In which Brexit lives ...

Usually the pond would drop in on the Speccie mob on a Friday, but last week, there was only old Flinty going American originalist - yes, the lad's  a firm believer in the way the eighteenth century provides all the answers for dealing with the present millennium and any future ones that might come, climate science permitting - and this week there's only the arm-breaking King Rat, and the pond would rather listen to a robocall than sit through anything the arm-breaker scribbled …

No Giles, no originalist Flinty - bring back slavery, the pond humbly suggests, so that the plantations can be tended - but there is much talk of Brexit, and naturally the pond was pleased to report that Brexit lives …

What with the Donald taking a turn around the maypole, the pond decided to revert to a piece which has the whiff of a dead dog walking ...

David Aaronovitch is one of those weirdly conflicted Murdochians trying to cope with the strange world in which they find themselves, in no small part thanks to being and living the Murdochian dream …

Aaronovitch chatters way on Twitter here, doing his best to deal with the consequences of populism …

Chattering away about not sneering at populism while suggesting the populist Donald shouldn't be taken seriously?

Could there - seriously - be a better guide to all this Brexit stuff?

Uh huh. Of course over at the Speccie mob, James Forsyth was wringing his hands and pleading for a deal ...

And there you have it. The Tories organised it, the Tories produced the result, the Tories fucked up the subsequent negotiations, and the Tories are now in a hole and no one quite knows what to do …

Poor old Aaronovitch is in much the same turf ...

Meanwhile, over at the Speccie mob, James Allan was attempting to sustain a faith in Trumpist solutions to these Trumpian times ...

Kept more promises than anyone since Calvin Coolidge?

Well luckily the pond always uses a cheat sheet, which noted this back in June:

While Trump still has time to make good on his campaign promises — and to seek re-election for a second term — Politifact is keeping track of how he’s doing so far. The publication reports that so far, Donald Trump has kept 8.8% of his campaign promises. He has compromised on 6.9% of his promises. The publication characterizes 32.4% of his promises as “stalled.” A further 45.1% remain “in the works.” And so far, Trump has definitively broken 6.9% of his campaign promises. Politifact reports that during his presidency, Obama kept 48.4% of his promises. He compromised on 27.4% of them. And he broke 24.2% of them — a percentage that we’ll have to wait to see if Donald Trump will improve upon.

The actual Trump-O-Meter can be found here ...

… while the cheat sheet had some additional notes:

Newsweek reports that Donald Trump’s “promises on the campaign trail and during his first year in office were as unusual as his presidency.” A good example? Trump famously implied that he would prosecute and imprison Hillary Clinton with the campaign chant, “Lock her up.” That has yet to happen. Americans are also still waiting to see if Trump will repeal and replace Obamacare. It also remains to be seen if he’ll truly build a wall (and make Mexico pay for it). Additionally, Trump’s attempt on a “Muslim ban” was blocked by multiple federal courts. And tax plan — which promised tax cuts for the middle class — delivers only temporary benefits for the average American.

But how did the pond get on to the Donald?

Well apart from the fact that Allan is clearly a remarkable git, truth to tell, Brexit is such a silly self-inflicted misery of faux facts of the Allan kind that the pond has little time for the suffering Poms …as they torture themselves by poking and prodding at their wounds …

Come on Aaronovitch, sock it to us with a last gobbet ...

Boris is in the graveyard, dead and buried and gone forever?

Did someone tell Boris that? Surely he's got a lot more mischief to make?

As for the rest, the pond wishes the good ship Britain smooth waters and good sailing ...