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Two writers in the Times looked at two different aspects of the Conservative party's ongoing vandalism to the United Kingdom. First, David Wallace-Wells tracks the post-Brexit economic declines: By the end of next year, the average British family will be less well off than the average Slovenian one, according to a recent analysis by John Burn-Murdoch at The Financial Times; by the end of this decade, the average British family will have a lower standard of living than the average Polish one. On the...

In other news: Greg Hinz goes over the upcoming Chicago mayoral election. Kansas Republicans have not given up their fight against the state constitution as they try to ban abortions there against the will of the majority of voters. The US Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing today into the monopolistic behavior of organized crime syndicate concert promoter Live Nation and its accomplice, Ticketmaster. The Long Island Railroad begins service to Grand Central Station tomorrow, bringing commuters...

Not everything I predicted about the idiotic Brexit vote on 23 June 2016 has come true, but the UK still remains as divided as then: Five years after Britons voted to leave the European Union, the aftershocks are still being registered. But few parts of the country have felt its impact more than this corner of England close to its Channel ports and the white cliffs of Dover, where a majority voted for Brexit. When Britain was inside the E.U., the trucks that flowed ceaselessly to and from France did so...

Just an hour or so into the first business day of 2021, and morning news had a few stories that grabbed my attention: All 10 living former defense secretaries joined in an op-ed yesterday condemning the idea of involving the military in election disputes. After repeated warnings, the FAA are proposing $182,000 in fines against an unlicensed drone pilot for 26 violations of FAR Part 107 rules. The BBC rolls its eyes, sighs in exasperation, and takes apart a number of PM Boris Johnson's claims about...

Thank you, Tom Lehrer, for encapsulating what this season means to us in the US. In the last 24 hours, we have seen some wonderful Christmas gifts, some of them completely in keeping with Lehrer's sentiment. Continuing his unprecedented successes making his the most corrupt presidency in the history of the country (and here I include the Andrew Johnson and Warren Harding presidencies), the STBXPOTUS yesterday granted pardons to felons Charles Kushner, Paul Manafort, and Roger Stone. Of the 65 pardons...

I'm looking out my office window at the light dusting of snow on my neighbors' cars, wondering how (or whether) I'll get my 10,000 steps today. My commute to work got me 3,000 each way, making the job tons easier before lockdown. Easier psychologically, anyway; nothing prevents me from going for a 45-minute walk except that I really don't want to. Instead of a lunchtime hike, I'll probably just read these articles: Palm Beach, Fla., has notified the STBXPOTUS that because he agreed in the 1990s not to...

Happy Hanukkah! Now read these: Thomas Edsall summarizes the sociology of resentment, hypothesizing that status is the single biggest indicator of political affiliation. Jelani Cobb digs into the Republican strategy in the Loeffler-Warnock race for Georgia's junior US Senate seat. The US Postal Service warns that it has absolutely no more capacity, and is near gridlock. (If only we could, you know, fund it.) It looks ever more likely that two weeks from Friday, the UK will crash out of Europe with no...

At midnight Central European Time about five hours from now (23:00 UTC), the United Kingdom will no longer be a European Union member state. It will take years to learn whether the bare-majority of voters in the UK who wanted this were right or wrong. My guess: a bit of both, but more wrong than right. It will also take years to fully understand why the developed world collectively decided to throw out the institutions that brought us the longest period of peace and economic growth in the history of the...

The first debate between Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn last night probably didn't sway anyone: In a testy live debate on ITV, during which the prime minister repeatedly returned to the claim that he would “get Brexit done”, both men lavished praise on the NHS, but Corbyn said Johnson would put it up for sale. Throughout the debate, Johnson continually tried to bring the focus back to Brexit, on which Corbyn repeatedly declined to say how he would campaign in a second EU referendum, while...

That's American for the English idiom "penny in the air." And what a penny. More like a whole roll of them. Right now, the House of Commons are wrapping up debate on the Government's bill to prorogue Parliament (for real this time) and have elections the second week of December. The second reading of the bill just passed by voice vote (the "noes" being only a few recalcitrant MPs), so the debate continues. The bill is expected to pass—assuming MPs can agree on whether to have the election on the 9th...

Writing in the Guardian, journalist and historian Neal Ascherson says that the long Brexit fight has deepened divisions within the UK that have always been there, but now may have passed the point of no return: It’s commonly said that the Brexit years have made the English more xenophobic, less tolerant, more angrily divided among themselves.  [T]he deepest change since 2016 is the weakening of the United Kingdom’s inner bonds. The “great rest of England” seem to have felt for many years that if the...

“I’m just saying if I narrowly decided to order fish at a restaurant that was known for chicken, but said it was happy to offer fish, and so far I’ve been waiting three hours, and two chefs who promised to cook the fish had quit, and the third one is promising to deliver the fish in the next five minutes whether it’s cooked or not, or indeed still alive, and all the waiting staff have spent the last few hours arguing about whether I wanted battered cod, grilled salmon, jellied eels or dolphin kebabs...

While my work computer chews through slightly more than a million calculations in a unit test (which I don't run in CI, in case you (a) were wondering and (b) know what that means), I have a moment to catch up: Boris Johnson has asked MPs to dissolve Parliament on Monday, which, if 2/3 of Commons agrees, means there would be an election on December 12th. The EU will vote tomorrow on whether to accept the UK's Brexit extension request, which is the Labour Party's condition for agreeing to new elections....

British PM Boris Johnson is now, I believe, 0 for 8 in votes in Commons as the chamber voted 322 to 306 this afternoon (London time) to force the government to delay Brexit until January: The prime minister will be legally obliged to request a Brexit delay at 11pm under the terms of the rebel Benn act, after the government lost the critical vote. It came during a historic Saturday sitting of parliament, which saw the PM adopt an emollient tone, as he implored MPs to throw their weight behind his deal....

I was busy today, and apparently so was everyone else: Umair Haque deplores the "age of the idiot" in which we now live. The Washington Post reports that President Trump has spoken with Russian president Vladimir Putin 16 times, more than with any other world leader. Tim Murphy thinks Trump is more Andrew Johnson than Richard Nixon. Andrew Sullivan says, since Trump wants to be impeached, let's do it now. Elizabeth Warren deftly smacked down a right-wing troll. Irish writer Susan McKay asks Boris...

I watched PM Boris Johnson's statement to the House yesterday as it happened, and I have to say, he seemed like a more-articulate version of Donald Trump. Instead of scowling, he smirked; instead of rambling incoherently, he banged the table succinctly. But otherwise, he demonstrated his unfitness for office and, as a bonus, the Conservative Party demonstrated theirs by giving him a standing-O. Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee put it well: If his party had some notion that the mantle of office would...

PM Boris Johnson is now addressing the House of Commons, capping a crazy day in the UK. And that's not even the most explosive thing in the news today: The White House released notes of the call the President had with his Ukrainian counterpart in July. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi started a formal impeachment inquiry as a result of that conversation, which torture proponent John Yoo says could cost the Democrats next year. The IPCC has released a special report on sea ice that should terrify you. Israel's...

In an unprecedented decision, the UK Supreme Court ruled today that PM Boris Johnson misled the Queen when asking her to prorogue Parliament, rendering the prorogation unlawful and void: The unanimous judgment from 11 justices on the UK’s highest court followed an emergency three-day hearing last week that exposed fundamental legal differences over interpreting the country’s unwritten constitution. “It is for parliament, and in particular the Speaker and the Lord Speaker, to decide what to do next....

Of note or interest: The BBC's political editor asks if the Brexit deadline is even possible now. The New York Times has a good recap of yesterday's marathon Commons sitting. So does the Washington Post. The president fired National Security Adviser John Bolton, which was the right thing to do for all the wrong reasons. Peter Wehner reminds us that the president is "not well." What's with Jerry Falwell and pool boys, anyway? Matti Friedman explains how memories of "the situation" will inform next...

After sitting for 824 days—the longest time since World War II—the UK Parliament prorogued last night in a scene reminiscent of 1629: The chaos unfolded in the early hours of Tuesday morning, after a day of high drama in which Boris Johnson lost his sixth parliamentary vote in as many days and Bercow announced his impending retirement as Speaker. As the prorogation got under way, Bercow expressed his anger, saying it was “not a normal prorogation”. “It is not typical. It is not standard. It’s one of the...

The Benn Bill, which would prevent Britain from crashing out of the EU without a deal in place, passed the House of Lords this afternoon and may receive Royal assent as soon as Monday evening. Andrew Sullivan, meanwhile, sees a real possibility that the Conservative Party could win a snap election by a considerable margin, with or without an October 31st Brexit: Here’s why: It seems inevitable now that a general election will happen this October or, at the very latest, November. If Brexit has not...

Let's see, where to begin? The UK House of Lords today agreed to progress the Benn Bill, clearing the way for it to go to the Queen as early as Monday. Boris Johnson's brother resigned from Parliament citing a conflict between family and country. Yascha Mounk calls Johnson's prorogation of Parliament "the most dangerous assault on Britain's institutions in living memory." Political scientist Will Jennings tries to find the Brexit option most palatable to the "median voter." Sterling rose to a 3-week...

The House of Commons have just finished slogging through 10 amendments to a bill tabled by Labour MP Hilary Benn that would prevent the UK crashing out of the EU without a deal, and have started voting on the "third reading." If the ayes have it, the bill would then pass out of the House of Commons and go to the "other place" (the House of Lords) for passage. After that, the Queen would give her Royal Assent, and Bob's your uncle. And to underscore how weird all of this is, an amendment passed by...

With support of 21 Conservative members, the UK House of Commons this evening voted 328-301 to allow the introduction of a bill tomorrow that would prohibit the country from crashing out of the EU on October 31st absent a deal with the trading bloc. In response, Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed to table a motion tomorrow calling for a general election on October 14th, and also expelling several of the rebels from the party: The rebel lawmakers seemed furious on Tuesday. In another era, they would have...

So much to watch today in the UK as Parliament gave Prime Minister Boris Johnson one hell of a welcome back in his second appearance there as PM. Josh Marshall sums it up nicely: [Johnson's] whole effort has been an elaborate game of chicken. Get the Tory leadership and thus the Prime Ministership. Drive headlong into the wall because the wall will decide we’re just crazy enough or just Churchillian enough to plow right into the wall. Seeing that, see stiff upper lip and scowl and all that, the wall...

First, something legitimately funny, especially if you're Jewish: And some things that are funny, as in, "the President is a little funny, isn't he?" Vice President Mike Pence will stay at a Trump resort in Doonbeg, Ireland, for two days of meetings in Dublin. Which is funny because Doonbeg is as far from Dublin as Fort Wayne, Ind., is from Chicago. President Trump sent out over 120 Tweets this past weekend warning people in Alabama of the danger posed by Hurricane Dorian. Which is funny, because (a)...

More stories since yesterday about how Boris Johnson wants to wreck Britain: Martha Gill: "Did Boris Johnson just break Parliament?" Conservative ministers have resigned over Johnson's power move. The Guardian calls proroguing Parliament "an affront to democracy." A cross-party group of MPs have gone to court to prevent the prorogation. And NPR reports that the pound continues to saunter vaguely downwards, with one economist predicting parity with the dollar after a hard Brexit. Fun times, fun times.

In a move that surprised almost no one but angered almost everyone, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced today that, at his request, the Queen prorogued Parliament from mid-September to October 14th: The effect of the decision will be to curtail the time MPs have to introduce legislation or other measures aimed at preventing a no-deal Brexit – and increase the pressure on Jeremy Corbyn to table a vote of no confidence next week. If Johnson lost that vote, there would then be a 14-day period in...

The Conservative Party membership have elected Boris Johnson, an incompetent layabout and buffoon, to lead the Party, passing over the competent and level-headed Foreign Secretary Jeffrey Hunt by almost a 2:1 majority (92,153 to 46,656). Wednesday afternoon, Johnson will go to Buckingham Palace where, no doubt masterfully hiding her disgust, the Queen will invite him to form what will probably be the last government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Johnson will become the...

The president, only slightly less popular than Nigel Farage, called London's mayor a "stone cold loser" and berated accurate news sources before HM The Queen hosted him at a state dinner this evening. Huzzah: However, by the time the president’s helicopter, Marine One, landed at Buckingham Palace for his long-desired ceremonial visit, he was wreathed in smiles, with his arrival marked by two 41-gun salutes, a guard of honour and a white-tie-and-tiara banquet. More than 100 protesters demonstrated...

One hundred years ago this hour (Sunday 13 April 1919, 17:37 HMT), Brig. General Reginald Dyer order his men to fire on 10,000 unarmed Indian civilians within an enclosed space from which they had no escape: On the afternoon of April 13, a crowd of at least 10,000 men, women, and children gathered in an open space known as the Jallianwalla Bagh, which was nearly completely enclosed by walls and had only one exit. It is not clear how many people there were protesters who were defying the ban on public...

It's just past midnight in Brussels, and it appears the UK hasn't crashed out of the EU yet. Britain has until October 31st to figure their shit out. And the world shakes its head.

We have actual spring weather today, so instead of reading things while eating lunch I was watching things, like this corgi: I do have a few things to read while coordinating a rehearsal later tonight. To wit: New York City declared a public health emergency because of measles. Measles. A childhood disease we almost eradicated before people started believing falsehoods about vaccination. White House senior troll Stephen Miller has the president's ear, with predictable consequences. Where did all of...

Theresa May has fewer and fewer options available to complete the one job she signed up for today after EU President Jean-Claude Juncker flatly rejected May's request for a second short Brexit delay: Speaking to the European parliament, Juncker instead set an “ultimate deadline” of 12 April for the Commons to approve the withdrawal agreement. “If it has not done so by then, no further short extension will be possible,” he said. “After 12 April, we risk jeopardising the European parliament elections, and...

After a Parliamentary session yesterday demonstrating that no one is able to compromise with anyone else, in which MPs voted down four more proposals for Brexit, PM Theresa May today said she'd seek talks with Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn to see what kind of a coalition they could cobble together: In a brief TV statement inside No 10 following a seven-hour cabinet meeting, the prime minister said she would hold talks with Jeremy Corbyn to seek a Brexit plan they could agree on and “both could put to...

Prime Minister Theresa May failed, for a third time, to get the agreed-to deal with the EU through the House of Commons: The Guardian explains the consequences: A string of Brexit-backing Conservative backbenchers who had rejected the deal in the first two meaningful votes, including the former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, switched sides during the debate to support the agreement. But with Labour unwilling to change its position, and the Democratic Unionist party’s 10 MPs determined not to support it...

On my list today: After Commons last night voted down every single proposal for navigating Brexit, Theresa May will bring the agreement she negotiated with the EU up for a vote tomorrow. Jeanne Gang has won the contract to design O'Hare's new Terminal 2. What's behind the generational divide over climate change? Whether individual European countries go off (or permanently on) Daylight Saving Time in 2021, their transport ministers will have the final say. The Housing and Urban Development Department has...

The House of Commons right now are voting on 8 proposals relating to Brexit; I'll have more in a bit. But over the weekend, and confirmed today, the Conservatives let slip that Prime Minister Theresa May has offered to resign as the price of getting hardline Brexiteer votes on her deal: The prime minister indicated she would resign only if her Brexit deal passes in order to allow a new leader to shape the UK’s future relationship with the EU. The dramatic announcement to a meeting of Tory backbenchers...

Even though the EU has agreed to extend the UK's Article 50 exit date to mid-May, Parliament still has to pass the enabling legislation to accept the deal. After that, Brexit Minister and England's Most Unhappy Frontbencher Kwasi Kwarteng spent half an hour yesterday getting to the phrase "next week," partly because the Government still haven't fully sorted what they will present to Commons then: Almost half an hour into Kwarteng’s response to an urgent question following the EU’s imposition of an...

House of Commons Speaker John Bercow yesterday ruled that the Government may not bring a third vote on a motion that has been rejected by the House twice: 3.33pmMr Speaker The 24th edition of “Erskine May” states on page 397: “A motion or an amendment which is the same, in substance, as a question which has been decided during a session may not be brought forward again during that same session.” It goes on to state: “Attempts have been made to evade this rule by raising again, with verbal alterations...

Former Speaker of the House of Commons the Betty Boothroyd gave a fiery speech to the House of Lords on January 14th. At 89, she's still brilliant:

In her speech to the House of Commons this afternoon, PM Theresa May promised a vote on March 13th to avoid a calamitous withdrawal from the European Union less than two weeks later: Here's the relevant bit from Hansard: As the Government committed to the House last week, we are today publishing the paper assessing our readiness for no deal. I believe that if we have to, we will ultimately make a success of a no deal. But this paper provides an honest assessment of the very serious challenges it would...

In an unexpected twist, Jeremy Corbyn announced at a Labour party conference today that he supports a "people's vote" on the Brexit deal the UK Government worked out with the EU, and that hardly anyone in the UK agrees with: In a statement, the party said it would “put forward or support an amendment in favour of a public vote to prevent a damaging Tory Brexit”. Corbyn will tell MPs the party “cannot and will not accept” May running down the clock towards no deal. He will say EU officials and leaders in...

As I noted last week, John Bercow MP, the Speaker of the House of Commons, has exercised more control over the Brexit debate in Parliament than previous speakers would have dared. Today, Parliament votes on amendments to the Brexit deal that could radically change its outcome, and Bercow is the one choosing which amendments, and which MPs, get heard. The Guardian has a podcast going even more into the details. And yesterday, the New Yorker brought the issue to the smart set: On Thursday, I spoke to...

Author Pankaj Mishra thinks Brexit may be comeuppance for the British ruling class. Exhibit 1: Indian Partition: Describing Britain’s calamitous exit from its Indian empire in 1947, the novelist Paul Scott wrote that in India the British “came to the end of themselves as they were” — that is, to the end of their exalted idea about themselves. Scott was among those shocked by how hastily and ruthlessly the British, who had ruled India for more than a century, condemned it to fragmentation and anarchy...

No one really thought the UK government would collapse today (though it should have), but only because the norms of British politics have collapsed instead: Theresa May has comfortably won the no confidence vote, by 325 to 306 - a majority of 19. The vote came after a debate which saw Jeremy Corbyn accuse her of leading “a zombie government”. And Tom Watson, the deputy Labour leader, closed the debate with a powerful speech saying May does not “possess the necessary political skills, empathy, ability...

The much-anticipated vote in the UK House of Commons on Theresa May's Brexit deal failed by a spectacular 432-202 vote. Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn has called for a vote of no confidence, which could lead to elections before the end of February: In her final appeal in Parliament, Mrs. May impressed on the lawmakers the importance of the vote facing them. “The responsibility on each and every one of us at this moment is profound,” she said, “for this is a historic decision that will set the future of...

I'm heading to the Ancestral Homeland in a few days, and this chart is a veritable Christmas present from the Brexit idiots: The last time Sterling was this low was Christmas 2016—the last Christmas I was in London. Thank you, Boris Johnson, and your tourist-friendly policies.

After lying to nearly everyone about how easy the UK leaving the EU would be, pro-Brexit members of the Conservative Party have forced a no-confidence vote against Prime Minister Theresa May for negotiating a realistic deal with Brussels. She'll win; but as Conservative MP Simon Hart has said, "I think it’s a really strange time to be trying to depose somebody right at the final stages of the most complicated negotiations the country’s ever been involved with." The Guardian has more: Downing Street has...

So says British journalist Jenni Russell: Britain is in this mess principally because the Brexiteers — led largely by Mr. Johnson — sold the country a series of lies in the lead up to the June 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union. They did so because neither Mr. Johnson nor his fellow leader of the Leave campaign, Michael Gove, intended, wanted or expected to win. Because Mr. Johnson and Mr. Gove were confident that the Leave campaign was a hopeless cause, they were free to make ridiculous...

Crossrail, the UK's £14.8bn rail line connecting London's far western suburbs with its eastern ones, either represents the end of an era or the beginning of one, according to today's New York Times: Before Britain voted last summer to leave the European Union, Crossrail was conceived for a London open to the world and speeding into the future. Now, with Brexit, the nightmare scenario is that this massive project, to provide more trains moving more people more quickly through a growing city, ends up...

Back in 2011, after holding elections in 2005 and 2010, the British Parliament made an all-party agreement to hold elections every five years instead of just when the government needed to shore up their power. Today PM Theresa May tore up that agreement: In a surprise statement outside Downing Street on Tuesday morning, the prime minister claimed that opposition parties were jeopardising her government’s preparations for Brexit. “We need a general election and we need one now,” she said. “I have only...

Even though there are about 58 hours left in the year, I still have work to do. Meanwhile, a few things to read have crossed my RSS feeds: Maybe I should retire to Ecuador? 538.com lists the best and worst data stories of the year. Will President Obama violate previous norms of office to weigh in on the Trump administration's egregious violations of previous norms? One can hope. What's Brexit going to do to London, and vice-versa? OK, back to work.

While we can't say for certain what Trump's policies will actually be, or what effects they'll actually have, London-based writer Feargus O'Sullivan has an idea what the atmosphere might be like: As a British person, the experience of waking up to find that Donald Trump had been elected president of the United States seemed freakishly familiar. Being shaken awake before dawn with shock news, then finding that most people I knew were awake, punch drunk, and already posting on social media—it all feels...

Before discussing the most important sports story in North America since...well, since the States were United, let me highlight some of the political and professional stories percolating: The Economist has endorsed Hillary Clinton for President. "This choice is not hard." Meanwhile, the High Court in London ruled today that Parliament must actually vote to trigger Brexit, which gives MPs another crack at the piñata and perhaps a way out. No telling when Teresa May plans to schedule this vote as the UK...