We lost Osbo!
If I had not been in the office until 10pm last night that would have been worth a drink. I see Hammond as being a far better Chancellor - no more scheming Brownian nonsense in No 11.
On the downside, we gained Amber Rudd as Home Secretary. Rudd truly is useless. Luckily, Home Secretary is not that important at the moment and no doubt she will screw up really quickly and be gone; at least her fingers are off energy.
Boris is a terrible choice for Foreign Sec, should have swapped him and Fox around but there we are.
Lots of Brexiteers is good news for Brexit and the Country. Hopefully we will quickly move to WTO now and avoid the fudge - here is hoping anyway!
So...let's see what this morning brings...
I am liking Davis returning.
ReplyDeleteBoris is a actually a good (internal) political move - as someone commented last night: what other cabinet job can you screw up your career but not really effect the chances of the party in the next election?. (Big crises handles by No 10 anyway.)
Rudd: appalling
Not convinced on Hammond as Chancellor (benefit of doubt)
No more Osbourne - excellent move - politocally needed as the signal needed that it is a break with the past.
Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary seems like a big risk. It's not the kind of role where we can afford to have someone who makes it up as he goes along and then relies on bluster to get himself out of trouble. My guess is that it's a product of internal party politics - possibly he had too much support to ignore, or May didn't want him on the backbenches plotting against her. May could also be setting him up to fail, by giving him a job in which he is likely to mess something up and finally destroy any credibility he might still have as a potential Prime Minister.
ReplyDeleteBoris or Fox?
ReplyDeleteBoris will mess up but will be forgiven as he will appear to those overseas as an eccentric Englishman.
Fox is a neo-con and would be starting wars, left, right and centre. Anything to help his mates in the defence industries and the commissions they pay. At least this way, he has to sell rather than buy (and get his back handers)
I think May is a lot shrewder than she seems.
As regards the fragrant Amber, its an interesting appointment. Her constituency is a fragile one and may be affected by the Boundaries Commission. So if there was an early election then she'd be out ... which could suggest May is in for the long, long haul by appointing her.
Philip Hammond (The Dripping Wet): Would be incompetent in any position, but hope I'm wrong.
ReplyDeleteAmber Rudd: Hopeless. Every Home Secretary ends up being hopeless anyway. I genuinely think that's what it's there for.
David Davis: Excellent. Excellent. ...so long as he doesn't quit.
Dr. Fox: Lots of sly dealing opportunities. Good, but watch him.
Boris: Definitely a risk and media in delicious apoplexy. However, he won two elections in a Labour dominated city and already known on the world stage. Showed in the referendum he could be serious.
My memsahib was once in the civil service. She says Hammond was a good minister; checks out details and not captured by the FDA.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, Osborne gone so I will crack open the Prosecco before we have to slap the tariffs on.
Yes, osbo-celebrations all round
ReplyDeleteI ought to be happy about hammond, but, errrr ...
Hinkley Point: new UK chancellor determined to start building
let's hope he 'checks out the details' on this one, SW!
What hold does Rudd have over May?
ReplyDeleteBoris' little black book of contacts is gonna have everyone who's anyone in London in it. I'm not so sure this isn't an act of undiluted genius.
ReplyDeleteWhat hold does Rudd have over May?
ReplyDeleteWhich member of the Rudd family are you referring to?
Letwin going is quite funny
ReplyDeleteI'll stick my neck out and back Bozza to be a really good foreign sec. He's a likeable, well cultured bloke, with plenty of experience representing London, that apparently speaks a lot of foreign languages to boot.
ReplyDeleteHe might not be very 'PC' but he's no bigot and very few foreigners are all that 'PC' either in my experience, especially not in the far east.
I for one welcome George's departure, if only so I don't have to keep seeing his name mis-spelled by idiots on the internet.
ReplyDeleteHammond "dripping wet"? The news media have labelled him a Fiscal Hawk. Who to believe?
ReplyDeleteAh, the darling Rudds of May...
ReplyDeleteHammond just ruled out the Norway option. Bold.
ReplyDeleteI very much hope Davis sticks to his task and doesn't pick a silly fight over (e.g.) police surveillance & resign in a huff
ReplyDeletenot that I begrudge anyone their principled objections to snooper-May's 'security' agenda: but now is not the time
actually, Davis is a soldier and I hope he can be trusted to stick to his alloted theatre of war
Don't forget that in the USA Johnson was very well known.
ReplyDeleteIn the post Tony Blair days only a handful of yanks could pick out Gordon Brown as the British PM from any line up of euro suits.
But Johnson was well known and liked.
They referred to him as 'London Boris'
Hammond gets a bad press because he's a bit dull but I remember hearing him criticise Brown very pertinently when everybody was saying he had saved the world. Boris was a startling appointment but could be a great success - as some have said he has a lot of charm as well as intelligence and humour even if he is ruthless underneath. He could be hugely popular abroad (I believe he already is in many countries). His supposed gaffes are usually true and can be laughed off. Some see a deep plot to sabotage Brexit but let's wait and see.
ReplyDeleteSome see a deep plot to sabotage Brexit
ReplyDeleteOf course there is, by the EU and their quislings. I imagine behind the scenes there'll be some shadowy organisation, like 'SPECTRE', pulling the strings.
I'm trying to imagine Palmerston, Lord Curzon or Sir Edward Grey hanging from a zip wire and waving a Union Flag.
ReplyDeleteSL - Will the UK leave the EU or the EU collapse before we can escape the vortex....
ReplyDeleteLeadom to Northern Ireland?
ReplyDeleteGuido says DEFRA for Leadsom.
ReplyDeleteHow you goin' to keep 'em down on the farm....?
Will the UK leave the EU or the EU collapse before we can escape the vortex....
ReplyDeleteThe dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see, the future is.
Now Guido says that leads got Environment. Is that the same as DEFRA? What else can one farm but the environment?
ReplyDeleteI have modest hopes for Greg Clark @ Energy
ReplyDelete(then again, I had hopes for Rudd ...)
Ed Miliband isn't happy at all, tweeting:
ReplyDelete"DECC abolition just plain stupid. Climate not even mentioned in new dept. title. Matters because depts shape priorities shape outcomes."
So two further reasons to be happy!
Yes I saw Ed Stone's comment earlier and had a good chuckle. His legacy lives on, though hahahahahahaha!
ReplyDeleteGary Gibbon, from Channel 4 News, is quoting a "member of Cameron's circle" as saying, "Looking at the team, this might not last long.". I find that surprising. Is there some obvious clash of personalities in there that isn't well known? (More than is usual for any group of senior politician's, obviously.) I would have thought their real challenge is getting any form of Brexit through Parliament.
ReplyDeleteYDG - we don't suppose that might be one Gideon "Sour Grapes" Osborne, do we ..?
ReplyDeleteI have a strong feeling - as I guess you do - that this team is as cohesive as any a bunch of ferrets in the same sack, who all quite fancy the prospect of being the ones who saved the nation
(who didn't want to be in Churchill's wartime cabinet, and play their part?)
So after a bit more thought.
ReplyDeleteI wonder who will propose any legislation repealing the relevant sections of the European Communities Act. Will it be the new Secretary of State for Leaving the European Union?
Who will lead it through the house? The PM or David Davis? Presumably the MP's will be whipped. But depending on what any new law says there might be objections from either side. It might go too far for folk who want in the single market or not far enough for folk that don't. And I reckon every non-tory MP will oppose it.
I don't think we will find out much more until September. But it won't be much longer until the Q3 GDP figures are released. I think these will be bad. By this time I reckon it will take just one big announcement - i.e. Nissan saying they will skin out of Sunderland or similar - to derail Brexit.
And if Brexit is derailed, this will be how it is done, big employers in places that need them will credibly threaten to leave the UK. Through the fog, I see this as more likely than David Davis successfully leading some kind of 'Brexit Act' through Parliament.
ReplyDeleteSL
I suspect the PM will be v.v. prime ministerial and one nationist and stand well back from brexit and all that involves.
Not least as unless they can find 350m per week from the NHS and retain access to the single market and keep control over immigration and stop paying for the eu and ignore the rules they do not like they wont be seen to have succeeded.
IMHO she should go early on Art50 for the simple reason she is in charge of the Cabinet but not events.
ReplyDeleteTaking the Nissan suggestion or some other government-toppling event, we may find ourselves with an early GE, a Labour win, and the argument that a manifesto to stay in, is far more binding than an "advisory" Referendum.
Though on the other hand, perhaps the ferrets have been chosen with the above in mind. No Brexit - but no blame either.
Is this a BBC comment page?
ReplyDeleteIt has that same doom laden tone.
Nissan will leave . The markets will be jittery . A baker refused to make a cake for a German. Boo HOo
I didn't say Nissan will leave, i used them of an example of an employer which might credibly threaten to leave as part of a wider movement to prevent 'brexit' from happening.
ReplyDeleteThere is still a majority of MP's sitting that supported EU membership. Whether the public vote has swayed them remains to be seen.
It looks as if all the opposition parties will unite to vote down a Brexit Act.
Ok SL I personally think you are too pessimistic.
ReplyDeleteIf enough MPs vote against an Article 50 bill, then it will cause a constitutional crisis, and will force May to call an election. The Tories would obviously stand on an Article 50/Brexit platform. LibDems on a non-Brexit platform. Who knows what Labour would do.
If the Lords rejects an Article 50 bill then that is even worse, but the same outcome, there is an election with the Tories putting it in their manifesto.
Someone mapped the referendum result onto constituencies and it was something like 60% of constituencies voted Out.
Sure, in a general election people might not vote the same way, but my guess is that the initial mood of "shock, what have we done?" is beginning to wear off. I think if there was an election the Outers led by May would set out the sunlit uplands and win.
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/international/britain-to-get-absolutely-everything-it-wants-from-brexit-negotiations-20160715110899
ReplyDeletemy guess is that the initial mood of "shock, what have we done?" is beginning to wear off
ReplyDeleteBut we are not officially in recession yet. If business investment and consumer consumption does stall enough to cause one, a lot of people will change their minds. I still think a mid-credit cycle recession, caused by people delaying decisions rather than cancelling them like they do in a full blown credit crash recession, is a possibility.
You might be right that the tory party are happy to follow the public will and carry on with Brexit. But thet public will could easily change. Whether there are people in high places going to try and change it remains to be seen. I'm not convinced the remainers will give up without a fight. Whether the EU (and the USA?) try and pull strings to keep us in is another question.
I'm not convinced the powers that be, here and abroad, are resigned to Brexit and going to see it through in everyone's best interests. But maybe I am being pessimistic and David Davis's Brexit Act will sail through the house.
Had a slight smile at the David Davis/Minister for Brexit Wikipedia page.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_of_State_for_Exiting_the_European_Union
Term length - "At her Majesty's pleasure".
No FTPA for David then. Time off for good behavior.
Will they change their minds? It's not as though people weren't warned of dire consequences...
ReplyDeleteOr will they get hacked off about being asked again, and give the predictably British answer?
The british answer and then some imo.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking as a lukewarm remainer,
I wish the referendum had never happened.
However, you cannot unask the question.
Part of the brexit vote motive was a 'you are not listening' protest.
If we don't exit, that will be proved true
If we get another referendum, that will be proved true
If we dont start the exit process soon I will be out demonstrating along with the exiters.
Then again, another thought I keep having (and people keep rubbishing) is that 'the establishment' want to leave the EU. Recent events demonstrate why open borders pose a national security threat. As an island, we can mitigate, but only outside of the EU.
ReplyDelete