Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Fishing rights will not derail EU-UK security pact, says European Council president
With member states keen to link quotas to any deal, António Costa says defence and fisheries ‘are different things’

I don't doubt that we'll hear from the Danish fishermen again, but the idea that this was going to hold everything up altogether, with Putin in Ukraine, was always unlikely.

See how the negotiations go.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Thu Feb 06, 2025 8:34 pm
They are.

I was thinking about people who voted Lib Dem and Green last time. Labour will need more tactical votes than it got last time v Reform/Tories.

Ah right. Good policy though.

I've got some time for this idea:

I still can't understand why the government are so afraid of doing something that would improve the economy and people want. There seems to be a Labour tradition of aiming to appease parts of the electorate who will never vote for them.

davidjay wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 8:50 am I still can't understand why the government are so afraid of doing something that would improve the economy and people want. There seems to be a Labour tradition of aiming to appease parts of the electorate who will never vote for them.

Assuming they’ve not all gone mad, I am guessing that some secret internal polling has not hit a critical mass benchmark yet. When it does - and Christ on a bike I can’t see that being far off, what with all the financial pressures and even Tories starting to sense the tide has turned - I suspect we’ll be signing up to stuff in a flurry.

They’re not ideological morons like Frost who can’t say Europe without doing a sick. They’re not surviving day to day like Johnson, blundering from one crisis to another making up policies on the hoof to appease whoever they’re talking to at that precise second. They’re all by and large remainers. There is no reason not to do deals that will make things better for the UK economy, shield us better from Trump, improve the EU and frustrate Putin and still be ‘out’, *except* for if they know it would still risk more harm than good. And even so, I can’t not believe we’re already well into the margin of error.

Lammy's criticized Trump over abandoning aid. I wonder if he's said it because the Tories can't fail to respond to him and make themselves look like idiots.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Fri Feb 07, 2025 4:40 pm Lammy's criticized Trump over abandoning aid. I wonder if he's said it because the Tories can't fail to respond to him and make themselves look like idiots.

I’d say that’s at least part of his calculation.

So far, I don't think they have responded to him. But I might be wrong, I don't look for their nonsense.

Maybe Kemi and Priti are back doing constituency work?

Poor Kemi, having to deal with wronged constituents.

* Farmers being asked to chip in some tax from their vast, inheritable wealth.

* Concerned parents who are agonising between the choice of the standard Tuscan summer or an education for the kids away from the povs.

* Pensioners who fought two world wars (possibly more), but might need to dial down the rads in the east wind.

* That nice Missus Eichmann who has been ostracised by the W.I. on account of her braun TeSSla.

My heart bleeds...

Red Tories latest.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c70k7kr5rjjo

Landlords will be forced to investigate and fix damp and mould in social housing in England within strict timescales from October, the government has announced.

Campaigners had called for the reforms after two-year-old Awaab Ishak died from mould exposure at his Rochdale home in 2020.

However, the implementation of the changes - known as Awaab's law - will be phased, with timeframes for other hazards, such as structural and electrical issues, not introduced until 2026 at the earliest.

Housing charity Shelter said the delays "represent a real risk to the health and safety of tenants, and puts lives at risks"

This is good news hope it improves ventilation particularly in flats. Poor insulation is the go to culprit for respirority problems and mould but it happens in warm flat due to drying clothes indoors with closed windows. Hard up people don't want heat to escape in the winter and why should they.

This is good.

Think 2026 is late enough, wouldn't like to slip further. But I appreciate you need to be careful too many landlords don't leave the market.

Andrew Gwynne has been fired, for making highly inappropriate comments in a What'sApp group.

Story:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... MP=bsky_gu

Rightly suspended. But isn’t WhatsApp supposed to be totally secure ?

Abernathy wrote: ↑Sat Feb 08, 2025 9:32 pm Rightly suspended. But isn’t WhatsApp supposed to be totally secure ?

Screengrabs can be taken and dealt with accordingly.

And leaked to the Mail...

Hatchet Job on Lord Hermer.

https://archive.is/p5frZ

On Chagos, the popular critique is simple. Hermer, an actual lefty lawyer who would wear that pejorative as a badge of honour, is putting international law — already an ephemeral and often disregarded thing even before the return of Donald Trump — before domestic politics. Hence the desire to give to Mauritius several billions of pounds the Treasury tells Whitehall departments they cannot have. If that’s the price of a clean bill of health from the UN or International Court of Justice, so be it. That, however, is only part of the story frustrated cabinet ministers tell about their thwarted work.

One puts the case against the attorney-general like this: “Richard seems to be under the impression that the government needs objective legal advice.” Another senior figure now butting heads with Hermer adds: “He genuinely doesn’t realise that he is our lawyer.” Trying to govern for voters who would otherwise be drawn to the radical right is proving much harder with Hermer laying down the law: pushing back, warning that this or that initiative can’t go ahead for fear of judicial reviews ministers would happily fight to prove a political point.

Of course everyone on Bluesky seem to have lost their shit over this.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... disruptors

It only takes a quick look at today’s poll by Opinium for the Observer to see why a big tactical rethink (some in the Labour party call it a panic) is under way in Downing Street.

In the space of a couple of weeks, the Labour high-command has morphed from being a risk-averse, technocratic operation which said and did very little that was interesting in order to win power – and did little more in the first six months after taking it – into something else entirely.

Suddenly, in the dark of mid-February, Keir Starmer’s Labour government is self-styling its people as “disruptors” and “insurgents”. On Friday, Starmer told his cabinet ministers they had to be the “disrupters if you don’t want to be disrupted”. He meant disrupted by Reform UK.

Out of almost nowhere, a third runway at Heathrow has become policy for a party that before polling day sold itself as the champion of a green industrial revolution. Nothing, but nothing, must now get in the way of economic growth.

Odd they reference a poll that was the same two weeks ago.