Oolite Bulletins

Here we go! <sighs>

<chuckles>
This was never going to be straight-forward, was it?
I think it is the right decision though. I am a remainer but I'm also a pragmatist and accept that some sort of Brexit (whatever that means) will happen. What the High Court decision means is that parliament will have much greater oversight of the whole process, and we should hopefully avoid being presented with some cobbled-together 'done deal' which is what May seemed to be heading for.

Parliamentary oversight, my left foot (which is badly crocked and not fit for purpose)!

That's "taking back control" for you … Apparently it doesn't mean "Letting an unelected Prime Minister that even her own party didn't vote for assume the powers of an absolute monarch so she can do what she wants".

(Especially since "What she wants" is such a long, long way away from "What she's going to have to accept" …)

Cody wrote:

Parliamentary oversight, my left foot (which is badly crocked and not fit for purpose)!

Don't be so disparaging, you old cynic
As it stands, the government is committed to triggering Article 50 by April next year but they clearly have no idea what the strategy should be. The hope was that some preliminary discussions would take place to establish the terms of our leaving, but it is now clear that nothing of substance is going to be negotiated before the formal A50 trigger. There will then be up to two years of frantic negotiation.
Frantic because two years is simply not enough time to agree the myriad details that would need to be agreed, let alone get the required legislation through ours and other parliaments.
In practice, because what we want is almost certainly going to be un-acceptable to Europe, these frantic negotiations will will probably go nowhere, meaning that we could just 'divorce' Europe in around 27 months time with nothing agreed. This would not be a very good thing at all, for us or for Europe.
Without parliamentary involvement the first we would know about any of this is when the PM appears on our TV screens one day saying (in more diplomatic terms) "Sorry folks, but we're F****d!".
As the team in charge of this are 'Hard Brexiters' they will be pushing for an uncompromised exit which will will be easier to negotiate, but much more damaging to the country. At least with some oversight, our MPs (and therefore us as well) will have an idea of what the Government is thinking and intending to do, and it can be tempered and massaged into something that might even work.

Cynic? Moi? Damn right!


Meanwhile, in the land of E pluribus unum, the fate of the world is at stake!

Kirsty Wark on Newsnight, acceding to the call by Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell for the BBC to play "God Save the Queen" at the end of the evening's programming, to "celebrate Brexit":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwsQ_5Wm4oo

Sort of, anyway. Be careful what you wish for …

Our so-called national anthem is a bloody dirge, and should've been replaced decades ago - as should the royal family!

Well, it was originally a hymn composed to pray for the recovery of Louis XIV of France from a tricky operation on an anal fistula, so it was never going to be very perky … obviously the words got changed a bit, though. But yes, I'd be happy to see this particular mob of workshy benefits-scroungers given the heave-ho!

Yeah but if the alternative is a President, then I'll take the Monarchy any day! At least they have no real power, and you don't end up with the bigot who appeals most to the great unwashed, or the richest narcissist out there.

I've no objection to a figurehead royal, but that's all it should be - a figurehead, not a money-making private empire.

The Irish seem to manage to pick decent people to be their Presidents. They have very limited political powers, which are clearly spelled out in a written constitution - substantially less real power than Liz and Chuck, for example, who do actually have real power to oversee, influence and even veto legislation, without us getting to know about it.

People often advance the idea of "President Blair", as an argument in favour of the monarchy. But we could get rid of President Blair, if we had been stupid enough to elect him in the first place. Compare that to, say, "King Andrew" …

Here's the current Irish president, Michael D. Higgins, interviewed on American talk radio, driving a verbal tank through the US Tea Party, to the consternation of the interviewer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5OWRRJh-PI

We could have someone like that - as opposed to whatever gets dredged up from the shallow end of the gene pool.

What will Scotland do after IndyRef2 - renounce the crown, and elect a president?

If it's got anything to do with me,* we'll have a figurehead that doesn't imply that some people are born superior to the rest of us. A figurehead that we can unite around, but that doesn't cost a fortune to keep. To maintain some connection with our history, I propose we choose a horse.

Horses are noble animals, and - as Red Rum and Desert Orchid have ably demonstrated - are easily capable of opening things like sports centres, skateboard parks, fetes, parliament, etc. They have excellent profiles, which would look superb on coins and stamps. Our National Horse could be kept in a nice big field, and trotted out on state occasions. And every 25 years or so, the Horse would die - giving us all an extra day off work to mourn the old Horse, and celebrate the arrival of the new one.

Best of all, we would finally be able to say, with pride, that we live in a modern, democratic, constitutional Hippocracy.

* This, I grant you, is unlikely.