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Understood - apologies for the tetchiness.

You've lost me - what facts do you feel I was unaware of?

Yup - around 80% are in line with each other from what I read (disclaimer - I've not checked that number myself). And obviously more importantly, it still needs a Government that actually wants to.

Bercow backs the contempt of Parliament letter. Lols.

David Allen Green is of the opinion that it's pretty flimsy stuff:

It probably wouldn't, but even offering it as an option would be thoroughly irresponsible (I know, I know - like it was in 2016). As per the Dunt tweets, first it would have to be clear that it was referring to trade only. I'm yet to come across anyone advocating no deal who means it literally, in the no-more-air-travel-or-cross-channel-ferries sense. But even if we (very charitably) assume that a wording can be found to make it clear we are talking about no trade agreements with the other 27 countries - that is still mandating the Government to (to pick one example) end British agricultural exports to the continent. Not slow them down, not reduce them, not make them less competitive - end them. Even if you are really sure that people aren't going to vote for that, you'd still be crazy to offer it up. Besides, it's not as if loads of people voting for something really daft doesn't have a recent precedent.

"a break from the detail" which is still going on until this very day.

BBC want people like the CBI and "representatives" of official bodies asking technical questions about the agreed proposal. So very little scope for arguing. ITV want a bigger audience, questions about the whole situation from across the political spectrum. May wants the first because she'll be able to say things like "as my honourable friend would know had he read and understood it, it clearly states the answer to this in article 89, paragraph 7" Corbyn wants the second because he can just answer every question with "the real answer to that question lies in this Government's terrible ideological cuts and austerity, which a Labour Government would end and this is why we must have a general election".

It's almost as if two members of parliament profiting from the failure of the country that they purport to represent, having campaigned and legislated for that failure to happen is worse than an unrelated, overseas businessman doing so. What terrible double standards.

In other news, I had growth of nearly six feet between the years 1983 and 2001, but minimal growth since then. So I'm leaving my wife and children and moving back in with my parents as that's clearly the decisive thing that triggers growth.

I don't know which side suggested it. I'm amazed either one wants to do it as Corbyn is pretty hopeless on the detail of this particular topic. It's basically going to be an hour of him not understanding the difference between the Customs Union and the Single Market while repeatedly offering something that isn't on offer, and her repeating back at him "only deal that protects the economy and delivers on the referendum" like a broken speak your weight machine. It'll probably be the worst hour of television ever.

It wouldn't be a bad idea if they had three or four speakers from across the spectrum, and had rigorous fact-checking on all speakers to ensure that nobody was doing a Boris. But most importantly, travelled back in time and held it around two years ago.

Has she not realised that the people she needs to convince sit in the House of Commons with her, not the people who can't be arsed to turn over after Strictly Come Dancing? It's very difficult to see who this televisual purgatory is aimed at.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Carney https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deputy_minister_(Canada) Yup, it all seems to be there.

McDonnell saying that it's "inevitable" that Labour will back a second referendum if the vote fails. It's a terrible idea and completely impractical logistically, but it's still good to hear him say it.

Let's assume we manage to roll over all existing trade deals (we won't). Let's also assume we manage to successfully negotiate new deals with the US, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Brunei, China, India, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain (we won't). Those tiny bits of shading above the line? The benefit of all that to the economy compared to our current arrangements. The big chunks below the line? The detriment to the economy. What a sensible path we're on. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/759762/28_November_EU_Exit_-_Long-term_economic_analysis.pdf

Obviously the only reason this is going down the toilet, is because people like this aren't in charge of the negotiations.

Don't forget - the precedent for this is any comment from a US President on this subject is a terrible affront to our political process and is interference in our democracy. Or maybe this is somehow different to when Obama commented on it.

People who were angry at the start of this process, remained angry throughout the whole process and are angry at the end of the process will be angry after the process has finished? The repercussions of literally any result of this are terrible. We're deciding which extremity to hacksaw off our body, and "none of them" isn't an option.

Yup. And as soon as someone, anyone is able to articulate a method to do so then it'll happen. We're still waiting though.

Unfortunately nobody on either side is interested in the dead rat they've been served when they were told they were getting chateaubriand for dinner. However much bearnaise sauce the whips cover it with.

The logic from a week or so ago is "everyone knows it's going to fail, so the first vote is a free hit, the markets tank, a couple of cosmetic changes which are already factored in from both sides are added, it's passed on a second run through and everyone gets to say that they voted with their conscience but then had to put the well-being of the country first..." The logic of today points out two problems with last week's logic: 1) if everyone knows this, the markets, price it in, don't tank and everyone stands around awkwardly. 2) if everyone gets to "vote with their conscience" and the deal fails by 300 votes, it's a lot harder to then bring it back. So nobody has a clue what to vote for and what the implications of whatever they vote for would be.

"A lot of people thinking they could have done better" but without the wit to even know how to spell "EU", is what put us here in the first place.