Verbal

Marina Hyde on message this morning: "I desperately need to get some work done today, but have decided to set up an Alternative Arrangements Working Group to look at what even is work, why I should have to do it, and whether I might retroactively change my work contract to remove the idea of work from it entirely."

Those bastions of democracy China (currently imprisoning and torturing millions of Muslim Uigurs) and Turkey (currently imprisoning and torturing real and mostly imagined opponents of Erdogan). So that MUST mean the election was totally kosher. So Venezuela's own national assembly was wrong? The Lima Group of Latin American countries was wrong? The EU and the UN were wrong (not to mention Amnesty international and Human Rights Watch)? Oh was I? And yet I found myself on the million-strong march in 2003 against the Iraq war? Your cretinous cultism leads you into this kind of nonsense. Anyone on the left who opposes your idol is by definition a Blairite red Tory. I have every problem with 'hundreds of thousands more people dying' and I would be wholly opposed to any illegal action by the US to invade Venezuela, regardless of the motive. Again, your cultism blinds you to the possibility that anyone outside the cult could possibly object to the human tragedies of war and conflict. (Unlike you, I've seen the results up close, many times, including in South America, East Timor, the Middle East and South Asia). What I do support is the right of Venezuelans to self-determination in free and fair elections. Why don't you?

So let's get this straight. You're offering up as evidence that Maduro is a legitimate political leader an election that was declared invalid by Venezuela's own national assembly, condemned by the Lima Group of Latin American countries (who particularly attacked the imprisonment and torture of Maduro's electoral opponents), the EU (which called the whole electoral process 'fraudulent') and the UN (which said that the 'minimal conditions for free and fair elections ' were not met). The only countries prepared to back the result were North Korea, Nicaragua, Russia, Cuba and some smaller Caribbean-island recipients of cheap Venezuelan oil. So THAT's the result you want to hang your hat on, on the same day that huge demonstrations in Caracas were met by riot police who put down their batons and walked away - unprepared to break the heads of people whose lives have been severely damaged by the Maduro's family's rampant kleptocracy and violence. Real man of the people aren't you.

Here's the arch-Corbynist Chris Williamson, going a rant on the propaganda arm of a hostile state. Ken Livingston did much the same with Andrew Neil the other night, and got taken to the cleaners. Neither of them seems to grasp a single relevant fact about the current crisis in Venezuela. On Kremlin Today, Williamson blabbers without interruptions (of course), but it's so patently swivel-eyed that he actually comes off as much more of a cretin than Livingston. That is some achievement. https://twitter.com/RTUKnews/status/1091669058288840705

I'm sure they did, but the lawbreaking enterprise that was Leave.EU - now under criminal investigation - said this about Nissan in 2016: "Project Fear claims Nissan would scale back UK operation could not be further from the truth!" Yet another Project Fear prediction proves correct. Yet another Leave Lie threatens the livelihoods of people.

How odd. Not at all like a kipper to attack a black man for having the sheer nerve to be a moderate.

It was the fantasy of loveable clause 4 socialists that got the Labour party saddled with the worst leader in its history. So a dinosaur that even Spielberg couldn't make realistic. Listening to Skinner is like listening to the 1930s. Peter Jackson should come in and remake him.

20 is a good number. Inward investment into the UK since the referendum has declined by almost 20%. Inward investment into the services sector - which makes up 80% of the British economy - has seen a much steeper fall of 25%. I wonder which sector Tender works in?

Has the internet not arrived at the Brexit Caliphate? You do know Jeffrey will still be able to post from Amsterdam, right?

Quite. Someone else raised the issue of the digital single market today - something which is vital for the continued health of the tech industry. Britain wasn't just the co-designer of this, but led the way. It had since resulted in a market and sometimes world lead in many tech sectors (notably fintech). Yet even under May's political agreement, the digital single market is going to be binned. The consequences are already working their way through the industry, with relocations into the EU and falling inward investment.

I hate to break it to you, but intelligence from the EU IC (which still includes MI5 by the way) and you, on a dusty corner of a football forum, are not equivalent. Your predictions are those of a Brexiteer cultist and self-declared racist, who would be ready for...what exactly?...should things not go your way. The intelligence community's predictions are drawn from the UK's own preparations for civil disturbances based on predictions for severe shortages. You have dodged my main point in quoting that article. Would you join me in welcoming the progressive objectives of a united Ireland and an independent Scotland, which the EU predicts may well flow from Brexit?

The issue is why you predicted it. You offered no evidence - indeed, the evidence is that the people who've been doing the fighting on the streets for Brexit are a small bunch of far-right out-theres, some of them with convictions for violence and pedophilia. So a fair reading of your 'prediction' is that it is motivated by a desire for violence should things not go your way. It is certainly consistent with your expressed racist views aimed first at Jews, then Arabs, then brown people in general.

Interesting leaked report from the intelligence services, which does point to some upsides of any Brexit - an independent Scotland and a united Ireland. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6639399/Brexit-leave-UK-unstable-decades-violence-streets-EU-secret-report-warns.html

Also a thing that hasn't happened. You seem to have a thing about Armies (sic), Mr Army.

But only CNN's cameras - they were given an exclusive of the arrest. I can't possibly imagine why...

This is remarkable. The FBI turned up this morning at the doorstep of one of the President of the United States' most trusted advisors, Roger Stone - in a dawn raid, in full riot gear. https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1088769020084604928 Even more remarkable that they were all doing this while being unpaid because of Trump's shutdown. (Although I bet there were volunteers...) If Trump's underlying plan in provoking the shutdown was to hamper the investigation of widening criminality in the Trump campaign, it seems the FBI has delivered a pretty effective '**** you'.

Ahem.

With apologies to Tender for the writer's surname, Nick Cohen nails the 'snobs and mobs' who, 'if they are not actually calling for violence' in the event of a second referendum,' 'they are expecting it, justifying it, hoping for it, and wanting it.' https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/01/snobs-and-mobs-agree-on-the-cost-of-a-second-referendum/

No. You don't. Not realising that independence and partition are intimately bound makes you a Grade F dunce. A lie. On the contrary, this is yet another instance where you've pulled the pin on a grenade and forgotten to throw it. The 'situation' is importantly analogous. In both cases, severe warnings were given about the devastating consequences of sticking to a timetable that no one in their right mind would think was workable. In both cases, the warnings have been ignored. So this is you being the miserable little racist, infuriated by the cheek of a brown-skinned man 'sticking his oar in' to white, Anglo-Saxon folks' business.

Yes. And you don't mean 'independence' alone because partition came as part of the package. There are plenty on both sides who wanted to reverse partition, and still do. There was also a determined bid to delay partition because it was being done on such a tight schedule that it was bound to lead to disaster. But the desire to just get on with it meant the original schedule was trictly adhered to, resulting in the deaths of more than a million people.

It's such a shame though. The Cottage is a lovely place to watch football.

How's that ever going to work Mr Jihad? In your world, facts don't exist if you simply choose not to believe them. That's what a cult is. (Having said that, I've had more luck talking to actual Jihadists than Brexit versions). What I've been saying is that the whole debate has moved miles since 2016, and there is now a recognition, among rational people, that the version of Brexit sold to the public in 2016 was false: the cake-and-eat-it option does not and never has existed. We now know that - or at least the sentient ones among us do. That is a FACT (as you call it). So the choice is simple: do we accept an economically diminished Britain, with thousands of job losses, or do we think again, now that we know the terms of the 'deal' and know a great deal more about what the parameters of any relationship with the EU are. As Lord Crap accidentally demonstrates, it's not possible to compare 2016 with now without realising how massively things have changed. His posting of the Irish border issue, as discussed in 2016, doesn't even mention how the GFA will prove such an overwhelming obstacle. He lamely uses a Cameron speech in 2010, in which he's blowing smoke to a turkish audience, to suggest that Turkish accession had any chance (it did not). Etc, etc. By the way, I'd add that some economists have been quite clear about job losses. 800,000 plus in motor manufacturing alone, which will be all but wiped out. Quite some price to pay (although not by you, right Jack?)

Hello again, Mr RedJihad, and thanks for the kisses Could you post any public discussion, by UK politicians, before the referendum date on the following: Article 50 The customs union The single market The Good Friday agreement WTO Non-tariff barriers Just-in-time supply for manufacturing Passporting (or financial services - not those ridiculous arguments for 'blue' passports) Citizen's rights (EU in the UK and UK in EU) after Brexit How long it will take to get the EU's trade deals replicated with non-EU states Inward investment The impact of the withdrawal of EU regional and development investment The imminent accession of Turkey ...etc... V xxxx

This is fantastic Trump-trolling from AeroMexico.

The older and Jihadist wing of Brexiteers all seem to have one thing in common. They were beneficiaries of Thatcherism. What Brexit has very much in common with Thatcherism is its willingness to destroy huge swathes of Britain in order to focus wealth on the City and private property. Anyone who knew Liverpool in the 1980s, or places like Corby, would have seen the devastating effects of de-industrialisation on people and places wrought by Thatcherism. Brexit Jihadists of a certain age seem to have a folk memory of that - and view the economic carnage of no deal as a modern variant of the Thatcherite wipe-out of British manufacturing. So it's no wonder that the typical Brexit jihadist is pale stale, close to or at pensionable age, cosseted and intellectually dulled by the banalities of Thatcherite zealotry.