She seems completely paranoid at the moment, it’s weird.
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I gather she was not averse to having her own staff leaking &briefing against colleagues when she was home sec. Taste of her own medicine by the sound of it.
I’ve not met anyone yet who doesn’t think the UK is fucking insane for voting out. The proof of how hypocritical that is will be a little more evident after Sunday’s second round of the Presidential Elections here, which is a almost a referendum on EU membership.
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My sister in law who lives in France (with her French wife) tells me ni, ni is a phrase which has become popular after the first round of voting. Roughly meaning neither, nor.
I love Yanis.
The six Brexit traps that will defeat Theresa May
He seemed conflicted when I watched him the other day. On the one hand despising the Brussels bureaucrats who also gave him the runaround but also rather anti Brexit and the Maybot with her ridiculous megaphone negotiating strategy.
He’s right of course. But it’s a bit risky to extrapolate Varoufakis’s crushing defeat. His problem was that he was inexperienced as a politician. So he was caught out when they used these tricks on him. May has been a politician for most of her life. She will have come across at least three of those tactics (what he calls “The Swedish National Anthem”, “Penelope” and “Sequencing”) many, many times before, in particular every time she’s tried to sell a scheme which wasn’t a baby of theirs to No 10 and the Treasury. She will also have used them to frustrate people trying to convince her of things. The “Picking Your Opponents” trick can work both ways of course. When Barnier won’t play ball she can try talking directly to the Germans. Merkel is a pragmatist and Macron might well turn out to be one too.
VB
I don’t think that all the extravagant arm-waving in the press from the armchair negotiation experts after each meeting is really helping anybody. Nor is it particularly representative of how a negotiation process evolves.
But such is the nature of the 24hr, micro-managed news culture, that’s what we are getting.
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We are a net financial contributor to the EU unlike Greece. Our leaving will have a massive impact on the European project as well as to our economy. Neither side has anything to gain by not working towards the least damaging deal.
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Not economically, perhaps. But these are politicians. There are definite political gains/losses to be made.
VB
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“Strong as stable” didn’t last very long, then. “Defensive and desperate” seems more like it, right now.
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I liked ‘Wrong & Feeble’
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I liked ‘Stoned and Starving’
Meh, what we have here is wealthy Eurocrat unelected officials talking EU style crap knowing their big fat pensions are safe and that they only have a few years to go before retiring in their chateau. What is the pressure on them, fuck all, they can say pretty much what they want, as long as Germany don’t object.
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A cautionary tale
Stronzetto was once invited to a Favella street party. He was on reasonable terms with most of the people there and often shared glue and paid tribute to the local gang as is customary. The area had enjoyed relative peace for a number of years which historically was quite unusual. All went well until he decided it was too far to walk to the toilet and took a shit on the center table. Strangely the party goers were quite appalled. He retreated swiftly and let the dust settle. A few months later he tried to cadge some glue and got none. He went out of the area yet no one would lend him a hoof. The local gang seemed to pick on him more and eventually he was forced out wearing nothing but his loin cloth and a bemused look. Of course it was all their fault.
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Apparently part of the exit bill the EU want to impose, is a €10bn contribution to officials pension funds! 
Can we ask him to replace David Davis? He might upset fewer people.
Have you got a source for that? Sounds ridiculous.
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Was in the Times this morning, they were trying different scenarios to see how much the exit bill would be…
They thought that there would be a refund of 25bn due for expected grants etc, however there might not be a refund due on the assets built in Brussels etc for which we part funded…