Boris has a new slogan, “Move on”, which he deployed repeatedly today in his appearance before the House of Commons Liaison Committee. Remembering short slogans is fairly well the extent of his political skills, and he contrived to look pleased with hmself for remembering this one. The public, he solemnly informed those watching, now wanted the narrative to “Move on” from the Dominic Cummings debacle.
The problem with this slogan is it does not have a good history. The aged among us will remember that after the disaster of the Iraq war, it was constantly repeated by Tony Blair. OK, millions of people were dead. But it was time to “move on” from that. Only he could not. The dead of Iraq have haunted him ever since, they enabled Brown to depose him and Blair has the look of a man who believes the dead will be waiting to speak against him in the next life. No matter how much the Guardian still tries constantly to rehabilitate him, he will always have to be protected from the British public, a stinking rich, morally bankrupt pariah.
One of the first articles published in this blog spoke of Blair and his “Move on” mantra. On 21 April 2005 I published from the Blackburn parliamentary election:
Two months ago I arrived here alone, standing forlornly with my rucksack on Blackburn railway station, in the midnight snow. I wanted to make a stand on principle against illegal war, and against Jack Straw’s decision that we should use intelligence obtained under torture. I wanted to get some national publicity for these issues during the campaign, to counter Tony Blair’s mantra: “Let’s move on” from the war.
(Am I the only one to find this mantra insulting? I think I’ll rob a bank to get some campaign funds. When the police come to take me away, I’ll say, “Hey, let’s move on. OK, so I robbed a bank. Whatever the rights and wrongs, that phase is over. What is important is that we all come together now and get behind the really great things I’m going to do with the money.”)
When a politician is desperate enough to use the “move on” slogan, you know they have done something very wrong indeed and are in big trouble.
“And now we must move on from Watergate to the business of the people”
said President Richard Nixon on August 25 1973.
Like Johnson, Nixon made the claim it was “the people” who want to move on. This is the standard mantra for politicians who have done something very illegal: the public do not care, are not interested in justice being visited on politicians. It is always the public who are urging the guilty politicians to “move on” and ignore the trivial detail of their own guilt.
“No decision I have ever made in politics has been as divisive as the decision to go to war to in Iraq. It remains deeply divisive today. I know a large part of the public want to move on.”
“Our country has been distracted by this matter for too long and I take my responsibility for my part in all of this,” he said. “That is all I can do. Now is the time — in fact, it is past time — to move on. . . . And so tonight I ask you to turn away from the spectacle of the past seven months, to repair the fabric of our national discourse, and to return our attention to all the challenges and all the promise of the next American century.”
Bill Clinton on the Monica Lewinsky affair, August 17th 1998.
We now know it would have been a good deal better if America had not “moved on” but had taken a much deeper interest in Clinton’s appalling history of predatory sexual behaviour.
I presume you see the pattern here. If a politician tells you to “move on” from a subject, it is a gigantic red flag that you should do precisely the opposite. I tried to discover some examples of politicians telling us to “move on” from an issue, where hindsight does not show the politician to have been a massive crook. No examples were readily apparent.
Ladies and gentlemen, I add to this list of shame:
“It is now time to move on… the country wants to move on.”
Boris Johnson 27 May 2020 on the Cummings Scandal.
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Yep, noticed this myself. It’s always time to ‘move on’ when they’ve shat on their own doorstep. When you hear those words, just look for the crap. And rub their nose in it.
Craig,
I would like to hazard a guess that come November, 2020 there will be another ‘move on’ moment and it may come as follows:-
A. Trump is not going to accept defeat graciously.
B. He will have to find( fabricate) an excuse for such defeat.
C. It is the precise legal mechanism to ensure his fortress against anticipated post-presidency prosecutions with which we have some room for differences of opinions ( but – we can all agree that legal manouevres shall be used -but the rub is which precise ones).
N.B. Not even distinguished clairvoyants can get every detail correct ( e.g. Princess Diana wrote to the Chief of Police in England and told him that there was a plan to kill her in a staged car crash and she was right. But, even then she did not get the choice of country- right?).
So, we are now all agreed and not even I, having delved into the legal mechanisms available, am fully aware and able to predict precisely which legal tool Trump shall employ. But, employ he shall – and then – we must ‘move on’.
Trump will get re-elected by a landslide. The crooks will be in GITMO and only then will we MOVE ON.
Clearly, by putting up Joe and Kamala, the DNC also foresee a Trump landslide 🙂
Absolutely, not least by the fact that even the most apolitical American understands that the Dems have well and truly lost the plot. I won a pretty decent bet on Trump getting elected, you won’t get those kind of odds for his reelection but my tip is a wager on Ivanka Trump being the first female POTUS in 2024, the American people love a dynasty.
She’s currently 25/1, well worth a punt.
Probably safer than my 25/1 punt on Andrew Cuomo for 2020!
Trump will win thanks to Joe Biden who has been chosen because the Dems have already agreed to throw the match.
Biden won’t be the candidate. They’re going to swap him out for Michelle Obama or Hillary before then. OR have one of those as his running mate then depose Joe after victory. They’ll let the Tara Read and all the other dirt slip out to bury him at the right time. All that said, if the economy does a dead cat bounce then Trump is all but certain of victory — unless they do a JFK on him.
Oh how I will laugh if that beast Clinton (either) is jobbed in.
Hillary is a totally busted flush. She is completely unelectable. Apart from being a murdering psychopath who salivated over murdering the Libyans, she is intimately tied up in a trail of multiple murders of those who cross her husband’s path from the late 1980s onwards.
I have zero doubt that Trump will use such ammunition to destroy her if the Democrats were mad enough to think she were electable.
Hillary is ballot box poison, and Michelle Obama is probably not quite bright enough to make even a decent stab at putting on a plausible show.
However, putting up Biden whose lights seem to grow dimmer by the day, is a terrific way of cheating the primary system in order to inject a candidate who would have been unable to please the many faces of the identity politics game the Dems have chosen to play ?
If he considers Stacy Abrams for the potential veep slot, then it will be proof positive that we have morphed into Bizzaro World 🙂
Sadly, there is no way Trump will be defeated, and certainly not by a serial molester with dementia; that’s how bad US politics is. If they’d spent four years attacking Trump’s policies instead of framing him, ludicrously, as a Russian agent the Democrats might now have some credibility, but it was not an option open to them, since they are as ideologically bankrupt as he is, and their policies are much the same. Trump is a failure who has only succeeded because of the even greater failure of the opposition. There is no way that Democrats will win the next election.
Some modellers with good reputations are indeed now suggesting Trump may be defeated. And Biden is not the candidate yet. It depends how Trump does over corona, pretty disastrous as his policy is. I’ve already seen him slagging off people who can only be identified with his redneck support. That’s not going to go down well. I myself have no idea, not being interested in US elections.
I share these sentiments enitrely, but the future ever retains its capacity to surprise. Witless Joe may somehow stumble over the line.
Craig Murray “and Blair has the look of a man who believes the dead will be waiting to speak against him in the next life”
We discussed this 10 Years ago – here on this blog…
My idea was to keep him alive for as long as possible in jail, and exhibit him to the tourists just one day a month in cage outside the Tower of London…
I think Mark Golding thought it was quite a good idea.
Why didn’t we do it?
Look at the State of us Now.
It is not good.
They are trying to bang you up instead of Tony Blair.
That’s not right. I’ve read your book.
Tony
Isn’t that what Primo Levi said about Eichmann?
Tony Blair had Rupert Murdoch as his capo, at least until he reputedly shagged Wendi Deng. He will still have the protection of the entire Republican Guard in the US for letting them go to war with at least one willing ally.
If we want to put Tony Blair up in lights, we have to end the Special Relationship.
I would do it, but I would last 5 minutes as Prime Minister because the grubby little pipsqueaks in Westminster and Whitehall would see half their brown envelopes disappearing overnight….so they would get rid of me.
Rupert Murdoch print media is going down the drain, he is to close many newspapers as they are draining him of money, so possibly the evil Australian is losing it.
That most certainly had to be said! Alex Salmond led Scotland’s moral Outrage at the time! Piracy is never a good look no matter what the media try to punt! Blair is one of the reasons we are at our present juncture! Any Politician who espouses a Interventionist policy in another Country is either a complete Dupe or a complicit Criminal! The Tories have no shame and the Labour Party have no Brains! Thank God I am Scottish! It’s been hard but it’s been true!
Fully agree. Salmond will get his time in the sun again and hopefully will bury all those who tried to bury him.
In this post-democratic era in which only the superficial trappings of democracy remain is it even possible to genuinely hold nefarious political actors like Johnson to account?
Politics is a charade run by well-connected insiders for power and profit and while they may disagree on some policy issues, by and large they are on the same page. Principled players who do not show fealty to the neoliberal Atlanticist ‘consensus’ are duly removed with extreme prejudice.
Should Johnson, or Cummings, be forced to resign I shall certainly not shed any tears for them. But while whoever replaces them might not be as brazenly contemptuous or hypocritical, I also know that nothing substantial will change.
When the entire system is rigged to favour a small class of obscenely wealthy owners and murderous foreign policy elites, swapping out individual players can only have a very limited effect.
Can you enlighten me as to when exactly the democratic period was?
1945 to the mid 70s
30 years, not bad in a country that’s been going for over a thousand.
Les Trente Glorieuses, as the French frequently speak of.
There has never been a democratically-elected British government. FPTP guarantees minority rule.
It depends what you mean by “democracy”. For instance, Aristotle would not recognise our form of government as democratic, even in Les Trente Glorieuses.
David Starkey once said that the historical figure that Boris should be compared to is not WSC, but Charles II, with words to the effect that both were and are ruled by their ‘Little Guy’ and would not hesitate to dump upon friends if it was to their advantage.
Given that such an observation may be quite accurate, it is most surprising that Dom commands such loyalty from his boss.
Casual Observer
The Twa Corbies:
As I was walking all alane
I heard twa corbies ( ! ) making a mane
The tane unto the t’ither did say
I would advise you to keep your gob shut, Mr PM.
Charles the First would be more appropriate.
No, I think Starkey is correct. (a sentence I never thought I’d write)
As Rochester (apocryphally) said:
We have a pretty merry king,
Whose word no man relies on
He never said a foolish thing,
Yet never did a wise one.
The third line may require some revision.
The generally -cited reply was
“My words are my own
My actions are my ministers’.”. Boris can hardly be accused of being excessively details -oriented .
In other news, Israeli Prime Minister (for the umpteenth time) Benny Netanyahu has decided that Israel can “move on” and start annexing parts of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley, starting 1 July 2020, in spite of the new unity government coalition co-leader Benny Gantz’s view on the matter.
Annexation as early as July 1 under Netanyahu-Gantz deal
Of course to suggest this is Satanyahu’s way of deflecting attention away from his corruption trial over one count of bribery and three counts of corruption and breach of trust in three separate corruption charges would be most unfair.
… Case 4000, the most serious of all three, alleges that Netanyahu made regulatory decisions that favored Shaul Alovich’s Bezeq telecommunications group in exchange for positive coverage on his news website Walla. In this case, Netanyahu is charged with bribery and one count of fraud and breach of trust.
Case 1000 alleges that Netanyahu received gifts, including cigars and champagne, worth “hundreds of thousands of shekels” from Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan and other supporters. In this case, he is charged with one count of fraud and breach of trust.
Case 2000 alleges that Netanyahu worked out a deal for favorable coverage with Arnon “Noni” Moses, the publisher of an Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharonot, in exchange for backing a bill that would weaken a rival newspaper. Netanyahu is charged with one count of fraud and breach of trust in this case…
Always single out minority Israel at any occasion: never address : “majority” Turkey’s annexations. Saudi’s war in Yemen, Pakistan’s death regime in Baluchistan or the faith of the Kurds. No corrupt leaders there.
Move on, nothing to see there…. no double standards.
Turkey hasn’t annexed anywhere in recent times, let’s say since the creation of Israel. Israel has annexed its entire territory and quite a bit more already, and now plans to annex more. None of the others involve annexation. That’s the trouble with hasbara. Israel’s behaviour is always worse.
Do the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus or its occupation of northern Syria since 2016 ring any bells – or “operation Peace Spring” half a year ago? Israel was not created yesterday.
That’s the trouble with hash; it can result in selective memory loss and selective bias.
No annexations, you appear to be ignorant, or taking hash, as you accuse others of. Voluntary blindness is of course classic of hasbarists.
@Laguerre
Are you soft? This is what Levkosians (for you: Nikosians) see when they look out the window:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Turkish_flags_on_the_Be%C5%9Fparmak_mountain_range.jpg
Stop defending dictator Erdogan and his merry Muslim Brotherhood, committing war crimes in Syria, Lybia, Iraq, Greece and who knows where else.
@Antonym
And what’s this implying Israel is not involved in the friggin’ Yemen carnage? Or the Syrian desaster. Or in Lybia. Who are you trying to fool?
Time was, when Israel was criticised for its truly sickening record, that the standard cut-and-paste counter was “Poor little Israel, Big scary Palestinians”.
I haven’t seen that for a while, presumably its been abandoned now as the patent absurdity of it demonstrably failed to land. Now it’s been decided that the defence must be “Forget Israel, how about country x, y, z..? ”
Now when the schoolyard classics of “But Sir, he started it” and “Not fair, he did it too” are both gone, will the last one be “I didn’t do it” ? The increasingly efficacious censoring methods would point this way. I hope you’re learning another trade as your copy/paste services won’t be in as high demand when memories start to fade.
“Always single out minority Israel at any occasion: never address : “majority” Turkey’s annexations. Saudi’s war in Yemen, Pakistan’s death regime in Baluchistan or the faith of the Kurds. No corrupt leaders there.
Move on, nothing to see there…. no double standards.”
Wow, that is piss weak. Is that really the best you have?
Israel is essentially a fascist apartheid state funded and supported by the US and it’s lapdogs, The treatment of the Palestinians and the ‘wrong types’ of jews by the psychopathic Zionist elements is unacceptable and a danger to all jews worldwide. It’s funding and meddling in other countries democratic systems and it’s psychotic intelligence services is a danger to all of us.
Israel should be singled out at every opportunity, it needs to be BSD’d into an acceptable vestige of civilization, no moving on from that !.
Spot on there Jen. It’s disgusting that the West just looks on.
Watching ‘ you shaft me, I shaft you ‘ among high fliers is not a pretty spectacle. In fact it makes the one who is being threatened, Johnson, look even more vulnerable than the threatener , Cummings
The corporate speak ‘ going forward ‘ is for when the gaffers, having done their due diligence that no cintilla of blame can land on their heads, gather the workforce together to dump the blame collectively on them.
As you cleverly observe, ‘ move on ‘ is the plea of guilty ones. I suggest you don’t use it when you face the Scottish justice system. Get that little joke well out of your system this week , so you don’t feel tempted to make any snide little digs at their expense, like:
‘ You lost your case against Alex Salmond. Don’t you think it might be time now for you all to move on? ‘
Please resist the cheap temptation.
You do realise he’ll now go on and do precisely that…
The BBC looks ready to do his bidding and ‘move on’. It yesterday issued the first apology of the pandemic, because Emily Maitliss told the truth for once about the government.
BBC rushing to take the fall as cover for mass murderers … another song we’re wearily familiar with.
She did her bit in the election coup aginst Corbyn by diverting the attention for a week to Randy Andy – Why then? What did it lead to? Why no follow up?
This is her putting on a hair shirt to be raised to living saint status – and take on the most trusted nations favourite role – and she is a she too! All boxes ticked.
Wasn’t she supposed to say that, to provide a pretext?
Took me two seconds on El Goog to find this:
“Novichok: Prime Minister Boris Johnson says it would be ‘best’ for Salisbury if ‘we all moved on'”
Can the Skripals be released from imprisonment and, in the case of the daughter, move back to Russia as she had previously indicated she wanted to?
Judicial communications replied to the email – so I expect that everybody else also got their reply, where they stated that they’ll issue an expected starting time, a dial-in number and access code in advance of the hearing.
Does anybody know what sort of system they use? Is it something like google-meet? Do we need to install some special software or some sort of app?
I read it as a telephone dial-in, you get a number to call, input a code, say your name, and are put into the ‘meeting’.
….. well, I hope they allow us to use skype.
By the way – I hope that Craig Murray has already secured copyright on his blog posts. The mail from Judicial communications made it clear that everything said in court is copyright of the court. The petition against Craig Murray quoted pretty much the *whole* of his `Yes Minister’ sketch along with other nice pieces written by him.
I wouldn’t like to see Alex Prentice reading this out in court and then being able to claim copyright over this material.
Good point re the copyright James. I don’t think we will use skype, I expect it is like a very big conference call with no video, we will just listen at the end of a phone line.
Am I imagining it but did I read somewhere that one of the judges is something to do with Rape Crisis, how can that be fair and impartial if so as RC backed the alphabet sisters?
….oh I see – we have to find a public telephone box and we have to come armed with a big bag of 2p coins?
Clearly it is corrupt and they’ll clearly convict Craig Murray if they can – they clearly want to do this. I’m simply hoping that they’ll understand that this will bring the *whole* Scottish judiciary into such disrepute that they’ll step back from it. (Certainly, it will do Rape Crisis no good at all to be associated with such a scandal).
I received an automated response to my request, but nothing since then. The requirement of a land line telephone clearly restricts participants. Though the court may not now I am in Canada, it may also wish to discourage international interest in its proceedings against Craig Murray.
We have been told coronavirus affects the eyesight. Apparently it also adversely affects the brain.
…. then Boris Johnson doesn’t have anything to worry about. He hasn’t got a brain – nothing up there for the Coronavirus to attack.
Ho ho, very drôle James. Back to school next week then?
Thanks, Goodwin! No – no such luck.
The PLAN-demic is intended to wreck the economy to stop Brexit and sink Trump, whilst making some insiders very rich. And after trumpeting the lockdown the deep state are now turning (targeting Cummings) and getting ready to highlight all the casualties of the lockdown. Whereas Trump has got ahead of the plot, Boris (despite initial plaudits) has sunk himself by initially supporting the lockdown, no doubt as a compromised politician.
Please campaign for full publication of the Russia report, the Arcuri report and the Garden Bridge report.
Thank you.
Bravissimo, maestro. You have skewered a sordid bunch of scoundrels with rapier wit and a superb economy of words. I have long considered that TB has a haunted look, resembling the portrait of Dorian Gray. His one man Morality Play would win awards at the Edinburgh Fringe, whilst Jack Straw has an appropriate surname: a man devoid of any principle.
However, I came to speak in defence of Moving On. After Blair & Straw ignored the millions who marched in 2003 in protest against the illegal invasion of Iraq: their ignoring us was the final nail in the coffin of British Democracy, and the straw which broke the camel’s back. We decided to “move on” and emigrated to New Zealand! I thank Tony Blair for having given us the impetus to vote with our antipodean feet.
Finally, we look forwards to the goings of Cummings. I thought about his argument about essential travel and wondered if I might bring my babies back to Scotland….but it was but a fevered dream. Despite our Jacinda having once worked in TB’s office, I still prefer her to Nicola. No caviar for us, thanks.
‘I didn’t want to work for Blair’ Ardern is quoted as saying. So why did you, you stupid woman? Because you were climbing the greasy pole which will bring you down to the ground ere long.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/96123508/jacinda-ardern-i-didnt-want-to-work-for-tony-blair
Good for a laugh!
“It’s the way they tell ’em!
As Dominic Cummings claims he drove 60 miles to, er, check his eyesight, HENRY DEEDES revels in the far-fetched porkies that make so many powerful men look ridiculous”
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/scottish-daily-mail/20200528/281801401171989
• Scottish Daily Mail
• 28 May 2020
I’m amazed at my defending Cummings, but I’m going to. I do think it is time to move on from at least the reported facts. Cummings broke the lock-down rules, and (IIRC) received a police caution. He’s not a politician – he’s an employee. His job is to advise, not to be a public face. Carrying out his job doesn’t need public credibility.
He did wrong, but it’s not a sackable offense. If I had done the same, and if my employer had sacked me, I’d have them for wrongful dismissal.
Politicians are answerable to the public; employees are not.
If he’s doing things, or has been given powers, beyond his job description, that’s another matter – but the questions should be posed to those giving the power.
Cummings has NOT been cautioned by Durham police.
‘Durham Police are examining further complaints in connection to Dominic Cummings allegedly breaking the coronavirus lockdown.
It comes after Durham Police issued a new statement on Monday, saying that officers spoke to the father of Dominic Cummings but gave “no specific advise on coronavirus”. A huge row has erupted over Boris Johnson’s top adviser, who travelled to County Durham in March to self-isolate with his family while official guidelines warned against long-distance journeys.
Since reports emerged, he has claimed they travelled north because he feared he and his wife would be left unable to care for their son.
But further reports now suggest that he took a second trip to the north-east in April, having already returned to London following his recovery from Covid-19.
Durham Constabulary’s statement said: “We can confirm that on April 1, an officer from Durham Constabulary spoke to the father of Dominic Cummings. Mr Cummings confirmed that his son, his son’s wife and child were present at the property. He told the officer that his son and son’s wife were displaying symptoms of coronavirus and were self-isolating in part of the property.
“We can further confirm that our officer gave no specific advice on coronavirus to any members of the family and that Durham Constabulary deemed that no further action was required in that regard. “Our officer did, however, provide the family with advice on security issues.”’
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/durham-police-dominic-cummings-breaking-lockdown-coronavirus-a4450026.html
..
Sorry Robert, but it is a sackable offence under the civil service code of conduct:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-code/the-civil-service-code
Hats off to Boris, if he leaves any positive mark on British history it will be as the PM who presided over the breakup of this unworkably unequal United Kingdom.
Customs posts at Belfast and Larne (of course, they won’t be called Customs posts) and the latest YouGov poll putting the SNP at 54% in Westminster voting intentions. Hilariously the SNP appear to have benefited from a hollowing out of the LibDems who sit at derisory 3%.
We are moving on …there was night flying training all last night till after 10pm and it looks like the big lock down in the skies is over.
Phase two of the hobnail rebellion is about to start. Tracing tracking and hoping for some kind of economic upswing by doing very little, hoping that we all bow out heads and say thank you for five month of incompetencr, failure to act and lack of precautionary measures.
Its 9 am and the warbirds once again spew their kerosene into the skies above.
To say Cummings is an ideas man is giving the man too much credit, where are the radial roads turned into cycle lanes into London? What off this greening of the economy when all theycan do is build more roads? We know he ‘feared that old people might die’ in his eugenically touched mind.
Johnson is lost and has no idea on how to conduct a trade deal wwith the EU, we are sliding of a rock like a dead wet red herring.
You are right about the warbirds, RAF planes have been attacking targets in Syria/Iraq for the last few days. Voyager air tankers have been refuelling them within Jordanian airspace then returning to Cyprus. The tankers usual base is Brize Norton.
Re night flying
Yes the skies are now full again, see: https://www.flightradar24.com/51.89,-2.09/7
Moving on is just another way of saying lets forget about that. Time will tell if the bereaved will allow it, as well as allowing us to compare increase in death rates with other counties and therefore if government actions were adequate or fit for purpose.
If only we could move on. Unless he drops off his perch, we are stuck with him until 2024 thanks to the idiot Tory voters and those in the Zionist Israel lobby in the Labour party who attacked and undermined Corbyn.
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/E564/production/_110142785_resultstable.png
Mary – I do want Boris Johnson out (eventually) – and he is one of the most venal characters to hold position of Prime Minister.
But we might just get our fishing industry back first if he takes us out of the EU in the way he seems to be doing. Then we can re-join the EU – this time without giving away our territorial waters as part of the deal.
The EU was, in every other matter, a force for good – and free movement of people really was a tremendous political achievement – but I refuse point blank to forgive, forget, or `move on’ from the loss of our fishing industry.
Something personal here – all my ancestors, as far back as you like to go – were fishermen. This was something that affected Scotland disproportionately. When Edward Heath gave away the fishing, it affected the whole of the UK, but by far the worst hit was Scotland. So perhaps we let Boris Johnson get our territorial waters back (I never heard Sturgeon making a big issue out of this) and after he has done that (and only after he has done that), we think of getting rid of him. Then we can re-join the EU on basis that does not give away the fishing rights for our territorial waters.
Thanks. Yes I too support the British fishermen There are no fresh fish shops here (SE England) now and it is not even on sale in supermarkets at present.
But where are we now with our EU membership?
‘Exit day was 31 January 2020 at 11.00 p.m. GMT The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (as amended by a UK Statutory Instrument on 11 April 2019), in section 20 (1), defined ‘exit day’ as 11:00 p.m. on 31 October 2019. Originally, ‘exit day’ was defined as 11:00 p.m. on 29 March 2019 GMT (UTC+0).’
I read yesterday that Barnier offered a two year extension. The EU will not let go.
https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-27/eu-open-to-two-year-brexit-extension-says-michel-barnier/
The UK’s adviser is David Frost.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Frost_(British_diplomat)
“The EU will not let go.”
That’s quite inaccurate, or poorly expressed. It’s just that the EU, in its own interests, doesn’t want to see Britain turn into a failed state, the way it’s heading at the moment. Barnier is simply offering to ease things, in the hope that Britain will reach a more realistic policy, unlikely at the moment.
The fishing quotas were sild by the the British fishers.
And I for ine am glad at not having regular reports of drowned fishermen and sunk unsuitable trawlers – I enjoy my fish a lot more because of it.
The return to carping at the EU is timed.
Dungroanin – well, you may have a good point about drowned fishermen. My father tells me that he remembers occasions, on a stormy day, the headmaster would come to the class, call out a child who wouldn’t return – and it was assumed that the news had just come through that the child’s father was lost at sea.
If Edward Heath hadn’t given away the territorial waters then there wouldn’t have been such quotas in the first place.
I personally don’t blame the EU – which is in principle very good. I do blame the English negotiators right at the beginning (back in 1972) who were prepared to give away the territorial waters – a move which affected Scotland much more than the English. Of course the Common Market wanted the fishing rights for these waters – it was the job of our people (or rather the English who were negotiating on our behalf) to just say no and they didn’t!
So I personally am not carping at the EU – I’m carping at Edward Heath and the English Tories.
“but I refuse point blank to forgive, forget, or `move on’ from the loss of our fishing industry.”
Well, it was the British fishing companies themselves who sold off British quota to others. And 80% of British catch is exported to the continent, as apparently Brits don’t want to eat that sort of fish or seafood. How’s that going to work when there’s No-Deal, and the barriers erected at Dover? The French do like to eat fish, that’s true, but they’ll happily look for something else, if the fish is not fresh and on the edge of rotting
Laguerre – it was the Edward Heath agreement that led to these quotas and to the possibility for money-grabbing sharks to sell off these quotas. He did not have to give away UK territorial waters; there shouldn’t have been this quota system in the first place.
I don’t blame the EU at all for this; they were only playing their hand – and they probably couldn’t believe their luck when an English Prime Minister was so quick to give away the UK territorial waters – something which disproportionately affected the Scots.
I used to be SNP for this reason – but in recent years I have seen the SNP very slow to put the fishing (and Scottish control over Scottish territorial waters) as a key issue – and as a result I now favour the union.
For lawds sake James – just tell me what exactly is going to change when you ‘get your fishing rights back’ ?
Explain in detail.
Quotas were necessary to prevent overfishing.
We were contesting others’ fishing rights ourselves in the Cod Wars at the time, as I recall.
Laguerre – depends on who is administering the quotas and the rules they apply. If the territorial waters were only for our fishermen, then it would be more difficult for big business (Tory) sharks to sell the quotas abroad.
I was only 7 years old at the time, but I remember my cousin (who was a fisherman at the time) absolutely incensed (and with very good reason) that the fishing grounds were closed for the very good reason that it was necessary for the fish stocks to replenish – and then when they were re-opened they were EU waters (or Common Market as it was back then).
The quotas and the conservation measures have been treated with a large amount of disrespect for this reason – we’re conserving *our* fish stocks for the benefit of *others* and not for our *own* benefit.
My cousin (at the time) also made the point that Edward Heath had successfully negotiated UK territorial waters as UK waters for the purpose of oil, so he could have done exactly the same thing for fishing if he had wanted to. This (at the time) was taken as a proof that the snooty English (as exemplified by Edward Heath) had nothing but contempt for the Scots – our fishing industry meant nothing to him.
I emphasise that the problem is *not* with the EU, they were only playing their hand and they couldn’t believe their luck when Edward Heath was prepared to urinate from a great height on the people he was supposed to be representing. The problem was that Edward Heath was very happy to sell us out for the benefit of his own people.
Well obviously a Sturgeon does not like fishing.
But loves framed salmond!
?
I wonder when Ms.Sturgeon will move on from trying to stitch up Mr.Salmond?
‘We might just get our fishing industry back’. Well, if anybody really is interested in fish they should be massively interested in a healthy ocean environment.
Do consider that there is now as much micro plastic pollution in a volume of ocean water as there is plancton. It has been a study by Portsmouth marine researchers showing that the fry of 30 most popular fish we eat prefers microplastics to plancton.
There is no need to have an artificial argument about miles of polluted seas with a future trading partner.
If Johnson leaves for a hard Brexit, not taking the route of another extention, he will compound the hardship for millions of people in this country.
Johnson is not for moving on, he is crawling on bloody knees.
The BBC, other official UK propaganda organs of that ilk and imitators have quite clearly expressed while pretending to deplore the objective reality that is to be moved on from, and therefore subliminally accepted, and it is this:
What applies to the proletariat does not apply to those who think of themselves as elite.
It has always been thus. The egalitarian illusion is just that, a sham. Get over it and move on. That is an order.
By every account cummings calls all the shots in this government, so the specific rules of lockdown would have had to be approved by him. If he broke those rules, while expecting everybody else to abide by them, then he should go. If not then we’re saying no rules apply to him.
Correct and he is ‘leading’ by example – it is obvious why.
The whole narrative is absurd. Strange that he and his journalist wife had trouble finding child care. One would have thought they could afford to have a nanny..
Barnard Castle is a nice place to visit. So well worth going along to if you feel your eyesight might be impaired. Apart from the usual tourist attractions there’s a golf course and nearby there’s a GSK pharmaceuticals operation. They’ve just cut a vaccine deal with Sanofi, the French company.. Seems to be a busy little town, one thing and another.
‘Mr. Johnson, What time is it?’
‘Look, what people want to know if it is going to rain.’
Tony Blair. Gordon Brown. Products of Scotland. Yes, we all need to move on!
They did much more damage to the UK, financially and morally, than Boris or Cummings could ever do.
Try having contempt for all of them, very easy if you’re honest.
I don’t know…they’ve not done bad for five months, £300+ billion and 40,000 dead. They’ve made a promising start.
Skye Mull
They are Britnats. British to their core. Scottish – Blair and Brown Scottish ??????
There were a number of notable George Bush “Move On” moments
When George Bush was no longer worried about finding Weapons of Mass Destruction. Even making Jokes about it. Or when George Bush was no longer worried about finding Osama bin Laden
But then the News and Press always use the “Move On” principle.
As they used to say today’s headlines is tomorrow’s fish and chip papers.
They know people care about today and the future and they have the memory of a goldfish.
A news paper can even have a revealing story today. But tomorrow write the opposite story tomorrow. Sometime they contradict them selves the same day or same article.
Yes there was Iran Contra move on
The narrative was Saddam Hussein was fighting to stop those mad hordes from Iran . but times move on.
Kuwait Baby’s from incubators old news.
Assad visiting Buckingham Palace who cares
Gaddafi Bad , then good , then bad again. Bombs always deliver democracy.
Yemen is sad but Saudi Arabia is a good customer.
But it will I suspect be a long time before we can move on from the coronavirus.
there are the Reds under the beds , the terrorists and now in Technicolor coronavirus
the new Sword of Damocles . The new normal.
Perhaps the most famous ‘let’s move on’ moment was that involving George W Bush at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota County, Florida, on the morning of September 11, 2001. Despite having been told earlier that a plane had hit the World Trade Center, he continued with a book reading of ‘The Pet Goat’ to first graders, amazingly he remained reading for several more minutes even when an aide whispered in his ear that yet another plane had struck the towers.
Johnson might urge us to move on but his problem is how as he is up to his neck in the mud of covid and let us not forget brexit. Nothing that I have read suggests he has a remote clue as to how to extricate himself and will need some pretty powerful cranes to pull him out.
Yes, let’s move on – Cummings has some test-and-trace data to sell!
Conversely it’s never time for the political and media class to move on from contrived antisemitism “crises” or from demonizing heterodox countries and individuals. At least not til the desired destruction has been achieved.
Explains the timing and high profile publicity in the Rose Garden – when as an extension of the previous incumbents of the posts – the Newsmaker takes the role of becoming the News himself (the next one will be a female no doubt my money is on La K.)
The whole diversion is about wrenching the popular attention back from the massacre of our old and back to their hard BrexShit.
An example from the Groaniad (not socialist, not Remainer, not purveyor of facts or of free comment).
It flashed its wolf fangs from under its blood covered sheepskin (not for the first time this week – see their cheerleading for the Rumsfeld run Gilead pharmas dodgy drug for covid patients approved by the human rubber stamp Handcock.
It slyly pushes the brexshit agenda by a return to Islamophobia and rise in anti -immigrant rhetoric. The formula that delivered the referendum. By providing oxygen to Yaxley-Lennon, the deepstate stooge under the comically emotional pseudonym the Obsessive-Groan insists on using as it’s house style, pearl clutching at the uncouth beast, while salivating at his cock sureness.
They totally fail to mention his few weeks in Belmarsh, where he ‘didn’t see a single other inmate’ (Assange prob grateful for a little mercy) but got a sweet mocumentary free publicity advert fillip with Ross Kemp, the heartthrob chocolate box/Mills&Boon hero for virginal ladies and repressed homosexual hard nuts of the EDL skinhead steroidal pisshead militarist types.
What else was the point of putting the would be modern Mosley in a High Security prison and releasing him a few weeks into a 9 month sentence, looking super relaxed with a twat beard, ready to deliver the EDL vote to break the ‘red wall’?
The FartAge won’t be far behind in re-emerging from enforced hibernation during the untimely pandemic ice age. That cooled the election fixing winning rage and ardour, of a rush to finally gain the10 year Austerity laden Hard Brexit – the one and only Plan A of the bastard children of the original Bastard europhobes.
So that is what in my opinion is behind the timing of Dom’s sending up the bat signal to the geddidonnnne crew as he finally leads from the front – “look they hate me and want me out because they want to stop it!” He will bleat, following his own script.
Hence Blue Robbo hits the road –
‘His team circulated a video of him telling a female officer that he had travelled from Luton to do “essential work” as a journalist. “My job is essential, which means our travel is essential innit,” he said. He explained he had not driven himself because he had 18 points on his driving licence and “didn’t really believe” in Covid-19.’
‘Robinson arrived in a convoy of 16 or 17 vehicles, beeping their horns and flashing their lights. ‘ https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/may/26/appeals-for-calm-after-tommy-robinson-visits-barrow-amid-protests
=======
As I have been pointing out on various sites, the nexus of BrexShitheads and CV denialists – with a liberal salting of 5G and supervillain nonce-sense, under a flag of self declared proud-and-out Conspiracy Theorists Common folk – is served up like warmed up vomit to the populace.
The troll army are tasked to be fellow travellers with the EDL Yaxley-Lennon worshipping shit heads no doubt believing with all their hearts (& purses) the Ends justify the unscrupulous Means.
PS – The Groan still retains a few fig leafs of genuine morality chief amongst them the now venerable cartoonist Steve Bell and his ‘If…’ strip and occasional editorials that get past the editors, and Aditya Chakrabortty’s honest and succinct analysis , just in case anyone thinks I am just refusing to Move On from Guardian bashing.
?
Surely a comment of genius.
Nurse!
Dungroanin
One month of zipping it bottling it and fasting seems to have exploded like a coka cola can .
I suppose the nob’eds that be can expect a little more respect after furloughing half the population with small beer. Who are we?
To criticise. The unfurling of a brave new Tory world. Where we are all injected with Ebola while they get carbon filtered air conditioning in their planes, cars and offices? Who are we?
The further they drive, fly or work, the safer they are from Corona. While us mugs make do with face masks and not shaking hands with our neighnours.
Who are we?
G,
We ARE the many.
The cops,besides from the dodgy bits of the Met and some regional storm troops, are civil.
They won’t be beating and cracking heads of their friends and neighbours.
The army in the streets? Like Belfast in the 70’s?
Not good press for tourists and Queen.
(Haven’t they suddenly gone quiet after Harry becoming the prodigal?).
The resistance would be mighty if they tried.
I haven’t been that quiet – putting the 77th troll choir to task at their favourite echo chamber the Off-G covid deniers current goto. They hate everyone. Craig, MoA, Remainers, Assange… they love UK column and their groupies.
Like shooting fish in the barrel and quite fun – some regulars from here too, complaining about being barred – but I see them here!
The old bastards and their spawn new bastards now in government have ONLY one thing on their mind – Hard Brexit.
To save their Ancient City, so it can become legally a Singapore on Thames.
The fuzzy message behind the inarticulacy of a plan and action to deal with this not so completely deadly pandemic is to keep the herd immunity growing – having killed 70k by not acting early enough, by keeping on about getting the BrexShit Bill through.
Many of the powers they have given themselves in the Covid Act are not being used! The lockdown relied on old law. These powers will be used for and during hard brexit.
I’ll fight them and their thugs wherever they like – they are not going to put us in their safe zoos – the modern parishes – mini-hollands with sealed roads, restricted driving etc.
Fuck em, lets see them try in London – Whitehall is not more than a couple of hours walk from anywhere.
They seem happy to ferment chaos and riots in HK – wait till it kicks off for real here!
And no I am not going to take their dodgy vaccines- not for at leat 5 years till they are proved completely safe AND necessary- which they won’t be in a few years as SARS-CoV-2 settles down to an annual flu level.
But this winter is going to be pretty hard on many as both the flu and Covid 2nd wave coincide. Hopefully some old meds will be helpful and we won’t try and be puttings 10’s of thousands on lung destroying machines.
Anyway back to the fun. See you in the battles.
@Craig – “Remembering short slogans is fairly well the extent of his political skills“.
First rule of warfare: don’t underestimate your opponents. Even in the specific field of rhetoric Johnson is far more highly skilled than is required merely to remember short slogans.
(It was quite funny that in a Torygraph piece about a book promotion event in which Johnson demonstrated his mastery of such concepts as chiasmus, the tricolon, and anaphora, the scribe or subeditor wrote “anaphora” as two words, as if he had said “an aphora”!)
Britgov’s propaganda centre may seem to have gone a little “rule of threes” mad in the past two months…
…but in the world of propaganda an oldie is often a goodie, as David Ogilvy (required reading for anybody serious about advertising) knew well. Some rules don’t change.
It seems to me they may have had more success than they thought they’d have in getting people to “stay at home”.
While some are whingeing that they can’t visit their parents, etc., in many cases it would be easy for them to visit their parents if they wanted, especially if their parents are either living within a mile or so or are within reach by car. If anybody asks, just say your old dad gets confused by the washing machine and if you didn’t go over to help him he wouldn’t be able to change his clothes. That qualifies as a health need, so you won’t get fined or jailed. If necessary, make up a story about how you wear surgical gloves when you knock on his door, and then he runs up to his room and sandbags his bedroom until he emerges five hours later, by which time you’ve not only washed his clothes for him but you’ve also power-sprayed everything you touched in his kitchen with 99.5% isopropanol just in case, wearing a CBW suit with an oxygen tank on your back, always careful to keep an eye on the “DEFCON LEVEL” on your mobile phone.
The truth is that many people are choosing not to visit their parents and they’re blaming somebody else for their own actions, saying they’re only doing what they’re told. Then they get more time to pick their mobile phones. I hope their parents reconsider what they want to happen to their assets when they shuffle off!
There’s little informed comment anywhere about the propaganda campaign – whether it’s the rainbow, the three colours that were used at the Number 10 briefings for a while before they went to two, or the role of the acronym “NHS”, let alone the effect on family life or on children.
Lastly, I wouldn’t assume Dominic Cummings did drive to Durham on 27 March, nor even that he was ill. This is about Glaxo.
Excellent advice. Plod will definitely give up and move on to harass less imaginative victims. Also absolutely a contender for the ‘BS Story of the Day’ competition plod runs back at the office.
@ramblingidiot – I’m glad you liked it. To win the even more prestigious Story of the Week prize, the ambitious “doesn’t believe what he’s told” warrior of the early Covid period might assure the police that he’s fully apprised of the risk involved in uttering the sounds “s” and “sh” even when wearing a mask, given that those consonants expel many more particles from the mouth than the far safer sounds “m” and “n”. (Believers in science might like to read this highly authoritative research paper.) He should say that before he goes round his old man’s place he therefore practises for an hour banging his knee against the corner of the fridge and getting his wife to hit his big toe with a hammer, making sure he always exclaims “Cr*p” rather than the more Covidically dangerous “Sh*t!” which would terrifyingly cover the walls of his father’s kitchen with an inch-thick layer of Covid-19 particles (known shientiffically as “viral load”), requiring the same kind of response as a nuclear accident. While waiting for the next toe-bang he usually claps for the royal family or for the NHS as every good citizen does nowadays – isn’t that right, officer?
Seriously if you visit your parents you’re more likely to be saving them from becoming one of the tens of thousands of non-Covid-positive “excess deaths at home” than exposing them to anything risky whatsoever. It’s people’s own fault that they’re sheep.
“I wouldn’t assume Dominic Cummings did drive to Durham on 27 March, nor even that he was ill. This is about Glaxo.”
If someone says publicly that they received “medical advice” to such-and-such an effect, or that they were “medically cleared to go back to work”, it is legitimate to ask who gave them the advice.
Many would think so straightaway if it were Donald Trump. The same should apply when it’s Dominic Cummings.
Many aspects of this story rely solely on assertions by Cummings himself, in some cases supported by his wife, and these assertions seem to have been wrapped around a very few things that are known to be the case, e.g. Cummings ran down the road on 27 March; “retired schoolteacher” (and Africa hand) Robin Lees says he saw a car in Barnard Castle; Cummings and his wife have a young son; there’s a farm near Durham with more than one house on it; and so on.
Then there’s the Hougham Woods allegation.
An assertion has been spread concerning a walk in those woods on 19 April. This has been specifically denied and I believe it’s almost certainly false. But that does NOT make it something we should “move on” from. On the contrary it is extremely interesting and it suggests a high level of counterintelligence manipulation. The assertion has been cited to “walkers” in the plural. Well who were these walkers? Are the walkers lying? Are they mistaken? Why did they believe it was Dominic Cummings that they saw? How many languages does each of these “walkers” speak? Do they have any experience in the defence sector, security electronics, international NGOs, or shipping insurance? (Just askin’).
If the Hougham Woods assertion is in fact true, why is it so important to deny? It would surely be easy to make up some old cobblers to justify the family’s presence at that place at that time.
What does David Harper know? He’s the guy who reckons he may have been mistaken for Dominic Cummings in Barnard Castle. Does he ever go to the woods?
Was a double used? If so, why? That kind of effort wouldn’t be mounted just to muddy the waters regarding a breach of quarantine (or even lockdown). It would only be used for a much bigger purpose.
My nose reckons there may have been a double but one who wasn’t Mr Harper, making him into a kind of fake fake 🙂
Right in front of everybody’s eyes, Cummings has said he needed to get back to London to move money. But the media prefer to talk about “one law for them, another for us” (OLFTAFU), which is precisely part of the message that is being put out to assist with the complicated transition to the next stage of Covid World. Some may think they are highly critical of higher castes and authority figures when in actual fact they are SUPINE and SERVILE.
“OLFTAFU” is being screamed out by the same filthy far-right media that helped win the 2016 referendum for Brexit. Talk about “populism”…
See also the “testing the eyesight” story. Whilst everyone is laughing at this Barney Castle of an excuse, nobody is wondering what the real reason for going to the town was.
For once I wish the British public would get off their knees and do SOMETHING. A protest, withholding taxes, a nasty letter. SOMETHING to slow this progression in to facisim. Anyone? Why do we collectively take it up the ass from these guys and then thank them afterwards?
Set an example