Stability is change: crossing the floor from potato to potahto in uk 2024

🔴 POPLAR & LIMEHOUSE: It seems that sitting MP Apsana Begum may be subject to a renewed deselection attempt. https://t.co/PrzbQfa7Er

— @Tomorrow'sMPs (@tomorrowsmps) May 29, 2024

Looks like her ex-husband is at it again. Why has a domestic abuser been allowed to carry on as a Labour member?

This 'left-wing' landlord has also been barred from standing

D:Ream - Things Can Only Get Better (1993) (Official Video) https://t.co/GX4196SX1f via @YouTube

— Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP🌹🏳️‍🌈 (@lloyd_rm) May 22, 2024

how cruel and completely unnecessary 🤭

I'm sure some of you won't click on this because of where it is (and absolutely fair enough) but I keep thinking of this series of articles from conhome on how an unexpected election and overly-centralised campaign shafted the Tories in the 2017 elections. Given the source, they don't credit Corbyn at all, but it's a scene with some echoes - more on Labour than the Tories, this time?

“The whole candidate process was dreadful,” admits a senior Parliamentarian, and draws an unflattering comparison with the enthusiasm of the Corbynite grassroots: “It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that creating an actual mass movement in which people have some control has a potential benefit.” Ruefully, he adds that the modern Conservative Party is “almost a structure set up to discourage participation. It’s not something you can love anymore – it’s something you fear because it’s a totalitarian state.”

https://conservativehome.com/2017/09/05/our-cchq-election-audit-the-rusty-machine-part-one-why-the-operation-that-succeeded-in-2015-failed-in-2017/
https://conservativehome.com/2017/09/06/our-cchq-election-audit-the-rusty-machine-part-two-how-and-why-the-ground-campaign-failed/
https://conservativehome.com/2017/09/07/our-cchq-election-audit-the-rusty-machine-part-three-what-can-be-done-to-fix-it/

The Scottish National party has deleted an election video on TikTok after it emerged it featured a sexually-explicit song by American rap artist Big Boss Vette, which also uses the n-word.

The track, Pretty Girls Walk, carries an explicit lyrics warning on streaming platforms and starts with the verse: “No matter what the fuck these hoes talkin’ ‘bout, just know you a bad bitch, every motherfucking time that you wake up, and you look in that motherfucking mirror”

I'm sure that's exactly what John Swinney does every morning.

BREAKING: Iain Dale tells LBC he has now abandoned his bid to become the Conservative candidate for Tunbridge Wells, after this clip of him telling listeners he 'never liked the place’ and ‘would happily live somewhere else’ was revealed https://t.co/vr3FnfeuX2

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) May 31, 2024

lol 'all talk'

Excellent.

surely there are many residents of Tunbridge Wells who have never liked the place and would happily live somewhere else, they deserve a chance to vote for a candidate who shares their views

It is a selfless piece of service, if you think about it, to represent a place you've never liked in the hope of making it better.

or worse!

ppl should feel some kind of civic pride in what a loveless dreary shithole yr town or city is.

Kent towns shittier than Tunbridge Wells, pt. 1:

Ashford
Maidstone
Tonbridge
Dover

move over John Redwood pretending to sing the Welsh national anthem and Peter Lilley adapting the Mikado, there's a new kid in town

Please God, make it stop... 😩

"When it comes to football, the country shouldn’t just be worried about the Danes, Slovenians and the Serbs. They should be worried about Captain Flip-flop and his band of socialists. I think victory is in sight and we’ll bring it home." #newsnight pic.twitter.com/wwXW7i2zS2

— paulusthewoodgnome 🇺🇦💙 (@woodgnomology) May 31, 2024

Obviously not the parts of the country which will be cheering on the Danes, Slovenians and Serbs.

I presume D:Ream will be giving back all those royalties they’ve earned over the years thanks to the Labour Party? Or would that be too far?? https://t.co/CHCNG7I2EP

— Rhys Goode (@rhys_goode) June 2, 2024

i can't stress enough how this one gesture from D:Ream has made up for years of having to hear their terrible record

piss can only get boileder

Time to spice things up

Breaking:

Nigel Farage is the new leader of Reform UK as Richard Tice formally stands aside

Farage says it is 'the dullest most boring general election campaign we have ever seen in our lives' being fought by two near identikit leaders

— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) June 3, 2024

"dullest most boring" bleakest most disheartening general election campaign would be more accurate

Stopped himself short of saying Richard Tice is the dullest, most boring party leader he'd ever seen.

Standing in Clacton where Douglas Carswell won for UKIP in 2015 - Douglas Carswell who now lives in Mississippi!

Prominent anti Brexit campaigner and former Lib Dem donor Charlie Mullins seeks to be a candidate for Reform UK (2024) pic.twitter.com/J1b9QchJiN

— insane moments in british politics (@PoliticsMoments) June 3, 2024

Charlie is back(in the country possibly - no confirmation yet if he's in his luxury Spanish Villa or the £10m riverside penthouse in London). But as a plumber he knows where there is shit, there is brass!

Well there's a vacancy in Black Lace if he fails.

Brilliant day canvassing in Trinity ward, Sutton Coldfield. A lot of young professionals are fed up with Tories nationally and Brum Labour for going bankrupt.

And now just the one in #PlanetSuttonColdfield pub of the day The Four Oaks. pic.twitter.com/wObdqwAgdC

— John Sweeney (@johnsweeneyroar) June 3, 2024

oh ffs i didn't realise that was happening

Can you imagine how bad that hat smells

Fuck washing John Sweeney's hat

barely standing John Sweeney

Nobody can stand him.

I wonder how likely the following scenario is: Farage wins in Clacton, Tories decimated to under 100 MPs, Farage switches sides and becomes Tory leader

it's plausible enough but it's also plausible that the conservative brand ends up so tainted that it's not really in his interests, and it's not like the press won't be happy to treat him as the opposition leader in that case

I assume he has a good shot of winning in Clacton (though is his record a bit patchy when not running specifically on Brexit?), and as a strategy It seems plausible at least.

Is it in his interests or not? I'm not sure. The move has interesting timing, to say the least. If it did happen, he would swoop in as saviour, at least from his perspective. And the more damaged the conservative party and brand is, the more leeway that would give him to shape the party the way he wanted. Likelihood of something like this is difficult to measure, but I could see a potential path to it

*begins typing bet3... into browser*

lol sorry

Starmer to promise to 'close the door' on Putin

https://i0.wp.com/skwawkbox.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/mandelson-putin.png?w=1370&ssl=1

he needs to 'close the door' on Mandelson first, lol

I reckon deselecting Putin was the right call actually

I agree, Farage absolutely will return as the saviour of the conservatives. There's no way the "conservative brand" will become too too tainted, it's the most successful political party in history, the English have a co-dependent relationship with it, it's the vampire which never dies and cannot be killed. It's just waiting for the right person/movement to resurrect it.

only just reading about all the kids in kosovo named tonibler after tony blair

another word for 'bootlicker' eh

Mandelson is the Jeffrey Epstein of British politics and no I won't elaborate further

Can't see the Tories ever accepting Farage, I'm not convinced he'll win Clacton anyway. They'll either carry on down the far right route with Badenoch or Jenrick or some other ghoul or they'll completely shift to the centre.

Apsana Begum confirmed as Labour candidate

xp famously he has never won a Parliamentary seat he has stood for, he's 0-7 on that score. Begs the question of why our friends in the media keep platforming him...

Beats talking to Keir Starmer.

There would have to be a paradigm- shifting massacre for the Tories to accept Farage as a leader, I agree, but let's see ...

My older relatives are Tory or Tory-leaning and Farage is an uncrossable line for them. They'd vote for Mordaunt, though.

I am curious, though - what is Farage useful for, exactly, as a politician? He is bad disliked as an orator and personality, he has no consistent base, he has no reputation as a power broker or thinker or organiser, he can get "coverage" but it's usually largely negative - what do others who value the things he represents find him valuable for?

My main thought on Farage is "let's not give any oxygen to this cunt" but having seen a couple of media appearances over the last day I've noticed that they are actually questioning him on his hypocrisy this time and in return he's coming across like a furious foaming-at-the-mouth loon.

I mean metaphorical oxygen but literal oxygen works too