PMs change and lol we're all gonna die (but brexit will never end)

job is still fucked for Scottish Labour, but perhaps not quite that much!

it's believable

I think that Tory wipeout in Scotland looks odds on and I dearly hope Swinson loses her seat again.

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 29% (-2)
LAB: 24% (-)
LDEM: 18% (-3)
BREX: 17% (+3)
GRN: 3% (-)

via @Survation, fw TBC
Chgs. w/ Aug

— Britain Elects (@britainelects) September 6, 2019

more bad news for boris

idk what's going on with the BP polling: I still don't quite trust this right wing junta, I'll stick with Farage for now.

Needs a real man (fag smoking, pint drinking) to come and sort things out. Also BoJo looked like a prat before and has now proven himself to be an incompetent prat.

I know you all hate Marina Hyde, but this was good:

Having very belatedly taken the stage, Johnson proceeded to die on his arse in front of rows of police officers. Does this technically count as a death in custody? Certainly, it bore all the hallmarks of such an event, of which there have been 1,718 since 1990, with not a single conviction for murder or manslaughter. Which is to say: it was brutal and disturbing, it happened right in front of multiple police pretending not to notice, and the victim was officially concluded to have done it to himself. (Thank you in advance to the Police Federation for their forthcoming letters on this paragraph. I’ll make time to to read them when I retire at 50 after three years on the sick.)

That is truly incredible writing. I think MH is vital.

could not be further from hating her, fwiw.

She is terrible

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/sep/06/boris-johnson-short-of-options-as-rebels-vow-to-secure-brexit-delay

Really missed a trick not putting some humiliating punishment clauses in the bill. I’d go for he John Lillburne option but I’m sure we could have had others.

MH is not that talked about here, unlike Stephen Bush, to give an example.

It’s just op-ed as entertainment. she’s not i don’t think she’s exactly terrible. she’s able to turn out striking phrases on the regular, but exists in a cycle where terrible commentators misunderstand the churn of politics during the week and the MH applies her Striking Phrases at the weekend, without actually illuminating anything about the process of, you know, politics, and everyone goes “ahhh, Marina does it again.”

no interest in the cycle or how she writes about it.

yas clap emoji kween

baroness Hyde is annoyingly smug and as landed gentry she's typically uncomfortable with the idea of a centre-left Labour gov, and all the worst people gush about everything she writes in a such a hyperbolic way "she's done it again" "paroxysms of pant shitting laughter". I probably don't give her a fair hearing but tankie brain worms or something, tbh I think she's a total arsehole.

She's OK when she attacks the political Right.

She's bad because she hates the political Left.

bingo

there is a hell of a lot to shoot at in the political right at the moment, but going for their lightning rod clown pm doesn't really require much thought - the columns write themselves and is pretty much what the billionaires that have facilitated his rise would expect. Not exactly big game hunting.

I think she just does that thing where people-hyphenate-words-in-a-sentence and use unlikely adjectives to imply witty irreverence. anyone who claims they laugh should be shot at dawn.

I will never forgive Boris Johnson for inflicting on my dear friend @NSoames such a brutal end to his parliamentary career. If anyone had any doubt about our Prime Minister’s character or morals, look no further.

— Nick Boles MP (@NickBoles) September 4, 2019

Man looking at this and just jealous at how the Tories can dispatch their own people like this.

democracy is bad again

It's always been an empty sham tbf

Getting rid of Soames may be the only good thing he's done

sad_aquaphibian.jpg

The former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith encouraged Johnson to break the law, saying he would be seen as a Brexit “martyr” if judges opted to put him jail for breaching parliament’s terms.

Democracy is good again.

Re Hyde, it was more the unexpected ACAB line that I enjoyed.

No argument with that but even the "three years off sick and retire at 50" line was a v Toryish dig

hate cops, love the right to generous sick pay won by their unions

yah exactly

Good Lord. This is majestic. @MarinaHyde delivering, day in and day out, some of the most staggering wordsmithery of our age. Sensational. https://t.co/2mjbVsecXb

— Will Buxton (@wbuxtonofficial) September 6, 2019

tunesmithery!

https://www.redpepper.org.uk/the-crisis-of-conservatism/

I enjoyed this bit about the demise of toryism and James butler is one of the more readable pundits despite the overly present i-went-to-oxford-isms (I don't know if he really went to Oxford, but it's a style of writing)

― plax (ico), Friday, September 6, 2019 7:00 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Thanks for this, it was very good - I didn't notice much of that style when contrasted to a writer who gets 'adumbration' in early.

gnna have to bzzzt "adumbration" as a p easy-level perryism tbh, come back when we reach: alembicated, prodrome, dégringolade

As usual, every single line in @MarinaHyde’s wrap of the last few days is gold but I can’t stop laughing at Boris Johnson “gave a speech so hallucinatorily bad it whiteyed a policewoman”

why that's the most hilarious gag of season, scuse me I need some oxygen etc...

honestly i loathe this entire mode, from jay rayner on bad food to mr abusing on anything

that red pepper piece is good. butler’s opening a useful corrective to this matthew parris view

“The blame [for the Brexit farce] should rest on the shoulders of the Conservative Party, the whole the Conservative Party and only the Conservative Party.” Writes Matthew Parris, former Conservative Party MP. pic.twitter.com/U9sB3NKULM

— alan rusbridger (@arusbridger) September 7, 2019

on that mode, is it a blackadder thing? where did it come from? which writers? douglas adams?

Matthew Parris is the original exponent of being The Adult In The Room, which makes him the worst of them, fuck him and his schtick forever

I think Stephen Fry, but specifically his ascent to National Treasure is probably key - I am obviously not bothered by it, better that than a fusillade of 'melts!'

i think there was a song about the melt-whine fusilladers once

shit pun fails that wouldn't cut the mustard with fans of that mode

Prodrome

There's no way James Butler didn't go to Oxford, be it only in spirit. But that piece was indeed quite good and its style struck me as relevant to the overall propos.

novara is a v UCL/soas thing though?

anyway its that lrb-ish style where the author inevitably alludes to their modest middle-class background that led to their going to oxbridge under the auspices of some widening-social-access moment in education when such things were less remarkable than now

"I was not unaware of [subsequently prominent cabinet minister/future PM] at the time"

anyway I think he is definitely the pick of the novara crew so I don't know why I'm being rude. Definitely better than MH who is literally pointless

I like james meadway, who is not novara but novara-adjacent

ex-labour leadership office too iirc

https://www.ft.com/content/0e99fc98-4872-11e8-8ae9-4b5ddcca99b3

The mellifluous James Butler is its co-founder. Adopted through the Catholic Children’s Society, the 31-year-old from south London worked in a series of night clubs before studying English at Oxford university. “I feel I come from a tradition of communism that got buried . . . like Rosa Luxemburg.”

Too soon

"one of the less glamorous colleges" yeah?