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'The government agreed today to fund abortions in England for Northern Irish women in an effort to see off a rebellion on a vote on the Queen's Speech.' OK, I'm lost now. So, the problem with the anti-abortion DUP isn't the abortion itself but who pays for it? Surely that's totally hypocritical? Is Mrs May happy to be associated with such a 'deal'? Imagine reading a 'Horrible History Book' in the future about 21st Century Britain: what it stood for at the beginning of June 2016 and what it had become by the end of June 2017. How much lower will we go? (Key words for kids doing exams: Brexit, abortion, votes, bribery, Queen's Speech, morality, shame)

Brexit is like the long awaited cup final. It's quite exciting to see the teams and we all have our favourite side. The whistle blows, we are on the edge of our seats but the players lack passion, the ball goes back and forth and sometimes into the crowd. We take our eye off the ball to check our phone for messages. The game trundles on, no goals,no magnificent saves and no tidy footwork. The game goes on, the crowd have lost interest in the poor performance. Why do these teams deserve to be here,bloody hell, the competition must have been rubbish. The game goes on to extra time, a goal here and a goal there. And then to penalties. And that's where we are with Brexit. Let's hope rain stops play, permanently.

artycelia   'I believe that membership of the European Union was the way in which we got out of the appalling state we were in when we discovered after Suez that we had no role in the world that we were clear about once we had lost our empire, and our economy was becoming a laughing stock because we were falling behind the countries on the continent that had been devastated in the war but appeared to have a better way of proceeding than we did.' Kenneth Clarke February 2. 2017 The Times. And now we must leave. I have no confidence in the government, any that existed has steadily ebbed away drip by drip each day. They are divided, it seems apparent that there is no joined-up thinking, it seems as if there is bitter rivalry among the ranks and that the leader has lost control. How are they to be trusted to negotiate new tariffs, new regulatory barriers, new customs procedures, certificates of origin etc etc. A vote of no confidence is necessary, and th...

Here is the application form for 'Settled Status.'  You will be needing a wheelbarrow to transport it to your home. And a lawyer to help you fill it in. And a very large amount of ink. We will probably lose it at some point upon its return to this office. We apologise in advance. Not all applications will be successful. The decision of this office is final. No correspondence will be entered into. Good luck with your application. Delete 17 Recommend

In his comment piece today, Matthew states: Our choice is a hard Brexit-or turning back. artycelia   'To turn back would still be a national humiliation, though' Would it? I don't think anyone should feel humiliated, this isn't a game.  Exactly a year has passed since the referendum and every day we seem to learn a bit more about what we have let ourselves in for, and in my opinion, the more forthcoming the information the worse the situation seems to be. The Remainers, and I am one, would sigh with relief if we could exit Brexit but there would be absolutely no gloating. I think we could all learn valuable lessons from this huge blip in our democratic process.  The EU have far more important matters to deal with and would probably just accept and be thankful for a change of heart in GB. Then we can all just get on with our lives without this silly nonsense holding everybody back, causing bad feeling, confusion,economic uncertainty and ...

I am extremely unhappy that I am to be stripped of my European citizenship. I have absolutely no faith in the Brexit  process. I feel embarrassed to be a (reluctant)  victim of a warped democratic process. I am angry that HM government is so weak and wobbly. I am very angry that while GB is under siege from terrorists we are turning our backs on our allies. I am disgusted to be living in a country where the richest borough fiddles the books and a towering inferno occurs killing dozens of innocent people. I support the ECHR. (I dread to think what would be going on without it) I have no faith in our PM. I would accept an olive branch from Tusk.  Why is this happening? Does anyone really BELIEVE Brexit is a good idea? And I mean, 'believe' not just a stubborn 'we won, get over it' stupid answer. Donald Tusk said today that he can 'imagine' GB deciding to stay after all and he quotes John Lennon.I do hope he...

  artycelia   Everyone has a different view on Brexit: hard, soft, poached, boiled, scrambled or fried. I suggest The Times and The Sunday Times launch a campaign to over-turn the result of the referendum. It is abundantly clear that the politicians cannot agree on what Brexit actually means. How then, could the voters have known what leaving or remaining in the EU actually meant as they popped their cross in that damned box? Madness. Ban Brexit. Delete 69 Recommend Reply Keith Grant   21 hours ago So the talk now is of managed immigration, as all but the wildest Brexiters recognise is needed as the economy will collapse otherwise. Germany has hinted some version of this might be possible. Even Ukip supports it. So why bother with Brexit and risk the huge economic and trade disruption it will bring? Stay in the single market and customs union, especially as the European economy starts...

Headline: June 21st 2019. Despite two years of tough negotiation the nation finds itself broken, hungry, skint and scared. The cost of our dairy and meat products have surged, the price of an average carrot is now 90p.  There has been no asparagus in the shops at all. An iceberg lettuce is a relic from 2016, never to adorn a prawn cocktail ever again. Prawns are as rare as hen's teeth anyway so maybe that's not too much of a problem. Our cattle have suffered a catastrophe as there are no vets to inoculate them or treat them when ill.  The fruit available is well and truly manky as the pickers went home leaving the maggots to raid the fruit bowl of the land. A cheap flight to Portugal now costs an average of £999 return but no-one is going on holiday as there is no healthcare provision should they fall ill. (And the foreigners hate us) Everyone knows someone who has had their personal data hacked- the tech industry is in technical meltdown. Canary Wh...

artycelia   What IS the point of it all?? It's like getting your favourite jumper out of the wardrobe, unpicking it , laboriously, stitch by stitch, then laboriously knitting it back together again stitch by stitch. Then realising you don't like the new shape it has become. Meanwhile your country has undergone a major unravelling all by itself while your eye was off the ball. Great. Delete 35 Recommend Reply

artycelia   Great Britain is Kevin the Teenager and the EU is the long suffering parent. It's almost funny. GB: It's not fair, I hate my life. EU: Well, life's not fair, we just all have to do our bit. GB: I don't want to. It's not fair. EU: Well, in life, sometimes it rains and sometimes it's sunny. GB: I 'ate the rain. EU: It makes the crops grow. GB: I 'ate crops, they're boring. EU: Life can be fun or life can be boring. It's up to you how you see things. GB: You're lying, everyfink's boring. EU:Life can be fun, the whole of Europe could be your playground. Lots of art, culture, friendships, food, lots of people to back you up if you find yourself in trouble, a sense of camaraderie, a union of people with the same goals. GB: My dad said you stole all our fish. My dad said you stole all our jobs. My dad said  you are all krupt (sic) EU: Go to bed Kevin, we'll deal with you in the morning...

I find it really difficult to believe that despite the recent terror attacks, the rising prices, the falling pound, the horrendous fire and the likely consequences of it (massive scale of re-housing countrywide seems possible) that we are STILL entertaining our departure from the EU. Especially now that we have Macron and a bright new optimism sweeping through the EU. It's like the Cinderella story - reversed. How I wish Brexit was just a fairy tale, I would chuck the book in the bin. Delete 22 Recommend Reply

Mrs May's position as Prime Minister has become untenable.  Before becoming PM, Mrs May was Home Secretary responsible for home affairs, the police, citizenship etc. She has come under fire for cutting police numbers when the threat and indeed incidents of actual terrorism are escalating at an alarming rate. We need more nurses, more police and more fire fighters -not less- to deal with these incidents. 'The fire' (that's how it will be remembered) has left a horrifying Syria-like symbol, the burnt husk of a building, a looming  menace on the skyline of the capital. A symbol of so much of what has gone wrong. So many dead, so many missing, such a cruel waste of innocent lives. Why did the building alight so ferociously?  The weeping and the wailing.  Who did we need on this , the most terrifying of nights? The fire-fighters and the police and the nurses. Where does the buck stop? With the Home Secretary at the time of the refur...

In his 'quiet' voice Sir John Major tells a chilling message, one which we ignore at our peril. We tend to think of 'terrorists' these days as being the Islamic Extremists. History is young however. For the uninformed I suggest Googling The Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings which occurred on 20 July 1982. Dead bodies and dead horses lay motionless in the golden streets of London. The blood was on the hands of the IRA. No-one thought there would be an end to the violence or the disruption or the terror and inconvenience of that period. Yet, following years and years of bitterness, hurt and contempt we now have an albeit fragile peace process.  In some sectors The Good Friday Agreement is being hailed as a talisman for a peace process to be discussed with IS. Yet this fragile peace is in jeopardy as our megalomaniac PM, the one with NO majority in the House is prepared to put peace into pieces in order to ensure an exit from th...

We are a sensible nation who were asked to cast our votes in a referendum unlike any other in our history. The facts we were given were skewed or blatant lies. I think it fair to say that a lot of people who were thoroughly fed up at the time, for various reasons, stomped along to the polling station and firmly indented their cross in the box that seemed  to give vent to their fury. Months go by and those people are busy getting on with their real lives and probably don't give their vote a fleeting thought. 52% of those who voted chose to 'leave' the EU. But 48% voted to remain in the EU. The entire future of our nation is being decided on a measly 4% majority. We now find that the leader of our nation has NO majority with which to steer the course of  the Brexit ship through the most turbulent of waters. Leaving aside the rather (in my opinion) odious thought of aligning ourselves with the DUP  in order to gain a majority, is it really impossible to...

In my opinion the nasty right wing press along with Mrs May all shot themselves in the feet during the campaign. Which is amusingly ironic.  The ridiculous Daily Mail got its knickers in a right old twist- I scanned some of the bile written there while visiting my old dad. (I would not be seen dead with a copy of that rag ) The almost hysterical  ' Jeremy is SO horrible, no we mean really.really horrible' tosh was childish and ineffectual. The treatment of Diane Abbott was bordering on cruelty and to be honest quite shameful There's only so much hate one can take and by dishing out so much it became counter-productive. Add  to that the awful May campaign. May could probably get a job playing a Dalek in the next series of Doctor Who...'S_T_R_O_N_G _A_N_D_S_T_A_B_L_E etc and the other annoying boring soundbites. The refusal to debate, well, we're not daft- if she is too scared to debate will she also be too scared to negotiate? Then we have the ...