Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

... is dissapointed with all londners, i mean boris really?
... says chin up Londoners, let's all have a revolution.
... is wondering how stupid people can be! Boris??!! You fools!
... thinks London is 42.48% full of cunts.
... is very proud of London. (I think this one is sarcastic)
... thinks all the whiney fucks complaining about Boris are middle-class working-class wannabes. Stay out of my city.
... thinks you voted for Boris
... aaaaargh not boris - what the fuck is going on in london.
... is now thinking of staying in brighton.
... is not thrilled about having Boris as mayor.
... is thinking of moving.
... is gutted.
... voted for Ken, it's not his fault.

seriously i think entertainment/novelty is QUITE A LOW-RANKING REASON: much more relevant are -- in no special order -- general country-wide vote against labour/brown (re economy), vote "for change", vote re transport issues (suburbs vs inner city -- see ed's map upthread), vote re (euphemism alert) "multi-cultural issues" (also possibly suburbs vs inner city) (tho as i said before i'm not an expert on the cultural demographics of the satellites and the burbs and may be talkin bollox on this one)

of much more minor import: specific gilligan/enrique-esque anti-ken stuff (lee jasper, hugging islamist hoodies, "anti-semitism"); the "boris is fun" factor; bendy buses

general country-wide vote against labour/brown (re economy)

that's the trouble with being met-elite - it's hard to imagine enough people voting against Lab as opposed to just 'hurrah the Tories are credible again', if you know what i mean (if we're saying Labour picked up that many votes under Blair from people who would normally vote Con)

really tho, how many voted Ken last time and Boris this time?

bit muddled there i know - presumably more votes 'against ken' this time from people who didn't vote last time (more than votes 'against boris' surely)

Chap, if they're status updates of your mates then we have a mutual f-book friend (the second one on your list).

What has obviously made the specific gilligan anti-ken stuff more effective is the apparent lack of anything pro-Ken anywhere. As far as I could make out, absolutely nobody stuck their neck out and said 'weeeell, you have to vote for this guy or you get boris'. Just a simple 'don't vote boris'.

http://www.hurryupharry.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/boris.jpg

What will Gilligan do for an encore? And how will he be rewarded for his toadying?

http://borisjohnsonfacts.com/

Chap, if they're status updates of your mates then we have a mutual f-book friend (the second one on your list).

Lou1s B@ym@n?

The very one. One of those people who reassures me London will stay sane...

Hah, small world. You weren't at his bbq last weekend by any chance, were you? (Sorry to use this thread for personal shit)

Had to miss it cos I had a shitload of work to do and my husband (the reason I know LB) was in Dusseldorf. I'll see if I can pick you out at the next one (if this weather sticks there'll be another). My initials are AW if I'm showing up on his friends list.

But yeah, sorry, Boris, hate him etc.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/andrew-gilligan-it-was-not-the-standard-wot-won-it-for-boris-821013.html

this guy seems douchey sorry friends

Good news. Perhaps BJ will give him a job?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7385370.stm

Got to love the way middle class liberals automatically assume everyone who votes BNP is working class. Arseholes.

The part of London where the B*P got the biggest share of the vote is possibly the poorest though, TomD.

Hari still a cunt, for now and always, of course.

Funny but Barnbrook and Griffin don't seem too working class to me. I'm guessing that if they had the money to campaign in middle class areas as vigorously and intensively as they do in poorer areas they would get plenty of votes there too.

The BNP vote is pretty much uniformly working class though Tom D, and it always has been. There's a reason the BNP break through in Bradford and not Harrogate.

You mean the fact that everyone in Harrogate is white and the BNP don't bother campaigning there?

If you're middle class and racist, you vote UKIP not BNP.

Plus qf 70s trade unionists wearing "Enoch Was Right" badges.

You vote Tory surely? (xp)

OK then, devil's advocate: what are the main differences between the thought processes of someone who votes UKIP and BNP? Try to answer without "there are no thought processes at play" zinging.

Bonus points for incorporating the English Democrats into your answer.

Funny but Barnbrook and Griffin don't seem too working class to me.

Barnbrook is. Griffin isn't.

Obviously, there are many, many petit bourgeois small business types who harbour fascist ideas (not a coincidence that Thatcher was the grocer's daughter) and many of these work at the heart of the BNP's electoral organisation but it can't be denied that there are larger groups of "ethnic" population in poorer areas, and so the BNP are going to target those areas. Not much point campaigning about an "immigrant threat" in Esher where there is nary a black or Asian face to be seen.

UKIP bit of a one-trick pony isn't it?

xpost Dom

UKIP put more emphasis on an anti-Europe position rather than an anti-immigration/ straight out racist stance.

UKIP also struck me, tbh, as more of a checks-and-balance party on the Conservatives, ie "Go back to your 90s position on Europe and lose part of your vote to us".

I need to pay more attention to UK politics

I was wondering why Darrell Hammond was all over the news lately

One reason why it may be hard for 'us' to judge why people vote for these parties, and who votes for them, is that 'we' don't know anyone that does. I don't, anyway. So it is all hearsay and via media reports or, at best, electoral stat breakdowns.

Come to think of it, don't think I know any Tory voters either. Well, one or two at most.

My O-level art teacher back in the 80s was a BNP candidate :(

Barnbrook is a former arts teacher as well... time to cut this subject off the curriculum, says I.

One reason why it may be hard for 'us' to judge why people vote for these parties, and who votes for them, is that 'we' don't know anyone that does.

Half the people at my work to thread.

Art teachers are always cunts.

Worst belting I ever got was from an art teacher, sadistic bastard ... ha ha, corporal punishment, never did me no harm *twitch* *twitch*

My school art teacher was a beautiful Welsh girl who drove a clapped-out mini. She would never have voted BNP. Or Tory. Or done anything I could possibly disagree with.

We've got this weird kind of situation at the moment, for the next couple of years at least, where Cameron is technically Boris's superior, but Boris has much more power than Cameron.

Like me and you on ILX, Matt.

which (on ilx) is which?

Interesting about art teachers. Mine were on the left.

It's true I suppose what DC says - though I'm not certain that BJ does have more power. A big budget, true. But Cameron (hey, same initials as DC) is still in charge of the whole party, all the MPs; and is in effect the head of Conservative Britain - all the voters, all the councils, activists, sympathizers etc.

There's a lot of right wing people posting comments on the internet.

Cameron will be pulling Boris's strings. He ain't gonna let the little fucker do anything that isn't Tory HQ approved.

It's not Cameron, it's Lynette Crosbie, who I am now convinced is an actual full-scale Machiavelli/Alastair Campbell style political genius by managing to get Boris through the entire campaign without him declaring war on Guam or something.

*Lynton Crosby

I was thinking of the wife from One Foot In The Grave

FAKE BORIS.

What I'm going to miss most about Ken is that he was one of the few impressions that Rory Bremner can still do.

That's not what I'm going to miss most.

Not even sure I've seen that impression.

It's true, though, that RB's routines often seem to become people that the audience nervously doesn't really recognize. And his US accents are poor, except perhaps for Bill Clinton.

But yeah, obviously Tory central office is going to be much more hands-on with Boris than Labour were with Ken. I get the opinion Ken was pretty much left to get on with it because he was already seen as disconnected from the government, Cameron's got a brand identity to protect.

Seen as disconnected by the government or by voters?

(Impossible to answer, praps. I'm just wondering aloud.)