I don't generally post about personal issues. But this is an exception. 🧵

Some of you may have noticed that I have been a little distracted recently and the quality of my tweets may have suffered. We as a family have been under stress, me included. Mrs P, the light of my life, has been ill. We followed NHS guidance and waited a specified period. Then she made an appointment with the GP. We were incredibly lucky, compared to some, to have to wait only a week for the appointment. The GP called for tests...

🧵 1/9 This is an almost perfect metaphor for brexit, and it contains lessons the country needs to learn.

https://twitter.com/jacobbe79601492/status/1762383239161762284

2 The Tories, and other ardent brexit supporters never understood the size of the task, because they never understood the detail, were hugely arrogant and overconfident. As the article shows, there is an opportunity in this field (and possibly others), if it can be grasped…

Catherine McBride, the IEA "economist" who rather likes comparing apples with pears has produced a new "article" in Answer to Jay Rayner's piece in Saturday's Observer. Her answer to JR isn't what interests me here. It's always worth picking these things over for other info. 🧵 Reading her piece I was particularly interested in this paragraph, because it states plainly something the British right wing, including the Tories want to achieve, but without doing it openly. Here's the para:

🧵1/10 This line from a piece wrritten by "Lord" Frost is indicative of how hard of thinking Tories really are, totally incapable of joining up simple dots. in his piece on immigration we find this line: 2/10 Well for sure, you can't go round knocking on doors or start information campaigns urging people to have more children. But you could at least look at what might be deterring them, and it should be fairly obvious that although this is a deeply personal, complex decision...

Not this again, I'm tired of it, so let's unpack it, just a little.🧵 6 posts.

"The failure of brexit is the fault of remainers who opposed it and stopped us doing it properly" 1. Since 2019 you've had a sufficient majority in Parliament to do pretty much what you liked, given the deficiencies of the British political "system" (sic).
If I had been able to stop you doing stupid things, I would have done. Please tell me how my opinions did

🧵A little bit longer than my usual (18)
The self-styled “patriots” have been ramping up the outrage for a couple of days now. It started with “Lord” Frost being outraged by an imaginary threat to the Last night of the Proms (promptly denied by the BBC): Then, a day later, Johnson Johnson issues this ridiculous statement claiming to know and be able to control the future.

1/13 🧵"Making up is hard to do"
I think we’re about to be subjected to a new wave of “unite for the good of the nation” in the wake of the Johnson debacle. It isn’t surprising. If he lied about “partygate”, might he have also lied about brexit? (rhetorical question) @EM_SWSurrey @SimonPease1 @EM_SWSurrey Sorry this content is not available on Thread Reader 😕
It has been removed by the author or by Twitter. 🤖

1/9 I sent @GregHands a facetious reply to this tweet. But I think it deserves a little more attention, because I think it is quite revealing. A short 🧵 2 We can either take Hands' tweet at face value (and assume he's rather stupid), or we can assume he isn't and ask why he would bother with something transparently ridiculous, because nobody in their right mind would imagine it would be taken seriously

🧵1/4 It is time we started talking about this govt’s strategy for their defeat at the next election, and wha it means for all of us.

As a friend and colleague put it, they are the problem tenants who have decided to trash the house before they leave. 2/4 They are deliberately piling up problems for the incoming govt; increased debt, deferred expenditure, a resource starved NHS, and a legislative load just to put right the chaos they are causing, that will keep the new govt. occupied just to stand still for a whole term.

A morality tale. 8 tweets
1. The next time you see a Brexit supporter saying that if Brexit fails it will all be the fault of the “Remainers”, consider this; they are dimly discerning an important truth, which they are themselves incapable of understanding. 2. When they won a badly framed referendum, which they did by using misinformation and lying, they believed it gave them license to impose whatever they wanted on the substantial part of the country that did not want it. support.

🧵I am going to take a risk. The last time I tweeted about the joys of #peasantfood and what we could learn from peasants, I got roundly ticked off by people who wanted to educate me about how bad the life of peasant was, how "very few" of their children survived... (I wonder where the next generation of peasants came from?) and so on. You learn so much on twitter🙄

I warn such people now, you'll just get muted, so you can shout at me forever.

And I would point out that at least one recent study has revealed, surprise! ...

1. Today, the Tory Chancellor will unveil his budgetary proposals to undo the damage done by the Tory govt. The plan won't work. This is why; short 🧵

bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-6… 2.The Tories are fond of telling us that national budgets and economic policy are governed by the same simple, Dickensian rules that govern household budgets. They are not. But the reasons this Tory budget will fail, based on outdated ideas, are not difficult to explain

🧵1/7. This did not start as a thread. But it more or less wrote itself.

I am bound to ask. Why is the UK seen as such desirable destination by criminals? My answer is probably because like every other government provided service…

https://twitter.com/peston/status/1587022236065697796

2/7 The police and immigration services have been starved of funding by successive Tory govts. There is a simple truth which Tories are incapable of understanding; if you try to run public services with no spare capacity they are easily overwhelmed…

The Braverman problem is a real test for Sunak, and risks becoming a “hydra” for him. A seasoned and hardened politician would have grasped this quickly…

PM should come clean over Suella Braverman breach - Labour - BBC News bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi… Acting fast would have at least given him the initiative and the air of control. He wouldn’t have had to sack her immediately. He could have suspended her “in the light of new information”. Everyone can see he upsets one or other faction of his govt if…

🧵I don't know if I have sole authorship of this concept, but I think it is one that should receive some attention at this time. It's the concept of

"The well educated fool"
The WEF has great academic achievements;
The WEF therefore knows they are very clever; The WEF surrounds themselves with people who agree with them, because, obviously, those people are clever enough to recognise their cleverness;
The WEF believes they need not take much notice of most other people, because obviously, they are not as clever;

1/5 Back in 2016, after the referendum, I had a number of reports from people about discussions with Tory MPs who were of the opinion that "Remainers" were more "reasonable" than leave voters, and would thus come to terms with the result. 2/5 I was genuinely concerned they might be right, and resistance might melt away. I tweeted about it, and urged people not to give them the relief they so badly needed. It was important that they understand the resentment and resistance would not fade

1/11 A few thoughts on what is probably going on in No.10 and more widely in the Tory Party at the moment. (Has to be a thread but not too long.)

I’ve long thought Johnson looks increasingly like the Tories’ “fall guy”. He has to stay in place until B-Day on 31 December. 2/11 After that, as the reality of Brexit becomes apparent, and there is time to think about a Public Enquiry into the handling of C19, he has served his purpose. Of course this can’t be the public reason, because the whole party is implicated in both.

Into a well in the flourbeaten eggs and sugar added to make a “sponge”. Top of the sponge covered with flour. Now leave to work

1/5 A few days ago I explained why I thought it was not particularly realistic to insist on the opposition parties, Lab and LD putting "Rejoin" as a major plank of their campaigns. Now I'd like to build on that to say what I think is needed. 2/5 We do most definitely need a strong "Rejoin" movement in the UK. But rather than being tied to one Party, this should be deliberately cross-Party, involving all those from across the political spectrum who believe the country is better off in the EU.

1/13 There's a division in the pro EU community here at the moment, which is unnecessary, and divisive at a time when Unity is important. Just for clarity, I believe we can and will rejoin the EU, and I’d like that to be as soon as possible. 2/13 Some of you will know Joe, @joeinlondontown. We follow each other. I’ve asked his permission to use his tweet. Joe only wants to give his support to a political party which endorses a “rejoin” message now

1/5 A few days ago I tweeted about the psychological warfare being waged on Twitter. This evening let me give you the anatomy of a Cummings bot/troll. They have a few hundred followers (easy, they all follow each other). They don't tweet much but RT. They RT mostly rubbish 2/5 but with a few RTs of anti govt accounts thrown in. They may choose to RT quite outspoken anti govt accounts. They don't care; that's not their game. They turn up following you. If you're wise you probably look at the timeline, think they look odd and ignore