“I take my responsibilities seriously. I did not lie” - UK politics June 23 on

Bye bye Kwasi Kwarteng, you useless chump.

"Kwasi Kwarteng is the 54th Tory MP to say they are standing down at the next election"

Has a majority of nearly 20k, but I guess he can grift away at some think tank or some boardroom crap.

Strictly or I'm A Celebrity or gtf.

human centipede or gtfo

I mean, the think tank / boardroom grift is usually predicated on you having connections to politicians in government - if everyone hates you because you're about to lose them their seats, it probably doesn't work so well.

In other news, it's the launch of Liz Truss's Popular Conservatives today!

Martin McGuinness was styling himself Joint First Minister a decade ago - apparently it was taken up by Jim Allister of TUV (because inflating SF's role allowed him to hate the arrangement more)

At PMQs Sunak trots out his usual jibe about Starmer being unable to "define a woman". This after Starmer had mentioned that Brianna Ghey's mother was actually in the Commons gallery watching PMQs.

... I mean, I'm speechless.

i honestly dont get how it can be bad under those circumstances but usually fine, good even

right??! like it’s okay to snicker behind people’s backs but i’m sorry these jokes are unacceptable if they can be reliably attributed

but it is true that it’s even more brain-dead this way

I don't get it as a gotcha, they want him to say "adult human female"? Then define "female", it's exactly the same deal. Wild that the TERFs use this line of attack when they're the ones going on about large gametes, and we just want to let people live their lives.

is it transphobic or not? i was told it was just not denying reality. but seemingly no dissonance at all in the reporting of this outrage. exactly as would be expected but i'm surprised they can even be bothered to raise this current stink. such is the way the press works though i can easily imagine if it was Starmer that was currently out of fashion he would right now be getting absolutely slated for trying to 'politicise' this tragedy and use an emotive story to silence legitimate concerns.

there is nothing to protect any of us from this.

I'd suggest responding, tho it's still somewhat beside the point, with 'your party's less than a quarter women while ours is over half but go off green card' but wouldn't want to be seen as trying to help the wasteman transphobe LOTO ofc

I read something a couple of months ago that briefly mentioned the 2005 election. Take with a pinch of salt as completely unverified but Michael Howard wanted a handful of issues "the public is largely with us on", which then went in the manifesto.

The problem being the public did agree with the Conservatives on those issues but not on the importance of those issues

And I realize I could have just googled

School Discipline
Cleaner Hospitals
Accountability
More Police
Controlled Immigration
Lower Taxes

Those first three what were they thinking.

This was truly terrible from Sunak. But let’s not kid ourselves - had Brianna’s mum not been there today, no-one (including Keir Starmer) would have batted an eyelid.
It’s not good enough to stand against transphobia only when the mother of a murdered trans girl might be… https://t.co/2GYHZRevAj

— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) February 7, 2024

what were they thinking

lol remember the posters tho

sturgeon otm, i fondly remember when she ejected joanna cherry from the snp for her unrepentant transphobia when she was first minister after delivering a stirring speech on her support for trans rights

Starmer is such a tawdry, hypocritical piece of shit.

idk i think we should listen to what the man with a party full of unchecked full-voiced transphobes has to say

not sure that narrows down the party in question tbh

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/07/brianna-gheys-father-demands-apology-from-sunak-over-transgender-remarks

Is Galloway going to win?

Lol, very funny. pic.twitter.com/DSMwLcj1wv

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) February 11, 2024

he got 21.9% of the vote in Batley & Spen off the back of a general dissatisfaction with Labour under Kieth from Muslim voters. Kieth has managed to piss them off tenfold since. yeah lol.. lay down tools out of principle, lads

I am not under any circumstances going to hand it to George Galloway but I am still finding this quite funny

Is Galloway going to win?

I'd say 50-50. He's currently 2/1, and thats before momentum starts to build

He should definitely outperform what he got in Batley

Why is this guy apologizing to the Jewish community, shouldn't he be apologizing to Israel?

somehow he's found a way to be grossly offensive to the Jewish community and also be derided by his Muslim constituents as a toothless Starmer MP. He's obviously very clever.

Louise Ellman has reacted to Azhar Ali’s remarks by saying that they were out of character for him, and saying that over a long period of time he had been an ally of her when she had been subjected to antisemitic attacks.

She said:

"I have known Azhar for over twenty years and he consistently supported me when I was subjected to antisemitic attacks. He should now have the opportunity to work with the Jewish community to restore the loss of trust his actions have caused."

I know this is naïve, but I'm genuinely surprised at the number of high-profile Corbyn denouncers are coming out to back this guy, even if it's proceeded with some perfunctory hand-wringing. It's like they're trying to prove correct the most cynical interpretations of the Corbyn years.

(it seems bad that this is emboldening people who claim that there's no anti-semitism on the left and the whole thing was invented out of thin air)

One rule for their friends, another rule for everybody else.

Almost as if that was the point all along

In his press conference around half an hour after Corbyn's statement, Starmer said that anyone who thought the problems were "exaggerated" or were a "factional attack" were "part of the problem and... should be nowhere near the Labour Party". Corbyn defended his comments in a TV interview later that day; shortly after it aired, the Labour Party announced that it had suspended Corbyn pending an investigation.

I realize he's shameless, but I would like to see Starmer attempt to reconcile the above with the events of the last couple of days.

These ‘investigations’ never take place. Funny that!

Breaking: Labour has withdrawn its support for Rochdale candidate Azhar Ali

— Eleni Courea (@elenicourea) February 12, 2024

I would be extremely pissed off right now if I was one of the labour people obliged to awkwardly defend this guy over the past two days lol

Very funny

the grown-ups are at the wheel

How are they so bad at this?

* not very bright
* extremely venal
* limited people skills
* all trying to get one over on each other at all times

Truly the Banter Byelection we deserve

So if I have this right the choices now for the good folk of Rochdale are:

- conspiracy theorist clown who won't even retain the Labour whip if he wins
- ex-Labour sex offender standing for a far-right party
- George Galloway
- some Tory or other

Popcorn time!

Isn’t there a Monster Raving Loony Party candidate at least?

There is! The BBC have thoughtfully put up profiles of all the candidates, even the no-hopers

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-68250468

Monster Raving Loonies need to either fuck off or at the very least get some new jokes

*even the no-hopers"......

By gum there's some vanity cases on that list. Isn't it 10 grand down the drain now just to get your race in the local paper?

Face in the local paper, fucking phone

Altho this is Rochdale so

Even in the company of other no-hopers, this man is notable in his hopelessness - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0hbfg19

Coleman! Coleman! Coleman! He might be a clown but he’s not a ghoul or a cunt (according to the one second I spent reading his profile).