Evening Paul, Just another 12.2 million votes required and then TM might do something about it.
Evening Mat, if we are to belive this is the Brexit vote also responsible for the lowest unemployment rate since 1974? or the fastest wage rise since 2008? We cannot blame everything on Brexit, Oh i forgot some people do!
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I do always have an issue with unemployment numbers due to the many different ways in which it has been measured over the years - it seems to be too much of a political football.
I wished I shared your positive views regarding Brexit but I am too concerned of the threats it may cause to our life in France and the prosperity of my children in UK.
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There is that saying … " Lies, damned lies, and statistics" 
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Accuracy please, 11.8 million 
Government defeated on Letwin amendment 329 to 302 which is quite significant.
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Its now 11,775,294. If they did get that many what do you think would happen?
More resignations…
Three ministers resign to back Letwin amendment
“As well as Richard Harrington, the Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt and the health minister Steve Brine have also resigned because they voted for the Letwin amendment, government sources have confirmed.”
The unemployment rate includes people working only 1 hour a week and those on zero hour contracts. And allowing for inflation real wages are still lower than 10 years ago.
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Evening Teresa, 0 hour contracts account for roughly 2.4% of the UK workforce and yes that is 2.4% more than there should be. I do take on board real wage rates, me personally my wages have only gone up about 2k in the last 10 years. But i just wanted to make a point you cannot blame everything on Brexit.
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Who is blaming everything on Brexit?
Given that the trend in unemployment dates from 2012 or so it seems unlikey that Brexit was responsible for falls in the unemployment rate.
The real question is how is the economy has fared compared with where we would have been and the consensus is that we have fallen behind (I’ve posted data on this previously). Given that we have gone from the top of the range of G7 GDPs to the bottom it is likely that not as many jobs have been created as would have been if we’d not voted to leave the EU.
The second part of your statement is not really true - as Teresa points out real wages are stagnant
Some recovery following the 2008 recession had taken place prior to the referendum but that halted afterwards.
Bit of an academic question - even if it got there new signatures are now accruing much more slowly - about 350/minute. At that rate it would take three weeks to reach 17 million (and it will only slow down over time now so longer in practice).
Anyway I doubt TM would take much notice even if it did reach that many.
Evening Marijke, Mats post/link from the LSE
Becket amendment rejected, would have thought that uncontroversial given the the house has voted against no deal twice now.
The whole motion (as amended) passed however, so Letwin carries.
Mat, after another defeat for TM i dont think you will have to worry about Brexit for much longer, I doubt TM will last till the end of the week.
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They need to have another vote to make the difference.
She almost certainly won’t last long enough to see whether the petition total tops 17m - which was a point I wanted to make earlier but forgot to add to my post.
Quite a damning chart on the BBC website
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I don’t understand that…Margaret Beckett defeated by 3 votes…what’s going on there…???
Don’t know, the house have already voted no deal down twice and Beckett’s amendment was only to allow them to have another vote to confirm that view if things were getting really squeaky.
But these things sometimes fail for purely procedural reasons - it might have been that some felt that, as the house had already voted it would be better (if it gets to a week to go with no plan) to be getting on with avoiding no deal rather than waste a day of parliamentary time having a vote about it before doing something about it.
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Could be…
I can’t find the link at the minute but I read earlier that the minutes of the cabinet meeting this morning showed up just how much TM is putting the Conservative party over and above the interests of the country…Dominic Grieve referred to it today in the House of Commons…
It’s just so wrong…
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I wouldn’t mind betting that was due to who bought it not what, Beckett is not much liked in Labours new guard sonit could of simply been some Labour MP’s voting against her and ERG voting with Government to keep option on table. Often it’s about the timing of when a motion is put up. It’s political games most of the time
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