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

The really depressing thing is that these people are going to win, even if they just squeak home, its going to validate every lie and dirty trick played throughout the campaign, and it's going to be worse next time. I genuinely don't know what needs to be done to get out of this.

idk if it ever gets brought up but for hundreds of years, councils were legally obliged to provide halting sites for travelling communities, The Major government killed that and encouraged them to sell the land off for development. Any issues with people staying on sites they're not supposed to is a direct result of Tory policy and the push to privatise public space.

I dont know that they will definitely win. Everyone is completely ignoring Shy Labour

I agree the lies and dirty tricks will get worse next time but if they just squeak home, does that mean those tricks actually worked?

If they do win, it feels like Major 92-97

I genuinely don't know what needs to be done to get out of this.

honestly starting to feel like [redacted] every single one of these fuckers with extreme [redacted] until they start getting the message is our only valid defence against actual global societal collapse

It definitely feels like the left, and part of the centre-left, are going to become more radical as it becomes clearer how far the deck is stacked against them. The BBC stuff feels like a tipping point.

People have seen Grenfell. No truthers for that out there and yet they are voting for it or playing games on tactical voting sites.

No truthers for that out there

https://cdn.face2faceafrica.com/www/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Sam-Philip-Gyimah.jpg

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.guim.co.uk%2Fimg%2Fmedia%2F90e48882a5fd35ec84d8689cf1533189159524f1%2F0_0_2320_1392%2Fmaster%2F2320.jpg%3Fwidth%3D300%26quality%3D85%26auto%3Dformat%26fit%3Dmax%26s%3De4a66093bdbf46b9148a0c744c094048&f=1&nofb=1

I liked your first link

this is a sam gyimah fan thread now, gonna start spamming pictures of our special lad

can we call him by his real name, simon notebook

speaking of which, we're due a new episode

gonna switch this back to being a laura k fan thread for a sec because i'm reading her piece on the bbc website from yesterday about boris' horrible, no-good, very bad day and uhhh

In response, the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, was sent to the hospital in Leeds to meet the family, find out what had happened and try to smooth things over.

But he faced trouble too, as a small but very noisy group of protesters shouted at him and his team as they left the building.

The story, and the prime minister's weird and wooden response to it, provided the perfect chance for Labour to punch at one of the Conservatives' vulnerabilities, just when they were trying to make a big play for voters who have traditionally stuck with the Labour Party for generations.

no mention of her role in spreading lies about assault AND the chance to tie labour to the word 'punch' once more? taste's very strange!

honestly, what a snidey wee shite she is

provided the perfect chance for Labour to punch at one of the Conservatives' vulnerabilities

At work here is the Demon of Analogy.

It definitely feels like the left, and part of the centre-left, are going to become more radical as it becomes clearer how far the deck is stacked against them. The BBC stuff feels like a tipping point.

The left will become more radical, it has done in the US and it will follow here but we dont have an equivalent alt-mediasphere that the left have there. BBC is probably at the tipping point CNN/MSNBC were idk...5 years ago? (weirdly Fox helped with this!). I don't necessarily see all this Laura K stuff as a negative, its laying it bare for more people and media distrust in UK is already very high (one of the worst in Europe I think). Legacy media's reach is declining by the day (I know this is complicated by legacy media's social media prescence - twitter as the initiator, facebook as a multiplier)

FB is the unknown, its a black hole, but then given FB's user age profile I don't know if that matters either

Bringing all this stuff out isn't a negative. Its better now than it was in the 2000s not worse

ie they do this because they need to do this. and if they need to do this, thats good

Something I don't quite get:

We all seem to agree that Laura K, every day, spreads propaganda for a brutal, illegitimate, corrupt, lying, proto-fascist / far-right-encouraging political movement, and seeks to discredit a social democratic movement for sustainability and hope.

The part I don't get is - what is her motive?

Is she a lifelong Con voter? Has she always had these beliefs? Has she moved to the Right? Was she ever challenged on these beliefs at any time in any appointment or promotion process? If she is actually a kind of 'moderate Con liberal' a la, say, Amber Rudd, then why has she become more enthusiastic about the Con party as it has become more extreme-right and unhinged?

And: does she know that she is doing the thing we know she is doing, or does she actually think she is being balanced and apolitical? I have a suspicion that it's the latter -- that she genuinely doesn't think her vile propaganda is contentious.

The effect of what she does is plain. But the motive, and her own understanding of it, remains less clear to me.

I used to work at the investment manager who handled her (and her family’s portfolios). she is extremely wealthy

my v superficial impression of laura kuenssberg is that she loves being part of it all, the gossip, in thrall of the establishment

The implied threat to the BBC (and Channel 4) from the government has become increasingly explicit as the campaign has gone on. I wouldn't be surprised if Tory 'sources' have threatened to revoke access as well. The BBC is cowed by the government but its credibility relies on pretending it isn't.

I agree Conrad

DC: then they are not pretending very well?

she strikes me as someone who grew up in privilege and developed an interest in politics as an amusing game of chess between personalities rather than, y'know, a vitally important struggle in which people's lives hang in the balance, and that naturally colours her interpretation and reporting of current affairs

to her, boris is recognisable politics as usual, and corbyn is an alienating outlier

is basically how i break it down to an extent

or what conrad said, basically

hello. earlier this year you described me as one of your heroes! very flattering. I wonder if, as one of your heroes, I could persuade you to reveal the names of the senior Tory sources who lied to you about this incident

— Sally Rooney (@sallyrooney) December 9, 2019

my v superficial impression of laura kuenssberg is that she loves being part of it all, the gossip, in thrall of the establishment

― conrad, Tuesday, December 10, 2019 11:08 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yes. She's trying to be untouchable and zigzag her way to some extreme centrist position where noone can fault her (her twitter bio is a big clue: no 'journo at beeb' but nonsense about not shooting the messenger, it's so childish, yet telling). Also, she's simply a really, really bad journalist. Really bad at twitter, too. And she's nowhere near as intelligent or insightful as she thinks she is.

but if pesto and laura reveal their sources then they'll risk losing their precious access to more tory falsehoods xp

More cunning Baldrick style than Machiavellian tbf

ie they do this because they need to do this. and if they need to do this, thats good

The amount of people we know that are now canvassing or involved on an equivalent level relates to this too. Not just a getting older = getting more political thing. It's how extreme things feel, how much is at stake. A Tory majority is going to feel like a declaration of war (if it doesn't feel enough like that already).

a tory majority will literally be a declaration of war tbh

This is more about destroying the trust between the BBC and the section of the public that feel most passionate about it. Job done but if Mark is right and it was always bad then maybe it isn't the loss it could be.

the sponsor a labour canvasser fb group is seriously so wholesome. the ground game this time round feels so much bigger than 2017

'getting older - getting more political'

-- may be true but is counter-intuitive in a way! It's meant to be young people who have the energy and idealism to go out and protest and change things!

a lot more offensive too - without LAB HQ having an overly defensive posture and thereby misdirecting resources

I'm impressed with, or do I mean by, Sally Rooney.

"The left will become more radical, it has done in the US and it will follow here but we dont have an equivalent alt-mediasphere that the left have there. BBC is probably at the tipping point CNN/MSNBC were idk...5 years ago?"

This doesn't scan at all. If Sanders gets the nomination it feels like any of these would turn on him. Or be doing the bare min.

They have already turned on him

The really depressing thing is that these people are going to win, even if they just squeak home, its going to validate every lie and dirty trick played throughout the campaign, and it's going to be worse next time. I genuinely don't know what needs to be done to get out of this.

I think in terms of good things, regardless of the result, is that this election has been really masks off and lots of the centre left are noticing and saying it too. People will organise against this.

they haven't won yet, and anything short of a workable majority for them is a loss

Even if they do win I can envisage the government they form being an unmitigated disaster, much much worse than the 2nd Major government and ushering in a long period of them being out in the wilderness again.

Johnson is a disaster waiting to happen, he really is unfit for the job.

I still think the seat counts just reverting back to roughly what they were after the 2017 GE is the most likely outcome. An actual majority comes with a LOT of strangeness to unpack however you stack it.

Not to mention the clowns he's surrounded himself with. Odds on on him being forced out of office by Gove or Hunt or whoever before the next GE. (xp)

Depressing: reading the comments under basically anything about the nhs today. There are bots and then there are terminal gulls with no empathy or critical thinking skills

Heartening: talking to non-online people, I went into Coral to place a bet on labour winning and the guys who worked there were like “I hope you win, boris is no good”

boris in 2024: 'this unmitigated disaster is the fault of the perfidious european union, who stymied our every attempt to strike fair trade deals with them until the no-deal deadline arrived - the piles of dead in the street, widespread cannibalism and wholesale purchase of the nhs by american pharmaceutical interests is entirely the eu's fault (also immigrants)'

*tories squeak another electoral victory, the entire landmass of the uk is claimed by the sea*

lol I will never understand betting on your own team

Be right back, going down to wins' bookies to put money on Boris not being leader of the Conservative Party in 2024.

The other thing here is that politicians have become adept at gaming the news cycle. Broadcasters could, if they had brave enough editors, refuse to allow themselves to be drawn into it. Most of us would benefit, not least the broadcasters themselves.