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

Two council seats lost to the Tories. Notice the Green surge.

https://www.politics.co.uk/news-in-brief/labour-lose-2-seats-in-midlands-local-council-elections/

Labour source says Nick Thomas-Symonds out as Shadow Home Sec, Emily Thornberry in.

— Ava-Santina (@AvaSantina) November 29, 2021

Helen and Dorian regretfully agreeing that pointing out the Spectator is a nazi-platforming rag is like being a "racism hipster"

Agreed. I know this kind of oh-so weary Twitter response is tempting, but it's a mistake - like being a racism hipster. *You* might find this unsurprising, but most people don't know much about media brands or the French elections and this is useful information for them.

— Helen Lewis (@helenlewis) November 29, 2021

and for completeness:

My problem with this reaction is it implies that there are no lines and no difference between soft-soaping a fascist and anything else they publish. There has to be some sense of a spectrum otherwise there's no room for a backlash to a piece like this.

— Dorian Lynskey (@Dorianlynskey) November 29, 2021

After struggling to parse this i think what DL is saying is that by writing for the Spectator he's helping provide a 'spectrum' of opinion from which a credible critique can be launched against the fash parts

Which I guess is a bit like bringing down the Nazis by joining the Nazi party

Providing cover for the rest of the content and uncomfortable with his role being pointed out

The thing is, there is almost no difference between soft-soaping a fascist and everything else the Spectator publishes - it's all of a piece.

if he had the moral courage to put his hands up and cop to taking money from a fascist rag because he's not very choosy where his paycheques come from rather coming out with such convoluted bullshit, he'd still be a despicable bald fool.

"racism hipster"!

What gyac surely the Spectator's consistent fascism just gives its Surrey readership a socially acceptable excuse to give into the irresistible lure of thinkpieces about U-God and Moby

Theory: Lynskey's been decomposing for months, the brain worms now free to just slither directly over his keyboard as required

The thing is, he could easily get the £75 for a thinkpiece that the Spec pays anywhere else in the media.

Sometimes the banal reason for writing for somewhere more conservative is that the friendly editor at the paper you’d happily pitch to gets poached by a less liberal media company, and freelancers tend to want to maintain relations with friendly editors. Or, you’re basically a total melt.

https://twitter.com/tristandross/status/1465334017000189958

even better!

http://twitter.com/tristandross/status/1465334017000189958

meh

please, let's not all pile onto The Racism Factory just for publishing another fascist. this only happens occasionally, and i know their editors, they're good people. for instance, they happily commission any banal cultural commentary i pitch and always invite me to their parties

— Stan Account (@tristandross) November 29, 2021

“Useful idiot running interference in his free time for the far-right rag that sometimes pays him” exists on a spectrum with “all the fash content said organ publishes on the reg” and I think we shouldn’t lose sight of that

New phone, who dis?

— Cat Smith MP (@CatSmithMP) November 29, 2021

Love that

Dugher nursing an old grudge whilst enjoying free drinks in a corporate box at monmore green racing track!

> Michael Dugher
> CEO @BetGameCouncil. Views here all mine. Board member @IvorsAcademy Trust.
> Fellow @LeedsMusicDrama. Ex-CEO @UK_Music, MP, Shadow SofS & No10 chief spokesman

being an mp is low on the list of priorities if his twitter bio is anything to go by

not sure it was ever adequately high but he hasn't been an mp since 2017

UGH

I'm told Yvette Cooper has definitely been offered Shadow Home Secretary

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) November 29, 2021

Labour is back in business. pic.twitter.com/khoqUVCR4W

— The Labour Party (@UKLabour) November 29, 2021

Lol Wes Streeting is shadow health?!

Deputy Leader, Shadow First Secretary of State, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Shadow Secretary of State for the Future of Work: Angela Rayner
Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer: Rachel Reeves
Shadow Secretary of State for Business and Industrial Strategy: Jonathan Reynolds
Shadow Secretary of State of Climate Change and Net Zero: Ed Miliband
Shadow Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing, Communities & Local Government: Lisa Nandy
Shadow Secretary of State for Defence: John Healey
Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport: Lucy Powell
Shadow Secretary of State for Education: Bridget Phillipson
Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Jim McMahon
Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Affairs: David Lammy
Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care: Wes Streeting
Shadow Secretary of State for the Home Department: Yvette Cooper
Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade: Nick Thomas-Symonds
Shadow Minister of State at the Cabinet Office: Jenny Chapman
Shadow Secretary of State for Justice: Steve Reed
Shadow Secretary of State for Transport: Louise Haigh
Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, Party Chair and Chair of Labour Policy Review: Anneliese Dodds
Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions: Jonathan Ashworth

Shadow Attorney General: Emily Thornberry

Shadow Cabinet Minister for Mental Health: Rosena Allin-Khan*
Shadow Cabinet Minister for International Development: Preet Gill **
Shadow Chief Secretary to HM Treasury: Pat McFadden ***

Shadow Secretary of State for Wales: Jo Stevens
Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland: Ian Murray
Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland: Peter Kyle

I'm so broken. I have to go to McDonalds.

— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) August 24, 2013

the grown-ups are back, baby

Shadow Minister of State at the Cabinet Office: Jenny Chapman

👀

borrowing "levelling up" from the Tories is an exceptionally feeb move even for Kieth

Yvette Cooper eh? That would have thoroughly depressed at one time, but since I've no intention of voting Labour again in my life I can take this with the appropriate level of wgaf now lol.

Can’t wait for them to poll at 2010 levels again

Cooper has become such a mythical figure amongst melt groupthink that Dunty seems to have forgotten that he used to pretend to hate her for being so racist and right-wing. And this nonsense about how great she is at dispatch box pantomime didn't do her any good when Corbyn made her look rather trivial and empty in 2015. She's got a wafer thin majority as well and probably almost a dead cert to lose her seat in the next election.

It's like Hatherley just posted. Kieth attacking Johnson for dishonesty is not a very bright move and when it comes to election time they will "this you" him with all the pledges he feigned to con the membership into voting for him, which both makes him look dishonest or even deceptively progressive to the Tory voters he's trying to win over.

haha, yes i hadn't thought about the second part of that. it not only reminds the left of the party that he lied, it parades the pledges in front of right wing voters they're trying to win. lol

Idk, maybe right wing voters will find it funny that labour members got so comprehensively clowned. Who really cares about their political enemies being betrayed?

of course that won't bother them, it's the pledges that will do the damage - even if he had no intention of honouring them it will plant the seed that this guy is a progressive in a Tory suit disguise.

periodical reminder that most of Corbyn's (let alone early-Starmer's) policies were >50% favoured when polled in isolation

alive in here i'm alive in here i'm aliiiiive in heeeeere

and Labour don't get the same free pass with barefaced lying as the Tories do.

Yes the old racists whose “trust” they are trying to “win back” will always insist that labour want to open the door to all the immigrants no matter how frantically they signal the opposite

Yeah but what I'm saying is that Starmer's initial pledges would still be broadly popular even if he has gone back on all of them for Blairite reasons

ask the Hastings RNLI workers on how "Defend Migrants’ Rights" is polling with Tory voters in their town!

Possible for something to be >50% popular but also widely despised by gammons whom Labour should never be pandering to

My faith is that this nation is not majority gammon. Brexit wasn't in itself a gammon referendum. Many have recanted; many voted out of frustration and spite rather than deeply-held xenophobia

I’d want to see some evidence of that

I did say 'faith' tbf lol

Faith isn't evidence

one Starmer aide told the Politico newsletter – a daily note for Westminster insiders – that the reshuffle had put, “fresh hungry effective message-carriers in key briefs”.

jesus fucking wept

hungry hungry hypocrites

Fresh hungry effective budgie smugglers or tight briefs.

Everybody knows Boris is a liar, they just don't care that he's a liar.

BBC radio coverage of reshuffle: "there's an emphasis on YOUTH, as Wes Streeting is promoted".

Not what they would say if the much younger Zarah Sultana was promoted.

If you can count on European heads of state to do anything, it’s calling centuries of colonial domination + nurtured dependency “friendship” https://t.co/I9jYRxU6HY

— Zoé (@ztsamudzi) November 30, 2021

Streeting is 38, am reminded of when Jo Swindon was asked about how to get young people into politics and responded “I’m a young politician!” (She was 39 at the time)