The now-enacted will of (some of) the people

[desensitized43]

14 minutes ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

In her defence I see Juncker was employing the old 'keep hand on upper arm to exert control' move, straight from the Trump Art of Persuasion ABC Handbook. It's just a good job the camera went out before he moved on to the full p*ssy grab!

I did notice that actually and thought it was odd. Kind of indicative of how little power May has over even the most basic of confrontations. The whole thing is embarrassing.

[tonyh29]

6 minutes ago, desensitized43 said:

I did notice that actually and thought it was odd. Kind of indicative of how little power May has over even the most basic of confrontations. The whole thing is embarrassing.

did you want her to mace him to show her authority ?

[bickster]

1 minute ago, tonyh29 said:

did you want her to mace him to show her authority ?

The point is her body language allows this to happen, it is that of a weak defenceless person who knows they don't have the upper hand 

She should learn lesson number one, if someone patronises you, smack them down straight away. She should have told him to get his hand off her straightaway to assert some dominance

[ml1dch]

23 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

did you want her to mace him to show her authority ?

Probably one of the only things she could do to improve her standing amongst the Parliamentary Conservative party.

[peterms]

35 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

did you want her to mace him to show her authority ?

No need for violence, when she could simply display her power stance.

That would put the blighter in his place soon enough.

[tonyh29]

45 minutes ago, bickster said:

The point is her body language allows this to happen, it is that of a weak defenceless person who knows they don't have the upper hand 

She should learn lesson number one, if someone patronises you, smack them down straight away. She should have told him to get his hand off her straightaway to assert some dominance

But body language experts said Mrs May successfully disrupted Mr Juncker's usual 'Godfather' demeanour and put him on the back foot.

 

Her conversation with Juncker does look from a distance like a bit of a mini-lecture or haranguing, with Juncker clutching May’s arm like a man rather surprised by a sudden complaint.

“Juncker normally receives displays of warmth and compliance at these gatherings but May’s cocked head and intense facial expression suggests that she might have been keen to make a rather strong point.”

 

Although no audio was available of the exchange, which was caught on an official video feed of the gathering, Mr Juncker clearly appeared taken aback and tried to soothe her by putting an hand on her elbow, to no avail.

 

outside of twitter the reporting seems to concur that he was caught off guard  .... . 

 

I don't think any smack down was required , May made her point , Juncker kinda reacted in the way he always does i.e quite tactile  ... winners and losers from the exchange are probably in the eye of the beholder ( though obviously May was the loser on VT ) 

 

 

[bickster]

Yeah yeah, yadda yadda Daily Heil and "expert" I gave up at that point

 

Thing is, she was objecting to the use of the word nebulous ffs To be honest Junkers 88 is right, it is ill-defined that's part of its problem. If she's going to be complaining about the use of the word nebulous she's in the wrong job. Private School nursery teacher is about her standard if she doesn't like big words

[WhatAboutTheFinish]

20 minutes ago, bickster said:

Yeah yeah, yadda yadda Daily Heil and "expert" I gave up at that point

 

Thing is, she was objecting to the use of the word nebulous ffs To be honest Junkers 88 is right, it is ill-defined that's part of its problem. If she's going to be complaining about the use of the word nebulous she's in the wrong job. Private School nursery teacher is about her standard if she doesn't like big words

Unless in private conversation she had been crystal clear about what she wanted/expected and he’d gone blabbing to the press in a deliberate attempt to undermine her, then she would be right to call him out right?

Just conjecture of course, but isn’t it all?

[PompeyVillan]

So what happens now? There has to be a vote in parliament, doesn't there?

There has to be another referendum, we can't sleepwalk into no deal because Theresa May is stalling for time. 

[snowychap]

48 minutes ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

crystal clear

House!

[ml1dch]

48 minutes ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

Unless in private conversation she had been crystal clear about what she wanted/expected and he’d gone blabbing to the press in a deliberate attempt to undermine her, then she would be right to call him out right?

Just conjecture of course, but isn’t it all?

Well, she's never made any clear decision about anything on this topic up to now, so it would be a bit odd if in a conversation with Juncker is the single time that bucks the trend.

It's a bit like saying that it's conjecture to say that Neil Taylor is a rubbish left-back, because none of us know for certain that he doesn't play like Paolo Maldini in training.

Edited December 14, 2018 by ml1dch

[OutByEaster?]

I would love to see the stats on Theresa May in terms of time spent by her in being very clear against time spent by her in telling us she's been very clear.

 

 

[WhatAboutTheFinish]

16 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

It's a bit like saying that it's conjecture to say that Neil Taylor is a rubbish left-back, because none of us know for certain that he doesn't play like Paolo Maldini in training.

Well it is a bit like a group of amateur middle age men calling a £30k a week, 40+ cap international footballer a load of sh*t and really believe it, yeah, I agree! 

[peterms]

3 hours ago, WhatAboutTheFinish said:

Unless in private conversation she had been crystal clear about what she wanted/expected and he’d gone blabbing to the press in a deliberate attempt to undermine her, then she would be right to call him out right?

Just conjecture of course, but isn’t it all?

The point made by the EU leaders, quite reasonably, is that the UK position is incoherent and contradictory.  "Unclear" is too mild a word, and if used, will be used for reasons of softening perceived criticism.

It's not enough for Mrs May to claim that she has personally been clear on what outcome she would personally prefer.  She can't deliver, and that's the core requirement of anyone holding her position.

We, collectively, are unclear, because we are divided and lack any clear mandate, despite the increasingly frantic claims of brexiters that we had a  clear decision.  We never did, what was voted for was a mystery prize, people don't like what they are slowly learning, and the claimed mandate is being sesn as a false claim.

Her task is impossible, but she sought it, and won't admit it's time to change.

She is becoming the problem.

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

I would love to see the stats on Theresa May in terms of time spent by her in being very clear against time spent by her in telling us she's been very clear.

I imagine it would be quite reminiscent of this one:

[peterms]

She's going again on the same stuff.

It's Groundhog May.

[blandy]

On 10/12/2018 at 03:31, peterms said:

Yes, the article is partisan.  I'm not promoting the spin they put on things, simply quoting (what it presents as) the fact that Comey states the dossier was not corroborated.  And commenting on the fact that this was deemed unworthy of reporting by the Guardian, which spent half its article on the daft exchanges about whether Comey and Mueller had hugged and kissed - a trivial distraction.

Since the dossier is itself deeply partisan - I think it was first commissioned by Republicans opposed to Trump's candidacy, and later taken over by Democrats - that surely suggests more, not less, requirement for verification.  Not verifying it, given the importance placed upon it, seems like the most extraordinary decision.  Why on earth would you not do that?  Imagine such a report were produced about our PM and the intelligence services decided not to attempt to verify it?  (Actually, they seem to be going the other way, secretly paying spin factories to create lies about Corbyn, but that's another story).

Early reporting in this country, as I recall, stressed Steele's previous career, and supposed good reputation, implying that we should accept the conclusions of the dossier.  In fact it seems to be a partisan product, paid for by people who obviously and transparently wanted damning conclusions, which is a big sign to be careful about accepting conclusions, even before the unlikely-sounding pissing prostitutes story.

Given that Trump is a corrupt, lying, venal, criminal, serial abuser of relationships, contracts and the law, I'm bemused why it was felt necessary to take this approach rather than something more neutral and therefore more powerful.

Probably also not a great idea to include info possibly derived from Sergei Skripal.

This is tangential to Brexit, but the players are interlinked. Some more on the dossier which both explains a point I made before about its nature and which firmly corrects some of your assertions. For example it makes no conclusions, it just presents a set of information and makes no partisan or party based assertions. The article looks at how much of it has been confirmed or refuted so far using the Mueller charges and filings made public to date to check against. 

From the Twitter link, here’s an extract 

Quote

we returned to the document because we wondered whether information made public as a result of the Mueller investigation—and the passage of two years—has tended to buttress or diminish the crux of Steele’s original reporting.

The dossier is actually a series of reports—16 in all—that total 35 pages. Written in 2016, the dossier is a collection of raw intelligence. Steele neither evaluated nor synthesized the intelligence. He neither made nor rendered bottom-line judgments. The dossier is, quite simply and by design, raw reporting, not a finished intelligence product.

In that sense, the dossier is similar to an FBI 302 form or a DEA 6 form. Both of those forms are used by special agents of the FBI and DEA, respectively, to record what they are told by witnesses during investigations. The substance of these memoranda can be true or false, but the recording of information is (or should be) accurate. In that sense, notes taken by a special agent have much in common with the notes that a journalist might take while covering a story—the substance of those notes could be true or false, depending on what the source tells the journalist, but the transcription should be accurate. 

With that in mind, we thought it would be worthwhile to look back at the dossier and to assess, to the extent possible, how the substance of Steele’s reporting holds up over time. In this effort, we considered only information in the public domain from trustworthy and official government sources, including documents released by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office in connection with the criminal cases brought against Paul Manafort, the 12 Russian intelligence officers, the Internet Research Agency trolling operation and associated entities, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn and George Papadopoulos. We also considered the draft statement of offense released by author Jerome Corsi, a memorandumreleased by House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Ranking Member Adam Schiff related to the Carter Page FISA applications and admissions directly from certain speakers.

These materials buttress some of Steele’s reporting, both specifically and thematically. The dossier holds up well over time, and none of it, to our knowledge, has been disproven.

More on link

[StefanAVFC]

Leave Means Leave rally last night.

Absolutely mental bunch of swivel eyed loons.

https://streamable.com/fqchn

We have JRM comparing them to the Communist People's Party in China and stating he doesn't want his constituencies writing to him

We have stupid people being influenced AGAIN that no deal is a good thing.

We have the DUP's own Kate '**** idiot' Hoey saying "we didnt spend 30 years suffering IRA killings of soldiers and civilians in Northern Ireland to see a United Ireland imposed by a few jumped up EU bureaucrats and a complicit prime minister"

This alliance of self-serving dickheads and complete idiots could potentially drag us out with no deal.

[markavfc40]

19 hours ago, PompeyVillan said:

So what happens now? There has to be a vote in parliament, doesn't there?

There has to be another referendum, we can't sleepwalk into no deal because Theresa May is stalling for time. 

I'd have another referendum but I'd weight the vote dependent on your age. Something like 60+ your vote counts as one, 36-59 vote counts as 1.5 and 16-35 your vote is weighted as 2.

I think those for which decisions like this are going to effect the most and for the longest should have a greater say.

I say this as someone who is 44 and I'm happy for someone much younger than me to have a bigger influence in a decision like this.

It wouldn't go down well with some of the 60+ mob but, given some of the tripe I have heard many of them spout for their reasons for wanting to leave, some can count themselves lucky they are getting to vote at all.

[OutByEaster?]

There's talk of a cross party group of MP's forcing through votes on some of the alternatives to May's plan prior to her putting the plan to Parliament. Essentially, stopping her running the clock down by discussing other options in advance of deciding on whether hers is the way forward.

That would be something quite unique I think, it's almost reducing the plans of Government to an afterthought in Parliament. 

I'm not sure I can see it happening. Anyone think it's likely, or even possible?