Verbal

So you went to one of the major donors of the Leave campaign to get a balanced view as to why motor manufacturing investment in the UK has crashed since June 2016?

Everyone has access to the single market. If Kim Jong-un has access to the single market, why won't we? On the broader point, I'm not sure what's so obvious. We have a hung parliament rather than the one that was going to gallop into the EU negotiations with a thumping majority and demand the earth. We have a department, Dexeu, and its head, who are regarded within Whitehall as wildly dysfunctional (it even lost half its ministerial team in the wake of the election, one of whom resigned because of the rampant incompetence in the department). And we have continuing frustration from the EU side that the UK seems incapable of spelling out its position coherently on anything. And we have serious splits in the two main parties between soft Brexiters/remainers and Brexit Jihadists. So the only thing that's obvious right now is nothing.

When things are 'hard to reconcile' it's usually - and in this case - because someone is trying to have it both ways, appealing to leavers and remainers. Again, that's the point; I wasn't quoting the manifesto to show how clear things are, but actually how messy they are. There are contradictions in virtually every iteration of soft Brexit. It's likely in practice that the only way a soft Brexit can be done is with no Brexit at all - even the Norway version is fraught with contradictions for the UK. The Swiss model with 10,000 or more individual bilateral agreements is also troublesome, given that the Swiss have just lost a huge battle with the EU on FoM. As for the suggestion that I've said Labour is 'mimicking' anything the Tories are saying, I've no idea where you get this. What's certainly the case - and I hope this is clearer - is that there are soft-Brexit/remain factions in the Tory party who are waiting for the political tide to turn, just as there are in Labour. The tide may just keep going out, of course, and the UK might fall out of the EU in just the way the BJs hope. The fun - if that's what it is - is in watching it all unfold.

So tell me, Pony, how 'retaining the benefits' is actually incompatible with retaining membership. That's the point - it's a very deliberate fudge. You read it as hard Brexit because you've been Pavlov-conditioned by Ukippery to see everything that way. So Labour have suckered Brexit Jihadists (aka BJs) like you and they've suckered remainers into thinking they're on their side. That's politics. Most careful politicians in Westminster are watching the political tide and will be watching it closely over the next two years - two years in which the EU will repeatedly trounce the woeful Davis, but more importantly two years (or less) in which the impact on the economy and especially jobs - Labour's red line - will be laid bare. And it's not only Labour who's playing this game. Large sections of the Tories are doing the same thing. As I've said many times now, you BJs should be very worried that May, Davis et al are the ones tasked with delivering Brexit.

Utter pony, Lord Pony. You seem to be confused by politics. Here's the Labour manifesto commitment. Read carefully: We will scrap the Conservatives’ Brexit White Paper and replace it with fresh negotiating priorities that have a strong emphasis on retaining the benefits of the Single Market and the Customs Union – which are essential for maintaining industries, jobs and businesses in Britain. Labour will always put jobs and the economy first.

Honestly, do you think that that wage rises only occur in stagnant economies?

Dear me, Nick. Do you really think this is how economies work?

Gosh, what a surprise. The racist scumbag is a ****ing liar. http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/820888/EDL-London-London-Bridge-Police-Presence-Monument-St-Pauls-Latest-News https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/24/far-right-activists-detained-at-uk-border-before-britain-first-rally http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-protest-idUKKBN19F0IQ?il=0 http://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/624845/EDL-march-Trafalgar-Square-ant-fascist-terror-London-Bridge-Westminster-attack-ISIS

You can argue about metaphors for defeat all you like, fanboy. The result still means the Tories rule the roost, even as a minority government, and that Labour, sixty seats adrift, will be able to enact precisely zero percent of its manifesto.

It wasn't quite so clear-cut as that. Yes, Corbyn attracted a huge mostly public sector middle class to his programme, but he also gained working class votes too. However, his biggest gains weren't across the class divide so much as across the age ranges. Essentially, the young voted for him (witness the crowd size at the decidedly neo-liberal capitalist free-for-all Glastonbury), where in previous elections many may not have voted at all. Amidst all the crowing from McDonnell, et al, though, it's easy to forget that the Tories actually increased their share of the vote too, and defeated Labour by 60 seats. I really don't understand the 'stand aside May' argument. Claiming the result was an affirmation of Labour's right to govern is a bit like losing a game 7-2 but boasting that you'd scored two incredibly good goals.

Is this one ours?

Aside from the fact that the size of the state in the economy has nothing to do with 'spending their way out of recession' - because it's long been that size even under the Gaullists - what does this have to do with the EU?

In April this year, David Davis said it was not inevitable, even with Brexit, that the UK would lose the European Medicines Agency and the Banking Authority. Yesterday, it took the EU all of four minutes to decide finally on the relocation of 1,000 highly skilled jobs to Europe. As more and more staff from the City and elsewhere in London are filmed - a la Lehman Brothers - leaving their UK HQs for good, I wonder whether the penny will drop with Davis, Fox, May et al.?

I can think of a few other tests he's more urgently in need of.

Maybot's annointed successor, Boris Johnson, car-crashing embarrassingly in an interview with Eddie Mair on Radio 4 today: https://soundcloud.com/spectator1828/boris-johnsons-excruciating-radio-4-interview This is the same Eddie Mair who not so long ago famously called Johnson out as a 'nasty piece of work' - a reasonably objective remark considering that Boris, our future PM, engaged in a conversation with a Bullingdon mate about how seriously his mate is going to assault a journalist. (Boris seemed happy with a crashed rib). Some government, this.

The idea of "taking back control" over immigration has been one of the biggest lies of all in the whole Brexit campaign. Britain has always been able to exercise control, even under the term of the EU's freedom of movement. It - and this applies especially to Theresa May's Home Office - has just chosen not to exercise it, and the blame has fallen, wrongly, on the EU. The rules are that EU immigrants can come for three months, but after that "must have sufficient resources not to be a burden on the benefit system of the country." The UK has never enforced this rule, in part because it doesn't have the ID card system that would make tracking possible, and also in part because the benefits of EU immigration outweigh the costs of monitoring. But also partly because the Home Office is so utterly useless. When the great fudge comes, and we slide back into the not-Brexit-at-all Brexit of membership of the single market and of the customs union, something we already have will be trotted out as a major new concession from the EU to the migrant-controllers of the Tory party. All they'll need to do is to introduce ID cards and spend heavily on monitoring the three-month rule. Which they will still be too incompetent to enforce. This is all aside from the fact that non-EU immigration, which is running at around the same rate as EU immigration, is completely within the control of the Home Office. And it's certainly aside from the fact that the NHS, for one, would simply collapse - and is already in serious trouble - without both EU and non-EU migrants.

This is pretty much right. In the US, violent incidents of right wing extremism far outnumber those by Jihadists. According to a US congressional report just two months ago, between September 2001 and December 2016 there have been 23 fatal Islamist extremist attacks in the US, compared with 62 fatal far-right attacks. In Europe, a joint report by the Royal United Services Institute, Chatham House, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and Leiden University examined 'lone wolf' attacks (which could include up to three co-conspirators) over the last 15 years. 38% were religiously inspired and 33% labelled right-wing extremists. In the 72 successfully launched attacks, 'religiously inspired attacks accounted for 8% of deaths. Far-right attacks were fewer in number but accounted for just under half of deaths. Given today's arrest, it's interesting that the report identified the typical far-right violent perpetrator as around 40 years old and as socially isolated. So 'just as big a problem' is a reasonable, approximately balanced statement.

Corbyn is much more like an FDR democrat than a socialist, as much as his devotees would hate that idea. He and Bernie Sanders have become politically like twins separated at birth. Both their campaigns - though they'd never say this - were aimed substantially at middle class voters. Corbyn's big ticket item was student fees - a magnet for young middle class voters. And he drew on the same economic sources as Sanders - Krugman, Stiglitz, et al., all very much in the broad church highlighting the economic and social damage done to working AND middle classes by vast wealth inequality. Corbyn also nicked 'for the many, not the few' from the 1997 Blair manifesto. So no, the extremist or state socialist tag doesn't fit. It's patently absurd to paint him into the same picture of state socialist mass murderers as Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc. Or even Chavez. What Corbyn won't be able to do is deliver his programme, but that's another question...

The defenestration of Brexit is going to take place meeting by meeting, over the next two years minimum, so here's a place - the post post EU thread - for tears and schadenfreude. To kick off, a meeting took place today between Michel Barnier (EU's chief negotiator) and Oliver Robbins (UK's chief negotiator). It did not go well. Barnier's staggering conclusion was that the UK government 'does not get' Brexit. He also flatly rejected Robbins' attempt to start 'technical' talks at senior civil servant level before negotiators get down to business. Round one to the EU. Roll on Monday, when it all (allegedly) starts in earnest. Not that anyone should worry that it's taken almost exactly a calendar year to get from the referendum result to the beginning of meaningful talks, or that three months have already been needlessly wasted after Article 50 was triggered... https://twitter.com/JenniferMerode/status/874684977954291713 Oh, and since my predictions are terrible, I'm forecasting a resounding last-gasp win for the Brexit jihadis.

They won't. Nothing but the Brexit-Jihadi Nirvana of WTO would satisfy them. So why bother, especially after an election that has given them all a lemon to suck? Whatever immigration 'brake' May manages to come back with, it'll sound a bit like the cod brakes Cameron returned with after his pre-referendum negotiation. One other inviting consequence of the election is that it's arguable whether the Salisbury convention now applies - the rule that the House of Lords doesn't vote against later stages of government bills on the grounds that the ruling party are carrying out their manifesto which has been been endorsed by the electorate. A minority government has no such endorsement. And this means the Lords can, in principle, oppose Brexit-related bills in a way it's been constrained not to do with a government having a majority.

From various rumblings from Cabinet members and others, it seems the not-really-Brexit-at-all Brexit is coming along nicely. Also, where the Scots Tories and the DUP unite is in having a strong preference for an 'open Brexit', with membership of the single market and the customs union. Which would leave May with some negotiating to do around the margins of freedom of movement, to arrive at the sort of minor restrictions that the Swiss and Norwegians have. She could also avoid a big divorce bill by agreeing - as she'll have to - to contribute, minus voting rights, to the EU budget. Everyone's a winner!

You're right, it's hypocritical, although I don't think Hezbollah have become so enamoured of St Jeremy that they've renamed themselves Jezbollah. But the real problem with the DUP is that any alliance - even the informal one that's been announced - throws the Good Friday Agreement under a bus. Central to the durability of the GFA was the idea that the British government would always be rigorously impartial between the two sides. Getting into bed with DUP is anything but impartial. https://twitter.com/Barristerblog/status/873860720491995136

That would be 28, captain. The UK parliament's assent is still part of the ratification process. Just to wind up our flailing Brexiteers, if Brexit happens after ratification of CETA, Britain will be subject to the 'investment provisions' of the agreement (effectively the Canada/EU disputes court) for a further twenty years. So we may escape the EU but we'll be stuck with the EU in trade with Canada, regardless of some hoped-for bilateral deal. And just to wind them up still further, the EU has just said this evening that they may have to delay the start of negotiations...for a year! All because of May's attempt to insist on negotiating divorce and trade agreement simultaneously. The EU's position seems to have hardened considerably since the election - they are pretty amused and amazed at the feebleness of May, even to the extent of trolling her by saying the idea to hold a snap election was actually Juncker's idea. Anyone get the sense that Brexit isn't looking so likely any more?

This is a hypothetical that isn't even hypothetically possible. A deal better than membership that also benefited the EU? What on earth could that be? Could you outline it?

Absolutely not. Watching the Tories twist in the wind is way too funny. Watching them attempt to achieve the most difficult legislative and negotiating challenge since rearmament - all as a minority government - is going to be even funnier. May's fantasy 'no deal' Brexit, outside the single market and the customs union, is now off the table - brilliant! The people have spoken. Deal with it.