No Confidence in May, in er, May.

My sources say the knives are out for Theresa May. I mean really out this time, not the idle speculation of previous months.

Her lack of ability to make significant progress on anything has created a problem for her. Not that it was any different at her other posts. Some tinkering around the edges, shuffling the papers, rearranging the furniture: call it what you will, but that's what she's good at. Making herself look busy whilst not doing much of any substance.

I believe she'll be out by May. The Corbyn threat will have reduced significantly by then as new information comes to light regarding the current Labour front benches.

The Tories will start to promote their May replacement in the New Year, Just watch the political TV programmes to see which Tory MP gets a lot of air time. :-)

Brexit: Ireland's Idle threats

It's in the news today that Ireland is threatening to Veto any agreement to move onto post-Brexit trade talks without a guarantee that there will be a "soft" border between Southern and Northern Ireland.

First off, that threat isn't necessarily aimed at the Uk, but more towards the EU. It's their remit as to whether we have a soft border or not, not ours.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but if we leave the EU, the EEA and EFTA, then the border HAS to be a hard one.

The outcome of the referendum is that we are leving the EU. The governments's (and most of those voting to leave) stance is that we leave the control of the ECJ, which then removes the EEA option.

Which only leaves membership of EFTA as a viable option. But then by default the border is then a lot firmer than the transparent border that Southern Ireland demands.

So Ireland are demanding the impossible. Certainly without some option that bestows some unique and so-far unavailable and possibly magical status on Northern Ireland.

The other thing is that Ireland has a veto at all. I thought that qualified majority voting had taken over, so no one country had a veto. It seems that the Brexit negotiations and trade negotiations in general haven't yet caught the majority bug (conveniently for Ireland).

Just like the stupidity of the Waloons stopping the EU-Canada trade deal earlier this year. Ireland will push Brexit to a place it doesn't want to go and is unnacceptable to the leave voters.

The more Brexit gets pulled from pillar to post by all the various factions, the more a "no-deal" scenario plays out. Just like I voted for in the reerendum and were told by the remainers before voting. No soft choices, but cold, hard reality. Out of the EU, out of the customs union, out of the single market.

Out means out.

The negotiations and the setup of the European project will not allow any soft options.

It's now up to us to plan and make the very best of the completely out options.

Of course the UK and Ireland could just unilatterally decide not to have a border without EU agreement. How that pans out for Ireland is anyone's guess. Would the EU demand Ireland impose a closed border? How could they enforce it?

Budget: Rehashed Housing News as I Predicted and More Fuel on the House Price Fire

Love how a politician can stand up and rehash old news as something supposedly new and spectacular.

Stand-out amongst thise was the so-called "Oxford-Milton Keynes" corridor.Many thousands of houses promised in the budget that were announced years ago in the Bicester New Town/City scheme.

No radical plans at all and very little new news.

Stand-out amongst the new plans was more support for Help-to-Buy and tweaks on stamp duty. Neither of which actually reduce the cost of housing, but instead prop up the status quo and even fan the flames, helping to prop up unsustainable house prices and saddling first-time buyers with houses that cost lots more than they are worth.

Way to go Chancellor!