the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

Well.

Exclusive: The Conservative Party accepted a £50,000 donation from the wife of a former minister in Vladimir Putin’s government on the same day Theresa May announced Russia was "highly likely" responsible for the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal. https://t.co/yEwWEN4fwQ pic.twitter.com/r4l6K3AJBi

— andrew gregory (@andrewgregory) June 1, 2018

we've been through this, shame is dead

principles, how do they work

When she took office in July 2016, the PM said it would not be “business as usual” with Russian donors amid growing tensions between Moscow and the West. But her party has since received more than £800,000 from Russian-linked supporters.

All donations from oligarchs, bankers and billionaires in return for access and favours are inherently appalling. Chernukhin has been on the outs with Putin for 14 years, though, and had a fraud case (which he claims was politically motivated) targeted at him by the Russian government. Framing all donations from British Russians as substantially more suspicious than anyone else with hundreds of thousands of Pounds to chuck around for the privilege of playing tennis with Boris Johnson is not helpful.

xp
lol 2016, the year May paid lip service to Blue Labour and some media fools made preposterously daft comments about her! It seems a world away.

that's a good reminder sv, you're right of course

Shari v much otm, altho what's fascinating is the media distinction between evil Russian oligarchs and peaceful cuddly non-Russian oligarchs

I can remember a piece in Graun in the early 00's about how scum like Abramovich ruthlessly held people to ransom for their shares in Gas companies by withholding wages, probably not even close to the worst of his sins, but for a long time before his latest visa problems he has been in the cuddly category of oligarchs for some *strange* reason!

Arsenal fans tend not to like talking about Usmanov ime.

See also cuddly old Thaksin Shinawatra when he owned Man City.

d davis' new idea for Irish border is to create a 10-mile wide strip along the border where both (?) EU and UK market rules would apply (??) i shit you not

David Davis unveils latest idea. "This Irish border is small. The one out there is far away." pic.twitter.com/hlKTD1OdLz

— Andrew Mueller (@andrew_mueller) June 1, 2018

oh I see, if you make a border 10 miles wide then those easily jived Irish ppl won't think it's a border!

they say Davis even has a swagger about him in the sitting position, he's gonna need it to make this bullshit walk!

further proof that degrees from harvard and the london business school don't necessarily make you smart

lol the 10-mile swathe encompasses arlene foster's own house

He's very excited to see what will happen in the next episode of The City & The City

can someone explain the thinking behind this buffer zone idea plz? i don't understand what it's trying to achieve

I think he's using the Golan Heights as a model.

instead of one border there will now be two! it's twice as great!

having your cake and shitting it out: a model for brexit, by david davis (age 69 1/2)

(nice)

and there's this:

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2721673/orange-order-arlene-foster-dup-northeern-ireland-lead-scottish-march-cowdenbeath/

‘Ms Foster’s party – whose 10 MPs are propping up Theresa May’s government – oppose extending women’s rights to Northern Ireland.’

Not a line you’d expect written in the sun, even the Scottish one.

hey they're not criticizing

i grew up a few miles from cowdenbeath and it is exactly the kind of backward-arse shithole where arlene foster will feel right at home

kind of amazing EXCEPT COMPLETELY NOT that exactly at the moment when the irish border becomes a live issue and threatens to completely derail whatever orderly brexit might have been hoped for, the tories have abrogated the UK's responsibility to act as an honest broker (ok, ok) for NI's power sharing exec thereby ensuring that there is no functioning exec and can never be one for the length of this parliament - it is a perfect clusterfuck

https://media1.tenor.com/images/bb7e5cbc77cf9e933709a270155d29dd/tenor.gif?itemid=10322371

i don't think the Conservative and Unionist party have ever felt the need to be an honest broker for NI

yes and i think this is simply the flowering of that underlying reality (which elites insisted was NOT ACTUALLY AN ISSUE and only DEFEATISTS would point it out in real-time when it was agreed)

Ayn Rand devotee has opinions on responsibility

Never thought I would see a mainstream British retailer running a public advertising campaign against our hardworking police. This is not a responsible way to make a point https://t.co/dZqF3iMN6U

— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) June 1, 2018

this ad campaign reminds me a bit of the 90's Benetton model of edgy exploitation rinse, which Viz lampooned at the time with a crudely photo-shopped Pope John Paul II shagging Queen Elizabeth II, or something like that! I hate it when advertising tries to be all edgy and expectation confounding, even worse than innocent smoothies aesthetic imo. Yes I know coppers are mostly a bunch of devious and violent Tory thugs, but fuck yo hand cream!

come on this is minted tbh

tbf lush fairly quietly donate quite a lot of money to left-wing causes, feel that this is at least partly an earnest attempt to raise awareness (not that they aren't also bad in all the ways that a high street chain is going to be inevitably bad)

i mean, i'm no marketer but i'm not sure that bringing attention to the behaviour of undercover cops is much of an advertising strategy

half a mind to treat myself to a green tea and basil (or whatever nonsense) facemask later in tribute

I'm not going to have a bath nor a shower for a week and start smoking again as a protest against them!

i don't think they pay pigs to lie, i think they just do it off their own bat

I can't wait for the very bold Shackletons High Seats Fuck Tha Police advertising campaign by some Tony Kaye type twat, with morgue photos of people wrongfully murdered by met armed response units segued with old folks appreciating that famous orthopaedic comfort!

if the marketing materials had not conflated undercover informants with day-to-day uniformed officers they would be getting praise for their brave stance shining a light on this issue I'm sure

like, I get 100% why they used a picture of an officer in uniform - its an easy semantic shorthand - but it makes it harder to split the difference between "our boys" and the subjects of this actual campaign

I've probably posted myself into a bad corner here! I just want to make it clear I'm not trying to stick up for bent filth scummers, I just despise every facet of advertising, no matter what the message or how it is used. Probably not the best take, but fuck it!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DeraiFJW4AEwCBb.jpg

You don't need to click on or hate read this to know the author is one of the worst, but wtf!

can't move for abortion triumphalism these days

I'm off to a termination shower today!

yay! abortion street party season is here!

A centrist offended by lack of respect in the disvourse is it

“Different moral choices” in this context being advocating the removal of moral choices for others, obviously.

I'm sure Matthew Parris is equally keen that bigots' legitimate concerns about, say, sexuality are given a fair hearing too

I’ve seen a few folks on Facebook who object to the lush campaign - but none of them were aware of the undercover/blacklisting stuff beforehand, so who knows. I think they take it to be broadly anti-police, which I don’t think it is.