like the queen this thread will never die: in which we ALL resign (ourselves to disgusting miseries to post-boris politics 2022)

what's next for the plucky little kingdom?

excellent work there in the last-minute rewrite, seems apt, fvck u

"Halifax reports that house prices rose by 1.8% in June, the 12th consecutive monthly rise"

Let's see where we're at by the time this thread has died been locked.

Oh too slow, I was hoping to do a scromit reference

Wallace and Scromit

xyzzzz__
Posted: 7 July 2022 at 11:00:41
"A state led by Sunak, Gove or Truss with reforming zeal would be an unpleasant place to live. But it’s also damaging to be governed by intellectually deficient, personally ambitious, corrupt or simply uninterested ministers. Fewer ministers than ever care about their departments, as the internecine vortex of Westminster and dreams of a slot on Question Time suck in most of their attention. This has been especially true since 2016, though the problem is of longer gestation. It doesn’t entirely explain why Britain, after twelve years of Conservative government, is run-down, stagnant, expensive, underpaid, unequal, corrupt, socially fractured, backward-looking, hungry and fearful. But it doesn’t help. It will take far more than dislodging Johnson to change that."

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2022/july/johnson-his-fall

Statement at 1

No 10 source: Boris Johnson will shortly make new appointments to his ministerial team 🤨

— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) July 7, 2022

Clowns getting back in the car

The Rt Hon Greg Clark MP @GregClarkMP has been appointed Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities @luhc. pic.twitter.com/UdfDgIlToo

— UK Prime Minister (@10DowningStreet) July 7, 2022

Cleverly gets Education - disastrous

(If you were playing chess, would you think that the UK or US had more freedom in next moves and why? I don't know how to play chess but am using it as an analogy anyway. This question might not be sufficiently focused or worth the effort to answer. Understood.)

Depends on what you mean by freedom in context youn

very sad that boris caved so quickly, couldn't even wait until they did all the procedural garbage to vote him out as tory leader next week

These are cabinet appointments for, what, 6 weeks? There will have to be some kind of interim where there is pretend work. Really weird episode in ukpol.

(what could happen for the constituencies you care about as part of the nation as a whole, where a part could be understood to be equal to the whole, in terms of demographics; economics; stability, flexibilty, and maturity of institutions of government; secondarily political and economic security in a global context)

Sometimes it's difficult to keep up appearances. How influential and powerful were the two ministers who resigned and what did their resignation signify?

from an outsider's perspective:
things are likely to get dramatically worse in the US but it will likely be so blatantly illegitimate that there might be some chance of rupture for the better. though if that doesn't happen then it seems like things just devolve into a fascist hell, but it's going to be very unpredictable chaotic times.

doesn't appear much hope at all for the UK at all. johnson will likely be replaced by someone more effectively committed to evil and it will be presented as a clean break from the past decade of tory governance despite nothing fundamentally changing. labour are worthless and entirely focused on crushing their left and even if they win the next election it's unlikely much changes or gets better. a slow decline but will probably end up in a similar place to where the US is heading, just less dramatically and at a slower pace

This just started

https://twitter.com/10downingstreet/status/1545006494273490945?s=21&t=o776M9Ak4axJuIorjps5TQ

You forget that the UK as currently constituted literally might cease to exist after October 2023. That's not going to happen in the US - unless a state or two decides to secede from the Union.

(xp)

Man the next Tory contest will be so grim.

Doubt these questions will be asked, but they will have to face them.

A price cap of £3000 is so much more devastating than any of us realise. £3000 is mass defaults, arrears, restricted spending and wider economic spiralling. It’s homelessness, addiction, health, social isolation. For millions, it’s life or death. https://t.co/pSJvs6FhG0

— 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐭𝐞𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐭 🌻 (@fraserjfstewart) July 6, 2022

boris merely recycling thru the feckless twerps left to him among tory mps to form the Farewell Cabinet when he could instead be appointing random members of the general public #smh what a tired loser

How influential and powerful were the two ministers who resigned and what did their resignation signify?

Two?!

“Darwinian”

INCREDIBLE SCENES

“THE BENNY HILL THEME TUNE” IS BEING BLASTED OUT ON SKY NEWS. pic.twitter.com/N06wBwcoZl

— Scott Bryan (@scottygb) July 7, 2022

Youn is talking about Sunak and Javid. That did trigger a cascade of resignations of mostly junior ministers. Not sure how all of this was exactly coordinated xps to sic

_How influential and powerful were the two ministers who resigned and what did their resignation signify?_

Two?!

Dying at Boris going “thems the breaks”, too bad he didn’t chuck a “y’all” on at the end. Absolutely no regret, what a piece of work.

Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, is cutting short a trip to Indonesia and returning to the UK, my colleague Jessica Elgot reports. Truss is one of the frontrunners in the contest to succeed Boris Johnson.

This feels like the option with the most potential for grim hilarity, from a distance.

(Fingers crossed as usual for Tom D.’s reference.)

(Sorry, I don't read UK news sources and only glanced through US coverage. Two does not entail not more than two if that was the reason for incredulous punctuation but would appreciate any clarification if you meant something else.)

Sometimes it's difficult to keep up appearances. How influential and powerful were the two ministers who resigned and what did their resignation signify?

(Sorry, I don't read UK news sources and only glanced through US coverage. Two does not entail not more than two if that was the reason for incredulous punctuation but would appreciate any clarification if you meant something else.)

That’s why Gove’s sssssacking is ssso funny. It means that possible leadership challengers who stay on and so lend legitimacy to an outgoing unpopular leader have that against them.

I'm not sure I understand this. Gove told Johnson to resign (he has some Party authority to do this?); Johnson fired Gove from his cabinet post; then the effect on those for and against Johnson in the Party is what?

Sorry for asking an uncouth question that might not go down well among the British, but is it at all significant that the two ministers who started the revolt have Indian names and are presumably of Indian heritage? Do they represent a new position within the elite or a change in the elite?

_That’s why Gove’s sssssacking is ssso funny. It means that possible leadership challengers who stay on and so lend legitimacy to an outgoing unpopular leader have that against them._


I'm not sure I understand this. Gove told Johnson to resign (he has some Party authority to do this?); Johnson fired Gove from his cabinet post; then the effect on those for and against Johnson in the Party is what?

Sorry for asking an uncouth question that might not go down well among the British, but is it at all significant that the two ministers who started the revolt have Indian names and are presumably of Indian heritage? Do they represent a new position within the elite or a change in the elite?

_That’s why Gove’s sssssacking is ssso funny. It means that possible leadership challengers who stay on and so lend legitimacy to an outgoing unpopular leader have that against them._


I'm not sure I understand this. Gove told Johnson to resign (he has some Party authority to do this?); Johnson fired Gove from his cabinet post; then the effect on those for and against Johnson in the Party is what?

Sorry for asking an uncouth question that might not go down well among the British, but is it at all significant that the two ministers who started the revolt have Indian names and are presumably of Indian heritage? Do they represent a new position within the elite or a change in the elite?

gove's authority isn't so much *within the party* (tho he does have some seniority there) as that (as gyac says) he has rupert murdoch's ear and approval and (until recently) was being fitted for highest office as murdoch's catspaw

johnson's authority for sacking gove is that (a) as PM he can and (b) literally everyone in the party detests gove and his star has lately somewhat fallen with murdoch

(probably xps: One of the most gleefully wondrous thing about this imbroglio is that over 50 ministers have now resigned, and that the resignations have been so backed up that some continued to roll out in the hour after it became apparent that Boris was going to go — three weeks after he passed a vote of no confidence from the same ministers. {I’ve seen it reported that the previous record for resignations in 24 hours was in the 1930s, and the number was six.} I was expressing delight at the fact that this accelerating snowball of ejectees made it impossible to know which two you were referring to: comrade alph’s annotation makes sense now, but I initially read it as meaning “the latest two,” which was essentially a moving target.)

Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, he's about as establishment as its possible to get, no matter his ethnicity. Javid is slightly different but city boy wankers often have more diverse backgrounds.

xp I literally don’t care; I saw it as continuation of behaviour you were picked up on in another thread. You’re not even a regular here, feel free to pipe down and we’ll answer any questions people have, ok?

in any case it's not 50 ministers that have resigned, a PPS is not a minister.

Sunak was Head Boy at Winchester, he's about as establishment as its possible to get, no matter his ethnicity. Javid is slightly different but city boy wankers often have more diverse backgrounds.

Sorry for asking an uncouth question that might not go down well among the British, but is it at all significant that the two ministers who started the revolt have Indian names and are presumably of Indian heritage? Do they represent a new position within the elite or a change in the elite?

Sunak's British-Indian, Javid's British Pakistani. The former is probably less of a bar to being Prime Minister than the latter. I don't think it's particularly significant that it was them that started the revolt but arguably might be if they both saw it as an opportunity for a shot at the top job.

What's absolutely true is that the Tories have a much more diverse pool of plausible and semi-plausible leaders than Labour does, including several British Indian MPs (Sunak, Patel, Braverman), British-Iranian, British Iraqi, descendants of Czech Jewish refugees, etc, than Labour's likely to offer any time soon.

There are lots of reasons for that - one that's been true since Thatcher has been the rise of the commercial, 'merchant class' as a dominant force in the Tory party. You can probably think of Cameron and Johnson as partial reversions to landed gentry types, but it's the party of business more than anything else and business is more diverse now than the more traditional Establishment. It's partly because they recognise the need for a broader coalition of voters unless they're going to give up on cities altogether - there has been aggressive targeting of the British Indian vote over the last 15 years, etc. It's also partly because the press will go a lot lighter on a Tory from a Muslim background (say, Javid or Zahawi) than they will on a Labour figure (Sadiq Khan, etc).

you've seen this more with priti patel as home secretary but party and govt have definitely exploited ethnicity to defuse charges of racism ("how can she possibly be racist? in my opinion it's actually racist to suggest that she's racist"): which is nonsense but does now and then wrongfoot the more mealymouthed within liberal commentariat

sunak and javid being presentable as self-made wealth (as opposed to being from the red-faced doughy ranks of third-tier failsons that continue to make up so much of the party) i think supplies a kind of symbolic business-class capable authenticity which certainly impresses some

i think i'm slightly eliding javid's self-madeness with zahawi's self-madeness there: javid made his name more with within banking than business -- but the aura of "business-heads know" isn't very different (given that it's pure culture-war nonsense anyway)

In the cesspools of twitter I have seen various Boris ultras livid at the notion that Sunak, Javid, Patel, Braverman (or even Tugendhat!) might succeed their boy.

Depressingly, Labour is further than ever from ever having a non-white bloke as leader.

(Thanks! The dynamics of party revolts outside the US are interesting. We don't have that. The media influence/insider status/personal relationships and change in party demographics are fascinating.)

Forgetting that Sunak is another city boy wanker, albeit also an Old Wykehamist.

Xpost

With this in mind slightly surprised that Crosby, who seems to pride himself on being in touch with the average angry gammon, seems to have anointed Zahawi...

I have wondered whether any non-white Tory leader would depress their vote in an election.

You could certainly imagine an attempted dog whistle labour campaign against one.

I think it almost certainly would.

Of course, they have to persuade the various nonagenarian racists in the Tory membership to select them as leader first.

the US party structures and career prospects -- especially the dems perhaps? -- are primarily organised round the ability to marshal rich donors: obviously that also exists in UK but i don't think it's quite so pitilessly determinative and exclusionary yet?

In the cesspools of twitter I have seen various Boris ultras livid at the notion that Sunak, Javid, Patel, Braverman (or even Tugendhat!) might succeed their boy.

Depressingly, Labour is further than ever from ever having a non-white bloke as leader.

xp it’s considerably cheaper to buy a politician here afaict for that reason

It begins, or at least continues

Who do Conservative party members want to be the next PM? If you looked at single choices for next Tory leader, you’d think it was a wide open field, BUT… (1/3)https://t.co/s76Vy5j93R pic.twitter.com/6ZYYkyTmkK

— YouGov (@YouGov) July 7, 2022

the US party structures and career prospects -- especially the dems perhaps? -- are primarily organised round the ability to marshal rich donors: obviously that also exists in UK but i don't think it's quite so pitilessly determinative and exclusionary yet?

When my dad rants about politics in Korea, things seem to happen on a different scale/pace not muted in the same way by money/time/distance, though I am sure money is there. We have mass media, but the local campaigns don't seem as important.

my guess is that boris re-standing would beat out everyone up to truss lol

also i want to dig into the hell of "none of the above"

what percentage is fabricant on at last

a think i admire abt ROK politics is it's not shy abt jailing its heads of state!

Koreans like to be dramatic.

From what I understand, the vengeance tends to be personal but not necessarily institutionally destabilizing if that is possible.

Zahawi is Kurdish but from an extremely well to do family.

Dorries was trying to portray him as someone who fought tooth and claw to get where he is today, lol he's a featherweight. Another amusing thing I read on him was some teacher saying he walked out of a Q+A at his school after he was getting owned by the kids.

Possibly also worth mentioning Sunak is married to a billionaire's daughter. Plus both his parents and Patel's came to the UK via East Africa. I don't really know of course, but I imagine these aren't the average stories of South Asian immigrants & their descendants in the UK.

Most East African Asians I know are very solid middle-class people, whether as small business owners or as professionals, or whether Sikh, Muslim or Hindu.

possibly Patel's parents were amongst those Asians expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin in the 70's. I'm sure I read her dad once ran as UKIP candidate or was going to and perhaps Priti persuaded him not to

No, they came just before the mass expulsions.

And I have to say they’re not all weird Tories - my best friend from that background is totally socialist with a widowed mother who became a magistrate, and one of his siblings runs Tell Mama; the other runs an anti-terror charity set up after she was injured on 7/7.

Off to put a rose on Liz D’s bench in Queen Square. 17 unbelievable years ago!

oh no I didn't mean to imply they're all weird Tories! I apologize for that

Zahawi's previous life as a Teletubbies-tat salesman is the only, even slightly amusing thing art him

Lol

EXCL: Boris Johnson and wife Carrie are planning big wedding bash at Chequers within weeks - with sources saying it's part of reason he wants to stay as caretaker. https://t.co/oUSLeGs4Ed

— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) July 7, 2022

there is something sublime about how much he loves parties, dionysian maybe

Yes, as long as he's not paying for them. Pretty sure there's a lot of stuff going to come out about his tenure as PM that's going to scupper his ambition of being world king Winston Churchill in the job longer than Theresa May

i mean winston churchill was perennially wildly broke* right through until the moment he became PM (and really only safely cleared his debt after the war by persuading a vast and flattered US readership to purchase "a history of the english-speaking peoples" in four volumes)

*he was four million in the hole in the early 30s, when he was much the same age bojo is now

Churchill invented some useless piece of shit weapon called the panjandrum which was never used. Boris makes buses out of cereal boxes.

"The prototype was secretly constructed at Leytonstone and transported by night to the testing grounds at Westward Ho!"

it was so haphazard and dangerous it probably would have killed dozens of Allied soldiers if it had somehow got past the testing stage. Although the wiki mentions it may have been a hoax leaked to German military-intelligence. But he did invent lots of other crap military stuff as well.

oh goddddd

Rory Stewart meditates in the lotus position in a Nepalese monastery, eyes closed. His hair ruffles in the breeze. Goat bells clank in the distance.

Four members of the 1922 committee approach nervously.

Stewart (eyes still closed): I’ve been expecting you.

— Tom Easton (@TomEaston) July 7, 2022

tanned rested and ready lads

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/4RwAAOxyF0pThwEy/s-l300.jpg

Oh no

Flashback to when a current early front-runner to be the next prime minister suggested he was going to torture & castrate Michael Gove pic.twitter.com/U6NLUTFLin

— Neil Warner (@NeilWarner_) July 7, 2022

Call me a cynic but those sound like more empty promises alas

castrating gove v castrating buzz lightyear

https://c.tenor.com/BUtUo71HCgUAAAAM/red89z.gif

First bit of really good news.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/07/threat-of-ba-strike-at-heathrow-suspended-after-airline-agrees-pay-deal

Lol

Weird mix of new ministerial appointments:

Will Quince only resigned yesterday. Graham Stuart and Matt Warman sacked by Johnson last September. pic.twitter.com/ovYY19saxS

— Joe Pike (@joepike) July 7, 2022

Starting to think cocaine might be a hell of a drug lads

Wait till you watch this video and then say that

"I think that this country deserves a very honest, ethical person because this is a great nation and I think it deserves a great leader."

Watch as members of the public react to Boris Johnson's resignation pic.twitter.com/XxcIzpQyUT

— PA Media (@PA) July 7, 2022

"I think that this country deserves a very honest, ethical person because this is a great nation and I think it deserves a great leader."

Don’t know where exactly in that London this clip is filmed but it’s clearly one of the shit bits

exit to Westminster tube station, isn't it? (so yes)

are the people in that vid AI-generated or something?

This is more like it.

Thinking about this queen pic.twitter.com/q1rRkuN6iP

— Matt 🧨 (@matteottismith) July 7, 2022

Rachel Reeves didn’t like that answer

I really enjoy the quotation marks

Number 10 has released images of @BorisJohnson being "comforted" by his wife Carrie and their two children after his resignation speech outside Downing Street earlier today https://t.co/mn6JfG1ogV pic.twitter.com/tCIyIojRTl

— ITV News Politics (@ITVNewsPolitics) July 7, 2022

Fucking state of this

Following Boris Johnson's resignation as PM, @GregMilamSky spoke to three people in Bolton who voted for the Conservatives at the last election.

Politics live: https://t.co/ZTbv6x8cal pic.twitter.com/xpyTbEWGGs

— Sky News (@SkyNews) July 7, 2022

love to see tory cunts being disillusioned, just would be nice to see a few vox pops with people who are not tory cunts, just for a bit of variety. anyway hopefully this is a sizable demographic who will stay at home for elections in the future.

the gold wallpaper was paid for by well wishers whomst quietly expected a return for their well wishing, which return they may now not get

Wallpapergate: Leaked invoice reveals PM’s flat had £7,000 rug and £3,675 trolley https://t.co/m8fqvZogC3

— Alan White (@aljwhite) July 7, 2022

no stupid book abt shakespeare is going to clear this debt

They actually might have had problems finding Tory cunts in Bolton as I saw two of those people interviewed on Sky earlier. I noticed that neither of them claimed to have voted Labour all their lives though, which is the usual line we get.

Ash Sakar was on newsnight just now, Kirsty Wark asked her opinion about today's news, she started saying that it was undemocratic that the future of our country was being currently decided at a spectator garden party, Kirsty almost shouted over her to get her to shut up.

Don't care for Sam at all but it appears he will be deselected.

Whether these concerns get acted on is entirely political - will be interesting to see if a shadow minister, well connected with parts of the leadership but who came from the left gets protected. https://t.co/J2Sd6BBwiD

— Tom Gann (@Tom_Gann) July 8, 2022

Lab 11 points ahead in the Times poll, or probably more accurate to say the Tories 11 points behind as Labour are hardly determining their own destiny as usual.

Look at this king

Fantastic. pic.twitter.com/CCIMYtGLgF

— Andy (@alreadytaken74) July 8, 2022

Look at this king

Fantastic. pic.twitter.com/CCIMYtGLgF

— Andy (@alreadytaken74) July 8, 2022

yeah ppl keep saying Kieth's gonna resign next and I dunno if it's just wishful thinking or what but I don't see any reason to believe that, he might still blunder his way into becoming PM at this point xposts

the super-injunction got to daniel

it's only 21°C and folk are melting already!

It's 35 next week! Get your buckets of ice cream ready!

lol guys I'm not happy or hopeful about it! if anything him winning is worse than another tory govt.

the wishful thinking is what I'm accusing the "Keith's gonna resign" crowd of, it's not on my part

hm

Ash Sakar was on newsnight just now, Kirsty Wark asked her opinion about today's news, she started saying that it was undemocratic that the future of our country was being currently decided at a spectator garden party, Kirsty almost shouted over her to get her to shut up.

― Sudden Birdnet Thus (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 7 July 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Gordon Brown wasn't elected either. 3 of the last five PMs have not gone to the nation first to get elected to the top job. The next one isn't doing so either and I expect the coming crises with inflation or climate to ensure this pattern continues.

I want Kieth to be PM because if you don't vote for him then you are a TORY ENABLER and he's a human rights lawyer + a top bloke.

Ash Sarkar made everyone else on the news look bad (and old, and irrelevant).

The UK media is happy to spend hours interviewing Con MPs, about Con MPs, then finally, for a break, cut to some vox pops with Con voters.

It's true that those vox-pop exceptions who say nasty things about the PM are welcome relief and admirable (I only see them in online clips).

The media is not able or willing to comprehend the idea of asking socialists or people with sensible ideas about what is going on or what should happen. Sarkar's politics are unfathomable to Newsnight and everyone on it, though much about them appears common sense to many of us.

I've got a lingering feeling Boris will try to stay on beyond October under the pretext of some kind of national emergency - I mean, there's bound to be one the way things are going.

100%

this mf’er is gonna cling to power by any means necessary

If he had Cummings around I would've have said that for sure. Not sure who he's got around him rn to work anything out.

place yr bets now: covid surge / national strike / britain unleashes nuclear arsenal on moscow

too shit to even organise a tesco value Jan 6, his followers would all be grumbling that they couldn't find anywhere to park in London.

They will just keep laughing at us.

The @BBCPolitics Time Lords had plenty to talk about at @TheSpectator Summer Party last night. All agree the new Dr - @ChrisMasonBBC - is doing a brilliant job pic.twitter.com/J1UCVqvNZi

— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) July 8, 2022

the politics nerd in me is mildly peeved abt the fuss when prime ministers change w/o elections: we don't have presidential elections, via election of MPs in constituencies we determine the party we want to govern and the party then determines who will represent us in discussion with the monarch -- that's why the role is called "her majesty's prime minister"

i mean yes no doubt we shd dispense with this entire system but the system is not being outlandishly distorted by change of PM between elections it's being used exactly as it says on the tin SITO

(to be even more provocatively nerdy the existence of party structures in advance of the election is a bigger distortion of the usage as orignally intended lol)

point is that
* yes we should dispense with the whole system
* it is not OK to even imply the system is ridiculous on TV, you will be immediately shut down if you do so

I know this but the more it happens, the more I see a democratic deficit in it. xps

sth that has stuck with me for a while (but I forget the source) is that someone said a functional liberal democracy has three requirements

* representative democracy
* free & independent press
* human rights independently enforced

with any of these three missing, the others are in danger of being eroded. these were being presented in the context of Iraq, but when I look through them we are right in the shit with the first two, and the third is looking shaky. (not that we ever really had all three of course)

no fine for kieth, disappointing for the banter timeline

I look forward to him going 20 points ahead then

it's only fair, as an alcoholic the beers were medicinal and nobody was happy in his company so it was literally like work for all involved.

spot the alphiebait in this spread

https://i.imgur.com/kTSfUoM.png

some truly bizarre photo choices there

Stop bullying me mark lol

xp Reminding everyone of Sunak's status as a Short King

someone has been having fantasies about Penny Mordaunt - the cruel and very strict swimming instructor

The person is xyzzzz__

Jeremy *flames added digitally* Hunt there

Hahaha just missing some stink lines

Oh he's been to Pret.

So has Dominic Raab.

Lisa complained that Mr Raab is not “open-minded” and claimed: “He has the same sandwich every day. He has the same lunch.

“He has the same baguette with the same smoothie with a pot of fruit everyday.

“It’s from Pret. He has the chicken Caesar and bacon baguette, superfruit pot and the vitamin volcano smoothie every day.

“He is so weird. I get it for him. I go to Pret. That’s how I know. It’s the Dom Raab Special.”

Oh dear.

Although their poetry skills are amazing. Spitting str8 🔥 pic.twitter.com/AlDa5pBUX4

— ⚫Neil Kulkarni (@KaptainKulk) July 8, 2022

Could the Labour Party try to expand its base now that the Conservative Party is in disarray? Would that help it win the next election?

if Kieth got assassinated they'd be 20 points ahead

They are expanding their base to appeal to right wingers, racists, terfs and melts who enjoy laughing at working class people but are terrified of changing the economic status quo

The Labour Party has become like the Tea Party in the US?

More like a less ambitious Democrats with a ton of dog whistles

they could maybe still win a GE with a low turnout from their own so called voter base if the Tories remain to be unpopular but it might be close and require another ghastly coalition govt with the LibDems. Ugh! too depressing to think about.

🤔🤔🤔

Looks like the favour was called in as I had suspected with Keir Starmer being “cleared” by Durham police https://t.co/UIYBzCmgNT

— Rhys (@RhysForBear) July 8, 2022

It won't matter who wins. No party have the policies for the problems we are going to face.

Is there any party willing to rejoin the EU?

The SNP!

the lib dems too, probably, though they have finally learned to shut up about it. all academic though as they will never be in power.

Could the Labour Party try to expand its base now that the Conservative Party is in disarray? Would that help it win the next election?

The thing that will win an election in current circs is really due to tories staying home and tories have the angry pensioners who always vote demographic locked down - although Brexit has now happened and they don’t really have a big issue like that to campaign on.

Sorry I just reiterated NV’s post very unhelpfully there. Anyway, then and now:

Then:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_o0D0GEOR7I

The 2019 campaign video features people from all backgrounds, the Grenfell Tower marchers, WASPI women (women who lost out on state pensions due to government reforms), cities and towns, old and young etc. Unions, the traditional backers of the party are prominently featured. As with the manifesto that year: life doesn’t have to be this shit, let us help you.

What are they doing now? Attacking deporting people to Rwanda on the basis of it being too expensive rather than it being a gross, idk, violation of decency? Briefing against their own voters when they nearly lost a formerly safe seat due to voters due to the party giving them nothing on issues important to them? Doing appearances at Pride while this goes unaddressed?

Lib Dems. That makes sense. Yay for the SNP.

Shouldn't economic issues matter more to Labour than nationalist ones?

Perhaps liberal democracy and socialism have different meanings now or the context is different but parts of what came before remain.

Labour has votes it doesn't want to lose because of the risk; it takes a leap of faith(?).

Separate question: I wonder about the placement of gender issues and gender identification in different national/ethnic/cultural contexts. I sometimes look for clues in literature or fiction about tolerance and openness. To me the UK seems to be a case where there is tolerance but not openness.

At the risk of upsetting some thread followers, rejoining in the EU isn't a priority for any serious party and it wouldn't solve any of the serious economic issues facing people in the UK anyway

What would? Does it have more to do with the distribution of wealth within the UK?

V much so imo and a “labour” party not concerned with that is worthless

There are definitely moves to engage with the EU on trade and movement of people that would be good but my feeling is wholesale membership commits a country now to pursuing a broadly neoliberal economics that won't solve a lot of the current crises in the UK

I'm not saying that means Brexit was a smart move - but rejoining just shouldn't matter for people on the left in the short to medium term

brexit is a disaster for a number of reasons (not least giving a large mandate for the worst ppl in the world to further erode the rights of workers) but also it’s not like being part of a neoliberal trading bloc was really doing much for immiserated ppl either xp

Lib Dems. That makes sense. Yay for the SNP.

Shouldn't economic issues matter more to Labour than nationalist ones?

Perhaps liberal democracy and socialism have different meanings now or the context is different but parts of what came before remain.

Labour has votes it doesn't want to lose because of the risk; it takes a leap of faith(?).

Even Corbyn’s commendable record of campaigning against the geopolitical grain, such as for dispossessed Tamils, Chagossians and Palestinians, came to be seen as evidence that he didn’t know which side he was supposed to be on. A symbolic moment of the campaign was the first leaders’ debate, when Corbyn highlighted the impact that the climate crisis would have on the poorest people in the world and a section of the audience responded with groans and someone shouted, “Here we go again!”

When people talk about having paid into the system all their lives, as I heard repeatedly at the doorstep, they’re not just talking about national insurance payments and the benefits they’re entitled to.

They’re talking about loyalty to a state they expected to be their exclusive patron – and they saw a Labour leader who seemed to invite the whole world to his allotment, offering homemade jam to all, no matter which flags their ancestors spilt their blood for.
With such voters, retired or coming towards the end of their careers, Corbyn’s collectivist language of what we could build together left them sceptical and uncomprehending. It seemed more zero sum to them, where one person’s gain must be another’s loss. A small hoard has been salvaged from the UK’s long post-imperial decline, and only those whose fealty is proven can claim their share.

^^^ as bad as the “unpatriotic” attacks on this stuff were the detestable aggro-centrists — what we sometimes call melts — who were a bit more circumspect about going full gammon but would sneer at any display of solidarity like this as “student politics”, not something grownups care about in the zero-sum game of caring about things where EU face paint must take precedence

Sunak is standing with a video whose script seems to follow from his letter of resignation. Time for austerity, forever.

readyforrishi.com registered on 23/12/2022

https://who.is/whois/readyforrishi.com

I mean 23/12/2011 obvs

no I dont

too hot today

23/12/2021

there we go

This is cool, finally something for the Labour Party to define it's own values against

oh god

The PM has appointed a deputy leader of the House of Commons - congratulations @PeterBoneUK pic.twitter.com/KLxMnJkZOa

— PARLY (@PARLYapp) July 8, 2022

Rishi Sunak launches his campaign website, the domain of which was registered in December 2021 pic.twitter.com/xcv8JQ1xQC

— insane moments in british politics (@PoliticsMoments) July 8, 2022

"GoDaddy.com" lols. based on not much at all I don't think this overambitious little broomstick is going to win it. Penny Mordaunt is a royal navy reservist, she could probably pick him up with one hand and fling him over a wall. And she seems to have much broader appeal :p

Take this with a pinch of, but Nadine etc...

I hope they do make him leader, he's an abject lightweight (in more ways than one) with multiple skeletons waiting to dance out of his closet.

suspect a decent chunk of the tory membership is just not going to vote for a non-white person to be leader, whatever they say in opinion polls

There's a reason Ben Wallace is leading on ConHome, and the reason isn't Ben Wallace

But it'll depend on who gets into the final two.

Wallace and Scromit

Can’t wait to find out who a few thousand mummified nazi freaks think should rule us

Just read a newspaper for that

Laura K, with great solemnity: I’m hearing the bloodied entrails in conservative hq have produced a result…the winner’s about to emerge…oh it’s the reanimated corpse of Enoch Powell! I don’t fancy Labour’s chances against that!

Daily Mail editorial the next day begins with “Is the new Tory leader too WOKE for today’s world?”

lol

I’m out of touch, I thought lk had fucked off by now

Oh she has, but like the spectator garden parties she is eternal

The @BBCPolitics Time Lords had plenty to talk about at @TheSpectator Summer Party last night. All agree the new Dr - @ChrisMasonBBC - is doing a brilliant job pic.twitter.com/J1UCVqvNZi

— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) July 8, 2022

He’s ready

Your original version was working well pic.twitter.com/03ovkiC0ZZ

— Jon (@giftedrascal) July 8, 2022

is that really the best photo he has?
where do they find these f-grade humans?

the face of a man who has just been caught browsing wikifeet on company time

Another tractor fan.

Lol

Sunak’s campaign video has 4.3m views out of a U.K. population of approx 68m: https://t.co/pRvoWLbBn1

— Ben Judah (@b_judah) July 8, 2022

cursed spectator garden party photos: a thread pic.twitter.com/hJMpFk07Ip

— axaxaxas lmäo (@demarionunn) July 8, 2022

Yeah, he had all that suspiciously ready...

Xpost

(xp) If only COVID was still rampant.

I really despise the way Tory leadership contests are drawn out over multiple rounds. They should have one vote and the candidate who gets most votes wins. FPTP only for the plebs apparently!

"You lied this country into a war that cost 1000's of lives. Boris Johnson ate some cake."

Haha! Alastair Campbell did NOT like that. 😂#bbcqt pic.twitter.com/qgYCMhWxBY

— Lee Harris (@addicted2newz) July 7, 2022

"well he better be careful what he says because the last guy Dr David Kelly, he regretted it"

That's amazing lol

The Telegraph keeping it real pic.twitter.com/BUA90Qd56d

— Priyamvada Gopal (@PriyamvadaGopal) July 9, 2022

coming soon, Helen Lewis on why "levelling up" should be more landed gentry inclusive

more like Helen Lewis on why levelling up is an attack on women's sex-based rights

Look at this cunt.

Of all the things you could criticise the current Conservative Party for, “people from ethnic minorities can’t do well in it” strikes me as a tough one to sustain.

— Tom Hamilton (@thhamilton) July 9, 2022

Another tell the truth/cut government to the bone/kick the woke truther.

I was going to call her the "let them eat culture war candidate" but there are at least two of them in the race already. Like all political claims to tell bold truths, it prefaces a recitation of cliché and bromide – in which the median Tory member will feel very much at home. https://t.co/ch2yOxT1pj

— James B (@piercepenniless) July 9, 2022

it might be true to say that Conservative MPs as a whole are more ideologically diverse than the PLP at this point

of course they're all terrible ideologies but still

none of the ethnic minority Tory MPs have been treated as badly as Apsana Begum. Labour are given more leeway by the media to be racist, as long as they are left-wing MPs.

of course it's also a factional thing as well with her ex-husband involved

but still the islamophobia in the PLP is possibly even worse than in the Tories. I mean subjecting your own voters to racist slurs in a by-election has left a legacy that will be around for a while.

The Apsana Begum treatment is misogynist as well as racist, like the party has sided with her abusive husband over her. It’s entirely indefensible.

it's a scandal and there is barely any coverage and seeing Labour members parroting the party line on it is sick making.

Especially when you compare it to the coverage Luciana Berger got.

Luciana Berger is also a red princess, so there’s that too (her great uncle was some Lab grandee).

Ben Wallace not standing for the leadership. Who will racists vote for now?

Ben Wallace has a track record of posting positive things about Jeremy Corbyn in 2015!

He could never have withstood scrutiny of these scandalous statements!

I don't think that one tweet over Corbyn made over five years ago is the reason he is not running.

Berger situation not comparable IMO. Whatever you may think of her, she was subject to antisemitic harassment from white supremacists, several of whom were jailed for doing so. I believe her when she says the party didn’t do enough to support her - that goes back to the time she was first elected, because if there’s one thing that remains true, it’s that the Labour Party is truly awful at supporting any of its MPs. She also called out Alistair Campbell for the antisemitic posters when she was going out with Blair’s son, so it’s never been something she’s stayed quiet on. Do I think everything she says was in good faith? No. But I think it’s easy to see if you look back as far as 2005, when she was calling Blair’s Labour out, that antisemitism is (obviously) extremely personal to her and something she feels strongly about. If I felt I wasn’t getting support from my political home during a time of harassment, idk if I’d be necessarily fucked to stand up for them, you know?

I don't think that one tweet over Corbyn made over five years ago is the reason he is not running.

My prediction now is that Sunak & Mordant will be the final two, with Sunak winning the MPs handily, but Mordant easily winning among members (because they are racists) - Truss could also be the other contender but she will fuck it up somehow.

mordaunt will win bcz

(a) name ripped straight from pages of british fantasy fiction (morgoth, maugrim, you know the rest)
(b) the unprecedented alphie write-in vote

I’m not sure how Truss will cope with the full spotlight of a leadership campaign, God help us all if she does.

Mordaunt will win if she gets to the final two, unless the other person is Raab.

I suspect Alphington isn't the only one with a conflicted crush on Mordaunt. lol at the autocorrect !

#horny4penny

they tried to make me vote for Raab, but i said no, no, no

alphingtons his name now, the alg has spoken

We will both be off to the gulag soon, Calzino (and rightly so) xps

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/033/758/Screen_Shot_2020-04-28_at_12.21.48_PM.jpg

as long as it's Mordaunt putting the handcuffs on me and roughly bundling me into the back of the gulag wagon .. at least I'll be able to take that memory with me lol!

absolutely shocked at this display of left horniness for arch Tories

https://c.tenor.com/pJnatjvzCsoAAAAd/casablanca-shocked.gif

Well, that's torn it.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/08/penny-mordaunts-pro-trans-stance-has-ruined-chances-becoming/

by Mason Boycott-Owen

The Telegraph Evelyn-Waugh-byline-generator has become self aware.

She will do a TERF u-turn, it's not like any of these people have any principles.

Meanwhile fascist-wing-tory twitter seems to have come out gunning for Sunak, accusing him of being the leaker behind partygate.

Are any of these candidates not going to enthusiastically implement 10 years of austerity?

well several of them are probably up for perma-austerity so

For my sanity I am choosing to maintain the delusion that they will keep managing to plough the clown car into a brick wall every couple of years in a way that causes some manner of reset

anyone in the PLP who opposes austerity will face deselection. Most Tory MPs don't even publicly admit it exists. It's just a case of the UK doing it wrong since the disasterous welfare state expansion post '45.

also unfettered capitalism has been doing a bang-up job of solving environmental catastrophe so far, we just need to unfetter it a bit more

Think there is mass Gilet-Jaune style fuel/energy bill protest brewing this summer and autumn + plus more waves of strikes - can't see that any of them - or Labour frontbench - have anything approaching the nous/experience/bde to negotiate the coming clusterfuck/polycrisis.

She will do a TERF u-turn, it's not like any of these people have any principles.

She'd better or she'll be eaten alive by the media.

I don't know what's going to happen (except more bad things), but I agree with poster Gimbel that "Mason Boycott-Owen" is pretty remarkable.

The Home Office -- the one relatively organised department? -- are building prisons, which is their plan for these protests xxp

They're going to need some bigger prisons

Colombo, Sri Lanka right now. The Presidential Palace has been stormed, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is said to have fled. Unbelievable scenes. Live reports on @IndiaToday: https://t.co/p6JV6FzCub pic.twitter.com/8zlJdBfN2P

— Shiv Aroor (@ShivAroor) July 9, 2022

She will do a TERF u-turn, it's not like any of these people have any principles.

Meanwhile fascist-wing-tory twitter seems to have come out gunning for Sunak, accusing him of being the leaker behind partygate.

A source at Number 10 tells me that Boris Johnson intends to stand down as Prime Minister on Monday, in order to run for the Tory leadership.

— Petronella Wyatt (@PetronellaWyatt) July 9, 2022

LOL awesome!

make this happen! lol I might join the Conservative Party as a Boris voting entryist

don't think the rules allow him to enter, guess the rules can be changed by the 1922 though

hmm i wonder who this source providing information on boris johnson to boris johnson’s ex might be

purely just to own the libs I've put £3 on a 9/2 shot called Bringitonboris running in the 7.00 at Hamilton this evening.

They don't allow him to enter if he'd actually lost the tory VONC, iirc?

i've basically said the same on Twitter but Johnson's ability to get melts and Twitter libs squawking in outrage at his refusal to play the game is pretty entertaining imo

Bringitonboris finished 4th and the outsider Dutch Decoy steamed from last to first in an impressive display! There is no hope for any decent outcomes in UK democracy any more, it's a sad state of affairs but if all that is left is the prospect of sneering at libs when things don't go how they expected them to, so be it!

Ofc, 2017.

EXCLUSIVE: Boris Johnson lobbied for a public role for a young woman who says he abused his power to have a sexual relationship with her

The PM was confronted at the height of the #MeToo movement in 2017, when she told him she was still “shaken and upset”https://t.co/FZtujTL2D1 pic.twitter.com/h85BlqHRNw

— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) July 9, 2022

All this stuff that’s been known about for years is going to come out now to force him out

it's mad that they've probably got a warehouse of genuinely serious criminal harm caused by this bastard that has been kept under wraps till now and were reduced to using a Corbyn like for an antisemitic mural 10 years ago to totally destroy his character.

They're all briefing against each other or briefing against someone before they brief against them or briefing against some who they thought had briefed against them, fun times ahead.

lol

"I have friends who are aristocrats, I have friends who are upper class, I have friends who are you know working-class but- well not working-class..."

Rishi Sunak in his own words. pic.twitter.com/tzStoaa4vO

— Taj Ali (@Taj_Ali1) July 9, 2022

working class to him = lived in a large 3 bedroom Victorian terraced house and went to a grammar school

Wonder who is this going to help

Source:https://t.co/AohHW37a4c

— British Electoral Politics (@electpoliticsuk) July 9, 2022

xp

this sort of reminds me of Starmer's pathetic class flexing against Nandy in the leadership election when he declared that he came from a town as well!

omg it's all coming out now, the only one they've got no dirt on can't run because she's not enough of a terf.

Selling trans rights down the river at the first opportunity. Not that it will stop there.

I hope in, in the next few days we’ll able to discuss how we get our economy growing again and enable our citizens to live well. Right now, I’d like to address another question that I’ve been asked: pic.twitter.com/OImF6kUVzx

— Penny Mordaunt (@PennyMordaunt) July 9, 2022

Penny Mordaunt immediately making everyone (including me) who was like “ok, she’s got one (1) good opinion look like a fool”

On sport, I raised this years ago. This was important to me because I’ve trained alongside men in the Navy. I support a science-based approach. @uk_sport has done good work, as have @sharrond62 @Daley_thompson and others. The biology is overwhelming important. pic.twitter.com/maAA6gwuwl

— Penny Mordaunt (@PennyMordaunt) July 9, 2022

That didn't take long, did it?

fan fucking tastic

maybe they could bring back Section 28 too

That will be asked for. Penny won't hesitate.

May as well call it now, no matter who they choose as leader, the next election is going to be the Trans Election. The Tories and the media are going to hammer this relentlessly, the way they did with Corbyn/anti-Semitism, because they really have nothing positive or tangible to campaign on.

Don't feel that's a huge issue if fuel prices are sky high.

Brexit was a promise of prosperity once we are out. It was a positive message.

xp to make it a battleground, Labour would have to commit to some trans-supportive ideology, and that's not going to happen

hate this country, so fucking much

True. They are still going to bring it up at every opportunity.

for better or worse i cannot see Trans rights becoming any kind of key election issue. i'm not sure any part of the culture wars is gonna sway anybody who hasn't already entrenched opinions. it's scary and incredibly sad that this leadership election might amplify the hate speech of a few mainly online evil bigots tho. most optimistic i can be is that nobody, including the candidates, will give a shit what's been said during the campaign once the contest's over

Lol

Grant Shapps seemingly alone among Conservative candidates in dismissing the trans women question.

"Let people live their lives," he tells Sky.

"I just don't think we need to get caught up in some US-style debate and aggressive war on these issues. It's just not necessary."

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) July 10, 2022

weird how little it takes to make somebody look just a shade less cuntish than their peers

Assume Shapps is not running.

Would seem to be a waste of time to do so.

oh he is running

xxp Then you remember it's Grant Shapps.

most optimistic i can be is that nobody, including the candidates, will give a shit what's been said during the campaign once the contest's over

a number of them (braverman, truss, badenoch, javid) already seem deeply committed to transphobia and would very likely turn it up to 11, there's room for much worse than the current situation where boris seemed to think it was politically useful but didn't really give a shit personally. braverman has been attacking the equality act etc.

Labour would have to commit to some trans-supportive ideology

as shit as labour are, starmer & the party are still publicly committed to GRA reform, despite his refusal to do anything about the vocal and committed transphobes within his ranks. wouldn't be surprised if they fold on GRA reform before the next election as the tories ramp everything up to 11, but they haven't yet at least.

Sajid Javid getting grilled on his taxes now.

Also, he's a Remainer.

I don't think most voters give a fuck or are even aware of the trans "debate". Tory culture wars seem to centre around the amorphous concept of "woke" nowadays, which has the advantage of being anything you want it to be as it's not something that exists in the first place. So expect a lot of verbal sparring over who's the most anti-woke.

It is incredible that Shapps is running given his history of multiple identities and fraud.

But then I suppose it should be incredible that someone like this is still in high level politics at all.

"Let people live their lives… I just don't think we need to get caught up in some US-style debate and aggressive war on these issues. It's just not necessary."

Shapps gives a decent answer on trans rights, well about as decent Tory cnuts get.

not sure it's so much a decent answer as "grant is too thick to realise this is something he needs to be outraged about to get press support in 2022"

'The trans women question'

Fucking hell

It's like how Piers Morgan has always come out against the US gun lobby.

In his case, everything else comes down to 'Who pays me, and what do they believe?'

On the TV he was sort of politically neutral. Now? Well I admit I don't know for sure, but.

Anyway, yes Grant gets one right. Still ....

just heard Jeremy Cunt saying Blair had Prescott to broaden his appeal, and similarly I've got Esther McVey ☠

she's probably handy with her jab tbf

I reckon Mordaunt could put her down! Jeremy seems to think she has some kind of Northern appeal. Because we love Tories with regional accents so much, especially scouse gobshite ones.

so it feels like the tories and their liberal allies are ready to incite pogroms rn it's kind of bad right

Absolutely amazed by #TransPride London. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people. Huge numbers, way, way bigger than last year. pic.twitter.com/iaBP8uuL8K

— Dr Natacha Kennedy 🏳️‍⚧️ (@natachakennedy) July 9, 2022

Absolutely amazed by #TransPride London. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people. Huge numbers, way, way bigger than last year. pic.twitter.com/iaBP8uuL8K

— Dr Natacha Kennedy 🏳️‍⚧️ (@natachakennedy) July 9, 2022

Ah, good.

a little coverage from the outlets that breathlessly cover every local bathroom cop's latest projection fantasies would be nice but what are you gonna do

NEW: Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi will be launching his leadership campaign on Monday.

He will stand on a platform promising tax cuts, increased defence spending and “protecting children from damaging and inappropriate nonsense being forced on them by radical activists”.

— Matthew Thompson (@mattuthompson) July 9, 2022

Not just radicals, not just activists, but radical activists.

https://www.parksidedentist.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/man-pondering-root-canal-therapy.jpg

Should I have heard of Rehman Chishti?

No.

If he was on Universal Credit he'd be getting sanctioned for timewasting. No never heard of him either.

Because I live on the wrong side of a hedge, Penny Mordaunt is my MP.

Paralympic gold medalist @JonniePeacock asks to be removed from Penny Mordaunt’s leadership video – which also showed Oscar Pistorius, who’s in jail for murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. https://t.co/CLOd8jfhJh

— Ian Fraser (@Ian_Fraser) July 10, 2022

Still, though.. Inspiring

wait Rehman Chishti is real?

rehman chishti is TBEU

that would make more sense

would also make more sense if uk politics turns out to be a fever dream i'm having

Good morning! pic.twitter.com/sda0Sgm63N

— Dave (@MediocreDave) July 11, 2022

Lol @ O-Pis in video, is she going to conspicuously wear a livestrong bracelet as well

goid morning!

ok which one of you is medicore dave real

This seems irresponsible.

Anyone who thinks that that's what you do with 43C has never experienced 43C. And I say that as someone who's never experienced anything beyond 39C. https://t.co/1UOxDIUM0E

— Giulio Mattioli (@giulio_mattioli) July 11, 2022

lol we’re all gonna fry

Time to live on toast for a few days because I'm sure as hell not firing up that gas cooker, even if it's in the low 30's

Yep. My weekly bread baking schedule is kiboshed indefinitely, because fuck that

Teach yourself how to make that Turkish shop bread!

what to say? scum

The House of Commons has voted to approve new regulations that would allow companies to hire agency workers to replace striking workers.

Under Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003, it was illegal to hire agency workers to replace strikers.

— TLDR News UK (@TLDRNewsUK) July 11, 2022

Don't think a lot of rail workers can learn on the job.

It may work on other strikes..

today's Tory party: libertarian on the streets, fash in the sheets

I know they are all bad but I'm almost quite relieved to hear Suella Braverman is struggling to make the cut, not like she was going to happen anyway. But from the dangerous lunatic fringe she seems like one of the most rabid ones and you can never rule out shock results - she makes those Britannia Unchained lot seem like melts.

Kemi Badenoch is possibly worse though.

oh well, at least the Tories are doing better than Labour on ethnic representation in their party ... lol

Damn what a weird coincidence that this is coming out shortly after the government rammed through their war crimes immunity bill, what a stroke of luck. https://t.co/86BBtjXAJH

— Tom Hatfield (@WordMercenary) July 12, 2022

Ah, they felt the time was right to have 54 non-crimes taken into consideration...

Eight made it onto the ballot

Kemi Badenoch
Suella Braverman
Jeremy Hunt
Penny Mordaunt
Rishi Sunak
Liz Truss
Tom Tugendhat
Nadhim Zahawi

so these three are out

Rehman Chishti
Grant Shapps
Sajid Javid

Put them all in a weird house full of cameras, eliminate two a week by public vote.

I'm saying eliminate them all yes

it's a futile task trying to grade them in terms of "least worst". I give up.

The weird thing is that a lot of the 'policies' are twitter talking points.

It's why I highly doubt this stuff is a replacement for Brexit.

.@KemiBadenoch: "My Government will discard the priorities of Twitter and focus on the people's priorities. When we can't deliver passports and driving licences on time why are we spending millions on people whose jobs literally didn't exist a decade ago?"

— Harry Phibbs (@harryph) July 12, 2022

Badenoch is very online!

a lot of very online now has just replaced the kind of trite common sense bigotry that used to go up on staff room noticeboards and local newspaper letter pages anyway

I think Badenoch actually is the worst, she's a fanatic.

Shame this guy isn't running!

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/13/tobias-ellwood-home-attacked-after-tory-mp-ran-over-local-cat

Julie Holland, 61, who lives opposite the former vicarage owned by Stephanie Hawa, also 61, was also not sympathetic to the MP. Holland, who owns a cat called Boris, named after the prime minister, and a dog called Stanley, after Johnson’s father, said: ‘It’s a disgrace. If he had done that to my cat I would have done something about it. But, she added: “I’m still a supporter.”

absolutely nothing new but something about the flippancy of mordaunts transphobic comments this morning and their reception really horrified me. people simply asking to live their lives with some semblance dignity and respect, reduced to a punching bag. comments which then get repeated by political journalists without any kind of acknowledgment or reflection that this is a sick and inhuman way to talk about other people; simply like "remarkably polished launch, heavy on policy". fuck this hellhole

starmer's not coming back from this

Gesturing at Keir Starmer, Boris Johnson says that any of the candidates for Conservative leader would “wipe the floor with Captain Crasheroonie Snoozefest.”

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) July 13, 2022

had to check to make sure that's real

I cannot help reading this in the style of Chris Morris on 'The Day Today'https://t.co/0BATCO5JfR

— Peter Hicks (he = Peter, they = Poggs) (@poggs) July 13, 2022

lol

Nadhim Zahawi is using NZ4PM as his leadership election tag. If you click on https://t.co/x6Twdu2bv1 you are redirected to Penny Mordaunt’s leadership home page. Comedy gold. You gotta love this contest

— Robert Peston (@Peston) July 13, 2022

Zahawi’s people say their website is launching tomorrow. Thanks to Mordaunt’s pre-emptive cyber-squatting, we know what his URL won’t be! So funny

— Robert Peston (@Peston) July 13, 2022

like a small child transfixed and delighted by a glove puppet

god help us if he finds out about memes

Hunt got the lowest votes lol. The transformation of the party under Brexit goes on.

Someone else other than Zawahi will have carry out the axe of 20% on all government departments.

Kemi Badenoch - 40 votes
Suella Braverman - 32 votes
Penny Mordaunt - 67 votes
Rishi Sunak - 88 votes
Liz Truss - 50 votes
Tom Tugendhat - 37 votes

A bit mean that we don't get to find out how many votes Hunt and Zawahi got, mind.

There’s 358 Tory MPs so that leaves 44 between them.

they each needed 20 to get on the ballot too.

we don't have an Anne Marie Waters thread, understandably, so just to note here that she has suddenly wound up For Britain today and quit electoral politics

https://scoutnews.substack.com/p/it-was-the-best-organised-far-right

https://img.kiosko.net/2022/07/13/uk/daily_telegraph.750.jpg

mo farah obviously not been through enough...

Why did BoJo only tell the truth now?

(kidding, we await...)

the trains in Spain will be free! (in the main) 🇪🇸 https://t.co/PkwHKxXLpX

— Sophia Smith Galer (@sophiasgaler) July 13, 2022

if you build a big enough network of gulags you can requisition 12000 new homes instead - what a bunch of cautious melts! It's so depressing seeing good stuff like this when you know it would be impossible in the UK within your lifetime.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2022/07/14/TELEMMGLPICT000302793722_1_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqgRl8BouVbC6HZnydG5Kn5pdzd29AV1S6GkBHLgjhxoY.jpeg?imwidth=1240

...more dirty tricks from the Telegraph as they print a picture that makes Sunak look about 3 foot tall.

"child seat's this side sir"

he seemed very evasive on the radio this morning.

also seems to have swallowed the lie that sending refugees to rwanda is to disuade the evil traffickers. yeah, that'll show 'em. and this form someone keen on repeating his humble immigrant beginnings.

LOL humble beginnings.

Talking of which, I noticed this morning the fact that Liz Truss went to school in Paisley (the same primary school as me!) was mentioned as evidence of a humble background. Amazingly her father was a professor of mathematics! Where did the brains end up on that family?

she can be added to the list: Andrew Neil, Paolo Nutini, Gerry Rafferty, Liz Truss, Tom D from ILX, my dad

apparently Truss's parents were lefties who too her on demos as a kid (that's her on the right)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02986/Liz-Truss_2986380c.jpg

... where she has remained for the rest of her life.

imagine hating your parents that much

Is Mordaunt going to be the next PM?

according to the bookies, yes she's odds on. The humkble little billionaire pocket prince has drifted out to 3/1.

^^^
*humble*

xp see also lifelong Tory, Hilary Benn

Mordaunt has the advantage of relative obscurity, so no-one's seen how incompetent she is. Not yet, anyway.

Feels like she's being set up for a fall. Media will make a lot of sexist hay about her vs Rayner.

Liz Truss opposing the monarchy at the 1994 Lib Dem conferencepic.twitter.com/zU09W4c4aR

— Tides of History (@labour_history) July 14, 2022

Liz Truss - her radical student years coming back to haunt her! Also Mordaunt's team will be deleting all evidence of her Roman Catholic background from her wiki.

not a regular poster to this thread but i really hate seeing shit like this, tweeted by peter walker and then copied into the guardian liveblog: "Theresa May has arrived to vote in the second round, looking - as has often been the case in the last week or so - decidedly chipper."

like, who cares how theresa may is looking or feeling? are there more than half a dozen people alive today who are happy that she is experiencing schadenfreude? i've seen similar accounts of her walking merrily into the commons, watching boris squirm under questions. yes, we recall when she was prime minister and was then ousted, it was only a couple of years ago. neither her happiness nor her misery are interesting but her walking around with a smile on her face keeps being mentioned as though some historical injustice were being righted

Telegraph have started gunning for Mordaunt.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/13/penny-mordaunt-accused-failing-iraq-veterans-subjected-witch/

burn the witch!

Liz Truss - her radical student years coming back to haunt her!

Two years later she was in the Conservative Party.

glory hunter

is the feeling amongst the nutbar right that Mordaunt is simply not nutbar enough and therefore must be stopped?

re dogs's post: this is what all political journalists and commentators are like, it's halfway between gossip and sport to them, which is why they'll be near the front in the guillotine queue come the day

(xp) Yes.

They've decided they're throwing their lot in with Liz Truss, who is hopeless and will be IDS Mk. II.

Sunak can't beat Mordaunt in a head to head, not sure if Truss is more vulnerable in that situation.

One thing I have learned from this nonsense is how to pronounce Tugendhat.

every one of these candidates is a tory ghoul and therefore has a long history of hypocrisy, ever-changing positions, corruption, general evil-doing, etc. and we will expect them to have all of this flung at them if they continue in the contest, however Mordaunt seems to be the one best equipped to bat these away by reversing her position or just ignoring it and moving on in the Johnson/Trump style, this is why I suspect she will win.

Also I suspect there's a bit of Thatcher fetishism going on.

Approval Ratings:

Boris Johnson (CON): 31% (+6)
Keir Starmer (LAB): 28% (=)

via
@RedfieldWilton
, 10 Jul

Kieth with a lower approval rating than a flop political corpse that is scheduled to be dissolved in acid. The knives will be out for him when he's hitting Corbyn numbers against a new PM and whatever shit new attack strategy he's attempting isn't working.

Sunak can't beat Mordaunt in a head to head, not sure if Truss is more vulnerable in that situation.

polls have mordaunt winning all the head-to-heads, no idea if that holds up and i kinda suspect it's just because she's relatively unknown compared to truss/sunak? i certainly have no idea who she is more broadly

the right of the party is surely going to unite around truss? so it probably just comes down to whether some of sunak's supporters worry he'd absolutely lose the head-to-head vs truss & decide to push mordaunt to the final round instead?

oh good the terfs have got an #AnyButPenny hashtag on the go

housing policy in this country is absolutely criminal and those responsible need to be put before some sort of people's tribunal https://t.co/Wg89PqxC0a

— Tom Blackburn (@malaiseforever) July 14, 2022

lol was mordaunt's incredibly transphobic and hateful tweet thread the other day not enough for them??

you've got to have a long track record of hate-speech and transphobia to win over this mob, you can't just turn it on like a tap and get instant results!

nothing will ever be enough for the transphobes

Yes, this is already being weaponized against her and I expect much more of the same.

Her voting record is not of a transphobe apparently, so that will need to change too.

Suella Braverman has been eliminated.

Seeing that the terfs were foaming about her made me think she might be the best of a bad lot but I also saw the transphobic tweet so in summation - fuck everything

only one left who appears not to be actively hostile to trans rights is tugendhat who isn't any sort of ally but doesn't seem to have any interest in culture warring there

mordaunt is clearly overcompensating for her past pro-trans comments and would probably do anything the transphobes beg of her now. sunak seems more in the johnson camp of not really personally caring but seeing it as politically advantageous, his rhetoric is a fair bit less deranged & he's been focused on the very minor issue opposing gender neutral language instead of e.g. bringing back section 28 and repealing the equality act like the rest are advocating for.

Rishi Sunak - 101 votes (+13)
Penny Mordaunt - 83 votes (+16)
Liz Truss - 64 votes (+14)
Kemi Badenoch - 49 votes (+9)
Tom Tugendhat - 32 votes (-5)

sad to see the tugmentum draining from this contest

True dhat

Ok, so the dhat goes tomorrow, leaving 32 voters to distribute.

PMord got more of the two knocked-out votes, but not by much...

Johnson approval up purely by virtue of virtually resigning?

Why is morduant the favourite at the bookies? Is she that much more more popular with membership?

polls seem to say so
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/07/13/penny-mordaunt-clear-favourite-next-conservative-l
afaict the members really hate #neverrishi because a) snake b) taxes.
Truss was remainer and possibly also a snake.
Badenoch does well on Conservative Home poll but that's maybe less the actual shires membership?

if she want to enjoy a glimpse of the lumpen SA wing of the Tories check out the #NeverRishiSunak tag

if "you" not "she", weird typing malfunction

apparently Mordaunt is the most popular candidate with the Remain wing of the Tories membership which must still be a thing. Braverman just quite bitterly declared she was the only genuine brexiteer amongst all the candidates, boo hoo!

xp yeah #neverrishi plus snake was an enlightening experience yesterday.

possibly it's the likelihood of the Stop Truss and Stop Rishi cliques coalescing around Mordaunt even if they don't like her is the reason why she's the current fav?

in my judgment everyone involved hates everyone else and why wouldn't they?

in my judgment everyone involved hates everyone else and why wouldn't they?

-- morrissey

We hate it when our friends become Tory leader.

Rishi Sunak was "born in a chemist's shop in Southampton", says Matt Hancock. Four Yorkshiremen Sketch remade for the year 2022.

if he'd been born almost exactly a year later he could've been Craig David, alas

Ultimately the only thing to enjoy about this whole circus will be seeing that little shit falling into deserved obscurity (well by billionaire standards) and maybe some of the blue on blue violence to come. Then get to back to dying .. lol. The Mordaunt odds have got slightly shorter and Sunak has gone out half a point to 7/2 since this morning. It looks like at this point, that after so much planning his project is just not quite going the way he expected it to - Boris was miles ahead at this stage in 2019.

Sunak is so going to fuck off out of the UK and never come back if he loses this.

he'll probably fuck off to the US, it won't take him long to renew his green card.

He can slum it in his penthouse in Santa Monica until he gets settled.

possibly it's the likelihood of the Stop Truss and Stop Rishi cliques coalescing around Mordaunt even if they don't like her is the reason why she's the current fav?

― calzino, Thursday, 14 July 2022 bookmarkflaglink

It's basically seen as a clean break with what has gone before. Badenoch is the same but has quite a bit less experience of cabinet or anything else.

he'll probably fuck off to the US, it won't take him long to renew his green card.

― calzino, Thursday, July 14, 2022 3:16 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

they actually make this pretty hard if you lose it by surrendering it early iiuc? you can keep him.

I don't think it will too much of a hurdle for someone who was already loaded and married into a billionaire dynasty, but critical support for strict US immigration bureaucracy if it tells him and his wife to fuck off!

Chris Mason as the chief political correspondent is like that bit of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle where Ed Tudor Poll fronts The Pistols for a song.

mordaunt trans “row” on newsnight now. christian fraser doing a surprisingly good job grilling tories about it now. i.e. “why are you weaponizing trans people?” and “do you believe trans women are women?”

I was just reading this piece, which mentions Morduant's cowardly, disgusting behaviour.

https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2022/07/13/alice-litman-trans-nhs-care/

My dad (old labour type in his 70s, not at all woke) texted me her campaign video and said she is “insane” and “revolting”

apparently Mordaunt is the most popular candidate with the Remain wing of the Tories membership which must still be a thing.

this is bizarre because she supported brexit even during the referendum, unlike truss who just cynically pivoted afterward

I know, it was something mentioned on PM yesterday and I was thinking eh?

and also that bizarre thing of who is a "true brexiteer" brought up by Braverman yesterday. Like it's not enough to have campaigned and voted for it, if you were willing to entertain any of the compromise deals during May's last days then you were faking it.

that £326 cost of living payment I received yesterday was instantly wiped out by a £242.63 dd from British Gas this morning. lol I love this country.

Still £83.37 for the fruit machines tho

got to pay your bet365 tax

Maugham also after Starmer after the LBC interview.

His supporters are also bad at defending him.

I think the reality is probably that he did what he did to be elected leader with an open mind about policy, and reflecting the state of the labour party and its membership when he was elected, but has to be realistic now about what is needed to become a government

— Adam Wagner (@AdamWagner1) July 15, 2022

when Starmer lies for his own career advancement/breaks lockdown rules/has an extramarital affair it's different from when Boris does it and not a reflection of his character... yeah sure.

It's funny.

EXCLUSIVE:

Labour leader Sir @Keir_Starmer has told City A.M. that the UK can have a better economic future outside the EU than inside if the government slashes post-#Brexit red tape and diverges from Brussels’ regulations. https://t.co/ycR5YEleAX

— City A.M. (@CityAM) July 15, 2022

The March of Mordaunt! 💪🏻

— Penny Mordaunt (@PennyMordaunt) July 14, 2022

Wagner saying that lying to 500000 members makes Starmer a savvy political operator sums up the moral vacuity of these barrister melts. At least the good fox nonce has gone on a bit of a journey in the last few years and is unambiguously calling him untrustworthy, which is probably a word that frequently comes up in the focus groups as well.

ideology aside he is a spectacularly bad politician, and watching the blue ticks and plebs desperate to convince themselves otherwise is painful

yeah so far he has shown himself to be anything but savvy. Being a an opportunist and a liar isn't really a special skillset.

Reading this thread of someone talking to their Tory mum and I'd say that Starmer cannot convince anyone of anything. I am sure lots of people who voted for Johnson did so (unlike what the tweet below says) because they were convinced he could get Brexit over the line, and he delivered that.

It’s not going to work like that. Treat people like idiots and they won’t reward you for it.

One of the reasons people supported Johnson and Farage was they ‘said it like it was’. Obv they confected that air of sincerity, but it’s something people crave. That’s why it worked.

— Neville (@catherinebuca) July 12, 2022

The old 'people aren't idiots' with 'people like someone who says it like it is' equation.

there's plenty to learn and discuss about Johnson's successes and failures as a politician. like other right wing performers before him a lot of liberals have decided that he is bad at things when what they mean is he is good at things they don't like. no question that part of his success has been reaching a base that's allowed him to get away with shit because they hate the bland managerialism of a lot of professional politicians. Kieth can't win those people and keep the big brained "bland managerialism is good actually" people onside at the same time.

I've never been sure what people mean when they say that, for instance, Boris Johnson "says it like it is". What it basically comes down to is they agree with that he said and that's no great feat of legerdemain.

It's more about the way it's said than what's said.

"The problem of soaring temperatures is being exacerbated by many care homes being in Covid lockdown, which limits visitors and means residents are asked to stay in their rooms, which are often not air-conditioned.

“Some residents’ rooms have no fresh air if they only have patio doors which are locked to prevent them from going into the garden alone,” said Helen Wildbore, the director of the Residents and Relatives Association.

“For others, windows may only open a crack for safety. Whilst the hot weather may be uncomfortable and an annoyance for many of us, for older people in vulnerable situations the heat can be dangerous. More than 2,500 people died during heatwaves in 2020.”"

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/15/heat-emergency-declared-in-england-as-temperature-expected-to-hit-40c

most of the UK public don't often encounter someone as upper class as Boris in their daily life and perhaps they don't realise how much contempt he has for them. He's a more fluid speaker than Kieth and is renowned for turning up at speaker events without any prep and improvising a load of bollox on the spot (which will probably still not be as stunningly tedious as when Kieth did that long "humorous" anecdote at the leadership hustings) . It's a third rate act for sure but some people seem to find it amusing, personally I'd have the cunt lined up against the wall and executed.

Kieth on the other hand seems relatable in a very painful way for anyone who has ever had a run in with a very standard and widespread type of middle management, that type who are incapable of breaking out of corporate speak boss wanker mode. To me it seems everything he's saying in the public realm is over rehearsed dishonesty and dripping with contempt for the electorate he's supposed to be trying win support from. It seems even people who are not very online or even politically engaged are picking up this from him as well.

xp

we’re so fucked lol https://t.co/aD9JHz7V4F pic.twitter.com/xY7Iwyk59t

— Dan Douglas (@dandouglas) July 15, 2022

That's just silly stuff that won't survive a spike in deaths or pressures in hospitals.

The campiaign not running as smoothly for Rishi a she expected.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/politics/2022/07/15/TELEMMGLPICT000302937857_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqZM02IzA6TOiSJb6bgfZLjvYHXVPU0FjFLPyf5U1sHfw.jpeg?imwidth=1240

"Kieth on the other hand seems relatable in a very painful way for anyone who has ever had a run in with a very standard and widespread type of middle management, that type who are incapable of breaking out of corporate speak boss wanker mode."

100%. And I cannot stand his voice.

Conservative leadership candidate Kemi Badenoch says the government should scrap housebuilding targets because targets "scare people".

"It scares people when we talk about building 300,000 homes because it sounds like all these homes are coming next door to them," she says. pic.twitter.com/jDCecuXtj4

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) July 15, 2022

He's a more fluid speaker than Kieth and is renowned for turning up at speaker events without any prep and improvising a load of bollox on the spot

read something where he did the same act at different events, turned up late, messed his hair before going onstage, fluffed some sheets of paper, said oh oops I forgot to prepare then "ad libs" the same exact story

Hayes and Badenoch sayin it like it is

Badenoch is considered some kind of deep thinker by these clowns too.

it's just basic Tory heartlands nimby appeasement, aimed at the least metropolitan section of the membership who are also least likely to vote for a black leadership candidate. So I guess her campaign is doomed.

meanwhile the Met are cleaning their act up

https://t.co/iV0GqHOAxU

— Taj Ali (@Taj_Ali1) July 15, 2022

you'd think they could find at least one senior copper who isn't an overt racist

nah just kidding you wouldn't think that

you can see from his face that the guy is just unadulterated pure Cop Scum, racism is in his DNA

I've never been sure what people mean when they say that, for instance, Boris Johnson "says it like it is". What it basically comes down to is they agree with that he said and that's no great feat of legerdemain.

― Eavis Has Left the Building (Tom D.), Friday, 15 July 2022 12:32 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think part of it is that the job of being a front-line politician makes it impossible for you to be completely straight and candid because you have to hold together a coalition of groups with different interests and avoid saying things your enemies can use to attack your allies, a politician who never dissembles is someone who is fundamentally bad at their job. So the nearest you can get to an 'honest' politician is someone like Johnson or Trump who is open about the fact that they're slippery and giving a performance, and gives these little winks that let people feel like they're in on the joke, and that feels less insulting to a lot of the public that someone like Starmer presenting themselves as transparent and decent while simultaneously being tricksy and evasive.

I think the Johnson/Trump tactic of treating everything as a cynical joke only really works for the right though, or at least it only works as a destructive force to tear stuff down, it's not much good if your politics depend on convincing people that things could be better, so I don't know what lesson the left should draw from its success. Lewis Goodall wrote something the other day about a focus group on the tory leadership candidates where he said that funny tiktok videos were becoming increasingly important in forming voters impressions of politicians, which seems like it points towards more BJ style clowns. Short funny videos of Mick Lynch have been very successful recently, but those were specifically him making right-wing opponents look like fools, I don't know if you can use that medium for constructive rather than destructive purposes.

read something where he did the same act at different events, turned up late, messed his hair before going onstage, fluffed some sheets of paper, said oh oops I forgot to prepare then "ad libs" the same exact story

It was prob. this: https://reaction.life/jeremy-vine-my-boris-story/

saw something where Jeremy Vine dressed up as a cowboy and made a tit of himself on national television

Ah ha ha, is she funded by these swindlers or something?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/15/penny-mordaunt-repeatedly-advocated-use-of-homeopathy-on-nhs

can't believe a tory would support total bullshit that actually inflicts harm on the people it is supposed to help

🤪🤪🤪

For the #C4LeaderDebate Liz Truss has recreated Margaret Thatcher’s appearance from her 1979 election broadcast down to the last detail pic.twitter.com/pqzJPADQsl

— Andrew Gunn 🇺🇦 (@ASGunn) July 15, 2022

she's usually three sheets to the wind without even touching a drop of alcohol, or perhaps a more ableist way of putting it would be: she's a fucking moron. And I think most of her party knows this, but yeah let's go for some Iron Lady cosplay, lol her brain is like mushy peas.

starmer has been quite eye opening for me. not his politics, whatever they are, but his former career. I've only ever done minimum wage, intellectually simple jobs. I'm not smart. I'm certainly not clever enough to get a law degree pass the bar and rise to head of the cps. all of which I would imagine to be quite difficult and subject to quite a lot of competition.so while I am not in awe of people who can do so I at least recognise they are capable intellectually of something I am incapable of. and yet I have quite literally never heard starmer say something intelligent. not even something clever that I might not agree with. I always figured lawyers would at minimum be good at winning arguments but I genuinely cannot see how he can have ever convinced or persuaded anybody of anything ever. he is just a blank void. I can't even hate him like calz, all I feel is puzzlement.

on the few occasions where i've sat in on trials as a spectator my impression has been that the rhetorical cut and thrust is not good like they make it look on tv and in movies

don't talk yourself down here oscar, and don't overrate how clever you need to be to get a law degree. There are loads of thick fuckwits about with multiple letters after their names. Anyway I'd love to see Starmer try and re-wire a school in 6 weeks or manage a betting shop full of crooks and thugs! Therefore I'm much cleverer than him! And doing stuff like deporting an Asian autistic lad to a US supermax prison on the most dubious of evidence or supporting anti-GRT mobs doesn't require intelligence - it just requires you to be an evil piece of shit.

Watched a bit of that, first time heard Badenoch speak - she is total culture wars brainworms, answered a question about NHS funding by talking about chipping her tooth. Tugendhat was the only one that sounded like a professional politician.

(obvs all of them were very bad and we are all still fucked, goes without saying)

I was on a jury at the age of 21 and the defense lawyer was the most pompous tory piece of shit, so pleased with himself for once again winning at his personal debating society, such naked contempt for absolutely everyone in the room, just a shame that the defendant was obviously innocent as it would have been nice to wipe the smirk off his face for a moment.

Getting a law degree requires a modicum of intelligence, lots of swotting and an almost total lack of imagination. Having said that the barrister types I have known/met seem pleasant enough, just not very likely to ever say or do anything of any interest.

Tuggin' dat described building houses as socialist today

Watched it up till Krishnan Gurumurthy (who I hate) started grilling Mordaunt on her trans stance - which was very early on in the proceedings - then switched over to The Outer Limits. Whenever any of them start going on about how honest they are and how much integrity they have I really want someone to say to them, "You're only empasizing that because your last leader and the current Prime Minister is a lying sack of shit, right?" Gurumurthy did ask them, "Is Boris Johnson honest?", to which Badenoch answered, rather coyly, "Sometimes".

just heard one of our eggspurt political analysists describe Truss as: "strong on brexit, weak on performance". Sounds like a very memorable event in the annals of UK political history. But I'm glad I gave it a miss.

sounds like an advert for washing powder

Was in a cab earlier hearing Eddie Mair talking to Fabricnut who was bemoaning the trans row getting too much coverage in the contest and coming across as an alarmingly more salient almost sensible shitbag compared to the actual candidates

she's usually three sheets to the wind without even touching a drop of alcohol, or perhaps a more ableist way of putting it would be: she's a fucking moron.

I must admit I often enjoy the wise words of poster Calzino!

thank you Pinefox, but I'm probably not very wise. But I do find if you absolutely despise just about all UK politicians then it's very rare that anything you post dates that badly. The main snag is it makes me an extremely repetitive and also an extremely repetitive and an absolutely extremely repetitive... ad infinitum...

it's incredible listening to Tories attempting to boost the reputation of someone as vacuous and inconsistent as Truss. Also noticed Badenoch talking about her humble roots "flipping burgers" when her actual career path was from private school to private banking to The Spectator.

She’s also the arsewipe who bragged about hacking Harriet Harman’s website and got in zero trouble for it.

Consensus seems to be Tugendhat won the debate hands down. A little consolation for him when he's voted out in the next round.

he looked every inch the professional politician, and lots of people can't stand professional politicians

The UK really has no concept of how to cope with heat. I've read advice to carry a bag of frozen peas under your shirt on the train. Right now on the radio they're suggesting you rub yourself with a raw onion ("but it only has a palliative, not a preventative effect")

— Elle Hunt (@elle_hunt) July 16, 2022

Flipping burgers!

Burgers, onions, peas. I'm feeling a bit peckish all of a sudden.

Has a burger ever been flipped in a UK Macdonalds? I thought they just put them in a big industrial oven and warmed them up from frozen.

I think she meant flipping burger chains

Feel like the wise words of poster Calzino are finally capturing the mood of the nation

Barney's not in the mood to fuck about this morning. pic.twitter.com/4xteBZkGs2

— a normal man. an innocent man. (@DismalChips) July 16, 2022

Burgers, onions, peas, chickens...

.. if there's hell below
We're all gonna go