"we'll change the things that need changing and that's all we'll change": the paSUKification of post-brexit politics 2021

And now....

Found on a Home Office page aimed at explaining to asylum seekers whether they can work. Bloody hell. pic.twitter.com/vOIGlo20hj

— Alex Piletska (@alexinlaw) January 12, 2022

Yes: Support raising the welfare cap
No: Don't raise the welfare cap, but implicitly support the concept.
Abstain: Don't support any sort of welfare cap

I probably should cut some slack on the SCG Welfare Cap abstainers yesterday after seeing a summary of the voting options. But still all the rhetoric from Reeves in the Miliband years and recently would suggest she would gladly vote No.

Cry more

Even by the @nytimes's standards, this is extraordinary. Basically accusing Johnson of being Putin/Erdogan, on the front page of its international edition. https://t.co/tFLpD1TFiA pic.twitter.com/Zn96eMcGCs

— Robert Colvile (@rcolvile) January 12, 2022

What a weird thread. You can practically hear the synapses frying.

I probably should cut some slack on the SCG Welfare Cap abstainers yesterday after seeing a summary of the voting options. But still all the rhetoric from Reeves in the Miliband years and recently would suggest she would gladly vote No.

― calzino, Wednesday, 12 January 2022 12:49 (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

whittome definitely sailed close to the 'are you for real' wind here (it always boils down to the voting record obv), but i still see no reason to distrust her ultimate sympathies, she'll be a major player in any attempt to wrest labour back leftward

some people seemed to be getting it mixed up with the household benefits cap, especially that Northern Independence lot. Or like me they didn't look at what the voting options actually meant. But when you see Labour abstaining on a welfare bill it's hard not to think the worst.

it's quite amusing seeing people who even after they've had the nature of the vote explained to them they carry on posting stuff like "There is no opposition" "These bastards have yet more blood on their hands"

Some of the exchanges with the PM's press sec today:

Did the PM lie about the parties? This is an attempt to pre-empt the findings of the review.

Is he a liar? No.

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) January 12, 2022

Breaking : The Duke of York will face a civil trial in America over sexual abuse claims after a US judge dismissed Prince Andrew's attempt to have the lawsuit thrown out.

— Krishnan Guru-Murthy (@krishgm) January 12, 2022

Douglas Ross MP, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, has called for Boris Johnson to resign.

... in a desperate attempt to shore up the Tory vote on Scotland.

NEW: On a huge day for Boris Johnson things just got that bit worse.

High court rules govt’s use of “VIP lane” to award PPE contracts to two companies during pandemic first wave was unlawful.

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) January 12, 2022

Have to say *****even though I don’t think it’s worse than austerity and creeping fascism***** it fucking sucks that this cunt was attending mass pissups when ppl were facing fines for seeing 2 mates/encouraged to report parties of 3 to the filth. You could miss it at this distance but the strain of spring 2020 did real and possibly permanent damage to many (surviving) ppl’s psyches, before we even get to the trauma of that xmas & 1000 deaths/day; I doubt it’s just cop-loving melts that would want to make political hay out of the fact that they were taking the piss out of all of us and have so much open contempt for voters that they continue to lie beyond plausible deniability

For clarity I do think that ol bojo May wriggle out of this jam but in any case I hope he dies soon

Well said, wins.

any attempt to wrest labour back leftward

I don't envisage any such attempt, let alone a remotely successful one. Most socialists have been expelled from the party.

so it turns out Starmer, who despite everything his approval rating is still something like -26 , it turns out he's actually very good at doing ruthless factional purges.

A shippers story I had missed but was mentioned on tysky this evening was that some of the slugs had been kanticipating prospective bankruptcy off the back of plummeting membership subs cos it would give them the opportunity to relaunch the party with a fresh constitution and without all those tiresome unions/members - and it was only the prospect of potential Tory attack ads on their fiscal mismanagement that prevents them actively welcoming it.

yeah it would be a very effective tory attack line if business friendly, competent management briefcase Labour are going bankrupt, it would actually be their worst nightmare.

After they lose their next ruinous court case they could blame it all on Corbyn just like the Tories blamed the financial crisis on Gordon Brown!

I was talking to this guy earlier (hopefully from a safe enough distance) who has covid and is bitterly struggling on ssp during his self-isolation period ("one fucking week after Christmas") which obv he was strictly adhering to the UK govt rules of, and he was getting very angry about Downing Street pissups. He's not a tory voter, his politics are somewhere between the greens and UKIP and I'm never quite sure which one he votes for if he does vote! But anyway he's a regular at the Trojans club which was quite possibly having unofficial lock-ins during the first lockdown and he definitely had a few house parties in that period. Oh dear I'm turning into a terrible curtain-twitcher here but he's not one who could protest that he followed all the rules, that much is certain. His dog kept trying shag my dog as well which is normally quite funny but not so much when the dog could also be infected.

What leaves me completely indifferent about it all is i/ I couldn't gaf about tory leadership succession games any more. ii/ I don't believe for a microsecond that a Labour govt would be any better as unlikely as that scenario is. iii/ I'd be quite happy for a UK govt that broke lockdown protocols and had mad pissups to exist if they were committed to ending homelessness, foodbank dependency and not committed to treating asylum seekers like subhumans, not committed to the corporate manslaughter of disabled people and prioritising the avaricious demands of their billionaire donors, which would almost just about describe where both main parties are at rn.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FI7EAu6WYAsIcE2?format=jpg&name=medium

imagine such a cursed country that the centrist melt commentariat are doing May nostalgia

It's curious that some people are still saying 'the Labour Party must be our site of struggle' when the Labour Party has shown that it has no place for them and no interest in them except as objects of ritual humiliation.

Calzino correct about Theresa May.

Most of the UK press seems to have decided it's time to turn against the current disgusting PM.

Even the Express?

You're right - the Express remains the outlier.

I'm behind the times - it's not the *colourful* media mogul Desmond who owns the Express any more it's Trinity Mirror Group or Reach plc as they are now known. I don't think the news that Brexit has been fixed by Boris has got to Dublin and Belfast yet.

It's curious that some people are still saying 'the Labour Party must be our site of struggle' when the Labour Party has shown that it has no place for them and no interest in them except as objects of ritual humiliation.

I don't disagree but this raises the question - what should be our site of struggle? Outside of parliamentary politics altogether, I guess?

Yes I understand the difficulties abandoning Labour represents, I guess a short version of the answer would be it can still be a site of struggle but certainly not the main one, if you believe in the possibility of political change

Which is true of electoral politics in the wider context too

The flicker of hope under Corbyn has to be seen in the context of the age and experience of the people it gave hope to

Age and experience and psychological makeup and etc

I gather that Phil Normal is a real person.

Labour Party needs to expel Philip Normal over these utterly vile tweets where he jokes about Hitler, paedophilia and rape

He has already made headlines over a series of racist and Islamophobic tweets

His partner, Matthew Doyle, is Sir Keir Starmer’s Director of Communications https://t.co/oERkmXbSs0

— Socialist Voice ⭑ (@SocialistVoice) January 13, 2022

He’s just resigned!

there were those left members that stuck with Labour through some barren decades and perhaps will do again as long as they didn't like any Maxine Peake tweets or ever refer to Israel as an apartheid state. I don't know how they can do it tbh, paying subs towards them fraudulent scumbags would make me sick to my stomach.

it seems the disgraced former councillor Normal could have spent a week deleting his dodgy history and there would have still been plenty to go around!

1 down, 570555895 to go

glad this guys gone, good fucking riddance. his constant pr work for hondo against the save nour campaign as a councillor was extremely shameful

Been reading the Normal saga this week, glad he's had to go, sure he'll learn lessons from this

The other thing is that his partner works in comms for Starmer but I’m not sure if it’s the same guy who approvingly called PN a Nazi in bed.

Another party for LJ to join

The people are fed up with our politicians - official.

For full data, visit our website: https://t.co/Y2LXCoZnYk pic.twitter.com/LobfuifbFH

— True & Fair Party (@VoteTrueAndFair) January 13, 2022

nah thanks they seem a bit wanky

There's talk of the Scottish Tories forming a breakaway party but I'll leave that to xyzzz and imago to chew over.

lol

A statement from Buckingham Palace regarding The Duke of York: pic.twitter.com/OCeSqzCP38

— The Royal Family (@RoyalFamily) January 13, 2022

well that's got Boris off the front pages for tomorrow then

Awww ma you're just jealous he's a beastly boy

B has gone into isolation because a close connection is covid positive (he says)

Philip Normal is a dick. He has a shop in South London that does really basic tshirts to appeal to gay nostalgia, say a picture of a spice girl with a slogan on top of it. I’ve known other people with shops/businesses in the same area, and I follow groups with similar selling online platforms like ASOS, and both find him horrible. He has tried to intimidate others who do similar things, treated customers like shit, treated gay men in the scene who don’t like him badly* etc.

Fucking amazing to see his comeuppance.

*Im not particularly involved in this third examples but I’ve heard numerous others bitch about him.

🚨EXCLUSIVE

Number 10 held two boozy parties the night before the Queen mourned Prince Philip alone.

Staff drank and at points danced until the early hours of the night of April 16.

Hours later, the Queen went to a socially-distanced funeral for Philip. https://t.co/sWrFcOrplE

— Tony Diver (@Tony_Diver) January 13, 2022

not gann lie i read that as "mounted prince philip alone"

gnnai mean who knows what their rituals are

wtf im not even drunk

tell it to sue gray