fahrenheit451:216

Ceremony and tradition play the central role in the UK's parliamentary operations.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer's perfunctory fiscal state of the nation speech is and has been for quite a long time now just that; ceremonial. The same government policies could as easily be outlined in bullet -point form and then voted on without all the accompanying Barnum & Bailey hoo-ha.

The announcements are in any event of miniscule practical import and merely sustain that which is practically untenable.

Facts trump wishful thinking.And once the customary flim-flammery had been tossed to one side, the sober economic analyses zeroed in to what little meat there was on the bone.

The UK's GDP was still in the doldrums at the Financial Crash level of 2008 and wages are expected to continue in their parlous state for perhaps another decade.

The anti - democratic, referendum verdict denying, brexit-sabotaging majority of MPs used the Budget day contretemps to inveigh further against a pathetically weak and timid government and its miserable handling of the Brexit negotiations vis a vis the EU.

In all, it was a disappointing exposition of what ought to be a lively parliamentary democracy where the Parties first instinct should be fundamentally aligned to the demands of the UK's inalienable national sovereignty.

Fat chance of that.

fahrenheit451:181

Amid all the fabricated chaos,convulsions and confusion engendered by the seditionist agitators of the – 48%, Remain ,Stronger in Europe,Open Britain,Campaign or whatever else they choose to call themselves on any given day, there is one over-arching certainty; the general atmosphere of vituperative public discourse is highly unlikely to dissipate the nearer we get to actual #brexit in March 2019.

That said, we glean from the BBC news site :-

” Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Hammond and Mr Fox said the UK definitely would leave both the customs union and the single market when it exits the EU in March 2019.

They said a “time-limited” transition period would “further our national interest and give business greater certainty” – but warned it would not stop Brexit.  ”

It is heartening indeed that the Chancellor and the International Trade Secretary have found so much common ground. It bears an uncanny resemblance to those very same basic tenets of the Leave campaign in the EU Referendum in 2016.

Of course this is Britain,so even the theoretical notion that something will actually ever get done by those in power in accordance with the Will of the people as expressed for instance, in a referendum that all parties agree beforehand the result of which will in effect be binding is far more problematic.

We can all plainly see that from the present on going,seemingly interminable imbroglio.

But two prominent members of HMG’s Cabinet espousing the same line? You can never tell.

Hell, the Reformation got carried out for the most part,and the Civil War a century or so later pretty much succeeded also.So leaving the EU aka brexit may actually eventuate.