Free as a Dodo: UK Politics Welcomes 2021

just had a bacon sandwich washed down with cheap shiraz, because I never even want to look like sexy Bastadi!

butties not bastanis

It’s being pointed out on twitter how few MPs have spoken up about this, and almost no journalists. makes u think

As people may have seen in media reports today, in May last year I was spat at in an unprovoked assault.

I would like to put on record my thanks to the police for their speedy response at the time and co-operation since.

I will be donating the compensation I receive to charity.

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) January 28, 2021

if that would have happened to kieth there would have been an armed response unit there in seconds and it would have made multiple front pages. Got to give it Jeremy - he's taken some nasty treatment but never got broken by the vile sewer rats out there on the streets and nor the ones in the Labour Party

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Es2sxiRXUAgdpm7?format=jpg&name=900x900
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Es2sxjpXcAcfXUg?format=jpg&name=900x900

this is the kind of person who was inspired and *radicalised* by Starmerism rather than almost setting their kitchen table alight whilst ritualistically burning their membership card in a state of drunken despair.

I hope this is a hodges esque bit

uh hedges I mean but hodges might as well be a bit too

I was convinced no one actually liked starmer and any appearances to the contrary were just expressions of anti-left spite or anti-tory desperation, maybe I was too optimistic

idk warfield but it sounds like real england at its most genteel - wikipedia says one ward has the highest male life expectancy at birth in england and wales (90.3! jfc)

no this fellow actually exists in the very real realm of recently elected Labour parish councillors in Berkshire.

"Never knowingly voted Corbyn"

Sorry to be Oblivious Foreigner on here but is there a reason why the attack on Corbyn news item has just been revealed now even though it happened in May? Is this something to do with the legal system?

Yeah the case was resolved yesterday

Not to be a Bastani-stan, but the problem is that he and his Novara media players have painted themselves into a corner where they constantly have to generate fresh takes, challops etc. But to be fair he drags Starmer and the party bureaucracy on the reg:

You know Labour is doing a terrible job on diversity when two examples @Keir_Starmer can give of diverse young politicians are a former mayor and someone he expelled from the shadow front bench.

Meanwhile an unelected white guy in his 60s can veto any candidate. pic.twitter.com/TqHzYTY9BI

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) January 28, 2021

And Michael Walker's considerably worse. At least Bastani demonstrates some actual fire.

But yeah, I had a visceral reaction to that "Voting Labour makes sense" tweet and all. How the fuck can Starmer be described as winning fairly when he lied about everything and strategically hid his funding?

Realise it's counter to this thread's reigning mode of withering despair to say so, but Novara is ACE you nutters. Dr Bastano is admittedly something of an acquired taste, but over the past year Michael Walker's show has become a genuinely vital source of informed debate on Covid and the Tory Death Spiral - no other media outlet in the country has regularly given such time to members of Independent Sage, school teachers, A&E nurses, fire fighter unions etc etc. James Butler's weekly radio show is amazing - check out last year's episode on Rosa Luxemburg! And in a more sane and reasonable country Ash Sarkar would obviously be immediately installed as Queen. And... I don't think Paul Mason has been on the channel more than once in the last year?

^
There have been some good shows, I like Rivkah Brown and James Butler in particular. Bastani now has a particularly amusing long-running feud with Mason.

Yeah, Novara's continued existence is a good thing, the takes are bound to vary in quality.

Tho also the problem here is that if you don't believe it ultimately makes sense to vote Lab within the UK context as a leftist you're effectively saying ppl should abandon electoral politics. Which I think is a valid stance but a tricky one for a site that is ultimately mostly analysing what comes out of Westminster.

Lol PG you should post more, I grinned like crazy at the “withering despair” description. I was just being mean about Novara, I am somewhat stymied by the dearth of left media tbh and I’m like “there’s barely anyone and it’s fucking Bastani.”

Bastani is a dick but Ash is a hero obv

I have read other people who are strongly opposed to Starmerism and have stated they will unenthusiastically still vote Labour without doing it the Bastadi way. gl to Novara but it will be very rare they'll get any clicks from me, too many irritatingly annoying smug twats on there for my liking and if their continued future is reliant on noisy contropping from the likes of Bastadi then they can seriously go fuck themselves.

absolute baller move of the uk government to shame ppl for uhhh having to work pic.twitter.com/pHJXprgn6x

— laura bananas (@freezydorito) January 28, 2021

wow

full on dystopia

look him in the eyes and tell him "we did everything we could"

Too long and not snappy enough but shouldn't that be, "Look him in the eyes and tell him you really can't have your employees working from home"?

Look him in the eyes and say “get back to fucking work or you’re fired from the dvla”

Disgusting. Let's 'ave it, Starmzy.... oh you agree with it.

he's a bit like a downgrade on the Maybot but rather than "strong and stable" his robotic mantra is "no if's no buts"

no income tax, no vat

No Guarantee.

kieth falling through the bar, but lol he sustains some serious injuries in the fall and then later dies.

No zoos!

next time it's his birthday I'll send him an old school military style peaked cap with a big brass badge on it that is inscribed: Captain Zoo-master

Walker has hated Johnson since they worked together but he's not the only one noticing the past-tense attitude among the Tories. Would also explain the really quite weird timing of the Scotland trip if this is what's preoccupying them all right now. Stoked for the Patel era

Telling how many Tories are privately talking about Johnson’s premiership as if it’s over. The current preoccupation is preserving the Union. They recognise a PM as toxic as the incumbent - or for that matter Gove - is a threat to it. The Scottish trip the last throw of the dice.

— Tim Walker (@ThatTimWalker) January 29, 2021

what tories aren't toxic in Scotland?

Ruth Davidson is their sole Scot with a claim to anything like popularity and she really dented that with the Tulchan mess and the elevation

yeah, but I'm assuming they're not gonna try to push her as PM

Can't see why Boris wouldn't last as PM for a good two years. Tories need a lot, lot more to betray this majority and Lab are piss weak. That poll is an outlier until I see more of it.

I think that underweights the possibility of shit going very weird around the Scottish elections but otherwise I tend to think the same. Lame duck PM perhaps, but still in post

Not sure which of the current Tory shower would be notably less toxic in Scotland than Johnson. Sunak seems to have disappeared.

Ruth Davidson is their sole Scot with a claim to anything like popularity and she really dented that with the Tulchan mess and the elevation

― stet, Friday, 29 January 2021 15:15 (fifty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The SNP grab every opportunity to get an ermine robe zing at her.

TONIGHT: shocking Channel 4 News report reveals how hundreds of overseas students have become destitute in the UK during lockdown, and turned to food banks in desperation.

One food bank in E London caters exclusively for 1700 international students a week, who queue for hours. pic.twitter.com/cvac5vzC04

— Hayley Barlow (@Hayley_Barlow) January 29, 2021

Aaron Bastani is Britain's best political analyst.

Slightly less keen on Walker but he understands the virus and the pandemic better than most.

I've given up on Butler since his last toxic LRB performance.

But Novara overall would seem to be the best thing to happen to UK media since, say, the launch of Channel Four in 1982.

Channel 4 has been a stain for at least 10 years now

Yes, Channel Four is not what it was, and hasn't been this century. But in 1982 it was something distinctive and important.

talking of channel 4, that fucking narcissistic creep Bastadi should have put a red triangle on that bare chested selfie!

Aaron Bastani is Britain's best political analyst.

Let’s get school staff vaccinated and all our children back in school.https://t.co/y0GgUYXrLo

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) January 30, 2021

like a fucking dog with a bone this cunt is, vaccinating the teachers doesn't prevent schools being incubation chambers - it just reduces the odds of the teachers dying you fucking ridiculously voiced poltroon.

Looks like someone agrees with you.

Schools absolutely should be the first thing to re-open, but when they do they will be the leading vector of transmission.

In the absence of a Covid strategy like E Asia, with government enforced quarantine measures and effective test and trace, 2021 is going to look like 2020. https://t.co/9RNQfwvwtp

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) January 30, 2021

it's probably not really funny but I was chuckling the other day when I heard a news report on Duterte reinforcing a total curfew on children with words to the effect of: go home and stay glued to the tv a bit longer!

This'll be fine, nothing could possibly go wrong here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55866285