Latest News Clips 2019.05.27

1.      Theresa May’s Resignation Throws a Fractured Britain Into Further Turmoil

Prime Minister Theresa May outside 10 Downing Street in London on Friday.

       

The New York Times  May 24, 2019

LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May announced her resignation on Friday after three years of trying and failing to pull Britain out of the European Union, throwing her country into an unpredictable situation and setting off a bare-knuckled contest among other Conservative lawmakers to replace her.

As she stood behind a lectern outside 10 Downing Street, Mrs. May admitted that a different leader was needed to shepherd the split, known as Brexit. But she also warned that the unyielding stance taken by the hard-line factions of lawmakers who had proved her undoing would have to change.

“To succeed, he or she will have to find consensus in Parliament where I have not,” Mrs. May said. “Such a consensus can only be reached if those on all sides of the debate are willing to compromise.”

Whether such compromise is even possible in Britain’s polarized politics is unclear at best.

Brexit has splintered both the Conservatives and the opposition Labour Party into warring factions since the referendum that narrowly approved the departure on June 23, 2016. A second referendum that could keep Britain in the European Union remains a distant possibility.

But many Conservative lawmakers have grown more hard-line during Mrs. May’s long, fractious tenure and now support leaving the bloc with no withdrawal deal at all — a move opposed by a majority in Parliament and one that most analysts warn could bring dire economic consequences.

Mrs. May’s departure, eagerly anticipated even by members of her own cabinet, is certain to mean a politically charged summer in Britain. Mrs. May said she would step down as Conservative Party leader on June 7, a few days after President Trump makes an official state visit. The contest to succeed her will begin the following week, and Mrs. May will remain in office until her successor is chosen.

Brexit, meanwhile, will remain in a state of suspended animation until a new leader is chosen. Britain was originally scheduled to leave the European bloc on March 29, but the deadline was extended to Oct. 31after Parliament refused three times to pass the withdrawal agreement that Mrs. May had negotiated with European leaders.

Boris Johnson, the former foreign secretary and a hard-line supporter of Brexit, on Friday signaled an unflinching attitude, foreshadowing the tone for a leadership contest. He is a leading contender to replace Mrs. May.

“We will leave the E.U. on Oct. 31, deal or no deal,” Mr. Johnson told an economic conference. “The way to get a good deal is to prepare for a no deal.”

Opposition figures relished Mrs. May’s departure. Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader who has sparred relentlessly with the prime minister in the House of Commons, described her resignation as an indictment of a Conservative Party riven for decades by the issue of Britain’s membership in the European Union.

Mr. Corbyn said she had “now accepted what the country has known for months: She cannot govern, and nor can her divided and disintegrating party.”

Lawmakers from Mrs. May’s own side were more generous, despite many of them having been involved in back-room machinations to oust her and having already begun campaigning in private to succeed her. Mrs. May’s government — deeply divided, and sometimes chaotic — suffered around three dozen ministerial resignations during her tenure.

An abandoned customs post on the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland. The border is probably the toughest challenge in Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union.CreditAndrew Testa for The New York Times

2.      How Trump Wins Next Year

What’s happened in India and Australia is a warning to the left.

The New York Times   May 24, 2019

President Trump at a rally in Montoursville, Pa., on Monday.CreditCreditEric Thayer for The New York Times

More than 600 million Indians cast their ballots over the past six weeks in the largest democratic election in the world. Donald Trump won.

A week ago, several million Australians went to the polls in another touchstone election. Trump won.

Citizens of European Union member states are voting in elections for the mostly toothless, but symbolically significant, European Parliament. Here, too, Trumpism will mark its territory.

Legislative elections in the Philippines this month, which further cemented the rule of Rodrigo Duterte, were another win for Trumpism. Ditto for Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election in Israel last month, the election of Jair Bolsonaro as president of Brazil last October, and Italy’s elevation of Matteo Salvini several months before that.

If past is prologue, expect the Trumpiest Tory — Boris Johnson — to succeed Theresa May as prime minister of Britain, too.

In 2016, at a campaign rally in Albany, Trump warned: “We’re gonna win so much you may even get tired of winning. And you’ll say, please, please, it’s too much winning, we can’t take it anymore.”

Tell us about it.

Trump’s name, of course, was on none of the ballots in these recent elections. His critics should take no comfort in that fact.

In India, Narendra Modi won his re-election largely on the strength of his appeals to Hindu nationalism and anti-Muslim sentiment. In Australia, incumbent Scott Morrison ran against the high cost of climate action, including in lost jobs, and won a stunning upset. In the U.K., Trump surrogate Nigel Farage looks like he and his Brexit Party will be the runaway victors in the European elections. In Brazil and the Philippines, the political appeal of Bolsonaro and Duterte seems to be inversely correlated to their respect for human rights and the rule of law, to say nothing of modern ethical pieties.

The common thread here isn’t just right-wing populism. It’s contempt for the ideology of them before us: of the immigrant before the native-born; of the global or transnational interest before the national or local one; of racial or ethnic or sexual minorities before the majority; of the transgressive before the normal. It’s a revolt against the people who say: Pay an immediate and visible price for a long-term and invisible good. It’s hatred of those who think they can define that good, while expecting someone else to pay for it.

When protests erupted last year in France over Emmanuel Macron’s attempt to raise gas prices for the sake of the climate, one gilets jaunes slogan captured the core complaint: “Macron is concerned with the end of the world,” it went, while “we are concerned with the end of the month.”

This is a potent form of politics, and it’s why I suspect Trump will be re-elected next year barring an economic meltdown or foreign-policy shock. You may think (as I often do) that the administration is a daily carnival of shame. You may also think that conservatives are even guiltier than liberals and progressives of them-before-us politics: the 1-percenters before the 99 percent; the big corporations before the little guy, and so on.

But the left has the deeper problem. That’s partly because it self-consciously approaches politics as a struggle against selfishness, and partly because it has invested itself so deeply, and increasingly inflexibly, on issues such as climate change or immigration. Whatever else might be said about this, it’s a recipe for nonstop political defeat leavened only by a sensation of moral superiority.

Progressives are now speeding, Thelma and Louise style, toward the same cliff they went over in the 1970s and ’80s. But unlike the ’80s, when conservatives held formidable principles about economic freedom and Western unity, the left is flailing in the face of a new right that is increasingly nativist, illiberal, lawless, and buffoonish. It’s losing to losers.

It needn’t be this way. The most successful left-of-center leaders of the past 30 years were Bill Clinton and Tony Blair. They believed in the benefits of free markets, the importance of law and order, the superiority of Western values, and a healthy respect for the moral reflexes of ordinary people. Within that framework, they were able to achieve important liberal victories.

Political blunders and personal shortcomings? Many. But neither man would ever have been bested by someone like Trump.

Anyone who thinks the most important political task of the next few years is to defeat Trump in the United States and his epigones abroad must give an honest account of their stunning electoral successes. Plenty has been said about the effects of demagoguery and bigotry in driving these Trumpian victories, and the cultural, social, and economic insecurities that fuel populist anxiety. Not so often mentioned is that the secret of success lies also in having opponents who are even less appealing.

In the contest of ugly, the left keeps winning. To repurpose that line from Trump, “Please, please, it’s too much winning.”

3.      How do you get children to eat vegetables?

Try not to stress – it’s a phase most kids grow out of

The Guardian  24 May 2019 

 ‘Steams green vegetables for just long enough to get them tender, then toss them in olive oil, lemon juice, a pinch of sea salt and a hint of pepper.’ Photograph: amie Grill/Getty Images

My kids won’t eat fresh vegetables, no matter how hard I try. How do I get them to eat their greens?
Talk about asking the impossible, Annelise. Your guess is as good as mine, but at least you can take some comfort in the fact that you are not alone (and remember, anyone who says their little darling has cheerfully wolfed down cabbage since infancy is lying).

Cooks and restaurateurs are never the best people to talk to about tricky customers – they tend to get a bit sweary – but some are mothers and fathers, too, so I asked Feast’s own crew of exasperated parents how they cope. Like everyone who has ever tried to feed a recalcitrant child, Thomasina Miersresorts to underhand tactics. “I use every trick in the book,” she says. “The more children try vegetables, the more they’ll eat them … in the end.”

That includes extortion – “Bribe them with TV, sweets, anything” – as well as tough love: the Miers brood don’t get pudding unless they’ve eaten their greens (“Hardcore, maybe, but it works”). All three have now “slowly gone over to the green side”, and eat vegetables without protest. Well, almost. “It is a war of attrition, so get your tongs at the ready and wear those babies down.”

A golden rule is not to expect children to eat anything you wouldn’t put in your own mouth

Yotam Ottolenghi adopts similar covert strategies. “‘This’ll make you big and strong’ works. Sometimes,” the father of two says. Another ploy is to insist “that a particular dish ‘is only for grown-ups’. That’s like a red rag to a bull for my little boys.”

More practically, he’s learned that thinly sliced french beans tend to go unnoticed in stews and sauces; the same goes for the likes of diced carrot and courgette, so long as they’re not visible in the end result. “Best of all, they take no time to cook, so you can add them last minute.”

Another golden rule is not to expect children to eat anything you wouldn’t put in your own mouth. “Who wants mushy, over-boiled, insipid broccoli with no seasoning?” Miers asks. She steams green vegetables for just long enough to get them tender – “thereby preserving their nutrients, which, after all, is the point” – then tosses them in olive oil, lemon juice, a pinch of sea salt and a hint of pepper. “Better still, get the kids to dress and toss their greens themselves.” After that, it’s all about persevering (over and over and over again, in all likelihood).

Meera Sodha and her young daughter, meanwhile, are big fans of Veg Power’s Eat Them to Defeat Them initiative. “It’s supported by councils up and down the country, and nearly all the supermarkets, to get children eating more vegetables,” Sodha says. “The idea is, if it’s fun, kids will eat vegetables.” The vegpower.org.uk website comes complete with downloadable bright, child-friendly posters that might, just might, encourage the ungrateful little so-and-sos to open their minds, and mouths, to everything from peas to squash.

Failing that, channel Rachel Roddy and try not to stress. It’s just a phase they’ll grow out of (fingers crossed). “Paint chips green and kid yourself they’re veg,” she laughs. That’s easier said than done if, like Roddy, your seven-year-old won’t eat cooked veg at all (so much for the fabled Italian diet, eh?). “I make him try everything, but he always does this retching thing. Except, randomly, with minestrone, which he’ll eat with lots of cheese.”

Roddy Jr is less picky about raw veg. “Cucumber, red pepper, peas in their pods, carrots, little gem hearts … most kids will eat some raw veg,” his mother sighs. “I often put some out and see what happens. At the very least, I or the tortoise will eat it.”