brexit negging when yr mandate is is trash: or further chronicles of a garbage-fire

can't believe the number of conservative MPs who want a hard brexit is 295.

stephen bush had a good piece yesterday on the effects of the FTP act on the DUP's leverage

hey, just because she couldn't police the entire internet doesn't mean she couldn't make it a bit shittier

missed this a couple of days ago but the lols are as fresh as ever

Not only is a there a poll showing the Tories behind Labour, there’s also one showing every replacement for May would make them less popular pic.twitter.com/3qvAu7MvRJ

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) June 10, 2017

Stephen Bush wrote a piece yesterday saying that the Fixed Term Parliaments Act gives a disproportionate amount of power to the DUP even by Hung Parliament standards. Essentially the DUP can withdraw their support on anything they want, inflicting defeat after defeat upon the party, unless they get their way, because the FTPA means that only a No Confidence vote can bring the government down.

Result = zombie government unable to do anything, OR one in which the DUP get whatever the hell they want.

the dup are finding themselves in the wholly unfamilar position of being able to hold a gun to someone's head to get what they want

oof

but at least they can force May to go full term

haha

strung and stagnant

fucking hell, greg knight in the melody maker!

his election jingle keeps popping into my head so it's well-deserved tbh

― cast your vote for fully automated gay space luxury communism (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 13 June 2017 10:22 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I remember that. The debate was basically "Red Wedge, good or bad", and GK was sat next to Chris Dean of the Redskins on the "Bad" side of the table. He sort-of made the mistake of thinking they was politically allied. CDean told him, quite forcefully without actually looking at him, that this was not so.

Essentially the DUP can withdraw their support on anything they want, inflicting defeat after defeat upon the party, unless they get their way

Or any other faction/bloc/caucus, right? It could get merciless, bouncing between policies the DUP find acceptable and those the leftie Scots do

DUP will i think stick to stuff in NI itself; they won't venture into mainland cultural politics -- so the question is, what are libertarian and cult-lib tories prepared to defend?

i'm trying to remember how much salience this all had when it was gordon brown doing the same deal -- when it was more or less pre-internet, certainly pre-twitter

what it actually does is put present-day NI under the lens of all for a change: which will change the dynamic there a LOT i suspect

I have been wondering how counterproductive it might be in the long term for the DUP to put a spotlight on the aporiae within the constitutional settlement of the UK

john major largely otm

I am concerned about the deal, I am wary about it, I am dubious about it, both for peace process reasons, and for other reasons as well ...

My main concern is the peace process. A fundamental part of that peace process is that the UK government needs to be impartial between all the competing interests in Northern Ireland. And the danger is that however much any government tries, they will not be seen to be impartial if they are locked into a parliamentary deal at Westminster with one of the Northern Ireland parties. And you never know in what unpredictable way events will turn out. And we cannot know if that impartiality is going to be crucial at some stage in the future ..

If there difficulties with the Northern Ireland executive or with any one of a number of things that might well arise during the Brexit negotiations, it is very important that there’s an honest broker. And the only honest broker can be the UK government.

And the question arises, if they cease to be seen as such by part of the community in Northern Ireland, then one can’t be quite certain how events will unwind. And that worries me a great deal about the peace process.

If only the Shinners would take their seats in Parliament... on second thoughts, maybe no.

The ..... only..... honest broker?

i did say 'largely' otm tbf

on the whole i would say, if there is one party in UK politics which is by culture and temperament disinclined instantly to gorge itself on free icecream until it is vomiting and comatose, it is the DUP: it is stubborn and parochial, and almost entirely hostile to visionary flights of the imagination, or any other kind of indulgence -- it does not proselytise, it holds on

but we are in an era of surprises, and arlene foster is not the reverend paisley (no one is), so who knows who will do what

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/816361/theresa-may-queen-jeremy-corbyn-sinn-fein-gerry-adams-arlene-foster-dup-westminster

i can never remember which UK papers are the trashy ones, so can someone tell me what's going on

That's the trashiest of the lot.

gotcha -- i need to keep a list or something

Lot of competition there though.

what you need is a league table xp

SF always come over to get their milk money

this would be a hilarious week for them to hang around in a teasing fashion obviously

Liverpool echo finish fifth

i think we're all overlooking the real story here though, which is that twitter sensation ed miliband is going to be presenting jeremy vine's radio 2 show next week, while burning sensation ian duncan smith will be spinning the platters that matter the week after

i look forward to knuckledragging white van man callers competing to offer up the worst bacon sandwich joke while ed is on the air

shadow minister of fandom, call him by his title

the vitally important frontbench role he was born for

Evening Standard front page is a picture of Arlene going into no.10 with the headline "We're the masters now", in case you were wondering how Osborne is taking it.

osborne fairly well-versed in master/servant relationships on several levels iirc

As the DUP leadership turn up in Downing Street this lunchtime, here's our second edition @EveningStandard ... pic.twitter.com/O2ODW3pmDD

— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) June 13, 2017

We're the Masters Noyyyyy, So We Are

look at those shit-eating grins

so much for the humourless ulster unionists

if anyone's going to gorge himself on free icecream until vomiting and comatose, it's osborne -- imagining the design room eye-rolling at one another as he charges across the office for the third time in an afternoon: "let's do a new front page! do it! doooooo it!

i hope you're not suggesting osborne's boundless energy and regular attacks of the munchies are chemically-induced

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2015-03/18/9/enhanced/webdr09/anigif_original-grid-image-25709-1426684476-28.gif?crop=225:225;26,-1&downsize=715:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto

i am suggesting he does not always pace himself

corbyn looking fly as fuck in the commons right now with a red tie and giant red rose on his lapel

looking, dare i say, prime ministerial in fact

does the DUP not remember how this coalition thing worked out for the lib dems?

They only have to please a tiny local vocal constituency

Further thoughts on the election that I hadn't really processed until now:

- Amazing the extent the which the economy was barely an issue this time round. It's usually centre stage and I think this was a serious error on the Tories' part. Health, education, immigration, security, social care, transport and taxation all came up time and time again but usually the economy blows all of those away when it comes to influencing voting. Not this time.

- The decline of the Tories as the party of aspiration. This is *huge*. Labour leadership candidates, playing catch-up to the Tories, banged on about aspiration so much in 2015 that they barely saw Corbyn coming. In practice, "aspirational" policies have tended to mean lower taxes, help onto the property ladder and rising house prices thereafter. But we're talking about a generation now that feels their aspirations are being shredded - who cares about lower taxes when you feel like your route to a well-paying job has been cut off? Housing equity means nothing if you feel like you're going to be renting for the rest of your life. The focus on "strong and stable" ignored the question "stability for whom?"

- The frustrating thing about Sensible Labour (RIP) is how it always seemed to be fighting the last campaign - Burnham, Cooper and Kendall all immediately seized on the results of those 'Why didn't you vote Labour?' surveys and made them the centrepieces of their campaigns, without stopping to think about whether that would be the case in 2-5 years' time, or thinking too deeply about what underlying truths they might be revealing below the surface. The same goes for publications like the Guardian and the Staggers, except this time it was Brexit they were obsessing over. If they'd spent half as much time trying to understand Corbyn voters as they did trying to understand UKIP voters, they might have seen this coming.

Brexit perhaps the gloomy background constant that allowed the manifesto to make the impact it did?

shurely you mean the golden road to the future prosperity the parties were fighting over

Brexit was certainly a catalyst for increased voter turnout, but Labour neutralised it successfully during the campaign by making it about everything except Brexit.

I think it might be dawning on younger voters that when somebody on the news says "this is bad for the economy" then what "the economy" means is "wealthy exploitative scumbags"

I think it was more that a substantial part of the Tory leadership privately thought that Brexit was going to destroy the economy anyway and tried not to mention it.

oh I was just showboating but inasmuch as the vote breaks down across age lines the young have way less reason to be enthralled by the abstract Economy

Brexit is now our third rail: because it splits across party lines (apart from the Libs), most politicos are wary of talking about it for fearing of alienating a section of their vote. (Eg witness baby storm after McDonnell comments the other day).

And you can't raise the economy without someone raising Brexit so that also becomes something to avoid, aside from generic "we need a strong economy" refs.

(Of course, it was too late for the Tories anyway. They might not have mentioned it in the campaign, but their Remain vote heard them hammering on about hard-as-hard-can-be Brexit for the months leading up to the campaign.)

booming 'further thoughts' post from matt dc there

obviously "it wz the youth whut wun it" is incorrect anyway, but insofar as the perspectives of the young mattered, it's partly bcz they impact on the perspectives of, like, their parents! who love them and worry abt them!

(i know i know #notallparents but #plentyofparents)

so the 35-45 cohort aren't just voting self-absorbedly here either