Free as a Dodo: UK Politics Welcomes 2021

gammon of knowledge

― scampish inquisition (gyac), Thursday, 14 January 2021 15:45 (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

👏👏

hook line and sinker

― glumdalclitch, Thursday, 14 January 2021 15:51 (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Only this time.....they were the mark

I want to apologise for using carp, it's a freshwater fish, it's off topic, I just wanted to join in and look like a big man

I've let myself down, I've let the board down, you'll have my resignation in the morning

the day NV lost his pun card

no! this scampi happening

I always thought Richard Leonard was a reet fucking horrible prick, but I've no doubt Starmer is up to the challenge to somehow find an even more despicable meltish wanker to replace him for this utterly silly business of leading a decaying corpse of a party with one fucking MP. Lol I'm not surprised Nicola liked the guy, he was one of her top campaigners!

have to say I appreciate the government announcing now that there won't be school meals at half term, gives the schools a good month to prepare for the u-turn

what happens when the gutter press contrive some smear on Rashford? Will mean that children with rickets is good again and without a de facto LOTO any level of murderous govt policy is permissible

Everyone hates him anyway now that man u have won the prem

lol he lasted, what, three hours?

As per @MrHarryCole here is the full note sent by Steve Baker to Tory MP colleagues pic.twitter.com/QlkBrufvcX

— Sam Coates Sky (@SamCoatesSky) January 14, 2021

What this country needs is the complete success of @BorisJohnson, with his excellent EU deal, a successful vaccination programme and a #Road2Recovery back to freedom.

I am clear Boris is the only person to lead us out of these difficulties and I support him in that endeavour.

— Steve Baker MP (@SteveBakerHW) January 14, 2021

Just asking questions! Love the commitment to bolding and spacing in that mess, btw, and clearly the Tories aren’t migrating to Signal.

Also, this is happening Monday:

Jeremy Corbyn will take the first step towards a High Court battle against Labour next week over his suspension from the parliamentary party.

The former opposition leader will have a pre-action disclosure application heard in London on Monday afternoon, court officials told the PA news agency.

Lawyers for Mr Corbyn are expected to ask a judge for disclosure of documents ahead of a possible legal challenge over his suspension.

The case is expected to relate to the Islington North MP’s original suspension and the negotiation with the Leader of the Opposition’s office over the terms of his reinstatement.

It has previously been reported that they will seek evidence proving there was a deal with Keir Starmer’s office to readmit him to the party.

Leonard's association with Corbyn was probably not useful in Scotland, with older centrists who hate Corbyn and Scottish nationalism but couldn't bring themselves to vote tory being their main constituency as far as I can tell.

Cant think of anyone who could change Labour's fortunes in Scotland, but it certainly won't be Sarwar.

the only hope for Scottish Labour is in them adopting a pro-independence stance and saying bollocks to this Westminster game, which is probably a lot easier said than done and there would be more chance of Kieth delivering socialism than that happening under his watch.

it would be a win-win option - you get shut of England and Kieth in one move!

I enjoyed Richard Leonard's weird bouncing questioning as he struggled week after week at FMQs to remain relevant and to not ask the same questions as Ruth Davidson had already asked and Nicola Sturgeon had already answered.

I know he was supposed to be a lefty or whatever, but I'm not tribal like that - there are loads of so-called lefties I can't bloody stand!

Even as pro-independents i don't see it working: just like the English racists opt for the real Tories over the lot with the tough coffee mugs, the indy lot will still opt for the real Nats. It's nearly as tricky for them as they let Brexit become: it has to be got past, but most routes past it seem bound to destroy them.

probably true, but I'm enough of a dreamer to think if they gave socialism in one country a good try it might give Nicola something more to think about rather than just the Tories and Scot-Labour fighting for the scraps

watch the rump UK and Europe make peace again when it's time for a coup

Can see that appealing to their old heartland vote (which is now literally old). I saw a fascinating set of polling a while back that demonstrated the Scot/Eng divide in today's 70-something cohort: in the South there was a lot of those who were pro-Thatcher in the 80s and became the Brexity gammon and in Scotland they were viciously anti-Tory and so now without a real socialist party have become a bit (yes!) homeless. They're not keen on indepdendence in itself, and very wary of "tartan Tories" SNP but also very put off by the shitshow of Scot Lab.

Was probably too down on it all; there's surely something there to reignite. But a coalition out of that lot + the heavy-indy young left + the Scottish melts will take better than Sarwar to forge. xp

Steve Baker strikes me as the sort of person who, when they declare their unconditional support for you, you move to the centre of a ring of airport metal detectors.

Brexit Hardman - what an epitaph

Plenty for Steve Baker to cheer once the pandemic is over by early summer

Lexit was always, always an ill-advised position pic.twitter.com/FABsZZE8yI

— John Harris (@johnharris1969) January 14, 2021

the Britannia Unchained manifesto was all about the UK productivity deficit being mainly about lazy bastard heel dragging UK workers softened by an overly generous welfare state and way too extended union power and workers' rights.

'Shirkers' is the word they like to use I believe

"Labour slams timing"

omg i found the origin of the corbyn with tits on his shoulders painting pic.twitter.com/32smR0X23t

— marxist rashford⁷ (@JohnMcMarx) January 15, 2021

this is big

they are

how did he explain that pic to his wife? meeting with some constituents!

👀👀

Dutch government to step down after thousands of families were wrongly accused of child welfare fraud and wrongly told to pay money backhttps://t.co/ujhA4g3Thf

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) January 15, 2021

wait resigning over a failure wtf kind of rube politics is that?

In this country there was that faulty computer system installed at all the sub-post offices that made it look like all their takings were down so lots of sub postmasters were ruined or accused of theft. perhaps it's a bit of a random thing to bring up, but I was just thinking about it recently and how shit it is to be falsely accused of fraud.

What parallel universe is this?

Dutch Rutte government resigns over child welfare fraud scandal

This is not the first time a Dutch government has resigned en masse in a gesture of collective responsibility. In 2002, the cabinet stood down after a report criticised ministers and the military for failing to prevent the massacre of Muslims at Srebrenica during the Bosnian war seven years earlier.

something i simply do not get is people/orgs who *trusted* boris johnson such that they can feel betrayed.

This letter from Scottish Fishermen's Federation @sff_uk
to @BorisJohnson is so angry...the white hot fury of betrayal. #Brexit https://t.co/2jDTfGzHi3 pic.twitter.com/Xl5LjcBucp

— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) January 15, 2021

it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that they were one or more of the following
thick
complacent
lazy
naive
so full of ideological priors they couldn’t see any bad outcomes

I mean whatever about the fishermen because the fisheries policy and the place the industry has taken has led them down some dodgy routes politically but

The farmers? Really? I’ll never get over that one. I thought if it went Remain it would be for that reason and i was dead RONG

*the place the industry has taken in the fevered imagination of nativists

i remember talking to a number of farmers who felt because they had been told the EU were responsible for a lot of the difficulties they faced (cattle tuberculosis management for example).

Farners and fishermen have been moaning and whingeing about something or other my entire life - the former faithfully voting Tory the entire time and the latter voting Tory in their droves in recent years.

my great uncle is a farmer, and while we disagree on quite a lot politically, he was hard for remain and said any farmer who voted leave is an idiot.

the fishermen here are extremely Brexity, to the extent there used to be a poster covering a whole wall of one of their huts calling for Theresa May to be hanged as a traitor for not Brexiting enough

I know deems has made some good points on this earlier itt but fuck me, very hard to muster much sympathy reading something like that

they don’t even sell most of their catch here. Jesus

I think the fishing industry is important for keeping communities that might otherwise die going but, you know, so was coal mining.

Oh tbc I can see where CAP fucked them and left them embittered, that's all

but there's zero justification for their even pretending not to know that was a matter of their national govt giving them up in negotiations, or pretending to believe that brexit would improve their lot after the fact and so long passed

Tho tbh I'd question the sincerity of the posturing now. I think it more likely that they fancy that farmer-style antics may have some value now that they have a local power to appeal to?

Otherwise, as fizzles sez, there's no sense at all in the reaction. This was all known to be coming.

I reckon after this showboating (wahey) they'll end up getting a nice wedge for marketing to their new british customer base and jack prices up a bit, you don't just not sell fish.

I don't think there was a more brexity vote in the UK than Scottish fishermen. Even their tiny group of pro-indy voters voted to leave EU.

there are some very weird and detailed EU rules about crop rotation and the like, which probably did Remain no favours when it came to people casting their votes on the basis of “control”

This side, the fish lobby stayed strong FF even after CAP, but the fish lobby at that staged numbered about ten big guys who won out, who all diversified into celtic tiger activities.

Longer term v likely they (both scattered now-unemployed post CAP and eventually even the millionaire mackerel kings) moved with the tide (wahey) through FG post crash then SF since.

Can't map to UK there tbh but I'd imagine they nulabed then tried then brexited alright.

Tried/toried

that’s a good post, but my understanding is that fishermen here catch things like herring where the market is much greater abroad? I was just reading up on it and over 2/3 of fish eaten here is imported - cod, tuna, prawns etc. The graph on page 50 here is interesting for the breakdown of imports/exports.