ForenSix Opposition - Politics in the Soon To Be Former UK in Autumn 2020

peston was on the radio earlier saying stratton has always been an outspoken supporter of boris

P much all you need on the CV alongside Oxbridge

he needs a mouthpiece who can engage the kind of middle-aged, middle-class voters that the Tories, with their many recent calamities, are currently in danger of losing in their droves.

"The kind of person who disdains both JC and Donald Trump and probably thinks Jess Phillips MP should be PM. Most of those people would not actively and openly work for the current UK PM."

Phillips and Boris are made of roughly similar stock in the sense they are able to spout something mildly progressive-sounding and follow-up with utter bigotry. They both seem to be all sorts of media pals too.

"lefty Guardian" will only have any currency with people deranged enough to think that the BBC being lukewarm to slightly critical of Brexit means they are lefties or just soft-tories who won't click on enough Graun content to realise they'd probably broadly agree with at least about 80% of their opinion pieces and their slant on UK politics.

That’s quite a lot of people I fear

a) there's a fine line between liberal and libertarian
b) maybe it's the huge class chip on my shoulder but i am never ever surprised when ties of class, background, education and friendship/kinship magically override people's alleged political beliefs
c) political beliefs which are essentially just part of their career

Being just behind during the worst period for Conservative Party politics since the Black Wednesday sterling crash 30 years ago is now the limit of the ambitions of the “Under New Management” Labour Party https://t.co/ibpOZkDAI9

— Stephen Smith (@SteveNickSmith) October 9, 2020

i blame Jaemry Crobyne

Furlough is back on. Thank you #rishiDishi

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/09/rishi-sunak-expands-wage-subsidies-to-head-off-winter-surge-in-job-losses

Does he just keep pulling random percentages out of his arse?

if a bbc political editor was about to have major surgery I wonder if they'd question the credentials/expertise of a Dr Person Fakename or a Dr Johnny Bananas

Incredibly embarrassing stuff, this.

. @skynewsniall: "Does Keir Starmer actually understand what it is to be in opposition?"@LucyMPowell: "I don't think that's fair."

MP Lucy Powell defends her leader, after news that Labour MPs won't vote down the 10pm curfew when it comes to the Commons. DC#KayBurley pic.twitter.com/VMIJPJsu2z

— Kay Burley (@KayBurley) October 9, 2020

they are queueing up to take the piss out of Kieth's "constructive opposition" now. A far cry from when they were talking about refreshing it was in comparison to Corbyn's rude and hectoring style of erm.. yes actual opposition.

If I may play captain hindsight for a moment, it is astounding that they didn’t predict that this would be the response to the “support everything the govt does, then later carp about everything the govt did” “strategy”

Surely Labour would have been accused of “moaning on the sidelines” whatever, but now they look inconsistent and if anything more opportunistic

(This is all leaving aside the fact that doing some actual opposition would have been the right thing to do if the goal is representing workers)

he is representing some workers tbf, in particular the 4 in 10 Unite members that apparently voted Conservative in 2019 according to a poll I saw earlier!

Yep Miliband played a game of playing to the gallery and offering some thin gruel to the peasants, and was consistently polling much higher than Starmer Labour and his own goals aside they still did him in quite horrible fashion when it came to crunch time.

some poll or other might have spooked him last week, because he was reiterating his commitment to his 10 pledges for the first since he accidently ran his lawnmower over them. But in the meantime he has pissed off lots of BAME voters and former Labour members, young voters who were energised by the Corbyn era and that could be a fatal mistake in a FPTP system.

Keir Starmer:
Approve: 36% (-2)
Disapprove: 23% (+1)
NET: +13% (-3)

Boris Johnson:
Approve: 37% (+2)
Disapprove: 44% (-2)
NET: -7% (+4)

I think the Conservative party can live with his albeit superior, but slowly dipping approval rating at this stage of the game. I never used to gaf about this stuff when Corbyn was leader - but these jokers operate under the pretence of electoral game-playing competence and focus group knowhow and they are patently either haven't got a clue what they are doing or just failing because they are incompetent.

sorry garbled grammar and syntax as usual

With a Tory govt this bad, any decent leader would be 20 points ahahahaha

I've got someone on my TL who does that same joke when every poll drops. I know I can be repetitive but ffs come on you borderline autists - find a new joke for goodness sake!

lmao pic.twitter.com/j6TnfEEFDL

— joolsd (@joolsd) October 9, 2020

fuck

he's literally the worst Labour leader in my lifetime and yeah I know some stiff competition, but the difference is this cunt is never going to get elected.

like joolsd follows up with, somehow even worse than OG Kinnock

With a Labour opposition this bad, any decent Tory leader would be 20 points ahahahaha

I will never find a new joke

obv i wasn't having a pop at thee, who is a fine poster! but yeah fuck finding new jokes tbf!

that's a job for the likes of HIGNFY and Mat Osman

sorry i meant Dick Osman

Dodds:"This is a u-turn we called for"

yeah sure!

Cunts, it turns out, being cunts.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/asylum-seekers-eviction-lockdown-coronavirus-home-office-b913200.html

Don't know if this observation was lost somewhere, but yes the leak from Lab to Lib Dem at the last election was of significance.

Usual caveats about crossbreaks, but yes: Labour are currently winning about half of 2019 Lib Dem voters, so 6% of all voters, accounting for this entire increase. The net transfer of voters direct from Tory to Labour is almost zero. https://t.co/SKRjypcx2s pic.twitter.com/oRpHx1NdqL

— Simon (@simonk_133) October 9, 2020

important to win back Lib Dem voters tho, the natural allies of socialism

Keir Starmer:
Approve: 36% (-2)
Disapprove: 23% (+1)

It's telling that there's (presumably) 41% of dgafs between these.

Keir Starmer is the worst deputy prime minister we’ve ever had.

— Chas Newkey-Burden (@allthatchas) October 10, 2020

The Medpro PPE story is interesting. Incorporated in May 2020, awarded a no-bid £122m contract for medical supplies seven weeks later and all the stuff they claim to design, engineer, quality assure, etc appears identical to equipment on Alibaba.

lol https://t.co/cw4T0OW2m4

— joolsd (@joolsd) October 10, 2020

It looks like they’re drop-shipping.

Nothing with Michelle Mone involved ever seems to be quite kosher. This is proper scandal stuff though. Or was, with things mattered

The only national that appears to have picked this up is the Mirror, and I'm wondering why the Guardian, FT or something like Business Insider haven't. Either there's something they can't fully stand up or there's some further investigation going on, or we're in peak Nothing Matters territory.

Might help if Esterson actually linked to a source at any point in that 22 post thread.

If the opposition kicked off about government contracts it perhaps would not have made a difference but it's interesting how it's not even being tried.

Kieth is giving them enough bungee cord to hang themselves with apparently, but nothing matters anyway.

I'd argue that doing nothing, even from a weak position is negligence by the opposition and just strengthens the all encroaching "nothing matters" cloud of doom

can't believe the Labour Party are still doing this unhelpful opposition for the sake of opposition

Leave aside party politics, in the interests of the country it’s time for a serious cross party discussion about the replacement of Boris Johnson. We’re facing the most serious crisis since 2nd World War & it’s become fairly clear we have a PM incapable of fulfilling the office.

— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) October 11, 2020

bUt ImAgInE hOw MuCh WoRsE cOrByN wOuLd HaVe BeEn

my favourite beautiful dark fantasy tbh

I haven’t read this yet, still too sad tbh

Jeremy Corbyn speaks to Tribune about his tenure as leader of the Labour Party and how he ‘loved every minute of it,’ despite the challenges. https://t.co/ur80RPlxeB

— Tribune (@tribunemagazine) October 11, 2020

Corbyn claims We lost about 300,000 votes from Labour to the Tories in 2019 there and that was also roughly the total Tory increase on 2017. Ahhh I'll never be over it.

i can get over it, or at least reconcile it to my sense of what this country is, as long as i never read another sensible centrist opinion on social media ever again

thread:

Bordering on the ridiculous
Jane Thomas
With fewer than 90 days to go before we complete the transition period and leave the #EU completely, the #government has finally published its Border Operating Model to explain how the borders will work for freight after #Brexit.

— Maureen Fitzsimmons (@mojos55) October 11, 2020