"oh you don't get me I'm the end of the union": lol brexit is how we're all gonna die

And look at him now - on second thoughts no...

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/12/15/11/3A05DA2400000578-5182899-image-m-32_1513338892213.jpg

jesus simon le bons looking rough

This whole week has been tedious as but people acting outraged that Labour would target a marginal held by darling of the centre Anna “austerity was good/EU is good/but actual EU citizens are bad” Soubry is uncivil or dangerous are, as ever, the fucking worst.

Look, they are reasonable, civil people with values, everybody else is rabid scum who are also squares

I know it's funny that the man with the melted face has joined the melt party. but i bet there will be a fair bit of uproar in the party about losing such a biggish donor, and especially such a humble wealth creator who doesn't crave the spotlight at all.

http://charliemullins.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/28.-Charlie-Sol-Campbell.jpg

I'd forgotten about the time Sol wanted to stand as a tory MP.

Are most footballers Tories? “Hahaha! Probably.”

This is just beautiful.

Corbyn has limited time to stop a new tranche of MPs choosing to sit as an separate Labour group. He has been told to change, requiring him to back a People’s Vote, set up a credibly-run inquiry into anti-semitism, and reorganise his office. Purify or mollify. His choice.

— Patrick Wintour (@patrickwintour) February 22, 2019

"Separate Labour group"

Co-Op MPs forming a splinter group, maybe?

Not that I’ve heard anything of the kind, but backbench Labour and Co-Op MPs do make up a big proportion of the wingers.

I'm guessing this will end with Labour whipping to support the Kyle amendment (and presumably the Cooper one as well). And then the likes of Hoey, Flint, Skinner etc vote against it anyway and the whole thing goes down in flames.

Co-op peeps have always felt honestly part of the Labour movement to me. Which isn't to disagree with you, suzy.

an interesting (in the light of Windrush etc) bit popped up in D Edgerton's latest book where the nationality act '81 (obv designed to deter ppl from non-white commonwealth countries from attaining UK citizenship. But it also accidentally stripped full citizenship away from Falkland Islanders, which proved an embarrassment with that little war going on in their name and it was returned to them in '83.

that edgerton book is so good. i dropped it halfway (not bcos of boredom just other things caught my eye). must pick it up again. likewise shock of the old.

yeah I've been doing the same, Junger Dairies and the Cambridge spy ring one, but it's a an excellent book.

his Britain's War machine book is good shit as well.

lol Junger Dairies.

ha ha.

Did charlie mullins support and donate to the tories in the 2015 election, when their manifesto pledged a referendum on eu membership? Lol if so.

I mean, lol anyway tbh

http://charliemullins.co.uk/life-story/#stars

the "plumber to the stars" has seemingly spent most of the 2010's era being a shameless starfucker. he probably started googling "EU" in 2017, like a lot of politicians also did tbf.

They still haven't googled Nothern Ireland

Nice and dramatic from Peston here, but I think he's right that next week is going to make this week look sedate:

The warning in the Mail by @GregClarkMP @AmberRuddHR and @DavidGauke that Brexit should be delayed rather than risk a no-deal Brexit is a clear breach of Cabinet collective responsibility. But they won’t be sacked by @theresa_may, and are getting away with an almost...

— Robert Peston (@Peston) February 23, 2019

Calzino which Cambridge spy ring book?

the richard davenport-hines one Enemies Within: Communists, the Cambridge Spies and the Making of Modern Britain, but disappointingly it's more of a patchy, potted history of the evolution of MI5/6 so far. I'm probably dropping it for a bit.

there must be one good Cambridge Spy Ring book ffs!

I think the Donald Maclean book that was reviewed with it in NYRB might be the better one, but review was paywalled.

I'm probably being a bit harsh on the davenport-hines one, but some of his cheka/NKVD for newbies stuff in the opening 60-70 pages was bugging me cos I've already read too much about them + not enough about the Cambridge Spy Ring. And I suppose it was getting there.

richard davenport-hines once wrote a book abt goths* that was given a a sneery review in the lrb by terry eagleton which i very nearly wrote a cross letter abt

*i mean "the gothic", the section on alien sex fiend was sadly truncated

I bet his goth period didn't include the late period when a pissed up wayne hussey called james whale a fat bald bastard!

Members of the crowd sang “oh Tommy, Tommy” as Robinson arrived on stage and attacked the media. He went on to claim that “evidence of a corrupt media is that not one single journalist in Britain has reported on Panodrama”.

not so delightful morbsian wordplay.

kind of related, the 'sleeping with the far right' thing on ch4 during the week was interesting / unpleasant

he spent a lot of his time talking about fake news and main stream media and a lot of his other time getting smear stories promoted to the top of google searches by russian seo rings. he was also half indian but had changed his name to something english sounding, had lived in america until his teenage years, had a ukranian wife and yet was high up in the b n p...

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/feb/21/sleeping-with-the-far-right-review-could-you-move-in-with-a-man-too-racist-for-ukip

“The working class knows there’s something wrong,” says one of Sen’s guerrillas, who in the 90s was a Labour member and trade union rep. “There’s an electricity.”

from Labour trade unionist rep to UKIP/EDL doesn't seem such a big step these days.

Just found these old Top Trumps cards of politicians that Sky got made for party conference season 2008... let’s have a look.... pic.twitter.com/YOiIyscOBb

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) February 23, 2019

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/D0HhwT9XQAAG4Mb.jpg

sorry bout lame posting in series but I've been stuck in all day. just thought this was *something*.

Vince Cable: “Common sense on a stick, this insightful ballroom dancer proves you don’t have to be young to be good."

James Purnell is a scrote, but by far the smartest of the Blairites: get the fuck off that sinking ship and go make some real money with some bullshit sinecure. David Miliband was the second smartest. The rest, lol

"Theresa May carefully bringing up the next generation of Tory women."

mm

Setting up a shitty new party with Anna Soubry is NEWS, this isn't:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-47332954

I can't be the only person who forgot that James Purnell even existed.

I kind of assume Jeremy Hunt must be a secret crush of shame for most of the women who have ever looked twice at me

xp

I get this weird deja vu with Purnell, where stuff i probably read in private eye or elsewhere years ago comes back to me - like the photoshop incident, and the open letter to gordon. but other things like his post 2008 existence and rise to the head of BBC radio (or wtf his title is) are just a complete blank. had seriously forgotten he even existed - which is the right thing to do about 99.9% of politicians tbf.

He's head of Radio & Education at the BBC, which is very well paid but hardly the sort of coin he could be making.

that period he spent with Broon was more of a formative experience than he'll admit to!

"steers clear of smugness"

Christ alive pic.twitter.com/LosE7BxGLa

— Dan Bloom (@danbloom1) February 24, 2019

the ghast insufferables.

Ooh Gavin Shuker gets to be Judas.

for an anti-gay marriage, pro-lifer type christian, that must be a bit of blow for him.

"Shuker was opposed to the introduction of same-sex marriage. In 2012 he threatened to resign if Ed Miliband whipped Labour to support equal marriage."

it's a new way of doing politics.

if Soubry thinks they are all going to happily coalesce into a unified bunch of melts, she knows nothing about humanity and politics, but I think she knows she's talking crap. I can't wait for the first factions within the faction.

TIG asked - What are your policies?

“You’re asking through the prism of the old politics”

Are you going to field candidates?

“You’re looking at things through the paradigm of the 20th century”

What other political group/party would be allowed to get away with this?

— Ross Kempsell (@rosskempsell) February 24, 2019

embarrassing.