79 thoughts on “De Thursday Papers

  1. Shayna

    I think enough is enough – The Tories should offer a 2nd referendum. It’s not too late. It’s interesting how important Ireland has become – a “Backstop”? I don’t think M/s May will survive as Premier of the UK as far as xmas.

    1. SOQ

      All polls indicate a big swing towards no brexit so they will resist as far as possible. The real problem is that the leader of the opposition won’t do his job.

      1. bisted

        …two years ago all polls predicted a big no brexit vote and a clear majority voted for brexit…surely, it is the duty of government to implement the will of the people…democracy…

        1. millie st murderlark

          Is that not something we can accuse May of? Like her or not, she’s been absolutely steadfast in her attempt to see democracy ie. the will of the people done.

          1. Giggidygoo

            Certainly looks that way. Even as a ‘remainer’ she is pushing ahead with Brexit. On that face of it, she’s doing the electorates will. But what she’s been pushing isn’t actually what people voted for.
            But I will give her credit for facing down the likes of BoJo and continuing to do something that she was against herself in the first place.
            What I won’t give her any kudos for, and we see it with our own government, is the attempting of suppression of information that people are legimately entitled to.
            Would that ‘contempt’ of parliament effort be something that could be raised in our own Dail.

          2. Shayna

            Sure, steadfast M/s May (Mrs) without question. She inherited Brexit from Cameron who allowed Farage to muscle into politics. Whilst Boris was running around on his Boris Bus to encourage the electorate to leave the EU, Teresa May was campaigning to remain? Flip-flop, or what?

          3. ReproBertie

            The Sasamachs want no EU rules and no say in the EU rules. The Remainers want EU rules and a say in the EU rules. What May’s offering is EU rules and no say in the EU rules which is a terrible compromise and not what either side voted for.

        2. Brother Barnabas

          2016 was a 2nd referendum

          around 70% of the British electorate voted in 1975 to remain within the then EC. and that referdum went on basis that it would be binding on all future westminster parliaments.

          things change… hence 2016 referendum

          it’s not undemocratic to return to the people

          there will be a 3rd referendum

          1. Brother Barnabas

            sorry, shayna- I wasn’t having a go at you there

            I was responding to bisted’s “it is the duty of the government to implement the will of the people…democracy” comment

          2. bisted

            …UK conclusively voted for Brexit…Cameron resigns immediately…new Tory leader appointed who immediately implements Art. 50 exit mechanism which is now approaching completion…democracy in action…

  2. f_lawless

    Disgusting fawning across the board by corporate media over psychopathic war criminal George Bush Snr.

    1. Nigel

      You can’t even blame Bush Jnr and Trump for kinda sorta making him look less bad, they just love their celebrations of great statesmen.

  3. Giggidygoo

    RTE now have started referring to a thing called ‘the proposed backstop’. As distinct from ‘THE backstop’
    The Reprobertie lad better talk to Joe and find out what’s up.
    There is no, and never was any Backstop. Portrayed as fact by Varadkar and his EU buddies, there was a line of wording put in after the first talks to enable going onto the second level.
    Will the Repro fellow now tell us …..
    Where was this ‘backstop’ agreed to be legally binding?
    Was is ‘bulletproof’

      1. Giggidygoo

        Explained what? the non-existence of a backstop. Or the existence of a ‘proposed’ backstop. It’s one of those. What it isn’t though is the existence of a backstop. Enjoy your read of your ‘74’ explanations, and then Talk to Joe.
        The backstop doesn’t exist.

        1. ReproBertie

          The backstop exists and, in its current form under the WA as agreed by the EU and the UK government, could tie the UK to the EU for years to come according the UK AG.

          Did you email him to show him where he’s wrong?

          1. Giggidygoo

            ‘Proposed’ WA agreement. How come you miss the important words? Two questions…

            Is the WA proposed agreement in effect right now? I note your use of the word ‘could’ above.
            If not, is there a backstop?

            Talk to Joe. Tell him that you don’t understand the word ‘proposed’

          2. ReproBertie

            Round and round we go.

            Obviously it’s not in effect because the British Dáil have to vote to accept it first. If they don’t it’s a no deal Sasamach and, as I have being saying since last December, no deal means no backstop.

            If the accept it, in any form, then it includes a backstop.

            The backstop exists. What you are missing is that the UK can reject the backstop and crash out with no deal.

          3. GiggidyGoo

            A reference to a proposed backstop exists. Only.
            Your argument can be likened a couple getting married and writing a pre-nuptials agreement, agreeing to have one child only to find that they can’t have children. The child does not exist. Yes the reference would be in the pre-nuptials but the child didn’t and won’t exist.

            What you are talking us about
            A) A proposed agreement
            B) A proposed backstop

            Neither exists

          4. ReproBertie

            The backstop clearly exists. Even if it was no more than a clause in the agreement, it would have to exist to be just that much.

            You carry on playing semantics while the rest of us deal with the realities.

    1. dav

      Very confusing post. Which sums up the brexiteers mindset, I suppose.
      Regarding your “Where was this ‘backstop’ agreed to be legally binding?”
      It was done during talks between the EU and the U, geographically this may have occurred in London or Brussels.
      https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/07/brexit-what-is-the-uks-backstop-proposal
      “..So Brussels has insisted the UK sign up to a legally binding “backstop” clause, or fallback option, to ensure there is no hard border.”

      1. GiggidyGoo

        Yet the ‘agreement ‘ and ‘backstop ‘ are ‘proposed ‘. In other words, they don’t exist. If they did exist we wouldn’t be having the carnage in the various UK Houses.
        I’m not saying they won’t exist in the future, but as things are right now and up to now, they don’t exist.

        Your link mentions backstop ‘proposal’.
        Are you confused by the distinction between a proposal and an agreement?

  4. ReproBertie

    Despite the filibustering of the Love Boats the legislation for abortion has passed the Dáil. One step closer.

  5. Eoin

    The Deripaska court case continues in London, with the focus yesterday on the relationship between the rival oligarch and his rival’s mistress. Fairly dry stuff yesterday.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6464221/Russian-oligarch-ex-lover-accused-plotting-against-rival-tycoon.html

    What does it have to do with us?

    As CNN reported yesterday, sanctions on Deripaska are expected to be confirmed or rescinded shortly. If they’re confirmed and apply to Rusal, owner of the Limerick aluminium refinery, then 450 people are likely to lose their jobs in a couple of months and it will be a body blow to the Limerick regional economy. The new deadline for the US Treasury to finally decide on sanctions is 7 Jan 2019, extended from 12 December 2018. Revelations and claims in the ongoing London court case are unlikely to help Deripaska, though he says the claims are “lurid and exaggerated”

    https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/05/politics/menendez-treasury-russia-sanctions/index.html

    1. Johnny

      US is stepping up sanctions/enforcement-this is a incredibly strong statement.Having the Canadians arrest Cathy Meng in Vancouver for extradition.She is the daughter of the Chinese telecommunications founder and his anointed successor,he is a former military engineer and built Huawei into one of China’s largest and most global private business empires.It has rattled the markets,hard prediction with any certainty what’s going happen with Deripaska.

      ‘Reys commented; “Today is a proud day for Huawei. Working with Digicel, we have achieved incredible things and we are changing the lives of customers for the better. Using the most advanced technology we have shown that the Caribbean can lead the world in next generation entertainment. Digicel and Huawei continue to go from strength to strength and the future is very exciting for both of us and our customers.”‘
      https://www.digicelgroup.com/en/media/news/2017/august/23/digicel-and-huawei-technologies-put-the-true-power-of-fibre-to-t.html

  6. Eoin

    What is the name of the (former?) radiologist at Kerry University Hospital who apparently screwed up diagnosis of cancer? Where are they now? Are they examining your x-rays today? Are they facing an investigation or disciplinary proceedings?

    Who knows, who can tell.

  7. Tom

    Gardaí confirmed in a statement last night they recovered suspected stolen plant and machinery during the searches yesterday.

    The items seized during the search of an industrial unit close to the N4 at Shroid in Longford included a double horse box, three mini-rollers, two mini-diggers and a JCB Tipper. The total value of the property is expected to exceed €50,000

    What’s this? Bodger on the wrong side of a story yet again.

    1. Nigel

      Doesn’t answer the question of what a lone detective was doing there waving a gun around, does it?

      1. Ollie Cromwell

        ” lone detective ” ?

        Gombeen gumshoe Seamus O’Bejaysus stepped out of his gull-winged,V8 Toyota Avensys and adjusted the snap-brim fedora down over his hooded eyes.
        He sparked up a John Player Blue and inhaled deeply.
        O’Bejaysus squinted through the curling smoke and took in the scene in front of him.
        He knew trouble when he saw it and this trouble came with a capital T.
        As well as an r,a,v,e,l,l,e and r.
        He decided to play it cool as the man,wearing a vest and picking his teeth with a slash-hook,greeted him.
        ” I’m not looking for trouble boss but my dog here wants to rip your face off and eat it like a man on death row eats his last steak meal. ”
        O’Bejaysus considered the options,pulled out his snub-nosed Berocca and popped a slug between the mutt’s eyes.
        ” Nobody messes with Seamus O’Bejaysus ” he told the terrified tinker a short time afterwards as he watched him dig a hole for Rover’s final resting place, ” now hurry up. ”
        ” I gotta a bottle of Bulmer’s with my name on it and a hot dame waiting for wavin ” he said to the itinerant as he stubbed his cigarette out.
        ” Sorry Detective Bulmers ” replied the hedgehog pie eater ” it won’t happen again ”
        O’Bejaysus climbed back in to his hot rod with a wry smile on his face.
        The mean muddy streets of Longford were safe in his hands.
        He gunned the engine and roared away.
        Nobody messes with Seamus O’Bejaysus.

        1. Nigel

          Life must be tough when you can’t write racist pastiche for Punch in the 1840s anymore. They’d illustrate it with simian Irishmen and everything for you. Sor.

  8. Ollie Cromwell

    It’s 8.30am.
    Give Bodger a chance.
    He hasn’t had breakfast yet and that tin of Linden Village won’t open itself.
    Wahaay !

    1. Listrade

      And yet without a hint of irony you link to the Diageo statement that hard brexit will cost tens of millions.

      Diageo are mostly immune to tariffs because their supply chain is local (water, hops, etc) so they don’t have to import stuff like most heavy manufacturing. Their main issue is Dover and Irish borders (former for exporting, latter for export, import, supply chain, labour). Menezes has been very clear on this. Like all businesses you try to see the positives and opportunities in a bad situation. Diageo are hoping that a hard brexit would mean that Britain becomes a bit of a booze cruise destination as they can play on the Duty Free. It’s a possibility I suppose. But a lot of things have to align for that such as air travel being sorted, border control, currency etc.

      But yes, for the ingredients for whiskey or Guinness, there’s not an impact because it is all locally sourced.

      1. Ollie Cromwell

        Actually I made a mistake ( even I do occasionally ) it was Kathryn Mikells,the Chief Financial Officer doing the interview.
        I wasn’t being ironic because the statement I linked to was two years ago at the height of Project Fear.
        How their tunes has changed since then.

        1. Listrade

          Yeah. I’ll accept your honest mistake. Except, in November this year they said the same thing. Even warned that No Deal would probably mean closing the NI operations and relocating to ROI:

          https://www.thejournal.ie/guinness-production-brexit-4331911-Nov2018/

          And just two weeks ago they admitted (along with Nestle) that they were stockpiling food and drink.

          However, they have openly admitted they are in a pretty unique position and that other manufacturers won’t have the same luxury as them. They are the exception, not the model for impact of brexit.

          But it’s great craic altogether. Currently signing deals with suppliers in Germany and Netherlands for supplies as we can’t guarantee we’ll get them from UK in the future. We aren’t unique, it’s a big exodus away from UK suppliers. Nobody wants to wait to see what the deal is as it could be too late for critical spares/stock. Easier and cheaper to get the deal now.

  9. Ollie Cromwell

    Big sell-off in European stocks.
    This afternoon will be a good time to hoover up some cheap shares with US Futures showing slight rebound.
    Let the games begin …

    1. ReproBertie

      The EU27, which includes, but is not limited to, France, will be looking after Ireland in the event of a no deal Sasamach. Macron’s domestic issues won’t change that.

      A no deal Sasamach will impact on free movement which will devastate the UK’s TEFL industry. I was surprised to learn the TEFL industry is worth more to the British Exchequer than the fishing industry. Where were Farage & Co when the TEFL industry needed someone to hold the line?

      1. Ollie Cromwell

        Yeah.they’ll all move to Ireland where language schools are thriving.
        Oh,hang on a minute …

        1. ReproBertie

          That there are seoníns ripping of students in Ireland won’t save the UK TEFL industry but it’s easier to laugh at someone else’s problems than deal with your own.

  10. Ollie Cromwell

    Whatever you think about Boris Johnson – and I accept he’ll never be understood by the myopic snowflakes on here – the man has a profound sense of history and how it relates to what’s happening in dear old Blighty today.

    Here’s an excerpt from a speech he made at a breakfast meeting in Amsterdam earlier this week talking to “chief risk officers” of financial firms at an event called RiskMinds International, that was sponsored by, among others, the huge accounting firm PWC and the management consultancy McKinsey.

    He was talking about his hero and the man of whom he wrote a very successful biography – Winston Churchill.

    “The job of us as politicians is to sort it out and find a solution…

    “When you look at Winston Churchill you see a man whose whole career was about risk taking – he was a compulsive gambler. This was a man who took one compulsive gamble after another – and he took all sorts of positions on things that went disastrously wrong. He was wrong about Galipoli, he was wrong about the gold standard, he was wrong about India, he was wrong about the abdication, he was spectacularly wrong for most of his political career.

    “But in the 1930s he of course took one giant bet. He took a giant bet against Hitler and the Nazi party. And to use the language of finance, he shorted the Nazis in a big way, at a time when much of the British establishment was actually filling their boots with that particular stock. And even when Hitler had taken Czechoslovakia and Poland – and Belgium and Holland and France were about to fall, there was a huge coalition of people in London, high minded liberal people, who were passionately opposed to Churchill and to what they thought he stood for, and his shameless opportunism, and all the rest of it.

    “The City, banks, the big banks, much of the aristocracy, the old Whig families as it were, by far the largest proportion of the Conservative Party, the Tory Party, all deeply disliked Churchill. And yet he prevailed. There was a famous meeting that some of you may know of, the Cabinet in May 1940, when he had to out-argue the Halifax faction, those who wanted to make an accommodation via Mussolini with Hitler.

    “The deal was going to be that the United Kingdom would retain its empire in exchange for not interfering in what took place in Continental Europe – and we might have to do a bit of a deal over some of the Mediterranean, Malta and so on – that was essentially the deal that Hitler offered. And it would have been pretty sweet for business, as far as they could see. No disruption. Keep going. And he had a helluva struggle in the Cabinet in 1940 to persuade them that it was right for Britain to fight on. Not to do that deal. Because as you remember the United Kingdom was then completely alone.

    “And I say all this not to make a comparison between events today and 1940. Because there is no comparison. That would be wholly inapposite. But the fact is if Churchill hadn’t been there in that room, if he hadn’t made the case that he did, then democracy in Europe as we know it would have been extinguished for a very long period. And it was thanks to his willingness to take that huge gamble – and it was a gamble – and it was a very expensive gamble by the way. Within a year of his decision, persuading the Cabinet it was right not to do a deal, 30,000 British men, women and children had been killed.

    “But the long-term gain was, as I say, to rescue this continent and even the country we are now in [the Netherlands] from a pretty odious tyranny. So you can’t say he was wrong. In fact he was triumphantly right. A compulsive gambler was provided triumphantly right.

    “And I think the only lesson I draw from that is that sometimes you do need to do the difficult thing, and you do need to take a position that everyone says is too fraught with risk. And the lesson I draw from that is the UK today has every reason to be confident about our future and what we can achieve”.

    Could you imagine any Irish politician among the drab,BMW 3 Series-driving middle-management or flat cap-wearing culchie TDs in the Dail having the wit,comprehension or intelligence to make such a speech or to even understand the history of it.

    1. Formerly known as @ireland.com

      Yes, Fintan O’Toole is right. The Brits are obsessed with WWII. I guess it is one war that they can talk about, where they are not the baddie. Boris is a waste of space.

    2. Nigel

      The guy you were praising for not engaging in PR throws out a pretty line in completely empty but expensive posh school oratory that belongs in the rousing finale to rally the troops in any trite cookie-cutter Hollywood blockbuster turd and you’re falling over yourself to lick his arse. Meanwhile, what a fantastic Brexit deal he has to show for all his hard work. You’re a mark.

      1. Ollie Cromwell

        And Varadkar ?
        A lightweight irrelevance on the European stage spending millions on PR consultants telling him which colour socks to wear for the metrosexual back-stage meet-and-greet with Kylie while just down the road 10,000 people live in squalid emergency accommodation.
        A former GP heading a government overseeing hundreds of people sleeping in hospital corridors every night.
        A country lacking an effective opposition run by bovine TDs feathering their own nest and all singing from the same hymn sheet to do it.
        And an Establishment rife with corruption failing to be investigated by a police force populated by idiot savants too stupid to get a job elsewhere.
        And a population which parted its cheeks for a bondholders bailout buggering and now cock-a-hoop because the ” booming ” economy means they’ll be paying it back for a couple of years less in their lifetime.
        You set your sights low old cock.
        Get off your knees and stop being duped so easily.

        1. Nigel

          Ollie, none of that makes Johnson one iota more of a statesman. He’s a hanger-on and a heckler and a wannabe. He bailed like an opportunistic coward to let May take responsibility for the shittiness of the best deal that could be delivered. You wanna be in his gang because he’s posh and rude and loud and knows poetry and you hope instinctively that what he uses to hide his own mediocrity will also hide yours.

        2. Nigel

          I note the lightweight irrelevance Varadker has managed to stick to his guns while the UK government tears itself apart. It’s like when you keep calling Juncker a useless drunk while he still managed to run rings round the UK Brexit team. Self pwnage all the way.

    3. Nigel

      Heh, he so desperately want to BE Churchill but he hasn’t sent thousands of young men to die in a colossal military blunder or murdered millions in a famine yet so how can he be ready to single-handedly save Europe from the threat of a rising tide of right-wind insanity, especially when the right-wing lunatics are all on his side?

  11. Dub Spot

    That Mary Queen of Scots movie with Saorise looks like its worth a large popcorn and nachos. Roll on January!

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie