[The Weeping Angel]

Part of the problem is that Labour ministers don’t have business experience, she says.

Unlike business heavyweights Boris Johnson and George Osborne, perhaps. Not quite sure what her experience is. Some IT? That's not really business decision making, is it? Not really that different to Sir Keir doing Law.

Hacking websites?

[Crabcakes]

On Brexit, I think there is a lot more that we could have and should have done. I did what I could as business secretary, I removed the supremacy of the European court of justice. We removed about 4,000 EU laws. But what we need to start doing is looking at where we have competitive advantage with countries around the world, and use our regulatory system to exploit that competitive advantage.

Weren't you the Business Secretary? You're saying you didn't even look at this? You removed all those laws with no idea what to put in their place?

The ECJ thing was Bozo-Sunak policy anyway. This wasn't anything you came up with.

I should buy a lottery ticket as I didn’t expect to be this spot on - it’s exactly “Brexit wasn’t done right which is why things are shit”, “it wasn’t my fault we didn’t do it right, it was someone else”, “we’ll do it better by <waves hands> doing things”

Absolute horse shit.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Oasis tickets claim is massively, massively wrong. You may not be surprised to hear.

[Youngian]

Has business savvy Kemi actually spoken to any exporters about the advantages of regulatory divergence from Europe? Clearly not.
She’s back to 2016 Minford and Gove nonsense about unilateral disarmament of tariffs and regulations. Countries will follow suit apparently.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Apparently Kemi wants the party to be more "flexible", having given the distinct impression she's about as flexible as Cambridge United under John Beck.

[Youngian]

I'm not quite sure how a customs union is supposed to work for a non-EU member. Norway and Switzerland aren't in it, even though they make the (you'd think) much bigger compromise on being in the Single Market. Does it make that much difference?

UK’s unlikely to score more goals on its own than playing in a Premier league team and the world is becoming more ruthlessly transactional. There’s few examples of Switzerland and Norway receiving more favourable trade terms than the EU. It’s a kind of national compromise; if we can join the SM then you patriots can cut your own trade deal. Both countries also lavish huge subsidies to loss making subsistence farmers for sentimental nationalist reasons that are far too high to be acceptable to the CAP.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I think fisheries would be a big problem for Norway and Iceland too, so I get why they don't join the EU. And I get that they think it's worth being in the EEA, where they are fairly tied but have some leeway, I don't get why they think it's not worth joining the Customs Union.

[Crabcakes]

‘We told people what they wanted to hear first & then tried to work it out later. That is going to stop under my leadership.’

Even this is crap, because they didn’t try and work it out later, they just lied about it.

Also, it’s not going to stop. Obviously.

[Youngian]

I think fisheries would be a big problem for Norway and Iceland too, so I get why they don't join the EU. And I get that they think it's worth being in the EEA, where they are fairly tied but have some leeway, I don't get why they think it's not worth joining the Customs Union.

Iceland's having an EU referendum by 2027. The CU is mainly job done but surprisingly after two decades of negotiations, Mercusor and EU reached an agreement, last month. Important players on either side aren't keen (France, Argentina and Poland) but Trump is driving these events.
Don't know anything about the technical bars to a joint CPTPP-EU customs union but as a geopolitical rebuttal to Trump it sounds a splendid idea. Especially if agreed in Ottawa or Mexico City.

[Tubby Isaacs]

As Sam Freedman says, the lack of a plan wasn’t an oversight, it was deliberate. Because “of course we won’t leave the Single Market”, “Singapore on Thames” and “Mick Lynch Lexit” were completely incompatible.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Kemi spoke a hard truth today about the Pensions Triple Lock, which sounded like it should be means tested. She's pivoted straight away to how she's being misrepresented. Baroness Roz Altman, a pensions expert, is confused.

[Crabcakes]

This by Ian Dunt just lays out quite how awful Badenoch is. This is just a week or so of, for the most part, entirely unforced gaffes, own goals, self owns and cock-ups.

It’s not that she can’t catch a break. It’s that she’s so arrogant on the one hand and inept on the other she thinks she can just will things into being and talk gibberish and have it come out as a masterful, engaging speech.

https://iandunt.substack.com/p/one-week ... i-badenoch

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah, that's good. I hadn't seen that bizarre bit about people having their houses burned down. The real issue is that groomers thought they could get away with it, she says, which is kind of not uncommon with criminals.

The spokesperson has literally had to say "we will means test triple lock. we will protect the triple lock". If we're doing wasteful public spending, this rubbish is a waste of Short Money. I wonder how long before the spokesperson gives up.

[Crabcakes]

The fact she has to have effectively an interpreter to try and detoxify her off the cuff gibberish should probably be a clue that *maybe* she’s not quite up to the job. Or should at least hire a new speechwriter with some haste.

[mattomac]

I am sure we will get a load of badly written memes about it.

Her core message was apparently “trust” which I assume she wants us to forget about that hacking episode.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The fact she has to have effectively an interpreter to try and detoxify her off the cuff gibberish should probably be a clue that *maybe* she’s not quite up to the job. Or should at least hire a new speechwriter with some haste.

The speech was at least boiler plate student running for University Conservative Association. Kemi just had to read it out and deal with questions from mostly friendly organizations. This is easier than reading out questions at PMQs and then getting wrong footed by the PM replying.

I think this pension thing sprung up without warning when questioned on LBC. Not the sort of thing you do, let alone when you've just hammered the government for means testing the Winter Fuel Allowance. I think she had a policy in mind of means testing at a higher income level, but she's ducked out of explaining that.

[Crabcakes]

She’s basically come out with the political equivalent of Alan Partridge’s monkey tennis.

[Bones McCoy]

She's now blaming elements of previous Conservative regimes.
Nothing to do with Kemi, of course.

Next week she'll blame it on the boogie.

[Tubby Isaacs]

She's been riffing on citizenship tests to "root out" people who don't share British values. People with a community role, like "teachers and vicars", might be required to sign off that people do support British values. Is this a serious proposal, or just a route to easy stories for her media mates? if a new citizen commits a serious crime, some poor teacher or vicar can be lined as public enemy number one, like Father Teasdale in Hot Metal.

[Rosvanian]

but....teachers and the teaching profession are despised by everyone on the right and they're none too keen on the modern Church of England either.