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

Tories also seemed a lot more harmless in 2004 iirc?

I think not so much harmless as the fact they were in opposition at time and not differentiated enough from Blair to be of particular consequence. Subconsiously maybe a feeling of they don't really matter.

That said, those comments are still odd

It’s probably me but I don’t recognise 99% of those usernames...and it was 15 and a half years ago. You go back 15 and a half years from any point in history, you’re going to find lots of public figures are viewed quite differently. You could probably find similar comments about Trump or whoever. But bar a couple of examples, I don’t think that the comments were all that glowing anyway...? Plenty of people even back then saw through him or at least had suspicions.

Trump as figure of harmless fun or shorthand for "we're in New York!" is legion in American media from like 1985-2015, viewing it now has the effect of strolling through a garden that is full of land mines.

Doubtful you'd find US ILXors outside of Roger Adultery praising any Republican in 2004.

Yes, he was funny on TV and had a classics degree - and at the time I lived over a pub where he used to drink and play table football with cycle couriers on his way home from editing the Spectator. Really didn’t have any idea at that time about how he treated women, and never wanted him to win an election. In 2004, nobody thought Tories would get anywhere near power.

old ilx = corny higny fuxxorz

I can't help feel that the fact that the Republicans were in power at the time would make a difference there - in the UK Michael Howard was still in charge (loosely speaking) of the Tories, and Boris was a clown who turned up on TV, without any real power at all.

(Of course he also voted for the Iraq war, of course his views have evolved since then)

Carsmile's angle iirc is that Boris represented the High Tory "the system works best when it works well for everyone" side rather than the Tebbittish "can't we just kill them all?"

boris is the acceptable face of barely-concealed priapic male rage

the rollicking fatuous desperation of the autumnal manchild

thanks, I've been Marina Hyde

So much water under the bridge since 2004 you might as well be asking for perspectives from Mars but I think it's fair to say that no one envisaged Johnson as a future PM at the time and if you asked them about the prospect the response would have been a resounding "fuck no".

Tories also seemed a lot more harmless in 2004 iirc?

No, they were still evil scum, they are always evil scum, but they were out of harm's way in 2004. By the way, I think all of the people quoted above were Belle & Sebastian fans from London, so calz wins a gold star!

It was also such a rarity for a politician at that time to have a sense of humour that it felt that this redeemed a lot (compare the grimness of Tebbit, IDS etc), and Boris was cut a lot of slack for a long time.

There's a moral here about never treating anyone in politics as a harmless comedic fringe figure but remember how we all laughed when Farage crashed his plane on election day 2010.

(Not everyone quoted up there was on the left at the time by the way, or even the centre left)

(xp) True, 'funny' politicians on the left no better tbh. Could never bear that Stephen Pound guy, for instance.

John Mann repeats, this time on national radio, his v strange belief that a majority of Labour voters in the North and Midlands voted to Leave. A belief that is hard to reconcile even with the 2016 referendum result and election result *in his own seat*. pic.twitter.com/uIANQaMxKA

— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) September 9, 2019

I thought it sounded like Swann was pulling those labour leave voting stats out of his arse this morning. What a dickhead.

this kind of relentless commitment to facts bodes well for his role as antisemitism czar

So much water under the bridge since 2004

Didn’t manage to build his bridge but he sure spaffed a lot of money not building it.

bridges weren’t the only place he was irresponsibly spaffing iirc

Oooof at that old thread

ILX simply habe es nicht gewusst

Lol I was getting Mann's name confused with a Stephen King baddie. I still dispute that boris is or ever was liked in the north. He'll soon enough find out if he has that Heineken appeal but I think he's more like a bottle of warm stuff labelled Tory Piss up here.

As much as I hate to change the topic from what people thought of Boris when I’d barely finished school*, I passed the PCS picket this morning and was reminded how Laura Pidcock and RL-B had both been up there recently. It’s such a sea change from the way Miliband was wishy-washy on unions.

* a slight exaggeration but not by very much

how would the melts demonise Pidcock if she was the LOTO? immature communist? more hard left divisive politics - they wouldn't be able to use AS against her.

Chippy

they wouldn't be able to use AS against her.

Sure about that?

she served in the most antisemitic opposition party in uk history! she refused to condemn their disgusting behaviour! SHE CAN’T BE TRUSTED!1!!

I have been on ilx since 2001, and am a Belle & Sebastian fan who lives in London.

I would never have said anything positive about BJ, and never will. He is scum and has always been scum. He has never said anything funny or entertaining in his life, except on those occasions - like idiotically failing to recite the police caution - where he flounders and fails and this has its own entertainment value, because he is an utter scumbag.

It's not accurate to say that the Con party in 2004 seemed that they would never be in power again. Insofar as politics is somewhat cyclical, you can always assume that a major party will come back in some form. And the Con party is the most formidable and dangerous election machine in UK history. In 2005 they reduced the Labour majority by about 120. Precisely how they would eventually come back was, to be sure, unknown, as I think was Cameron.

xxp
well for a start I she'd be much sharper than Corbz on social media when it comes to recognising protocols of the elders of zion type imagery and clicking bloody like on them!

speaking of which this david graeber article on antisemitism & labour is worth a read https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/first-time-my-life-im-frightened-be-jewish/

My RW cousin told me AS would be solved by the removal of Corbyn, but that it would be a mistake to replace with anyone else form the AS wing of the party

AS has grown rapidly over the last few years as the people who have joined are inherently anti-semitic, attracted there by Corbyn.

Criticism of banks, corporations and capitalism itself are fig leaves for AS, younger Labour voters are more adept at hiding it

I know this is deeply into Meghan McCain territory but someone is pumping this stuff out

The article is excellent.

so the idea anti-semetism won't be levelled at Pidcock is optimistic. Whether its successful or not is another matter

I just nearly booted my radio when I heard Simon Schama was coming on, obv the mind-warping AS of Corbyn is working on me.

Wonder where jel is these days. Such a classic old ilx era poster.

Corbyn made it easier for them to level AS at him by being a bit thick at times and tolerating Jew-baiting trash like Williamson. I don't Pidcock would make the same mistakes, so it would be much harder to make anything stick.

Schama was moaning about Ash Sakar being on the hitler series, is he butthurt that he wasn't asked on it?

Here is vaguely positive Johnson post today, never mind 15 years ago: this week Parliament is to be shut and Johnson will tell the cops and twitter QC to fuck off.

I don't Pidcock would make the same mistakes, so it would be much harder to make anything stick.

― calzino

She won't need to make the same mistakes, she won't need to make any mistakes. The work is already done, and ongoing. When Corbyn goes, this isn't going with him

Agree.

I think people who try to ban Sarkar from things like that are dreadful. Disappointed that Schama would do it. Thought better of him.

Jel was one ilxor I can recall who I think actually talked about voting Con. I think I can remember 2 others.

It looks like parliament will be prorogued today. Note that the Prime Minister was scheduled to give evidence to the Liaison Committee this Wednesday. Prorogation means the committee can't meet, and Johnson avoids scrutiny and accountability yet again.

— James B (@piercepenniless) September 9, 2019

Namely: Mark C and Ken Chu. But this might just be hearsay.

but they were out of harm's way in 2004

except for all the ones systematically destroying the Labour Party

Also I very much enjoyed the pinefox calling the scum Boris Johnson scum. Because he is scum.

Wasnt on ILX 15 years ago, but I did encounter plenty of otherwise apparently reasonable people who thought johnson was a total ledge and were surprised by my disappointed reaction when they said so.

Before we close the round window, a point that carsmile was old left - I'd put money on him having heard of Jeremy Corbyn before anyone here short of Mark - finding it 'odd' that people like him can be fonder of tories when they're out of power is a failure of understanding.

Laura Pidcock, RL-B and Angela Rayner all get smeared as “thick” from people who dismiss them for their politics, their accents, their class. They get angry about injustice (uncouth!) and are serving in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet so they must be thick and have no minds of their own. But hey, support women in politics!

Having *heard* of Jeremy Corbyn?

I think I'd heard of him by about 1990 at least.