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

With the 'precedent' comment it appears you have only started to pay attention recently?

Or as Soubz would have it: holding the tories to account, lol

The other thing was that May managed to sound broadly professional and committed and made lots of noises about fairness and being nice while doing the exact opposite to a lot of marginalised people.

Johnson's actual policies might turn out to be less damaging to some groups of people than May's (his wider policies are likely to be a disaster) but his rhetoric will be much worse, and rhetoric can be hugely damaging.

*spends the entire afternoon saying how May has been a horror and that Boris won't be worse in many ways*

"if you think May hasn’t been a horror for many marginalised people in this country, then go ask some of the asylum seekers deported to unsafe countries (if you can)"

I didn't spend a second worrying about the accusation of being hand-wavey. You shouldn't take it seriously either.

Agree with Matt.

The precedent comment again, was about comparing Miliband to Enoch Powell. Nothing to do with May.

Again, no positive comment or defence of May here, just to say adding racist comments and defences of them to the existing Tory government doesn't seem like it's going to be fine or the same, to me. I think the comments are really important on top of the policy but you seem to disagree. Fair enough imo.

Not to mention presumably a front bench with a few ERG types on it.

But I think this points to what UK politicians have often done in various ways from "Rivers of Blood" speech onwards, to Ed Milliband's immigration mugs and the like. I agree Johnson will be more brazen about it, he will hold the highest office in the country too, but its very much part of a trend. When I said it was mostly going to be racist comments you seemed to suggest that he will do more to enable racist violence?

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, June 13, 2019 9:01 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark

to be fair to our tankie friend here this is not "comparing red ed to enoch"

Thank God ERG stalwarts like Steve Baker, Dominic Raab, David Davis and Liam Fox never held high office in the May regime.

p worried he may turbo charge the erosion of our democratic norms started by may, modelling his premiership on trump. early talk of proroguing parliament not a particularly auspicious start

proroguing parliament is only good not bad when labour does it to noise up the lords

xpost maybe more of them this time and as the centre of his cabinet actively seeking hard Brexit. Dunno really what way he will have to go, guess it depends on how the leadership goes.

Agree about eroding norms further.

I am not sure why, and I say this out of genuine curiosity rather than as a rhetorical barb, why people seem determined to argue that nobody ever could be worse than May? If that's an inaccurate summation then I'm open to correction. I don't know where either you or Gyac are coming from Xyzzz, in all honesty.

It seems fairly likely to me that Boris can be everything May was and more.

I mean sure, you can point to a continuum, but it's not like each subsequent leader is inevitable based on the last.

i feel like i've set out at some careful length where aloh and gyac and me might be coming from, without anyone really making the slightest effort to engage with what i'm saying or even notice it

Look being perfectly calm and posting like you always do is a time-honoured tradition in these threads, either commit to that or stop leaving your pissy little asides in every comment you make, about some argument that only you are perceiving itt.

xp I always notice and appreciate you even if not mutual! Esp your Rory content!

https://www.picclickimg.com/d/l400/pict/223480079681_/Robert-Harrop-Stingray-Aquaphibian-Stf06-Mint-With-Box.jpg

Ah, the Afghanistan years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt0HR9COX0I

Mark I felt you were relatively subtle - can you elucidate?

Look being perfectly calm and posting like you always do is a time-honoured tradition in these threads, either commit to that or stop leaving your pissy little asides in every comment you make, about some argument that only you are perceiving itt.

I wasn't even commenting on anything you said. I made the same argument several others did and in the end agreed to disagree with Xyzzz who didn't seem particularly fazed by what I said.

I have absolutely no grudge against you.

Like I did my best to try to say "I don't understand your argument" and clarify I'm not being dismissive by that. I dunno, why keep attacking at that point?

I mean, you do insist on posting stuff like this

why people seem determined to argue that nobody ever could be worse than May? If that's an inaccurate summation then I'm open to correction.

the car's on fire, Antonescu is at the wheel ... Billy Bremner is doing the pissed up navigation to hell !

Does anyone really believe that Johnson will actively seek a hard Brexit? It's possible that he's stupid enough to try but he wants to be a Prime Minister for good times. He's more likely to axe what remains of the social security budget and use the money for a massive street party on an island no one can get to.

https://i.redd.it/pnf7ek60ajuy.jpg

The car’s on fyre

xxp
he's been pro-EU longer than a brexiter, and has nothing to gain from a national crisis - fight them on the beaches posturing won't cut it when people are dying without meds and everyone hates him + his wretched party.

Relatedly, the Tory party are so hard up for cash that they've said whoever gets through to the last two will have to stump up £150k each for hustings - possibly* causing the leadership to change without the bother of the members getting involved again.

*but not actually because this is still the Tory party and there can still be a whip-round to cover it fairly quickly.

I reckon he'll end up making even more concessions than May and the ERG will be burning effigies of him and calling him an adulterous lying cokefiend and sex pest.

I saw that and nodded approvingly. Flawless grift to top up the coffers!

the extent to which Johnson pursues hard Brexit and the extent to which he'll push rightwards are the big unknowables at this point. it might be that the Bannon/Farage axis are just drinking chums as disposable as any other if they inconvenience his personal ambitions, but maybe his personal ambitions aren't really focused on being the first legerndary Prime Minister and he's running as a front man for that axis with all the financial and political obligations that entails

xp I agree actually. He doesn’t have any solid beliefs and he doesn’t do well in difficult situations because he lacks the same stubbornness to push through. Plus no work ethic. It’d be funny if every successive leader wasn’t dragging us closer to the abyss.

Look what happened the last time we had a workshy Old Etonian slob running to fat as PM.

he's over i tell you

It’s #WhipsToryLeadersSweepstake and on his Birthday 🎁 the Chief Whip gets Boris Johnson pic.twitter.com/LVjzJBs0ud

— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) June 13, 2019

I thought he was rolling a joint there.

uncancel mlc

the first reply there on twitter is the essence of alt-centrism. just look at that fucking profile

"neoliberal Zionist terf’n’swerf Blairite libtard Britnat yoon red Tory cis-gay centrist remoaner scum. all tweets are pre-approved by my Zionist slave masters"

Johnson didn't actually need the support of Bannon or anyone else in that circle to work his way into the situation he's currently in though. I'm not ruling it out, but given its already been established that he will fuck over pretty much anyone to get what he wants it stands to reason he'd do that to the ERG as well.

he fucked up one leadership challenge, he now has to stand at the most unpropitious moment in the party's history, his personal life is presumably expensively complex, who can be sure what deals he's prepared to engage in to ensure he gets to the top this time round? (leaving aside likely political affinities with other racists)

what we know about his campaign has a very different vibe than the clubby amateurism of his last effort

He was extolling trickle down economics in his launch speech like the past ten years had never happened. This will totally work.

Hiding him away is a good idea for starters, but it is a strategy with limitations. He could be just one tactless blunder away from fucking it all up, then they'll become amateurs! Or no one will care and applaud him, then they are clever operators again.

it's unknowable at this stage but he's got very dodgy allies who've already thrown god knows how much money at achieving the Brexit they want and his fecklessness is not proof against an attempt to force the hardest of Brexits now. I find him less convincing as an erstwhile one nation Tory who just wants to be PM than most of the other possibilities

"I find him less convincing as an erstwhile one nation Tory"

his sister probably does as well.

ok if gove wins the uk politics thread has to be called "one nation under a gove"

He isn't convincing as someone who believes in anything other than himself and his career tbf.

not that I'd put any actual "one nation tories" above boris tbh, cos they are all trash.

but you have to distinguish between between different levels of evil tory trash on this thread or a clusterfuck is on the way.

rather than quoting whatever argument isn’t gelling with you? Do you not see why putting that argument on people who never even alluded to this could be insulting?

I literally said that's my summation and I could be wrong. I wasn't being sarcastic saying that, I genuinely was not sure the precise angle at work. I genuinely meant please tell me if that's not what you're saying. Because I wasn't sure and I don't even know if you and xyzzz think the same thing, how could I?

There's no master troll plan or something. You target my posts on this thread repeatedly and try to force a personal argument, over and over again, to the point that I can barely post here even when what I'm saying is relatively similar to what other people say. You're also the angriest person in this thread.

Most of the time I come to this thread without major convictions beyond the broader ones most of us share here, but tend to question things to find my way to something more close to that. Not everybody is certain of things.

Yeah I get exasperated or make a joke but no more than anyone else here.

The discussion with xyzzz seemed to go on and and end relatively amicably. I'm sick of getting flamed or treated like a troll just for posting fairly occasionally or having a debate. It's totally unfair and on this occasion my posts were not even responding to a single thing you had said, you just appeared to attack me.

I've tried several times to draw a line under this but it obviously won't go anywhere, the bit you picked out of my post above was me being me as careful as I can to show I wasn't sure where the argument had gone and maybe I'd got it wrong and if so let me know, and somehow that's me attacking someone.

I fucking hate this, having to get embroiled in someone attacking me personally and not the things I said. It's totally unfair.

The thing is all these ERGers are going on and on about his tenure as London Mayor when he was far more pro-immigration than official Tory policy at the time and was touting amnesties for illegal immigrants. They're so fucking dumb they don't realize he got elected by being as unTorylike as he could get away with but mostly by keeping out of people's hair by sitting on his fat arse doing nothing all day - much as Sadiq Khan is doing now.