Thread on how Swinson and Umunna have made a No Deal more likely by removing one of Johnson’s excuses for not letting a No Deal happen..
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As much we may criticise Johnson, he isn’t dumb and his own political reputation matters mrore to him than anything else. He knows a No Deal would be a catastrophe and he knows that once that carnage becomes clear it will politically destroy him and the Tories.
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Johnson’s strategy from day one as PM as been to prepare for blame shifting. On the one hand he wants to show he would go for a No Deal and ‘do Brexit’ to shore up the Brexit side of the Tory vote. At the same time he needs to politically hedge for the disaster No Deal would be.
Hedge 1 if Johnson lets No Deal happen
The hedge is to blame the EU. He knows the EU can’t compromise on the backstop yet he’s made that a precondition for any talks. So if he goes ahead with No Deal he’ll pitch it as ‘the EUs fault’ for not backing down to his impossible ask.
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Hedge 1 (cont.)
The second part of this will be to go full attack on May’s government. The carnage of No Deal will also be put on May, ie she and others like Hammond, didn’t take No Deal seriously, didn’t plan for it etc. Johnson will say he did his best to prepare but..
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..it was impossible to make up in a few months for what May didn’t do for two years. That way Johnson plans to sidestep blame for the damage of a No Deal by blaming the EU and May. He will then call a GE on the basis of ‘make me strong..
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..give a majority to deal with the damage and chaos No Deal is causing. Need a full 5 year to deal with this.’ That will Johnson’s pitch for the GE. Essentially ‘Brexit isn’t finished, we need to make it work, I’m blameless for the mess and only I can fix it.
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Hedge 2 if Johnson decides against No Deal
Like May did, Johnson may balk at what disaster No Deal would be. However having very publicly set his stall out on Brexit at any cost including No Deal, he can’t u-turn. If he did it would destroy him. So the hedge would be..
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..to blame Parliament, eg “I wanted to leave on No Deal but they stopped me or sabotaged planning for No Deal etc. That would be his pitch for the GE, eg “Brexit is still unresolved, I want to resolve it, give me a majority to do that etc”.
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He would also use that as an excuse to ask for a delay to No Deal as a GE would meet the EU’s criteria for an extension. He wouldn’t fess up he didn’t want a No Deal but will pitch it as he wanted it but ‘Parliament stopped him’.
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That’s how Swinson and Umunna have made No Deal more likely. By effectively sabotaging a clear route from a VONC to an short interim government headed by Corbyn to halt Brexit for a GE. They’ve made it even more difficult for Parliament to halt a No Deal and..
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..have taken Johnson’s 2nd Hedge off the table, ie he won’t be able to hide behind Parliament and use them as an excuse for halting No Deal. Having lost that, the only place where he has political cover left is the 1st Hedge, ie let No Deal happen and blame the EU and May.
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That old myth about the royals and tourism has done the rounds like crazy. It never gets fact checked, so here some data 1/ UK sites: No royal site, free or paid is a top 10 tourist attraction by visitor numbers
2/ Countries: 3 of the top 10 most popular countries for tourists are monarchies. Not one sensible person is saying people are going to Spain and Thailand to see the royal palaces and not going for the beaches (nowhere near the royal palaces). Same applies here (see 1).
3/ Those who want to justify the monarchy and the obscene sums of money they get directly or in tax loopholes can crack out the tourism myth. They have no other credible practical excuse left. But the media shouldn’t let this claim go unchecked let alone repeat it uncritically.
Labour have been consistently been making two claims about their NHS plans: 1) They will scrap the non dom tax 2) They will use it to fund the biggest expansion of the NHS workforce
As the media can’t be bothered to, I’ve fact checked this on this thread
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1) Labour ISN’T scrapping the non dom tax loophole it’s replacing it with a new tax break because they want “to attract top international talent”. In no understanding of the English language are “scrapping” and “replacing” the same thing.
Source theguardian.com/news/2022/apr/…
2) Will Labour’s new tax loophole for Non Dons raise enough for the “biggest expansion of the NHS workforce”?
So far Labour has not detailed what it’s new tax loop hole will look like. On Labour’s own figures (see above) the total scrapping of the current loophole will
1/ For the #Budget you'll hear both Tories and Labour as well the media say things like "we haven't got the money". The truth is we do have money, lots of it. The Tories alone have burnt through hundreds of billions, pure waste. This thread lists some of the worst wastes.
2/ £50 billion wasted on Cameron's NHS reforms. They found the money for that but not for fair pay rises for NHS staff.
Details: everydoctor.org.uk/blog/nhs-refor…
1/ I'm pulling my hair out with the crap, disingenuous media reporting of the #NHSCrisis. I've seen the BBC, Sky and ITV all cite the Tories plan to give health and social care £14.1bn more over 2 years with NO CONTEXT. So let me do it:
Thread
2/ Total spend on health and social care is c£180 bn a year.
With inflation at c10%, to stay level they would need an extra c£18 bn a year.
The Tories plan is c.£7 bn a year, ie £11 bn, c60% less than is needed to stay level.
So in practice this extra money is a real terms cut.
3/ By not giving this context, the media are doing a propaganda job for the Tories. The Tories are trying to present a real terms cut as extra money. By parroting the line that this is "extra" money. the media are lying on the Tories behalf.
1/ Thread: The next big Tory lie - Inflation
Sunak says “he’ll halve inflation this year” at his press conference.
No reporter asks him how exactly is it that he can control inflation and if he can why hasn’t he done it sooner?
2/ Inflation will fall ALL around the world this year. It’s a relative measure between two points in time. Prices spiked up last year because of the hike in energy prices especially after the Ukraine invasion. Unless there is another spike like that, inflation WILL go down.
3/ Energy prices this March are likely to be much lower than last year. Energy is a big part of inflation calculations. So, inflation WILL fall automatically. The Government doesn’t have to lift a finger for inflation to fall.
BofE Inflation report: bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/…
1/ The massive #NHSCrisis we're now suffering is only a surprise to the Tories and the mainstream media. The warnings of this crisis were there in JULY, well before flu and the winter COVID surge. They were ignored then as they coincided with the Johnson meltdown.
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