one out all out: a brexit from the modern world and every one of its problems please (we're all gonna die lol)

BREAK: Senior EU official confirms the EU will not be providing dinner for Theresa May on Wednesday 🙀

— Darren McCaffrey (@DarrenEuronews) October 16, 2018

"yes it's the leader's dinner, but no you're not having any because are you actually even a leader?"

Meanwhile the rollout of Universal Credit has been paused.

Saw also that Nick Timothy is suggesting that the government should remain in the customs union for five years - yes he’s a total galaxy brain but as a headliner who’s responsible for much of the approach, this is an interesting development.

probably sick of her kvetching about "foreign food"

I’m not sure the no-dinner thing is a great idea when she’s a type 1 diabetic? Reminds me of this (official!) photo from almost a year ago.

http://amp.timeinc.net/time/4991476/theresa-may-lonely

I love that often repeated "out there in the job centres the staff have so much enthusiasm for UC and how it is transforming people's lives". Like is as if the staff are going to deliver a devastating critique of UC to some fucking bigwig visitor from the DWP. UC needs burning down to the ground and cunts like IDS and Frank Field need executing for their roles in it.

hnnnngggghhhhhhhhh

The Progressive Centre UK (which you can follow @UKProgressive), a new think tank and network of progressives – which I have been appointed to chair – has launched with the explicit aim of connecting progressives from across the UK with the latest ideas and from across the globe.

— Chuka Umunna (@ChukaUmunna) October 15, 2018

most loathsome bunch of Jethro Tull enthusiasts ever.

MOAR CENTRISM

breaking the mould of politics by forming a think tank

that tank in full:
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/files/2016/06/tarkus.jpeg

sorry tarkus i luv u really

Delighted that @chukaumunna has agreed to serve as Chair of our advisory board. In his latest piece for @Independent, he explains why ‘whether you want to call it centrism or progressive politics, it’s back’.

"it's back" huh? didn't notice them days when they stopped forming centrist parties and dubious think tanks, they're like ants ffs!

it's true: real progressive politics is trying to appease both sides by upholding the status quo, good job everyone

Unlike hard left organisations, @UKProgressive will not moan about being spied on. In fact, infiltration by the police and security services will be actively encouraged.

— Simon Hedges (@Orwell_Fan) October 16, 2018

the difference between the parody and the real thing is nothing at all!

is this good?

No grounds for optimism before #Brexit #EUCO. Only source of hope for now is the goodwill and determination on both sides. For a breakthrough we need new facts.
My press remarks after #TripartiteSocialSummit: https://t.co/iaOG6aDQJ4 pic.twitter.com/usQ2zZ9KEK

— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) October 16, 2018

sounds super-posi, we're finally gonna get our sovereignty back and stick it to johnny eu imo

lol at how chukka's independent column today is about how Labour needs to be led by someone in their 40s. This is literally his one idea.

he had his chance and he shitted out with flying colours!

chuka amunna turns 40 literally tomorrow btw

lol

So, things that are progressive:

weird ageism
sucking up to big business
telling the electorate what to do
nice suits

Anything else?

Oh, forgot neo-colonial adventurism leading to millions of deaths

don't forget Wes Streeting's nice hair and photogenic looks, but just forget if he says something, because always bad I'm afraid!

forgot undisguised contempt for the working class, too

undisguised contempt with just a glint of fear

or is it the other way round? both work for me!

typically excellent piece from aditya chakrabortty in today's grauniad on how four decades of thatcherism has fucked the uk

Thatcher loosed finance from its shackles and used our North Sea oil money to pay for swingeing tax cuts. The result is an overfinancialised economy and a government that is £1tn worse off since the banking crash. Norway has similar North Sea wealth and a far smaller population, but also a sovereign wealth fund. Its net worth has soared over the past decade.

The other big reason for the UK’s financial precarity is its privatisation programme, described by the IMF as no less than a “fiscal illusion”. British governments have flogged nearly everything in the cupboard, from airports to the Royal Mail – often at giveaway prices – to friends in the City. Such privatisations, judge the fund, “increase revenues and lower deficits but also reduce the government’s asset holdings”.

Privatisation and austerity have not only weakened the country’s financial position – they have also handed unearned wealth to a select few. Just look at a new report from the University of Greenwich finding that water companies could have funded all their day-to-day running and their long-term investments out of the bills paid by customers. Instead of which, managers have lumbered the firms with £51bn of debt to pay for shareholders’ dividends. Those borrowed billions, and the millions in interest, will be paid by you and me in our water bills. We might as well stuff the cash directly into the pockets of shareholders.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/17/economic-lies-neoliberalism-taxpayers

tl;dr: lol we're all gonna die

I was reading Owen Hatherley's new one, Trans-Europe Express, this morning and he made exactly that same point about North Sea oil money in his chapter about Bergen. Talk about a missed opportunity.

it was no missed opportunity, it was theft

unless you're Chuka, in which case it was progressive politics

every single untapped drop of north sea oil needs to stay exactly where it is forever if we're going to at least attempt to avoid catastrophic climate change, though

lol, first thing I saw when I accidentally glanced the comments section after reading this earlier was someone making glib comments about how dysfunctional + unreliable BR were, and was thinking Truss, Grayling and co would have the same pathetic responses to "look at the fucking state of this country after 40 years of laissez faire capitalism and daylight robbery, you spineless + corrupt political minnows ".

xp both v true

North Sea Oil will be tapped out by the 2050's, so fuck the environment so we do need to think "progressively" about what to do with that remaining oil! Then of course the huge cost of decommissioning the rigs will be brought in house.

Aditya’s piece particularly well-timed considering this moron centrist was mouthing off about how neoliberalism didn’t exist as a meaningful concept yesterday.

"Even the IMF says so" needs to be understood in the context of the fact that IMF forecasts for the UK were actually very positive in the late 70s - largely due to the oil - but this is airbrushed out of history altogether these days.

Caught a bit of pmqs just now - government benches are really empty looking. It’s a far cry from Cameron turning to the jammed benches behind him for support.

it's that painfully bad last season of the walking dead.

I've been hearing there are twenty years of North Sea oil left since I was a small child.

got a nasty case of pmqs last spring - didn't go away until I'd given my moat a good cleaning

Interestingish piece: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/17/divided-britain-study-finds-huge-chasm-in-attitudes

Nothing that revelatory really I guess but ergh The most recent polling by the group, of more than 10,000 people in July, found 32% of people believed there were Muslim “no-go areas” in Britain governed by Sharia law, a view endorsed by 49% of leave voters in the Brexit referendum. and so on.

so what do these fucking dolts think will happen if they stumble into a 'muslim no-go area'? they'll be instantly beheaded by isis as the cops look on, powerless to intervene?

there is pub down the road from me where lots of the BNP knuckleheads used to drink and hold meetings in the 90's and it is actually now actually a Sharee Council building, which probably confirms this "conspiracy" to many folks! I love the way they kept the old Car Park This Way sign from the pub days, just to rub salt into the wound.

just type actually again cos it feels good.

reminds me of this beautiful tweet

As someone born and raised in Birmingham, I must admit there was a pressure to read the Kerrang.

— ★ Unklerupert (@unklerupert) January 11, 2015

Lol otm

extremely good tweet

ha

Good and scummy from the ~intellectual fash rag.

This week’s cover: Divide and rule. How the EU used Ireland to take control of Brexit, by @JGForsyth pic.twitter.com/UiBbnuG9LH

— The Spectator (@spectator) October 17, 2018