The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel - The Tory leadership elections

We should probably stop baiting Andrew F

Johnson's 'I was a great mayor' schtick is entirely aimed at people who have never lived in London but are nevertheless convinced Sadiq Khan has 'ruined it'

— Jack Saundrs (@jack_saundrs) June 13, 2019

expecting a dead cat poll bounce for CONs once he is installed + a summer of LAB infighting -> BJ will fall into same trap as TM and drink his own look aid. will then try to crush the saboteurs, pivoting to NDB to put nigel back in his box. october election will probably return a LAB (minority?) govt on a derisory share of the vote

in the meantime we’ll have liz truss chancellor

Ah, an optimist

Gove chancellor imo.

give it tugendhat

what annoys me abt BJ is i said "boris is over" a lot so i look bad and foolish not good and smart if actually he isn't over, also tom d gets to clown me

however him being "apparently in charge" doesn't mean he's no longer shrunken and hunched, the air was already out of may's balloon long before the 2017 election

I googled “Tom Tugendhat Boris” and this was the second result, which was timely as fuck for this thread!
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/conservative-party/house/house-magazine/102726/unparliamentary-language

I was mostly commenting on LBI's post. Johnson hasn't done any worse than May. This is also true for most of the crowd in this contest and if it isn't its because they haven't been put in charge of something for long enough (thinking of Rory here, but then again Rome wasn't built in a day and all that).

I mean May was a kind of absent PM in a lot of ways and that came from the non-debate in the last conservative leader non-contest. The contest so far is aping what happened then.

Johnson is crasser and people who are paid to publish their shit political opinions think he’s clownish. That’s why he is perceived as so much worse than May (who’s going to get dewy-eyed shite written about her before the year is out).

Both are terrible but Boris doesn't pretend he's not, and having someone in charge who is upfront about that will embolden racists further.

Boris is much more dangerous than a fearful maintain and meander, plodding type of evil tory like May. Because he's more likely to have more new ideas and implement them more forcefully + more often to add to to all the other bad policies that are already in place is how i see it.

Rory bodied from beyond the grave by Seamus Heaney

Been re-reading Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy:

Human beings suffer
They get hurt and get hard…

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) June 13, 2019

“Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done”
Seamus Heaney

— Daniel (@franeyd1) June 13, 2019

xp I think this is overly pessimistic, he’s lazy as fuck and would rather leave the hard stuff to others. May was awful because she never let go of the goal to just keep hurting immigrants.

May was a kind of absent PM in a lot of ways

i mean this was her shtick yes, in terms of public affect, but this is not my reading of her effect on the institutions (see long post here: Seizing back control: The ILX lol brexit is how we're all gonna die thread. )

other differences: may has a grasp of the concept of duty, which she hugs to herself and deploys to push her promised policy ends (which are very bad) through; BJ has no such sense

this is mid-life crisis boris with his big shot being an immortal ledge - it'll be different to when he was mayor.

although he probably still was in mid-life crisis mode as mayor tbf!

Both are terrible but Boris doesn't pretend he's not, and having someone in charge who is upfront about that will embolden racists further.

― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 13 June 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not sure how much a few crass comments here and there will do that having three years of the Brexit shitshow hasn't - as well as the hostile environment before that. xps

it will be lit bantz, you'll see the flames from space

xxp Johnson, the Tory party and certain sections of Britain are all going through prolonged midlife crises with no end in sight

Not sure how much a few crass comments here and there will do that having three years of the Brexit shitshow hasn't - as well as the hostile environment before that.

The hostile environment didn't really embolden racists in any way because racists weren't paying attention to it, they were being fed propaganda about how the UK's too nice to immigrants instead.

It's going to be considerably more than "a few crass comments here and there", btw.

I would say the things Boris has said and continues to defend have a damaging effect on society, even if May may harbour views that aren't alien to those more crass outbursts. Having a scattergun populist as your PM corrodes things in a different way to May. They certainly aren't the same.

Daniel otm.

Plus supporting no deal brexit also might have an effect on this country - we prob should start a brexit thread.

I could do picking the brains of chemistry ILX with a "How to manufacture homemade sodium valproate in yr kitchen" thread before the brexit one.

Daniel - I reckon the racists are paying attention - its not enough for them, but I reckon they'd be aware of the hostle environment, or when Sajid doesn't allow a UK citizen to return from Syria.

I am not convinced it will be more than colourful comments because that would require actual work but maybe you are right.

xp = Lets flip this around, did Cameron's socially liberal comments have had a more positive effect on society?

Christ

the hostile environment is a mentality, a sort of psychic warfare that doesn't just slowly trickle down from the top but has to be carried out by regular ppl (like me!) in all manner of institutions on the frontline who when dealing with ppl now have questions about nationality and bureaucratic evidence swimming around in their mind

PM Johnson will hire Bannon as his Crosby y/n

I googled “Tom Tugendhat Boris” and this was the second result, which was timely as fuck for this thread!

Read this as “Tom Tugendhat Blues”, which is almost a Tom Waits song I think?

what annoys me abt BJ is i said "boris is over" a lot so i look bad and foolish not good and smart if actually he isn't over, also tom d gets to clown me

Watch this space.

i mean this was her shtick yes, in terms of public affect, but this is not my reading of her effect on the institutions (see long post here: Seizing back control: The ILX lol brexit is how we're all gonna die thread. )

― mark s, Thursday, 13 June 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Totally (I said absent but also "in a lot of ways" as a shortcut caveat :)), and this is another way in which May has been very much more damaging than I reckon Johnson could be.

We could go to no deal under his watch but that as much to do with events yesterday, I'd say, and the point we have been bought under by May.

Daniel - I reckon the racists are paying attention - its not enough for them, but I reckon they'd be aware of the hostle environment, or when Sajid doesn't allow a UK citizen to return from Syria.

The true extent of the evil that the Home Office gets up to with the UK detention system is kept far away enough from the eyes of the public that even well informed lefties often don't know the whole story, imo.

Cameron's socially liberal comments were pandering, chasing after what was already established as the mainstream, and as such probably had no effect either way. Boris, however, wants to establish a new mainstream, which I think is different.

Trump is also less harmful than Hillary because he delivers neoliberal fascism straight, amirite?

Boris is worse than May because we were saved from the worst of May more than once by her inability to talk in public, charm in private or appear human, frankly. lol legernd has some ability here and it's the infuriating and polity-damaging kind Trump has too.

Didn't pom put up a poll showing that people have been very favourable on the hostile environment (I get that, as ogmor says, its a lot more than a policy, but it has its beginnings in a bunch of actions by the Home Office)? That's what I mean - people don't have to know the ins and outs of it, just that there is effort to make life miserable for non-UK citizens. I feel like that message is getting through.

re: comments I don't see anything Johnson himself says as enough of a shift, as in it will make people who are not born here feel more unwelcome. It might be embarrassing for liberal UK citizens, but anymore than that and I'd like to see a bit more speculation on what that might actually mean. xxp

I think this is overly pessimistic, he’s lazy as fuck and would rather leave the hard stuff to others.

this and the v remote idea that since he is such a self-serving wildcard there is like a 0.0001% chance he will spontaneously backtrack on everything if he thinks it'll work to his advantage somehow (this is obv a v remote chance which would surely backfire in some way anyway) are basically the only tiny straws I can clutch at for why everything isn't entirely hopeless now

but (as opposed to in his mayor days) now the "others" who will do the hard stuff are likely to be Bannonites so I'm really not sure this helps any more

he’s already partially walked back his tax policy

this backtracking will blow up in his face if he does it in the midst of a GE

Say what you like about May I think it's very unlikely she'd meet with Steve Bannon.

Just Victor Orban and directed her MEPs to support him too.

Boris is worse than May because we were saved from the worst of May more than once by her inability to talk in public, charm in private or appear human, frankly. lol legernd has some ability here and it's the infuriating and polity-damaging kind Trump has too.

hitler

billy bremner

antonescu

gary lineker..

It's naive to assume that political representation only happens at the policy level. Nothing is ever 'merely' symbolic in politics, and Boris openly stands for a dumber, bolder, scrupleless Britain, one that owns up to its hostility to foreign elements. This may in turn galvanise the resistance, yes, but not before causing nigh irreparable damage.

no Turkey in the EU but a foreign-born gobbler in 10DS

Rory Stewart says if Boris prorogues that he (Rory) will sit across the road in Methodist Hall and hold an alternative parliament

— Esther Webber (@estwebber) June 13, 2019

We all know who the star of this contest is.

HoP will do a Notre Dame soon enough

internecine etonian bantz

rory founds alt-bullingdon where proles are allowed to watch through the window

This is amazing - we’re getting some real momentum here. Thank you so, so much. Let’s push this through to the end. It’s increasingly clear it’s me against Boris. And let’s win #rorywalks pic.twitter.com/YvvAf8oEE5

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) June 13, 2019

#rorywalks

Portillo is done