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

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.

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

“Different moral choices” is a gentle phrase that comprises this, as well as the “triumphalists” being spat at in the streets/doxxed/sent death threats. It’s a broad church, and one that seems curiously at odds with the conservative doctrine of “the government shouldn’t be able to tell me what to do” as well as “people who can’t afford children shouldn’t have them”. How they manage to write these things with straight faces is beyond me.

For him and people like him, women’s rights are only a matter for concern when it allows the chance to sneer at another culture. Poverty and cuts affecting more women here? Sexism affecting women in public life? Abuse happening to women in Britain? Shut up and be grateful you don’t live in Saudi Arabia. I would not be surprised to see him having criticised Ireland in the past for this.

Labour's shadow policing minister sent these tweets after linking to a story about the two police officers who were stabbed in Greenock yesterday:

Louise Haigh MP@LouHaigh

Best wishes for a speedy recovery to these remarkable, brave officers.

Just only one example of the many hard working men and women who risk their lives every day to protect ours.

They do their jobs not in spite of danger, but because of it.

That's why they're heroes.

Louise Haigh MP@LouHaigh

And that's why the #LushUK portrayal of the important #spycops campaign is so offensive to the tens of thousands of police officers and staff who put their lives on the line to protect ours.

I know there's always been pushback against any perceived criticism of the police, but it feels like it's got worse over the last few years - this idea that all police officers are all 'heroes' and that no-one has the moral authority to criticise them. idk if it's by-product of all the military help-for-heroes ideology? maybe public opinion has always been like this way and it's just more visible now due to social media (and cops themselves using social media to kick off at their critics), but it certainly doesn't feel like it's getting better.

There's been lots more criticism of the police by the right wing press in the last couple of years too though - the Mail aghast at lower crime meaning less visible a police presence for one example but a lot of it is presumably pushback on senior police temerity to protest Tory policies.

That's actually more measured than I expected - doesn't claim that all police are heroes, and calls the campaign important.

the tories have abrogated the UK's responsibility to act as an honest broker (ok, ok) for NI's power sharing exec

should note that its p much 100% the unionists that have forced this afaict. due to their inflexibility on the various inevitable conflicting outcomes there is no ground upon which they can exist post brexit and they have realised it, so theyve refused to govern since the knowledge has dropped

One of our officers went and had a polite and constructive discussion with the manager of @LushLtd Peterborough who then removed the display. Seems some of their staff are sensible and care about our feelings after all #Lushpolice #FlushLush pic.twitter.com/SatZFDW4mD

— Liz Groom (@cambsfederation) June 1, 2018

Hey, police: you’re not here to have feelings.

I'm just glad undercover heroes have been protecting my life from vegan hippies all this time

some extremely good james ball and helen lewis content on this too

Can't help but read that tweet in a Hale and Pace 'the Management' voice.

Maybe the police could do something about the toxic smell that comes from those places

Oh God, imagine the double-date situ with the following Insufferable Twitter Couples: James Ball/Caroline Criado Perez and Jonathan Haynes/Helen Lewis.

Have also clocked that HL resembles a meld of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie and now cannot un-see it.

wait JB and CCP are an item ?!

I believe so!

I should probably say that I admire CCP in fits and starts but the way she centred herself during the Parliament Square statue launch (or allowed it) was beyond ridiculous, in that yeah babe, maybe this was your big idea but come on, it’s Gillian Wearing’s moment, maybe?

Replace Theresa May with Michael Gove to sort out Brexit, Tory donor urges

Sajid so smat.

"Look at who the home secretary is" - Sajid Javid insists that Islamophobia is not a problem in the Conservative Party #Marr https://t.co/hlCXnA3DYF pic.twitter.com/UzGRSOAVWu

— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) June 3, 2018