Monday 6 August 2018

Dans ce pays-ci, il est bon de tuer de temps en temps un populiste pour encourager les autres


I liked ND's humorous post of Saturday, so it got me thinking, what was discussed, what happened?


And here it is interesting a swift search reveals hundreds of articles about the meeting happening. Plenty speculating what will happen, how nice the French President's place is in the South of France and all sorts of other 5p per word guff.


But nothing, nothing on what actually transpired at all, post the event.


So why is this? Most obviously it is because neither Macron or May have issued any kind of statement or press release.


But why have the media not insisted on one? Perhaps they have, only ineffectively.


I can see that the chances of progress were near zero. Macron has an easy view of Brexit, stay in the single market and betray the populists. Or a Hard Brexit to teach the populists across Europe a lesson...perhaps there is a modern re-working of an old quote that may sum this up.


So May's recent position of a kind of half-in half-out model will be lost on Macron who if anything thinks the Michel Barnier is a bit wimpy in the negotiations.


With a lack of meeting of minds, maybe it should not surprise us that the meeting has quietly been forgotten already.

12 comments:

John in Cheshire said...

I think it was Einstein who is supposed to have said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results. I've never accepted this as the definition of insanity, rather it is the definition of stupidity.

Mrs May is repeating the methods used by Mr Cameron prior to the referendum, to try to gain concessions from the EU to avoid having to hold a referendum. He failed miserably, as we know. So, how stupid is it of Mrs May to adopt the same approach in trying to get the EU to accept her ridiculous exit plan?

Some people are born stupid, some gain stupidity and some have stupidity thrust upon them. Which one of these applies to Mrs May?

Anonymous said...

Two and three.

Bill Quango MP said...

Cameron failed, partly because his cabinet secretary and the civil service, said the Eu would not accept any sort of changes at all. So best not to ask for anything at all and avoid disappointment
.
This was in Tim Shipman’s excellent Brexit book.

The Cameron concessions never put the slightest pressure on the Eu to deliver something, anything, to stave off a leave vote. Because they were told they would get nothing and that would look bad in the papers.

These same people are advising May. Explaining the Eu will give her nothing. So best not to ask and just agree to whatever they want.

No wonder we are where we are.

James Higham said...

Monumental waste of time.

Anonymous said...

Micron likes the older lady.

If only someone could fuck some sense into her.

dustybloke said...

They are both cardboard cut-outs.

What do you get when you stand two cardboard cutouts facing each other?

Charlie said...

May was dealt a reasonable hand and has completely and utterly f*cked it up. Don't blame the advice; blame the leader. I can hardly imagine Thatcher going in to bat against the EU and holding any truck with civil servants who tell her the wicket is impossible to defend, so best to pad up and take what's coming.

The longer she labours under the delusion that it's possible to negotiate with a totalitarian organisation, that she'll come out with something better than WTO, that she fails to pour scorn on the ridiculous notion that we'll be queueing for bread and rioting for medicine on B-day, the closer Corbyn and McDonnell get to the levers of power.

Hands up who'd forgive the Tory party for f*cking up Brexit so badly, for neglecting to sort out housing/health/schooling*, for being so utterly, cretinously shit that the reins of power are handed over to the Marxists?

*immigration, immigration, immigration

DJK said...

Well said, Charlie.

Anonymous said...

In June 2016, the country voted to leave the EU -- much to the horror of the public sector Establishment.

Since then, they have tried everything they can think of to obstruct and deny the result. The judges tried it, and failed. The House of Lords tried it, and failed. The House of Commons tried it, and failed. The BBC have gone on trying it, and have failed.

But all that time, Common Purpose elements in the Civil Service (led by Heywood, Robbins and Manzoni) have been weaselling away, and have managed to take control of the process, with the Prime Minister as their front-woman.
And at Chequers, they thought they had won.

Whether they have succeeded in their common purpose remains to be seen.

Electro-Kevin said...

At least Brexit has been a wake up call. A wake up to the fact that we have a puppet Parliament.

What we see now is Operation Make the People Think It's Their Idea.

We're staying in alright (Brino) but they have to disguise the fact that it's by force.

No second referendum. If we can't leave then they can bloody well admit it openly.

Electro-Kevin said...

At least no-one can now get away with saying the EU project has general approval. It doesn't here and it doesn't on the Continent. That remains the same even with a second referendum.

Elby the Beserk said...

Thatcher mentioned above. Well. Were she in charge we'd be out of the EU a twelvemonth back, and they would have paid us to go. We are served on all sides by the most wretched politicians (with the usual honourable exception!)

FUBAR.