Ne'er get thee stitched til Booris be ditched: UK General Election 2019

MH = Mental Health

xxp

I thought Ruthie can electrify a room with her presence or something, meh not even a qualified spark!

Some Extinction Rebellion protesters - dressed as bees - have ambushed Jo Swinson’s battle bus in Streatham, S London. This man has glued himself to the windscreen. And yes, it is the electric bus. pic.twitter.com/R7H74X1j6A

— Peter Walker (@peterwalker99) December 4, 2019

that BBC article is so disingenuous, and I note they left the comments off on that

Don't you worry, your reaction is proof positive that they're doing something right!

Yeah speaking of mental health I bailed after a couple of paragraphs of that BBC bullshit to preserve mine

"the divisive character", "the mound of waste soil" - that whole slagheap story is a prime example of the "popular orange vegetable" style of journalism.

Hi ZZ!

Australian healthcare may be shitty in many respects but I'm not so sure it's worse than the NHS.

I know nothing about the system but I do know that Australian friends went back to Oz after they both got chronic illnesses, partly for warmer climate and being closer to family, but they thought the healthcare system would work better for them too (the wife has a serious condition that the NHS misdiagnosed for ages while it did a lot of organ damage, and they've both worked in a separate area of the NHS for many years, btw)

however my opinion remains that:
1. the NHS is bloody good or at least used to be when we funded it better and I would like to keep it, thank you
2. definitely do not want to let the Tories import their idea of what any other country's healthcare system might be like, nope nope nope

(also given what little I know of Australian politics I do not trust the idea of importing anything politics-adjacent from there, but that's just some kneejerk ignorance there really, I admit)

the NHS is definitely not good and I wish people would stop saying it is tbh. that doesn't mean I want to get rid of it - I want it fixed. pretending the NHS is this fantastic service makes it easier to claim it doesn't need any more funding than it currently gets because there's nothing wrong with it

a valid point and I will concede that I am lucky enough to have had not much to do with it for a decade so definitely rose-tinted etc. sorry CP, will think about better ways to phrase it in future

(and tbf it was v frustrating to deal with 15-18 years ago when I did spend a lot of time seeing the GP and being stuck on some very long waiting lists, which I know will be a hell of a lot worse now)

also everyone else OTM about that BBC story (ugh) and about GE-induced MH. so, so tired

though just existing in rainy fascist Brexity Borisland will be constantly tiring too, please let Mr Cordbean in to save me from the tiredness

(god knows what the right and our lovely press would serve up day after day to keep our exhaustion levels up in that scenario but it's still the only hope left)

Sorry didn't mean to have a go, kneejerk reaction, I know you meant well

so. many. brainworms.

“For Brexit to happen, it will be a disaster for the very, very wealthy people. Not for the likes of us.”

This small sample of people in Birmingham voted to leave the EU in 2016 and for Labour in 2017. But how will they vote this time? pic.twitter.com/9lBDScBRrS

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) December 3, 2019

xp nono, it was a fair point, good to think about! no problem at all

1 edelman did similar focus groups during 2017 with similar results. all birmingham LAB MPs returned with bigger majorities

2 birmingham is one of the most diverse parts of the country. look at that panel

papers and telly chatting so much shit about lifelong labour voters in this election. how come we never hear from the 40% that voted for labour in 2017 ? hmmmm

i saw that c4 piece live yesterday and was awestruck by how successfully people have been misled over so much

well, yeah

If you've never worked at the BBC... this is a classic management brush-off. The solution to the BBC's gross failure over the Johnson/Neil interview is clear. Neil should spend half an hour putting questions to an empty chair - or @franunsworth should resign. pic.twitter.com/3FT2HTSsx0

— Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) December 4, 2019

from the comments to that david graeber video posted yesterday, here's what can only be a very convincing deepfake of corbyn espousing solidarity with jewish people, black people and the irish

@ToryFibs

Jaw dropping.

17 year old video comes to light that settles Jeremy Corbyn’s record on antisemitism once and for all. You might want to sit down for this one.pic.twitter.com/ItifansFiV

— Kelvin Bishop (@KelvinBSP) December 4, 2019

Try not to believe them either but the Tories just aren't moving in any of the polls - which is largely down to the Lib Dems, BXP and SNP making no real inroads into their vote.

― I've Got A Ron Wood Solo Album To Listen To (Tom D.), Wednesday, 4 December 2019 bookmarkflaglink

I will leave SNP aside but I think the BXP, just by standing in Lab heartlands, could be the difference -- as well as canvassing efforts on Lab -- to keeping the vote up in the North. Some seats will go blue but Labour could make up for it in the South.

Despite the garbage campaign LDs are making inroads into the Tory vote. There is enough constituency polling to suggest that and I reckon they will hold their seats and gain the odd one...but their impact will be chaotic.

I think tactical voting will: 1) Def be used by many like never before and 2) be used in a shambolic way (this is based partly on what LJ was coming up with yesterday but also some convos with ppl I work with), ppl could use the wrong site or wrong bits of info so that could mean the Tories actually, by a set of clownish ways, ending up with a small majority as more middle class ppl vote LD to stop Brexit but end up enabling a Tory hard Brexit.

What can counter a lot of this is Lab's huge ground canvassing game but I would not at all be surprised if it isn't quite enough.

Well yeah, we need clear minds. It should have been stressed from the outset that anti-Brexit tactical voting shouldn't be about each party's Brexit policy but about organising all non-Tory-voters behind the likeliest toppler. In a few seats there has been confusion about who that might be, which is why, I suppose, 'it's Labour' in every case* isn't a bad messaging policy. LD numbers tanking seems to reflect that this is happening to an extent

*except a really obvious few ;)

how come we never hear from the 40% that voted for labour in 2017

These lifelong Labour voters did vote Labour 2017, and this is the first election they won't be voting Labour

Of course we will meet again in the future, and they will be lifelong Labour voters did vote Labour 2019 but for the first time won't be voting Labour in 202x

If I ever get vox popped I'm saying I'm a lifelong Tory voter but

(considers the joy of doing this vs the horror of my face going out on the news saying I'm a Tory)

(remembers the reason I've never volunteered to go canvassing etc is that as a deeply ugly/weird/uncharasmatic person I suspect everyone would take one look at me and immediately decide to do the opposite of whatever I've said)

(lightbulb, taps head, smiles, etc)

Lifelong BXP voter but.

*poshest voice possible* Labour are the natural party of government

fair fucks to jolyon swinson subjecting herself to andrew neil tbh. really shows up the cowardice of boris johnson

suspect a lot of publications are about to show their arses in a similar manner

Our general election 2019 Leader. Why Britain deserves better — and why we won't endorse any party. https://t.co/IjPUi7LFqh

— New Statesman (@NewStatesman) December 4, 2019

A giant message has appeared on a Somerset slag heap declaring 'Get Mogg Out'.#GetMoggOut https://t.co/qF86CdYdg8

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) December 4, 2019

That’s probably the best you could expect from Jason Cowley tbh

profiles in courage: new statesman edition

I don't even own a party endorsement.

There are many fine parliamentarians from all parties – Luciana Berger, Joanna Cherry, Jess Phillips, Rosie Duffield, Jim McMahon, Dan Jarvis, Sarah Wollaston, Rachel Reeves, to name only a few – whose fortitude and resilience are admirable. And this at a time when MPs, especially women, are subjected to the most appalling intimidation and abuse

he doesn't even know how to spell disreputable scumbags.

lol at JANKY CRONUT WHY WON'T U WATCH THE QUEEN'S SPEECH ON XMAS DAY being the new line of attack

Because she shelters nonces, next q

More than 93,000 suspected violent criminals and sex offenders have been released without restrictions by police in England and Wales since 2017, figures obtained by Newsnight show.#Newsnight | @JamesClayton5https://t.co/ekvIrwOoRe

— BBC Newsnight (@BBCNewsnight) December 3, 2019

jezza got rumbled...

But today Corbyn hasn’t had such a good outing on royal family territory. In an interview with ITV’s Julia Etchingham he was asked if he watched the Queen’s speech on Christmas day. He said that he normally did, although the full exchange suggests otherwise.

ITV has sent out the transcript of the exchange.

JE: Talk to us a bit about Christmas in the Corbyn household. Do you sit down to watch the Queen’s speech? Mr Corbyn.

JC: It’s on the morning, usually we have it on .. some of the time.

JE: It’s not on in the morning .. it’s at three o’clock in the afternoon

JC: It’s when its repeated .. in the afternoon

JE: So you don’t sit down, as a family, to watch the Queen speech.

JC: We don’t watch television very much on Christmas Day. Maybe a film in the evening. Erm I’d like to do a bit of exercise on Christmas morning

JE: You do some exercise on Christmas morning. I don’t think the Queen’s speech is in the morning. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon. That’s when everybody watches it.

JC: Well. Our Christmas is sometimes ...

JE: You don’t watch it do you Mr Corbyn?

JC: There is lots .. lots to do .. I enjoy the presence of my family and friends around Christmas. Obviously, like everybody else does. And, I also visit the homeless shelter, either on Christmas Day, or the day before, to talk to, and listen to people’s lives, about how they could be made better with a government that cared for them.

It’s not quite Frost/Nixon, although Corbyn would probably have been better off just saying he caught up with the Queen’s speech through the news (if at all), like most of the population.

So I spoke with Jo Swinson this morning. https://t.co/8bkJErxTyc

— Benny 🦁Hunter (@BennnyH) December 4, 2019

she's so fucking bad at this

what's wrong with "what kind of senile old spanner watches the Queen's fucking speech?"

Pretty good odds that the people who actually give a fuck won't be voting for him anyway

mr corbyn don't you think that the time you waste with your family or volunteering at a local homeless shelter on xmas day would be better spent in blank-faced supplication before the televised image of our queen

"I am pissed off my face on Snowballs and sleeping in front of a Disney movie by 3 o'clock on Christmas Day"

meanwhile, in international scumbag news

https://hungarytoday.hu/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/DSZZS20191203220.jpg

had to look that up from the image URL, but jfc

can't believe professor x is fash now, smdh

i was gonna do the old "fascist monster with blood on his hands meets Viktor Orbán" riff but it's such a beautiful picture

For the sake of overseas readers I think we should make clear that wacthing the Queen's Speech on television at 3 o'clock in the afternoon on Christmas Day is not normal behaviour in the UK.

is that Scruton in the wheelchair?

the hits just keep coming

Boris Johnson made claims that children of working mothers in low-income families were “unloved and undisciplined” and more likely to “mug you on the street corner”, it has emerged.

In a 2006 collection of journalism, entitled Have I Got Views for You, Johnson bemoaned the increasing tendency of women to work, saying they had been “socially gestapoed into the workplace”.

“In the last 30 years an ever-growing proportion of British women have been ‘incentivised’ or socially gestapoed into the workplace, on what seems to me to be the dubious assumption that the harder a woman works the happier she will be, when I am not sure that is true of women or anyone else,” he wrote.

In the book, published before he became mayor of London, Johnson said an increasing number of female graduates tended to pair up with male graduates – a process known by economists as “assortative mating” – and that they then pool their advantages.

“The result is that in families on lower incomes the women have absolutely no choice but to work, often with adverse consequences for family life and society as a whole – in that unloved and undisciplined children are more likely to become hoodies, Neets [not in education, employment or training] and mug you on the street corner.”

what are some of the low-key non-fanfare labour policies that people are excited about ?

xxp

it is, getting some kind of award for inspiring Orbán to hate Muslims