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Tuesday 23 October 2018

The crushing recrimination of hindsight

I was amongst those who were willing to give Mrs May a fair chance. I didn't join the chorus of warning and disapproval when she took office. Even during her crass, awkward and unconvincing election campaign, when she threw away the Conservative's remaining strength, I gave her the benefit of the doubt. It was Nick Timothy's fault, we were told, and to my shame I was prepared to believe it. Let's give her a chance.

But of course anyone who has reached even a middling senior position knows the one job you can never take a chance on is the boss. There's no backstop, no one to watch them, no one to head-off the errors. But that's exactly what we did; we accepted as Prime Minister a woman wholly and utterly unsuited to the demands of the role at this most critical juncture of the nation's life. Now as she's entirely screwed Brexit, Tim Stanley in the Telegraph (£) catalogues with the crushing recrimination of hindsight our errors;

... what we’ll end up with is a Brexit shaped by both this woman’s remarkable strength of will and her catastrophic lack of political vision.


.. She sees life as a series of challenges to be overcome in order and by careful steps. Mrs May followed the EU’s route to Brexit, which seemed reasonable enough: first we talk money, then citizenship, then Northern Ireland, then trade. But the EU set a trap – the Irish border – and Mrs May walked straight into it


... Britain did sit down with the EU, did run with a complicated European game plan and it did get screwed. The fault for this lies directly with the Prime Minister. 

... When Mrs May says that she’s delivering what the people want – as she reiterated in the House – then by any standard of our democratic tradition she is lying.

... The greatest tragedy of Mrs May’s leadership is that she has squeezed the vision out of Brexit.

... It’s a damning indictment of her colleagues for not having the courage to dump her – and of Mrs May, too, for not grasping her own limitations.


Will our grandchildren ever understand or forgive us for entrusting the nation's future to a woman so inept, so lacking in judgement, so devoid of emotional intelligence, so cerebrally unequipped and so entirely unsuited to the demands made of this great office of State? Will they forgive us for giving this destroyer of hope a chance? God forgive me, I was one of those that did.

20 comments:

DeeDee99 said...

The only people culpable for appointing Treason May as Prime Minister are Conservative MPs. No-one else had a vote.

Even when the vain-glorious woman called a completely unnecessary General Election (so she could steam-roller HER version of BREMAIN through the House), only the people of Maidenhead had a real say in the matter.

I voted Conservative in 2017, for the first time since Maastricht, to send a signal that I wanted Brexit delivered. It made no difference in my rock-solid Conservative seat. There was no UKIP candidate; I could have sat on my hands - but I voted for my Conservative MP ..... who is not Theresa May.

So, it's Conservative MPs who foisted her on us and Conservative MPs who have failed to remove her when she lost a perfectly decent majority and it has become blindingly obvious that she is simply not up to the job.

THEY are culpable. The rest of us, apart from 80,0000 people in Maidenhead, have had no say in the matter.

I hope many of them lose their seats as a result.

Cuffleyburgers said...

Tim Stanley's article is indeed excellent.

However, in politics as in life, things are rarely as disastrous as they seem or rarely as fantastic.

The outcome of the Brexit was always going to be the beginning of an agonising process (although perhaps not necessarily as agonising as this stupid stubborn lying woman has made it) and now things are probably not as crap as they seem.

We will at some point get out, and the whole damn' edifice will crash down anyway at some point in the medium future.

May's name will go in the book alongside Heath, Blair, Major in the appallingly bad, traitorous PMs hall of shame.

Olly Robbins will be sacked for financial malconduct from his expensive city firm.

And life will go on.

Mr Ecks said...



The Fish Faced Cow knew all along what she was about and was a traitor and a wrecker from Day one. No excuses for her Radders.


She was exactly as useless, arrogant, dictatorial and sly/deceitful at the Home Office. Which is where I first spotted that she was useless and destructive BluLabour shite.

I give you that she is deeply stupid. Her fuckwit tactics show that. Lying her fat arse off for two years, misjudging the election and then trying to pull the brazen "about-face/quick march to doom" Chequers farce shows depth of delusion and stupidity even few Prime Ministers can equal.

The last five of them have ALL been traitors and she is the worst of them with Bliar and Major as 2 and 3 (no)respectively.

Let Hell take her .

DiscoveredJoys said...

I agree - I was willing to give That Woman a chance (even though I thought other more 'Brexity' candidates would have been a better choice). But throughout this whole phony Brexit the choice of the PM, the direction of the 'negotiations', and the fact that That Woman has painted herself into a corner, are all down to the numbers of MPs that support the differing views, with no clear majority.

She did well (truly!) to get the legislation through so far... but she still needs to go if only to punish her Civil Service advisors and provide a turning point for the 'negotiations'.

I'd suggest setting out a new direction. A clean Brexit, no NI hard border, no divorce payment. rEU to propose trade deals and resolve exit payments *after we have left*.

Dave_G said...


May's first, and biggest, mistake was to talk money-first.

Once that issue was 'resolved' the EU sat back and started turning the thumb screws and there was nothing left for us to apply leverage with.

It's not too late to return to the issue of money though - although the media and .gov alike avoid the subject like the plague - and re-iterate the 'no deal, no money' status that May promoted quite avidly at the start.

We even have plans to extend payments should negotiations be 'delayed' for any reason! Even that issue could offer some leverage....

All the EU want from us is the funds to keep the can-kicking going - ostensibly to cover Italy's coming default, never mind Greece, Spain, Portugal et al.

Money talks - and says more than May ever could.

We aren't in talks with the EU - we've CAPITULATED to the EU ever since the issue of money was dropped and it's time someone stood up and reminded the EU that 'it's all about the money' and made it center stage again.

parlington said...

I agree she should never have allowed the money discussions to predate the rest of the negotiations, pathetic. But of course the money is not hers so spending it is not really painful. The consequences of failure in today's world are minimal. "Remember Admiral Byng", I would have the sign behind my desk as a timely reminder to those who squander the country's assets.

Stephen J said...

I never doubted her credentials Raedwald...

I have commented here and elsewhere that I told that git Gavin Barwell, who was until the last election, the Tory MP with the slimmest majority in the country, what a slag she was, when he came begging for my vote.

He stood on my doorstep and I gave him what for... Something I have never done before. I told him that I wouldn't vote for that cow, regardless of who the opposition was.

He told me that if I wanted a proper Brexit, I should vote for the blues, rather than the reds, and I said I was voting for "little Peter"... Who? he said... Peter Stavely the local UKIP candidate, because only UKIP wanted Brexit. He told me that he knew Mrs. May very well, indeed he has since become her chief advisor. He told me that she was honest, I told him that I didn't think so, and that the election was all about shutting out the Tory brexiteers and that I hoped that she lost.

Now, like you Raedwald, I am planning to leave this shithole (to (not) coin a phrase) for good.

Time to fight the good fight in Catalunya.

Joey G said...

Blame Mrs. May all you like. The country now faces a logical outcome that was predictable straight after the vote. Anyone invested in Vaseline will be sitting pretty.

Budgie said...

Joey G, No, the country is perfectly capable of being independent of the EU. The whole point of Theresa May's deliberate rejection of the deal we voted for - Leave - and the promotion of her new deal - Chequers, or BREMAIN (hat tip DeeDee99) - is that it was not inevitable. The benefits of Leave (actually leaving the EU's multilateral treaties, and not rejoining in any form) have been completely and unnecessarily squandered.

Budgie said...

Raedwald said: "Will our grandchildren ever understand or forgive us for entrusting the nation's future to a woman so inept, so lacking in judgement, so devoid of emotional intelligence, so cerebrally unequipped and so entirely unsuited to the demands made of this great office of State?"

Indeed, she may have all of those traits. Olly Robbins may well be a Rasputin. But Mrs May's Chequers plan is not due to incompetence. She has deliberately created her Chequers or endorsed its deliberate creation, whilst lying about it. She has aimed to trash Leave, and lied to her own Ministers as well as us to disguise her actions. And that is now provable.

Anonymous said...

Response to Joey G - you mean vassaline don't you?

Bill Quango MP said...

I'm usually the very last to give up.
I was a Sven backer, long after other England fans said he should have gone.
I thought Cameron was doing OK. In very difficult circumstances. Not great. But OK.

However, since she said 'fox hunting' in the middle of an election, I had huge doubts. And even before that election disaster was finished, I thought she had to go.

The election demonstrated a supreme lack of intelligence. A lack of skill. A lack of talent. And the inability to understand just what her job actually was.

She called the election.
Called it without a credible reason. Other than 'because Corbyn is shit.' Called it. had no excuse for it. had not put candidates in place. Had no manifesto. Made it an extraordinary long campaign. Said it was the brexit election. But then campaigned without vision for brexit. With no vision for Britain. With no reason to vote for her.

Calling the election wasn't a terrible idea. There were plenty of reasons for doing it.
But calling it and squandering it was unforgivable.

Cameron worked very hard for his elections. He chased quite a few lost causes when campaining. But he always had a strategy. So did Brown.A crap one, but he had it.

May had nothing. Which she then mad worse by being MAY and USELESS.

terence patrick hewett said...

Dyson is siting an electric car factory in Singapore: wait for it is all about Brexit - no it isn't - that is where the markets are - Dyson will sweep the German manufacturers clean.

Taxi firm Addison Lee has announced plans to launch driverless taxis in London by 2021 in collaboration with Oxbotica, which specialises in developing software for autonomous vehicles.

Cannon are to be mounted fore and aft loaded with grapeshot in case of attack by the French Navy – damn their eyes.

The engineering grapevine says that the Ford Motor Co. is in deep trouble and are going to announce massive layoffs all because of Brexit naturally.

In a decade German and worldwide auto manufacturing will be a scene of carnage.

Electric and driverless vehicles are happening - and it is happening now.

APL said...

"we accepted as Prime Minister a woman wholly and utterly unsuited to the demands of the role"

Actually, no 'we' didn't. The Tories did. They selected a spineless lick-spittle, Cameron, then when he ran away, they selected another incompetent moron May.

'We', we, told the Tories what we thought of May at the first opportunity we had. But the Tories haven't done a thing about it.

John Brown said...

The blame for the current UK position falls squarely on the shoulders of the Conservative remain MPs who voted for a remainer PM with the remit to delay the negotiations long enough for either the country to change its mind or for conditions to exist which would enable them to unlawfully seize power and illegally thwart the country’s decision to leave the EU.

The latter plan became impossible after Mrs. May’s disastrous GE.

The current plan is to make sure there are several “no-deal” disasters broadcast every day by the BBC – blockades at ports, no flights, medicines delayed etc. etc. so that the country becomes grateful to accept Mrs. May’s Chequers deal whereby we remain in the EU institutions plus those extra, such as the military, to which she will sign up separately pretending it is for our security.

The fact that the country will become a vassal state of the EU is of no concern to them.

This is not how the country voted and Mrs. May needs to be replaced with a leaver.

But this will only happen if large numbers of the Conservative remainer MPs believe they will lose their jobs at the next election.

So anyone who has a remainer MP should at least write one letter to their MP to say they will not vote for them if they vote in Parliament for anything else but a true Brexit

Ravenscar. said...

I forgive you radders.


;)


The country will never forgive not forget her.

Anonymous said...

Raedwald said:

'I was amongst those who were willing to give Mrs May a fair chance.'

Were you now, funny as I saw her as a Blairite centre-left automaton - and I was right. Cameron was a Blairite and it was he who made her Home Secretary; to do all those Blairy things, like ensuring our borders were kept wide open and jailing objectors. Which brings me to this:

Delingpole: Tommy Robinson, Britain’s Last Lion, Roars

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2018/10/23/delingpole-tommy-robinson-britains-last-lion-roars/

We are where we are with our withdrawal from the European Union because the Blair creature still haunts the corridors and stairs of No.10 Downing Street.

Steve

Dadad said...

The EU didn't set a trap for May over Ireland. She should have known that making us a 'third country' outside the EU would inevitably result in the EU defending the integrity of its single market border. And if she didn't know that, then more fool her. And us.

Budgie said...

I wonder how far we can all agree that:
1. Chequers (Robbins) will form the basis of the agreement with the EU;
2. Remain MPs will ensure that Chequers is voted through Parliament;
3. The few Leave MPs will be unable to halt Chequers in Parliament;
4. Theresa May has deliberately crafted Chequers over many months;
5. Therefore Mrs May is a proven liar about Chequers;
6. The time is never "right" to remove Mrs May, according to Tory MPs;
7. Chequers ensures we will continue to be ruled by the EU for at least another 8 years (current and next MFF);
8. Chequers ensures the UK will be subservient to the EU in military, security, and diplomatic matters in perpetuity as well;
9. Chequers ensures we will pay vast sums to the EU for as long as we are tied to it (see above);
10. Tory MPs and members are immensely slow on the uptake, and far too tribal and too weak to control the Remain cabal running the Tory party;
11. It is now too late to remedy this Remain catastrophe;
12. Consequently, we will have constitutional turmoil for the next decade, at least as we Bremain.

The real task ahead is - having agreed that Mrs May is a liar and traitor, and that the Tory party is utterly useless, and therefore completely irrelevant - to think of possible solutions to this constitutional crisis. Unless we do, the logical consequence is to dissolve our Parliament and the political parties, shut down any pretence of democracy, dissolve the UK, and ask the EU to govern us in perpetuity. And if we don't come up with solutions to stop it, Jeremy Corbyn will come up with solutions to implement it.

jack ketch said...

Anonymous Budgie said...
I wonder how far we can all agree that:1-12


Aside from 2 (and partially 10&11), which I see as more the 'reMay-in' ('re-in' as in 'not getting her out') MPs rather than the 'remain' MPs , I'd say you summed things up pretty well.