FlyTheNest

Morning all.

People supporting Laura K:
Rob Burley
Dan Hannan
James Kirkup
Julia Hartley-Brewer

People not supporting Laura K:
Pretty much everyone else.

Oh and Andrew Neil

You can question why Laura Keunssberg felt it newsworthy that the father in the hospital was a Labour supporter but ultimately she was stating a fact.

What is inexplicable to me is what on earth she was thinking in signposting her twitter followers to this member of the public's twitter profile. Horrible trolling the messenger behaviour that you'd think would be below a high profile BBC reporter.

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Meanwhile the fact that a member of hospital staff appears to have confirmed said dad's complaint that his daughter had been neglected due to an emergency seems to have gone mostly unnoticed by the BBC and wider press. Yet surely that is the actual story? It would have been once, anyway.

Morning all.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-d ... e-49726011#" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chesterfield school anxiety pupil 'treated like truant'

"The whole process we've been through has been really traumatic for the last two to three years," she said.

"We were pressured by the school constantly - we're going to fine you if your child's attendance isn't 88% - and that put a lot of pressure on Kai.

I have often asked my son's school what precisely they believe I could realistically do that I'm not currently doing that could improve my son's attendance but they can't answer that. They demand outcomes and have no regard for whether those outcomes are realistic. My son's absences have been directly linked to the amount of appropriate support he receives in school by his paediatrician. So when the school pressure and threaten me over his attendance the only thing I can do is pressure and threaten the school over their failure to meet his special educational needs (due to lack of resources). It's a horrible, adversarial system of bureaucracy and blame. Parents are put through hell as schools attempt to make them the problem in order to avoid the costs of taking legal responsibility for sufficiently meeting the needs of children with complex developmental and mental health issues.

Other countries don't treat school absence as a criminal justice issue. Given a majority of absentees have SEN or mental health issues the UK approach designed solely to deal with wilful truancy and juvenile delinquency is completely at odds with the actual reasons for school absence and desperately needs to change.

Some light relief from BTL in the guardian daily politics

A brexiteer walks into a pub and says, i'll have a pint of beer please. The barman pours the pint then throws it in face.
'What did you do that for? Says the brexiteer drenched to the skin.
'Because you're in a metaphor which illustrates the stupidity of asking for something but not stipulating how you wanted it delivered.
'But I am still thirsty , so I want a pint -- this time in a glass!' Says the brexiteer.
'You cant ask again!' Says the barman.
'Why not?' snivelled the brexiter.
'Democracy.' Says the barman.

John Humphrys and Tony Blair, if only we could see the back of both of them.

According to Private Eye, Brenda was hardly misled.

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Love the bit about JRM bumping into former Black Rod at the airport.

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:People supporting Laura K:
Rob Burley
Dan Hannan
James Kirkup
Julia Hartley-Brewer

People not supporting Laura K:
Pretty much everyone else.

Depressingly, she gets rather more knee jerk support from her fellow "journalists" than that. Its become an almost totally self-protective cartel.

Would a programme like "What The Papers Say" even get off the ground these days?

Willow904 wrote:
What is inexplicable to me is what on earth she was thinking in signposting her twitter followers to this member of the public's twitter profile. Horrible trolling the messenger behaviour that you'd think would be below a high profile BBC reporter.

Sparrow's inexplicably missed that bit out at the G.

Anyway, I'm pleased to see that said member of the public is quite capable of standing up for himself.

gilsey wrote:Anyway, I'm pleased to see that said member of the public is quite capable of standing up for himself.

That is indeed good to see, but not all the recipients of these media instigated "pile-ons" are so robust.

Awful

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... nvironment" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

asylum-seeker-denied-cancer-treatment-nhs-home-office-hostile-environment

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 11756.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Stephen Barclay says the "blistering timetable" to resolve the backstop is in fact unreasonable and we need another year

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 11756.html

Stephen Barclay says the "blistering timetable" to resolve the backstop is in fact unreasonable and we need another year

So ask for a year's extension?

Or would that be too sensible and ruin Johnson's bumbling idiot image.

Willow904 wrote:

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 11756.html

Stephen Barclay says the "blistering timetable" to resolve the backstop is in fact unreasonable and we need another year

So ask for a year's extension?

Or would that be too sensible and ruin Johnson's bumbling idiot image.

I think the government's position is

1. No, because we have to leave on 31st October this year and
2. Having left, no because any transition period has to end by the end of 2020

So as the EU can't possibly expect us to move our red lines, they are going to have to compromise by

(1) allowing us to leave with a transition period, and therefore with a withdrawal agreement, that removes the backstop and simply accepts us saying 'trust us' and
(2) accepting that they're going to have to agree to what we want for the longer term by the end of next year because there isn't any other way that we can accept, and if things aren't 'technically' (our all encompassing term) sorted by then they will just, again, have to trust us.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... vate-firms" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.theguardian.com/society/201 ... s-research" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... -for-brits" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

HindleA wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... -for-brits

"Brits" as in ethnic background or "Brits" as in people embarking from Britain?

Nevertheless, staggering this made it past a copy editor.

adam wrote:

Willow904 wrote:

PaulfromYorkshire wrote:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 11756.html

Stephen Barclay says the "blistering timetable" to resolve the backstop is in fact unreasonable and we need another year

So ask for a year's extension?

Or would that be too sensible and ruin Johnson's bumbling idiot image.

I think the government's position is

1. No, because we have to leave on 31st October this year and
2. Having left, no because any transition period has to end by the end of 2020

So as the EU can't possibly expect us to move our red lines, they are going to have to compromise by

(1) allowing us to leave with a transition period, and therefore with a withdrawal agreement, that removes the backstop and simply accepts us saying 'trust us' and
(2) accepting that they're going to have to agree to what we want for the longer term by the end of next year because there isn't any other way that we can accept, and if things aren't 'technically' (our all encompassing term) sorted by then they will just, again, have to trust us.

Can see no problems with that. At all

Looking quite good in the Supreme Court it seems. Discussing what happens next, which suggests it's not continued prorogation.*

*Just precising what I read on Twitter. I'm no legal expert!

Unsurprisingly, one legal expert feels folk are counting their chickens

Looks like we have to wait until next week for the Supreme Court decision.

The G liveblog is discussing how parliament returning next week clashes with Labour and Tory conferences, which seems like quite a minor inconvenience against a backdrop of potential food and drug shortages come Oct 31st but, hey ho, I'll play along. Aren't conferences mostly for members, anyway, to debate and vote on party policy? Can't MPs just Skype contributions? Would it really be so hard?

They could still decide to be in recess (as is usual) during the conferences anyway?

The point is, it would be parliament's choice.

Good-afternoon, everyone.

Otto English
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MoreOtto English Retweeted Jennifer Rankin
The Brexit Party MEPs just *abstained* on a resolution calling for Iran to release Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

Such heroes

Early night for me, everyone.
love,
cJA

This is one heck of a bizarre take.

(((Dan Hodges)))
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One thing to understand about the attack on @bbclaurak. It is not a "twitter storm". It is a deliberate, planned communications strategy. It's about scaring journalists - individually and at a corporate level - into thinking twice about how they report on Labour. And it works.

8:01 AM - 19 Sep 2019

Sorry, but who was it that first tweeted about the chap being a Labour activist, and then followed up with "This is him" with his Twitter account?

The first is debatable about whether she needed to do that given that he was already in the hospital when the PM turned up - it's not as if he forced himself into a confrontation. The second was completely unnecessary. The right do a lot of jeering at people like Owen Jones when he is said to have doxxed someone but this was the same thing...yet according to DFH, Kuenssberg is the victim here!

Her sneering tone comes through in her Tweets.

"Turns out" he's a Labour activist.

Why the turns out? Without that she's just stating a fact, which seems OK.

I'm sure some of the attention Laura K gets is because she's a woman and that's wrong. But her upbringing and establishment connections give her privilege that far outweighs that IMHO.

Going back to knitwear - I don’t think the ads are v targeted. Today I’m getting ads for opera.

One thing to understand about the attack on @bbclaurak. It is not a "twitter storm". It is a deliberate, planned communications strategy.

Dan Hodges talking his usual bollocks I see. I made a complaint to the BBC and I'm hardly a raving Corbynista. She behaved unprofessionally and not for the first time. But of course it's easier to write off if you claim it's organised, just as it's easier to write off criticism of Johnson if it comes from a Labour activist, something Kuenssberg was quite evidently encouraging.

Does anyone have a spare back I could borrow?

Going to have to return mine to the back factory to get it fixed. Though I think I might have lost the receipt.

Listened to an excellent interview with Nesrine Malik from the Guardian this afternoon on Radio 5 about free speech and the right wing myths and outright falsehoods about how their free speech is being denied. One of the most interesting things she said was that it is the right who are the most prolific 'no platformers' at universities, especially in the US where they regularly deny a platform to those advocating gun control, abortion, immigrant rights etc. Yet you'd never guess that from their hypocritical bleatings.

If anyone's interested here's a link, starts at 9 minutes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0008jn7" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Another Thursday another Question Time.

An awful of people in Southampton seem quite pleased they currently have no democratic representation.

Which leads me to wonder why we should allow them to vote.

Southampton Brexit result -

Leave 53.8% Remain 46.2%

Southampton Question Time Audience -

Leave 80% Remain 20%

Good old impartial auntie beeb.

B-word certainly not bringing out the best in me.

Question Time review from Southampton which appears to be one of the stupidest places on the planet.

Charlie Falconer on fine form, he seemed genuinely disturbed by the fact that a majority of the audience seemed delighted that representative democracy in this country had been shut down and told them so. Being an intelligent and measured fellow he stopped short of suggesting as I did above that they were fucking morons who didn't deserve a vote but I bet he was thinking it.

Ed Davey took a kicking from the Leave dominated audience and every other panel member but apparently the new Lib-Dem revoke policy is like a shield of steel and it all seemed to bounce off him and he ploughed on regardless like a shit Liberal terminator.

Victoria Atkins (Tory minister for something never heard of her) spent the entire programme looking dreadfully earnest while making preposterous claims like Boris Johnson connected with 'real people' with a straight face. Falconer pointed out this and her other carefully worded defences of Johnson demonstrated her excellent training as a barrister.

Ash Sarkar was her usual combative self but didn't get much of a chance to shine sadly. She mostly pointed out her support for Labour's brexit poisition which, for once, didn't really face any scrutiny this week.

Camilla Tominey the royal arselicker for the Telegraph sneered and was thoroughly disingenuous throughout, which is her usual modus operandi so no surprise. At one point she kept badgering Ed Davey asking him how many Lib-Dem leave voters there were as if he were betraying them. My answer would have been "Vanishingly few Camilla especially compared to the number of Tory remain voters there are who are about to vote Lib-Dem across the South of England". Ed however just ineffectually waffled a bit and she sneered at him.

Actually come to think of it tonight's QT was the first in as long as I can remember where Labour's brexit policy barely even got a mention.

Could this be a sign that Corbyn's fence sitting is finally bearing fruit? That they've somehow by total fluke found themselves in the centre ground? And is that a good place to be?

I'm not so sure. This was the first QT after the Lib-Dems took their revoke position at conference so it was bound to be at the top the list of questions and with our lardarse liar of a Prime Minister denying reality while pointing at it in a hospital that was also bound to come up so Labour ended up sidelined for a week by not doing anything monumentally stupid.

I guess they should take that as a win.

And for any other sufferers of muscular back pain out there I can confirm that lying on the couch and drinking alcohol is an excellent remedy.

Followed the advice from the online health sites about keeping active and it's all bollocks.

Just get as horizontal and drunk as you can and everything will be fine.

Until tomorrow.