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Alex Andreou
@sturdyAlex
, 4 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
I enjoyed Pascal Lamy schooling Iain Duncan Smith on #PoliticsLive, including this completely magnificent snooker: if you accept that lowering barriers to trade produces efficiency benefits and cost savings, it’s irrational to deny that erecting them has the opposite effect. 1/3
IDS repeatedly refused to grasp this insisting he understood borders better and that a disorderly exit on WTO rules would involve no border. TO THE FORMER HEAD OF THE WTO. When this was pointed out, IDS muttered he has spent his life exporting when he was in private business. 2/3
NARRATOR: By “all my life” Iain Duncan Smith refers to a spell at GEC Marconi for 7 years in the 80s, where he claims he was director (he wasn’t), after he went to the University of Perugia (he didn’t) and while being educated at Dunchurch College of Management (he wasn’t). 3/3
Using Thatcher against him is so delicious.
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Alex Andreou
@sturdyAlex
We are divided not because of differences of opinion -they’ve always existed- but because of a systematic assault on our tools for resolving such conflict. Truth, fact, experience, expertise, institutional credibility; all dismantled by the very people now lamenting division. 1/3
You can’t bemoan “a divided country” while calling the judiciary “Enemies of The People”, investigative journalism “fake news” and saying you’ve “had enough of experts”. There can be no compromise when any mutually accepted, constant points of reference have been vandalised. 2/3
This is why we won’t find “unity” over Brexit or Trump; the two sides lack a shared language. I can compromise if you convince me to your argument with logic and facts. But if your argument is “facts and logic are for sissies”, it’s not compromise, but surrender. And I won’t. 3/3
Read 3 tweets
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Alex Andreou
@sturdyAlex
If anyone is interested in a super-geeky thread on the now infamous FCO 30/1048, here it is. It's actually a fascinating document; incredibly balanced, accurate, visionary and pragmatic about Britons' post-imperial illusions of sovereignty. Well worth a read of the summary pages.
This, for instance, from the 1971 internal gov't memo FCO 30/1048. It shows such a clear understanding of the pitfalls of union membership.
NARRATOR: "They fell into that pit, of course, with the gusto of a professional pit-faller called Fal L Pitt, at the pit-falling Olympics."
Read 3 tweets
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Alex Andreou
@sturdyAlex
So, @LanceForman, owner of bespoke smokery @hformanandson, a multimillionaire who's made his fortune selling smoked salmon to the metropolitan elite at £70 a fillet, is now standing as a candidate for the Brexit Party. Promising to smash the metropolitan elite. For realzies.
This election is like an entry-level IQ test for Britain. I hope, rather than expect, we might pass.
Seriously. They are making it easy for you. Nigel Farage, Annunziata Rees-Mogg, Michael Heaver, Lance Forman, Anne Widdecombe, as an ANTI-establishment crew. Twenty years ago this would have been a satirical sketch. You have to really, really, REEEALLY want to suspend disbelief.
Read 3 tweets

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Adam Payne
@adampayne26
Iain Duncan Smith suggests he might vote for Theresa May's deal next week to avoid a softer Brexit: "We need keep our options open on this... We don't know what the alternatives are" #Marr
IDS says Cabinet ministers who have briefed against Theresa May in the Sunday papers are "appalling" and "should be sacked" #Marr
Letwin, Cooper et al take note...

Stephen Barclay says that HMG might ignore the result of indicative votes

He says any majority "will not be binding" and that HMG "will have to look at what's voted on" as it may "collide with fundamental commitments in the [Tory] manifesto"
Read 3 tweets
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the3million
@The3Million
1/ Iain Duncan Smith going full dog whistle here. EU immigrants, which he calls cheap labour, helped by UK businesses, live on benefits from the moment they arrive and in squalor conditions driving down wages and training opportunities for UK workers.
2/ Has Iain Duncan Smith read a single page of the official MAC report on immigration?
3/ EU citizens are less likely to claim social benefits as the DWP part of the MAC report clearly points out.
Read 6 tweets
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the3million
@The3Million
1/ On @IainDale at @LBC Iain Duncan Smith again called for benefits to be restricted or cut for future EU citizens arriving and working in the UK. Giving the impression that EU citizens in general are a drain on the system. Apart from the MAC report disproving this...
2/... Iain Duncan Smith's £4bn (sounds big) benefit claim needs to be seen in relation. His number is correct, here his sources from his own report
3/... but what he misses is putting this number in relation to the overall benefits spend of the UK which stands at £153bn excluding pensions for the year 2017
Read 6 tweets
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Penny Midas Rollo
@PennyMidasRollo
001/ [article content in this tweet series 001-180 reproduced with permission from Martin Howe QC of Lawyers for Britain @lawyers4britain]
#quote "Leaving the EU on WTO terms: pulling down the barriers to world trade
Introduction: why prices will FALL after Brexit, not rise" /002
002/ #quote "Over the past couple of weeks, the media have been full of lurid scare stories about what will happen if the UK leaves the EU on WTO terms, because negotiations with the EU do not result in a withdrawal agreement." /003
#tariffs #NoDeal #Brexit #WTO #ProjectFear #shortages #food #medicines
003/ #quote "One of the most ridiculous and UNJUSTIFIED of these absurd scare stories is that it will lead to higher prices, and even shortages, of foods and medicines." /004
Read 180 tweets
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Leon Rocha
@acupunctureUSS
* EXTREMELY ADAM CURTIS VOICE *

This is a story about an Edith Wharton scholar who became embroiled in the largest industrial action in the history of higher education in United Kingdom.

* SOON ON BBC STRIKE CHANNEL *

#USStrike #NoCapitulation @alicecbennett #HouseofMirth
1/ It is also about a small group of managers who shared a vision of universities built on the freedom of choice and the logic of the market.
2/ But that vision turned into an never-ending nightmare. A nightmare for university staff and for students.

* SOUNDTRACK KICKS IN: John Carpenter - *

#USSStrike #NoCapitulation
Read 145 tweets
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the3million
@The3Million
1/ Iain Duncan Smith (IDS) continues to portray East Europeans as a burden on the British welfare system. Has he got a point or is it just more xenophobic stereotyping?
2/ Iain Duncan Smith is relying on @MigrationWatch data to claim that EU citizens are claiming £4bn in benefits per year, more than half (£2bn) of it in-work benefits. Adding in child benefit, a universal benefit, is disingenuous and shall be discounted here.
3/ Iain Duncan Smith then goes on and lays the blame straight at the East European EU citizens from 10 former communist countries also known as EU10. Pointing out that these citizens receive more in-work benefits than the average British employee
Read 16 tweets

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