Seizing back control: The ILX lol brexit is how we're all gonna die thread.

Deputy leader is an elected position aiui?

... and very tricky to bring a challenge forward against him aiui.

as much as I think he should be sacked from his DCMS brief, that would probably be very provocative atm

if we could get a period of serenity we might get a shadow cab reshuffle... doesn’t look likely in the foreseeable tho

Dawn Foster was correct in saying he is a coward and useless to everyone with his current mo as a saboteur. If he thinks carrying on like this is a noble cause and has any useful endgame, then hanging out with rich bdsm nazis has warped his brain.

Might buy a few weeks of t-wat going back in his box, so that’s a good thing, and there is much to do at DCMS that would actually be, you know, working in the interests of the party.

FWIW my cousin has breast cancer (although unlike Jennie’s hers is inoperable) and her chemo gives her tired days and more active days, but I remember from my own childhood experiences of same that chemo makes a patient CRANKY. What a graceful letter under the circs.

I presume TW won't reply, other than with "I won't rest until blah blah" type stuff? Doesn't seen the type

I had quick look at his twitter, he has 37 followers I know. Why on earth would anyone follow TW? I totally understand following Trump, he's in power and says mad shit, but this guy?

Legacy phone hacking? Like all those old followers Glinner built up before he decided to spend all day every day ranting about Big Trans.

If Corbyn sacked him, the outcry over that Dawn Foster article would pale in comparison to the sheer outrage unleashed.

Sacking him would be a bad move and wouldn't actually achieve very much - it's better to have him inside the tent pissing all over everyone including himself.

He is serially disloyal and has worked to undermine three separate leaders with completely different political perspectives, genuinely don't see how he thinks he can be leader but I think he thinks he can have one of the big Cabinet posts under I dunno Prime Minister Yvette Cooper or whoever. In the unlikely event that happens she would be wise to steer well clear.

Having said that there's clearly something of substance that he is desperate to get out of the open - not necessarily for the right reasons. Whatever that is we might actually benefit from knowing but the whole situation is such a clusterfuck of incompetence and mendacity that I don't really know what to think any more. But, as had been pointed out here before, you don't take half a million quid from the son of Oswald Mosley if you are serious about combating antisemitism wherever it appears in society.

If he doesn’t get made leader he can’t blow the lid on the international child trafficking ring being run out of the Letchworth branch of Zizzi so idk, he has to keep plugging away.

iirc a huge part of the reason he was elected Deputy is that he was perceived as one of the least hostile candidates wrt Corbyn. It wasn’t because he had a large centrist following. I can’t see that happening again.

Wait, what? He took half a mil from Mosley's son? I don't know the context but...reading your last paragraph, is it overly conspiratorial to think his endgame actually just is "Keep Labour out of power"? I'd just thought he was dumb nothing more than that...but if he's taking money for Big Brownshirt who else is taking it from?

That said, why do you think there's something of substance he's trying to get out, and why doesn't he just say it (other than trying to drag it out as many small hits are way more effective than one big hit)

the context is he gets a good discount on latex nazi bdsm wear!

xp right, the deputy leadership was basically just him v stella creasy (otherwise it was flint, eagle, bradshaw) there was no left candidate

He's the deputy leader of the Labour Party, gyac OTM about him being the face of phone hacking, one of the most unifying political scandals of the last decade, and he tears strips off Corbyn about antisemitism - him having a large Twitter following should be the opposite to a surprise.

Including known melt suzy!

He is 'standing around pointing at potholes' on the global stage.

he lost sleep over the treatment of poor phil woolas too

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/static/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/11/5/1288985070373/Phil-Woolas-election-leaf-006.jpg?width=620&quality=45&auto=format&fit=max&dpr=2&s=310557747f727c1a6503f3417197477a

he was a piece of .. something

Watson wants to make the EHRC investigation into Labour antisemitism public so presumably there's something highly damaging and critical in there, that's the bit we might benefit from knowing about.

More generally the Mosley context is that he's Max Mosley's ally in his war against the press and the Murdoch press in particular. Probably out of principle in Watson's case but with Mosley it's more of "keep my orgies private" kind of thing.

Whether the EHRC themselves particularly want their investigation made public at this stage I don't know.

M Mosley has a brother who denounced his dad's fascist politics, he never did. I mean you'd think this might be a problem for a pol who is passionately anti-racist.

pretty sure he wants to either 1 selectively leak parts of the submission to damage the party or 2 lay the ground for a “we can’t trust the 4Ms/ the top brass made a selective submission” narrative if the EHRC investigation doesn’t find that labour is a sewer. suspicion it’s the latter - since he has already lied about not being offered sight of the submission

I am happy to kick him out the tent

If he pisses on me I'll start swinging!

Definitely one of those ‘see what the bastard is up to’ follows (as are Creasy/Phillips). 20 years ago Glinner - unfollowed- and I were friends, and I never could have imagined he’d turn into the person he is today.

i was listening to Stella talking about how tough it is being a pregnant MP and how they should get extra funding to run their constituency office to a satisfactory standard during maternity leave, she have might had a good point but I just did an eye-roll like she did to Chakrabortty talking about austerity deaths on QT.

If Corbyn sacked him, the outcry over that Dawn Foster article would pale in comparison to the sheer outrage unleashed.

― gyac,

I get this, but also kind of who cares? Most people have never even heard of Tom Watson. Being overly fearful of already hostile media just seems counter productive. Its great how Bernie has gone with Anti-Endorsements from all the establishment figures, they're the best endorsements of all. Need to use all the free publicity to play up anti-establishment credentials. People playing like its 2006 instead of 2019

i don't think moving ahead as if the UK media didn't really exist or matter is an idea the corbs-machine has ignored till now

me above passim: they think win-the-day messaging is entirely beside the point and in fact ideologically corrosive. on the whole this belief is good not bad.

me now: this week is a good example of why it's also bad, bcz when they finally jump to it they're terrible at it (and the elements that aren't messaging -- like JF's reply to TW -- are swept up in the stupid hoohah)

Sure but the negative coverage does have an impact and it’s wrong to pretend it doesn’t.

So my brother went to a festival themed party as Tom Watson at Glastonbury... pic.twitter.com/rHOze9cLkt

— Sam Neve (@SJNeve) November 18, 2017

(lol i just remembered i passed n!ck c0h3n in the street at angel on wed eve: first time i ever saw him irl, judging by his fizzog in repose he is really not a fellow enjoying life)

Sorry, delete “pretend”, that was more accusatory than I intended @ anvil. I mean to say, TW knows the media throwing volumes of shit at Labour has an effect, hence why he behaves the way he does. He’s not the only person ideologically opposed in Shad cab, but most of those people phrase their disagreements privately or in less inflammatory terms.

Whatever else someone thinks of Corbyn, he very rarely engages in the name-calling or smartarsery of some of his more media-facing colleagues (and obvs that’s what JMc is for) or, in fact, the sort of scathing melt who both screams about civility and calls JC ‘magic grandpa’ amongst other names.

lol just struck me that TW is kind of the bizarro-world present-day tony benn re keeping the disagreements private :D

Sure but the negative coverage does have an impact and it’s wrong to pretend it doesn’t.

Definitely has an impact! I don't mean to ignore it or pretend it doesn't, but to use it

If positionally homeless Gary Lineker dislikes you, use it! These people aren't exactly popular themselves. Having the media against you shouldn't be a negative in 2019

"We love all 23 candidates," establishment billionaire balloon says. "No, minus one. I profoundly dislike Bernie Sanders, and you can write it.

This is a ringing endorsement in an anti-establishment climate. No need to be on defensive about this stuff, should welcome it

ahhhh chicken coup nostalgia. simpler times

remember owen smith?

New phone, who dat?

(lol i just remembered i passed n!ck c0h3n in the street at angel on wed eve: first time i ever saw him irl, judging by his fizzog in repose he is really not a fellow enjoying life)

Waiting for a bus last night, Charles Clarke walked past me.

Don’t necessarily disagree with your bigger point anvil but Bernie lost the nomination and he’s going to lose it again.

There's enough of substance going with Labour AS for Watson to be able to hide behind a fig leaf of "don't shoot the messenger", even if he isn't the messenger really. Despite the Leveson stuff the press must love him as he's clearly a constant source of easy stories for them.

This is a ringing endorsement in an anti-establishment climate. No need to be on defensive about this stuff, should welcome it

Labour (or Momentum more generally) did this a lot in the immediate aftermath of the election with the "they just don't get it, do they?" series of social media videos. It works extremely well as a way of firing up a particular voter base but eventually you are going to max out that part of the electorate - even if you convert people to it in the process. To win properly you need to add other groups of voters to that coalition and try not to lose any in the process and it doesn't necessarily have to reek of Peter Mandelson to do that.

I would be highly skeptical that Jeremy Corbyn's more popular than Gary Lineker outside of the left left Twitter bubble.

christ

Just been digging through my old leaflets. Found this from ten years ago. pic.twitter.com/KzefKFbEdu

— Tom Watson (@tom_watson) November 20, 2014

Yeah yeah Gary Lineker who gives a shit? He's liked and respected by as many people as dislike him, maybe more.

Who are the people who are really hated in this country? Mike Ashley, Philip Green, everyone knows who they are - provoke them into saying things about you and then you have messages that cut through and reinforce your manifesto.

no one thinks it's sufficient but the left could really do with a bit of consolidation by via negativa atm, it's not been a great few months. also helps remind kind, rational and witty types which side they want to come down on

Don’t necessarily disagree with your bigger point anvil but Bernie lost the nomination and he’s going to lose it again.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek),

Pretty early to call, but who do you think will get it? Where would he be without grassroots energy. Also its interesting that to some extent the media have cottoned on to fact they were acting as unwitting endorses and moved more towards ignoring (all that 'Biden falls, now Kamala and Warren tied for third' stuff)

There's still a deeper problem in acting like policies of the left are unpopular and must be hidden because we don't trust the public to like them enough

Yeah yeah Gary Lineker who gives a shit?

yeah cheap shot using Lineker, agree on the others. Need to be starting spats with all of them

I would be highly skeptical that Jeremy Corbyn's more popular than Gary Lineker outside of the left left Twitter bubble.

― Andrew Farrell

Exactly! if he was more popular this wouldn't be necessary. Left twitter bubble is the last place anyone should be looking

Labour (or Momentum more generally) did this a lot in the immediate aftermath of the election with the "they just don't get it, do they?" series of social media videos. It works extremely well as a way of firing up a particular voter base but eventually you are going to max out that part of the electorate - even if you convert people to it in the process.

it doesn't have to be the only method, and if you max out part of the electorate, well its better than not maxing it out. In general I think there's too much fear about losing voters and not enough worry about gaining voters.

Also just looking like winners counts for a lot. Watching a tv debate in a foreign language, its obvious who "won" regardless of whether you understood a single word

Tom Watson, last week: it’s extremely bad that one (1) CLP member said that a pregnant MP should be deselected.

Tom Watson (actual Deputy Leader of the Labour Party), this week: the General Secretary, who is undergoing cancer treatment, is a liar who must be stopped.

— Peter (@pickyouredge) July 12, 2019

Really dislike this new trend of parading the health problems of women in politics on social media to give them victim status for factional advantage. They're all at it.

I know being heavily pregnant isn't a health problem but you get my point.

Yeah I don't like the subtext there either.