Watched her "speech". I would have laughed if I wasn't so worried about my pension. It was like Endora Stephens from Bewitched trying out hypnosis for the first time: "You're feeling sleepy, you're tired of Brexit, your eyes are closing, I'm on your side, you want my deal, MPs are to blame, you will hear only my voice..."

Hah! Somebody else with a similar thought.

 :'-D 

In any normal circumstances that speech would have been the setup for a resignation, not with May.

She really does not seem to either grasp or care (not sure which) that after a hard brexit and all the ensuing disasters, she will be the most reviled PM in history. Apologies to Neville, Maggie, and Tony.

You missed Cameron from that list. He reintroduced entitlement as a primary qualification for government, imposed a savage austerity on the UK that saw an unprecedented rise in rough-sleeping and food banks, and vastly accelerated the flow of wealth upwards to the richest. Then, scared of his party's right-wing and constantly overshadowed by his Bullingdon Club sibling, Boris Johnson, he called the referendum, made a pitiful half-arsed attempt to lead the Remain campaign, lost, and then fucked off as though it had nothing to do with him. The little shit has even suggested, recently, that he still has something to "offer" in government. 

But yes, as Ant suggests, a resignation would be long overdue for anybody with any sense of shame. Unfortunately it's beginning to look as though she's determined to persist in order to ensure that the UK leaves the EU without a deal i.e. to carry out her threat. After meeting her yesterday, Anna Soubry said that she seemed delusional "quite seriously". 

She certainly looks mentally unfit, by some combination of (no doubt prescription) drug abuse and exhaustion.

Ooh, they done busted out the Harmy*.



*(this is how a Québécoise friend pronounced it many moons ago)

As William said, Cameron has to be in there as well. The austerity shit is a big reason, but also the whole mess we're in now due to him calling the referendum in the first place. Don't forget that he didn't call it because he believed in the UK leaving (unlike the SNP's Scotland independence referendum), he did it purely to try and boost his own power by uniting his party behind him.

He thought firstly that the Tories wouldn't win a majority, hence they'd have to go into coalition with the Lib Dems again who'd scrub the referendum from taking place (DC could then shrug at his eurosceptic MPs and say "Well, I tried. Now back me". Then when the Tories did get a majority, he never thought for one second that Leave would win, meaning that his campaigning was pitiful. He though Remain would walk it and again, he could say "I've given you the referendum, the people want to remain. Now shut up and back me".

Lastly when Leave did win, he promptly pissed off and left everyone else to deal with the mess he'd created.

Saying that, May is making a compelling argument for becoming one of the worst PMs in history due to her refusal to compromise or listen to MPs, then trying to blame them when the shit inevitably hits the fan.

Cameron knew exactly what he was doing - he'd done his research and knew the vote would be close.

Whether he expected remain or leave is irrelevant, both possibilities were planned, and every moment since he announced the referendum has been a calculated charade to expand division and resentment amongst the populace, to exhaust people and grow the apathy that allows the Tories to increase their power and control.

Whether May is in on it or a puppet is irrelevant too, her actions are deliberate, her position as PM kept whilst it's needed, just like the rift in the Conservative party - they'll both be gone in moments when it's deemed beneficial to do so.

^ Can you prove that wrong?

Nope - can't prove that wrong.

I'd be surprised if Cameron was content to appear so ugly in a planned way. And I don't believe that's how it worked out.

I do believe that there's substantially more planning and less random chance in all this, however.

I also believe that Theresa May is probably close to insanity. Not saying i'm sympathetic.

And May's cunning plan is down the shitter.

Ewww. She's fished it back out. Bojo's donning the "suicide vest."

Interesting stats: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2019/mar/27/how-did-your-mp-vote-in-the-indicative-votes

(Though fuck knows why the idiots have numbered them in popularity order for the first list and motion order for the second list, instead of just sticking with the letters that everyone else is using.)

Customs union option would have had majority if LibDem/SNP had gone for it. Public vote could have had majority if just 14 Labour MPs had gone the other way (or DUP+4 independents), but there appears less disunity there than with the Conservatives.

A significant number of Conservatives voting against every motion. No surprise.

And they all vote again on Monday in case things are different then?

Labour whipped a couple of the motions, which might have helped.

It'll be interesting to see if more parties emerge out of all this disagreeability. Reminds me of Israel, where the smallest and most fanatical ones end up with wildly disproportionate influence.

Labour whipped a couple of motions and didn't some of the shadow cabinet abstain?

Not checked the details, but sure I've read that.

I certainly think that the voting reform argument will rear its head again, which - if it was to come to anything - would certainly empower the smaller parties, and probably encourage other interest lobbies to partify themselves.

From a cursory inspection of the Guardian's explainer, at least some of the shadow cabinet abstained from some of the motions, generally clustered around motions 5 (emergency revocation of article 50 if parliament doesn't get its shit together) and 8 (weird Schengenish shit where we remain within EEA and join Efta, but don't have a customs union).

Hah! Bumped into a former work-colleague yesterday evening. He works on what I regard as 'Nightmare Central', the massively complex mixture of billions of lines of bespoke code across dozens of platforms, and customised SAP modules that run our current Customs and Excise systems. He told me that he's working on 'Brexit stuff' but as nobody knows what this means he's pretty certain that he's wasting his time. He's one of those genuinely technically adept people you meet from time to time, with knowledge that's both broad and deep. He also has an excellent working knowledge of the infrastructure, so basically just the kind of person who would be essential for some kind of sanity to prevail in the months and years ahead. He tells me he plans to retire 'very soon' because he doesn't want to face the thankless future that will inevitably arrive whatever the Brexit outcome. 

But I was able to reassure him that I have it on good authority from Jacob Rees Mogg and Bojo that it will actually be about as simple as installing a smartphone app.