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

doesn't affect yr query but that actual quote is from a piece bush wrote in april, not the one he wrote yesterday

i'm assuming the reading comes from a breakdown of preferences in a post-election poll (or polls), an area bush is on the whole smart on rather than bad at -- but yes, he doesn't actually point at what he's resting the claim on

Ah, have you got a link to what he wrote yesterday?

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2018/08/labour-party-split-inevitable-corbyn-MPs I suspect

Don't think so - that doesn't say anything about how "a centrist party might actually hurt the Tories more than Labour"

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2018/08/don-t-be-so-certain-new-party-would-hurt-labour-more-tories

it's this one!

https://www.ft.com/content/4f0ea43e-a77e-11e8-926a-7342fe5e173f

xp Oh yeah fair point

Gah. I've now hit my limit of four free articles per month and can't read it.

Also I know xyzzzz__ posted the link to the Guardian article about the new new new party on Monday, but I don't think anyone mentioned this gem:

The final piece of the puzzle is the question of the Lib Dems, the original centrist, alternative party that is still struggling in the polls. The party is “ripe for entryism, which we’re not totally against”, one source said.

'guys, we believe in nothing and we know no-one cares about us, let's just throw open the doors and see what happens'

it would beyond outrageous to end-run the NS monthly limit by using safari's private window, as found in the "file" column

Looking forward to Britain's Got Centrists with acid-tongued judge Simon Hughes

The NS thing is full of bugs anyway: four a month from FB, four a month from Twitter app, four a month from Twitter on normal mobile, probably four a month linked from here and four a month direct from the site. I haven’t missed anything from Stephen Bush and he is VERY prolific.

xps - OK, I definitely won't do that then, Mark

missed this yesterday:

A curious fact emerged in the pile of technical documents the U.K. government put together should it crash out of the European Union without a deal: a shortage of sperm.

It came to light that the country imports donated sperm, primarily from commercial sperm banks in the U.S. (4,000 samples) and Denmark (3,000 samples). This detail was included in the document dealing with the quality and safety of organs if there’s no Brexit deal.

What happens after March 2019, should things not go as hoped? There will be more red tape. The U.K. would become a “third country” so U.K. importers need “new written agreements” with the relevant fertility clinics.

feeling pretty smug now about my decision to keep my vital essences in jars under the bed these last 25 years

I sense a business opportunity

I'm sure we'll be able to replenish our depleted sperm banks with contributions from India and China, it's a big wide world out there and, frankly, the EU needs our sperm more than we need theirs.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/24/chuka-umuna-slams-talk-of-breakaway-party-as-false-news

Chuka Umuna introduces his new supermarket own brand version of "fake news"

“The summer holidays are supposed to be magical times for children. It’s a chance to be with friends and family and create memories that can last a lifetime. For too many families, it has been a miserable existence, living in inappropriate conditions as they experience the sharp end of our national housing shortage.

“Councils are currently housing almost 123,000 children experiencing homelessness, which not only has hugely negative impact on their young lives but creates an unsustainable position for local councils, as they experience spiralling housing costs without the tools and resources to deliver the homes their residents need.

“It’s crucial that we take the serious measures that are needed to get towards our collective ambition to end homelessness outright. The Government needs to ensure all councils are able to borrow to build the new homes that are needed to address our housing shortage, and adapt welfare reforms to prevent people from losing their home where possible.”

^^^

This major crisis was already coming under the last Labour government, but has been much exacerbated in the last 8 years by the Conservative party's complete ideological opposition to building new social housing (as opposed to NewLabour's assertion that everybody was middle class now, so they had become passe) and of course the wonderful UC reforms that make work pay etc... The response to this story on R4 this morning was that they are pumping billions into lolfordable housing schemes and some weak jackanory sauce that Local Authorities have an option to borrow money to build more lolfordable air-castles for people who don't register to vote because they are constantly busy + one step away from living on the street.

I’ve been reading conservatives for a year now saying that this is the one area where the Market is fucking useless, and the government must step in - and still here we are.

Also sound of muffled crying and laughing repeating:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/no-deal-brexit-uk-trading-wto-under-wto-rules-not-realistic-roberto-azevedo-a8505946.html

Xp Mass homelessness is the intended outcome of government policies though, and an unfettered free market is certainly good for achieving that.

Wonga apparently about to go tits up. So there's some good news around.

It's good that they're dying but - if I could sound a note of caution - they exist because there's a massive need out there, and I mean absolute need. I'm not sure that many of their customers will necessary find themselves in better hands if companies like Wonga go out of existence. Not sure what the realistic answer to that is under existing political conditions tho.

One of the guys responsible for setting up Wonga is now an artist btw.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonty_Hurwitz

So if you ever come across any of his art, smash it to smithereens and grind it to dust.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BCSk3vbCUAABJOw.jpg

quite profound

whatev

he doesn't seem like a classic rich kid waster/pretentious talent-less wank stain at all!

per wikipedia's version of his role in wonga, he is not the main villain and resigned when the company was taken in a direction he disliked, after trying but failing to stop this

(obviously for all i know he himself wrote this entry to make himself look good)

his work on the tiniest human sculptures ever made is mildly interesting: they're not good sculptures brent but someone will be along soon and make something good with the technology he pioneered, possibly (or else it will be like wonga and humanoid nanorobots will do something bad not good while he ineffectually resigns all over again)

this post^^^has been brought to you by the word good (not bad)

the day Mark S became a Jonty-teer!

Over 180 million shares of the company are owned by venture capital firms, around 77.1%.[34] The balance of the company is owned by staff, board members and founders with Errol Damelin owning 26.5m shares through Castle Bridge Ventures, an offshore trust based in the British Virgin Islands, while Jonty Hurwitz owns 12.6m shares (around 5.5%) through a BVI company

I'm sure that helps to keep him in nanosculptures - but not for much longer, eh?

Just had worst coffee&bacon bap in London at Victoria Station.Why can't Camden Food Co employ English staff?

— Barry Sheerman (@BarrySheerman) April 23, 2012

this is old, but this "registered lobbyist" safeseat wasteman is even more in need of de-selection than Frank Field. If I still lived in Huddersfield I'd be hard pressed to put an x next to this twats name, and would do it with a "very heavy heart" as they say.

Larry Elliott has been nothing if not consistent with his Brexit positioning:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/aug/26/britons-seem-relatively-relaxed-in-the-face-of-brexit-apocalypse

The bits around the best time to fight an election are funny. Unemployment has been consistently falling. Maybe people are feeling a bit better about their incomes if inflation is falling now as oposed to last but its a feeling too - things have essentially been flat for most peeople that vote, with no sense that it could get better. And - like me - he isn't backing any of this up with data. Just assumptions that people generally tune out once they vote.

Plus it deosn't talk about the wooden Tory campaign with its appalling proposals around care.

So basically the Tories winning (because the economy hasn't collapsed) while losing seats is an outcome that could've been the case were an election to be held this summer.

Its fine to talk down the latest iteration of Project Fear, but the milennium bug was a thing with things like a plan to put in place to ensure a smooth transition. Brexit has been more haphazard to say the least. Its true there is no appetite for no-deal and a lot of what we've seen is silly season talk, but still.

lol we're all gonna die

https://i.imgur.com/By7htG2.png

as long as that cunt dies first, I'm cool!

was going to hate-read, but feel much better depriving the fucking jerkoff a single click.

Condensed version - "I read a really terrible book on holiday that I, John Harris, think is amazing. It also made me realise that although centrists were responsible for the financial crisis and the Iraq war they were also responsible for the welfare state and gay rights. Also people need to stop being rude on social media."

No one should be allowed to talk about centrism in a newspaper without asking the question of how policies that would once have been on the political fringes manage to make it into the centre ground in the first place.

some of these idiots keep referring to JC as hard left, when most of his manifesto would be regarded as centrist in northern/central Europe.

funniest thing I heard this morning was IDS kicking some street knowledge on gang culture!

Straight Outta Chingford, crazy muthafucka named IDS

I am not reading it either but there was some interesting commentary around whether the policy areas he views as neglected and in need of forward-thinking intervention would mean that a ‘centrist’ platform would actually be further to the left than Labour’s current one.

This seems to be pretty common - on one hand suggesting that a centrist government is needed to ‘fix housing’ or ‘save the NHS’ while, at the same time, suggesting that Corbyn’s proposals to run an additional bus from Bromley to Swanley on Thursday evenings is pie-in-the-sky fantasy talk.

There is I suppose an argument that, for example, schools policy is being 'crowded out' of the national debate at the moment in favour of Brexit or Labour's stance on antisemitism. Which is true, and both of them are self-inflicted wounds by the Tories and Labour respectively, but that's also a problem that the media itself creates in choosing what not to pay attention to.

when the likes of Harris are ready to acknowledge that Blairite centrism kowtows to right wing economics, and can achieve only very limited social reform because of this commitment to entrenched economic inequality, then we'll talk.

I think he does sort of acknowledge that in the piece when he mentions the financial crisis but the whole thing is so confused and obviously written in an airport that it doesn't really come out.

he should have read Tooze's Crashed on his hols.

in fact if any of them had a coherent explanation of how barely-fettered predatory capitalism as the motor of the economy will increase social equality then they'd have more credibility than they do now

Honest "Centrism" should begin with burying Labour 1997-2010, not praising it.

these are all good points but i must intrude to post this bone-chilling video of our great nation's leader getting down with the kids in cape town

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0YfFfVCzEA

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/ConsciousPersonalItaliangreyhound-small.gif