus wept, there is some amount of shite generic wedding bands out there!

Just up the drink quota and the band's gets better.
Come on Eileen..I swear

[Strewelpeter]

Jesus wept, there is some amount of shite generic wedding bands out there!

Don't know if he's still doing it but Frankie Lane of the Fleadh Cowboys used to do the Wedding Band From Hell and it was a great show.
Top of the range cost wise and there will be plenty who hate it but feck them

[oleras]

Just up the drink quota and the band's gets better.
Come on Eileen..I swear

My mistake, i took it as...



was going to say, what do you expect for 90 quid.

[Tar.Aldarion]

The media have demonised Corbyn. Quite likely Labour lose seats to the next Tory leader imo.

(mad and all that it is to think that anyone could possibly be worse than the Tories)

Anyway, NC motion will get voted down tomorrow. May will make a ritual pilgrimage to Brussels and get slapped down hard. And then we're back to Square One.

The only semi-sensible thing to do is extend Article 50 which seems a no-brainer. And then....who knows.

Don't the EU have to agree to that? And would need a good reason to do so? Such as a referendum or GE.

[Lao Lao]

If one was to have a few hours to kill in London of a Thursday afternoon, what's the best plan of action?

Am over there tomorrow and it looks like the afternoon meeting are going to be shelved so will have 3-4 hours to flute about the place.

[balfejohn]

If one was to have a few hours to kill in London of a Thursday afternoon, what's the best plan of action?

Am over there tomorrow and it looks like the afternoon meeting are going to be shelved so will have 3-4 hours to flute about the place.

Go out and ask a few real londoners how they feel about brexit and report back to us that will keep u busy

[Raoul Duke III]

Don't the EU have to agree to that? And would need a good reason to do so? Such as a referendum or GE.

Yes, they do have to agree (all 27 governments too).

They've already signalled they're open to it. No reason not to be.

[Raoul Duke III]

Go out and ask a few real londoners how they feel about brexit and report back to us that will keep u busy

Preferably lads in string vests with tattoos.

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[6starpool]

Yes, they do have to agree (all 27 governments too).

They've already signalled they're open to it. No reason not to be.

Until July 1 would be easy, after that is more complicated,but for a referendum or general election they'd be open. That's the general view anyhow. I'm not sure a general election would do any good though.

[Raoul Duke III]

Until July 1 would be easy, after that is more complicated,but for a referendum or general election they'd be open. That's the general view anyhow. I'm not sure a general election would do any good though.

How about "we'll extend until you morons decide what the fuck you want and get a majority vote on it. Then we'll point you back to the Withdrawal Agreement. "

[Strewelpeter]

If one was to have a few hours to kill in London of a Thursday afternoon, what's the best plan of action?

Am over there tomorrow and it looks like the afternoon meeting are going to be shelved so will have 3-4 hours to flute about the place.

My favourite thing to do is to goo to room 22 in in the National gallery and spend a few minutes contemplating Rembrandt's self portrait at age 34 when he was cock of the walk, the most successful artist of his time and in huge demand. Then turn around and soak up the the amazing self portrait at age 63 when he was close to death, alone, out of fashion and without an arse in his trousers.
That'll give you something to think about when your meeting gets dull and you might then want to read Rembrandt's Eyes by Simon Schama.

[Strewelpeter]

Kenwood House out on Hampstead Heath also have an amazing late Rembrandt self portrait. It is a fantastic little museum that was donated to the state by the the third Earl of Iveagh in the 19th century.
I was mooching around the library which has loads of books of Irish interest and came across these astonishingly fat volumes considering their title

[Raoul Duke III]

This iss vot ze Germans think:

[Strewelpeter]

Go out and ask a few real londoners how they feel about brexit and report back to us that will keep u busy

I've been doing a lot of that lately. Brexiteers to a man complain about the backstop as being a trap by the EU to keep them in forever but are unable to explain what the backstop is, why it was put in (any understanding contradicts their argument for time limiting it), how it related to the GFA and what the conditions for a border poll are. They are however are 100% certain that NI would choose to stay out of EU and in UK in a border poll.
Remainers are all fed up and embarrassed, they all seem either irrationally optimistic or desperately hopeless.

[Solksjaer!]

If one was to have a few hours to kill in London of a Thursday afternoon, what's the best plan of action?

Am over there tomorrow and it looks like the afternoon meeting are going to be shelved so will have 3-4 hours to flute about the place.

Never say 'a few hours to kill in London ' out loud whilst over there .

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[DeadParrot]

subtlety is lost on you lot