Brexit Compo: RESULTS !

Your predictions, please, for the state of play on Brexit Day 29 March 2019:

1. who will be PM?

2. has there been a GE? If so, what headline outcome?

3. has a 2nd referendum happened? If happened - question? result?

4. in broad terms, on what basis is the UK / EU relationship set for the immediate 12 months following that date?

5. has Gove disappeared up his own fundament?

6. do the LibDems still exist?

7. tie-breaker: any other colourful details concerning British politics you care to append?

So now we know.  Sort of.  There were 16 valid entries, which is just a few more varieties than MPs voted on the other night.  Most people inevitably got 1, 2 & 3 correct; though the left-field players were anon#3, Hopper, CU and anon#4 who went for Corbs (and had thus also given the GE & result wrongly, too); Jan (Jacobus) and GridBot (Sadiq, & thus GE wrong also).  But a special mention to Andrew, who said "TM will announce resignation on 29/3/19", which is pretty damned close.  Kev reckoned R2 would have been scheduled, but not yet taken place.

So 4 becomes the main battleground, but let's look first at 5&6.  BQ had Govey for Foreign Sec by now; DJK had him as ultra-loyal, and Bogotol as beavering away on enviro-stuff (both pretty close); AndrewZ had him as "head down" (is that the same as head-up-bum?).  Anon#4 reckoned him as facing Sadiq across the Despatch Box as Tory leader; and I had him as "positioning" (is that the same as ...?)   I also had Cable as having gone by now, which I'd like to think is almost right ...  Otherwise the Libs didn't feature much - which is only fair and proportionate.

I direct y'all to the original post for the tie-breaker contributions

Now for 4.  We had 2 x Hard Brexit (Jan, anon#3); 4 x Remain (with more or less bitterness expressed - Kev, CU, GridBot and anon#4) and DJK with "indistinguishable from today";  7 x leaving, or leaving-ish (BQ, Charlie, AndrewZ, Andrew, ND, Bogotol; and Hopper saying "trade war" which I take to be in the Leaving camp).  Two got closest: anon-newbie with "status quo - can kicked down the road" and TBHall with extension of A50.

As for today's rider, we have the following: DJK closest on margin (70) with Jan runner-up at 40.  And Radders had a good stab at the absolutes: 299 plays 335.  CU reckons everything's coming his way, and he's the proprietor ...

So - with the one special mention for Andrew, and a couple of other creditable near-misses, in the spirit of the Indicative Votes I declare ... nobody wins!  Ain't that a fact.

But (assuming we are all spared, as they say) - I'll buy anyone a drink at the next C@W gathering.   That's a solemn & binding manifesto promise ...

ND

Naked Into The Conference Chamber

Writing as an old negotiator of big, drawn-out deals (I'm working on one now, which explains the lack of posting) I can only laugh in disbelief.  I'm sure everyone else is laughing, too, though there's precious little non-ironic pleasure to be had.

What does May think she's achieved?  In full public gaze she has wrung out of her Cabinet their collective absolute-worst-we-could-possibly-accept-fallback position, delivered it to the other side - who won't agree even to that!  And why should they?

There are plenty of *successful politicians* who make it to the top without any understanding of the ways of the world.  Corbyn is a pretty extreme example, but there's a rich field to pick from on all sides.

http://www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2016/07/the-genius-that-is-gove.html

Ordinarily you'd expect ideology-bound Labour would suffer from this more than business-oriented Tories; but in the good old days there were plenty of Union types in their ranks who know a thing or two about the ways of the smoke-filled room.  Even Nye Bevan, apparently an ideologue of the first water, had done a bit of negotiating in his time, and "astonished his supporters by opposing unilateral nuclear disarmament" (Wiki) with his famous one-liner**.

Interesting to see David Davis resigning this morning - he was always a resigner, so no surprises there.  Johnson was never what anyone would think of as principled ...  and remind me, why has anyone, ever, seen anything in Gove??

I'm guessing the odds on Corbyn in No.10 before Xmas have shortened a bit.

ND

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**"It is not a question of who is in favour of the hydrogen bomb, but a question of what is the most effective way of getting the damn thing destroyed. It is the most difficult of all problems facing mankind. But if you carry this resolution and follow out all its implications ... you will send a British Foreign Secretary, whoever he may be, naked into the conference chamber."

Murdoch on Maneouvres - Again

Since our subversive old friend Guido Fawkes became a wholly-owned subsidiary of NewsCorp (or whichever it is of Murdoch's vehicles), Order-Order has become a reliable one-stop shop for picking up on whatever is Rupe's latest diktat to all his organs.  Fawkes, you see, is nothing if not loyal to his masters overseas (yes, the parallels with 1605 are all there), and so there are compliant links to Times, Sun and Sky etc whenever a new 'line-to-take' is being promulgated by the proprietor.

www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2016/07/the-genius-that-is-gove.html

And Rupert is nothing if not the owner of a fan of Michael Gove.   Right now it's pretty clear the word has gone out: Gove for PM !   Even Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun, who clearly resents being given these instructions, is dutifully puffing Rupe's man, for pity's sake.  Still, if the alternative is Amber Rudd (who has apparently raised a veritable war-chest and instructed Lynton Crosby to manage her own leadership campaign) we aren't exactly spoiled for Aussie-promoted choice.  Why is it always Australians - whose own domestic politics are such an utter shambles - who come over here sticking their fingers in everything?


Flashback 2011 (for fans of the doggerel) - to a time when Rupe was dodging serious controversy, seeking once again to restructure his empire, and furiously wooing the Chinese ... (the usual apologies, this time to Cole Porter)

Who wants to spend a year in gaol ? 
Who wants their bid for Sky to fail ? 
Who wants the bother of a big public fuss ? 
A big public fuss is no good for us ! 
Who wants bad headlines ev’ry day ? 
When Chinese markets are in play ? 
Who wants shame and opprobrium too ? 
And I don’t, cos all I want is Hu 

Who wants the wretched BBC ? 
Who wants his stuff online for free ? 
Who wants to burden Fox with neutrality ? 
What, neutrality ? that’s no use to me ! 
Who wants to bother with the facts ? 
Who wants to pay out any tax ? 
Who cares for human rights, or for Liu ? 
And I don’t, cos all I want is Hu

ND

Gove is Causing Mayhem: A Pointer

Well alright, au fond it's May's weakness that is causing mayhem - but the form it seems to be taking just now is Gove's increasingly reckless leadership manoeuvres.

First, we are plausibly told, Murdoch required that May take Gove back on board.  A conspiracy theory, I realise, but hard to disbelieve.  With his Murdoch-mandate for a putsch in his back pocket, how is he to make progress, when it has been generally agreed between the circling barons and their factions that Now Is Not The Time?  Answer: to stake out noisily the old pre-2010 Cameroonian position.  Brand-detoxification + husky-hugging.

His pretext?  In the present state of cabinet anarchy he barely needs one.  But he was handed one on a plate when (as we are told**) May's new chief-of-staff Gavin Barwell instructed cabinet members to come up with policy initiatives that don't cost any money (not itself a bad idea, as Mr Quango has pointed out).  Sajid Javid - another wannabe who's keen to be in the news - rushed in with his house-lease intervention.

http://www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2016/07/the-genius-that-is-gove.html

 

But Gove has outshone everyone with two crass, would-be populist performances in as many days.  Yesterday - in a move that must have been, ooh, at least a week or so in the hatching - he came up with the banning of new internal combustion engines by 2040 - the French wheeze.  Did he think that'll cost nothing for a year or two?  Only if the greens and red-greens stupidly let it lie quietly where it fell: but that's not what happened on Day 1, when the universal cries were: 'too little, too late', 'it's the air pollution Right Now, stupid', and 'watchergonnadoaboudit?'  As well as opportunistic secondary themes such as - 'don't just dump it on the local authorities'.

(And all this was before the 1 O'Clock News, which tells us the opposition is thinking quickly on its feet, even during the silly season.  And, of course, they have the BBC firmly in tow.  These are dangerous political times for Tories.)

But the day before that, Gove himself did some 'quick thinking on his feet' - and came out against chlorinated chicken!  Talk about swallowing the enemy's agenda.  The Remainders must have been overjoyed: their tactic for undermining a US-UK trade deal by guessing what'll be in it and demanding pre-emptive red lines has paid off on its first outing - and there's plenty more where that came from.  GM food will be next, mark my words.  And of course 'anything produced using gas that was fracked '.  (Oh, and the 'chicken' thing deflected attention from Corbyn's woes over repaying student grants).  Well Done, Michael.

We'll come back to electric cars another day: it's a technical issue as intractable as the electrification of trains and space-heating we considered at the weekend.  In the meantime, let me leave you with one other point to watch out for.   Gove and Barwell are best buddies.  You heard it here first.

ND 

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** I have looked for this story, which was in the papers or on the news recently, but can't find the link.  Sorry.
Cartoon: Stephen Collins www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/cartoon/2012/mar/16/1 (detail)

The 'Genius' that is Gove

Now hang on a minute here.  Gove is no genius.  Apt commentary on Gove comes in a brilliant 2012 Stephen Collins cartoon in the Grauniad, of which this is a detail:

Stephen Collins / COLiLLO.com

It doesn't end well.  

Remember that in the Westminster bubble, 'Nudge' is considered a work of profound political philosophy: and for being an afficianado of said inane book George Osborne was considered wise beyond his years.  The bar for genius in that parish is set very low.

(All the talk seems to be of how Gove stabbed Boris in the back.  Might it not be that he put a gun to his head ..?)

I love reading the Labourites prosing on about how the Tory Party is in meltdown and that now is a time for capitalising on this (instead of what they are actually doing, viz mass self-immolation).  Nope: the Tory Party, a very serious power-minded entity, is seriously about the business of Choosing A New Leader, a post which naturally attracts the toughest and most ambitious in the termite-nest.  Might it be bloody?  Yes.  Will it be protracted?  Not particularly.  Will it end with everyone dead on the floor?  Assuredly not.

Will the party re-unite to win the next election?  Most probably.  Because if it's done adroitly, (a) Tory deserters to UKIP will come back into the fold - quite quickly, in fact;  and either (b) Labour will insist on opposing Brexit and be finally wiped out by UKIP or (c) Labour will do whatever it takes to win back its UKIP defectors, in which case ...

ND

UPDATE: in the comments, our good friend Kev asks:  Do we allow cartoonists to influence which leaders we choose? 

What a great essay title!  Beware, you may get the essay ...