brexit negging when yr mandate is is trash: or further chronicles of a garbage-fire

Fuck it's the dark crystal isn't it

Or one of them

As featured on the first mentions thread:

Meanwhile, someone has just alerted me to the uncanny resemblence between dominatrix Tory MP Theresa May and a Skeksis...

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 14 April 2003 11:10 (fourteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I keep having to remind myself that there is a not insignificant constituency of people out there who actually think like this

The UK negotiating team on Brexit SHOULD be; David Davis. Jacob Rees Mogg. Nigel Farage. Scare the hell out of the EU.

— David Vance (@DVATW) June 13, 2017

Thankfully there are not too many people like David Vance around, he's a nutjob.

Most of them are in the DUP though.

God help us if there's a war when your most rabid jingoists' idea of 'scary' is Jacob Rees Mogg.

we are prepared to front up with the silliest man in the history of the british isles, that is our level of confidence

think it's more "chinless, monocled Gestapo officer" he's thinking

this is a face that was born to swim into focus, heavily backlit, in a bare-concrete interrogation room

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p038tmsj.jpg

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p038tmsj.jpg

'in hushed tones they refer to him as mozart. the human nervous system is his orchestra and he has written many exquisite symphonies of pain'

tbf that is a weird animal snarl to be failing to keep out of photos of you

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-S1N-biMH6Jg/U1rldhEPLPI/AAAAAAAAOMA/QwZ1rsYPb5w/s1600/P4260453.JPG
Juncker, Rees-Mogg

I believe that's the innate hauteur of the nobility

the innate inability of the terminally inbred to properly control their muscles

lol calzino, perfect

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/14/corbyn-labour-rethink-strategy-chuka-umunna-yvette-cooper

^
there is probably an important kernel of truth here - ie it WILL indeed be very very difficult for Labour to win next time. It follows that 'broadening the tent', etc, is a perfectly viable idea.

But apart from the general self-centredness of the column, it really lost me when it said:

"Umunna as shadow chancellor instead of John McDonnell?"

I mean, isn't that like saying: "for Corbynism to succeed, Corbyn should stand down in favour of Liz Kendall"?

(And btw I actually like Umunna as media performer, think he may be able to help, and hope he will be involved in some productive way.)

i read that earlier and my primary reaction was wtf

To win power, Corbyn and/or Labour (preferably both) have to change. In fairness to him, he is showing signs of tacking to the centre – most obviously in accepting the party line on Trident renewal.

the most significant victory for labour in recent memory comes on the back of a straight-up leftwing manifesto and this prick is desperate for them to row back to an entirely imaginary centre

I would argue that to win he has to embrace his former critics elsewhere in the party: Chuka Umunna, Yvette Cooper, Angela Eagle, and all those who wanted nothing to do with the Corbyn project and wished it ill.

fuck no, these blairite shits are the ones who should be compromising

at least harriet harman had the good grace to admit she was wrong

I think we can safely disregard these bozos at this point

I mean, one catches ones breath at the sheer myopic inflexibility of these choads, the staggering lack of insight, self- or otherwise, but really it's just groans of the dying

yet more names to be inscribed in the bizarro gazzara 'HURRY UP AND DIE' file

"turns out people really like that whole integrity thing Jeremy, and 'for the many not the few' is playing great with some demographics, but if you could just hitch it to some empty platitudes about hard-working families and legitimate concerns then you might be onto something"

I do want to see those people on board and working for Labour victory. But I agree that it should be on JC's terms, not a trade-off. And the fact is, JC has always been generous and positive towards all these people. It's they who have had the problem.

JC clearly really likes and appreciates McDonnell and vice versa - it's very genuine, very unlike eg May & Hammond or any number of other MP relationships.

I, like some others, don't really hugely like McDonnell as presence, but JC will surely think: McDonnell is the right Chancellor for what I want to do socially and economically - why would he change? (I also think JC would be too loyal to JM even to consider any of this.)

But if JM does eventually get moved for whatever reason - JC could perhaps put Rebecca Long-Bailey in as Shadow Chancellor to good effect, and possibly even gain a bit of support that way, while retaining leftist social democratic position?

one other thing about 'dilemma of bringing in the centrists':

not long ago the issue was that, bcz of these people's actions, JC didn't have ENOUGH people to fill the necessary posts. Hence Thornberry doing two jobs, etc.

So surely there are enough posts to go round?

can someone photoshop lord buckethead in place of vader here thx

http://i.imgur.com/MDOmo9K.gif

in these situations pinefox I honestly admire your optimism and ecumenism, but I don't believe that most of the centrist PLP can be trusted or that they have any genuine interest in social democratic economic reform. JC, as you say, did not start this fight.

re: the phrase "legitimate concerns"

sometime ilxor big beast tom ewing noted yesterday on FB that a tory minister had just use it of ppl wanting more money for public services

i'd love to think the plp would be taking a long hard look at itself in the light of the election results but they've not done much to earn the benefit of the doubt, for sure

xp: yes, I do have ecumenism, though not usually so much optimism.
I could be mistaken to be optimistic about what the PLP will do.

xp also: hilarious about Ewing as big beast! :D

Was going to say, ecumenically and optimistically:

It is great that we have gone from 'no one will serve and Labour is collapsing' to 'look how much "talent" we have'.

I am happy for eg Yvette Cooper to be Shadow Home Secretary*, + other such people to come back (NB Cooper was never part of any 'revolt', having refused to serve in the first place). Give Umunna a Culture / Arts job, why not?

(*I don't see any reason to think that YC would be 'too right-wing' in this post. One of her causes has been refugees, for instance.)

BUT I am also glad that Labour has shown how well it can do without such people - would the heroic BARRY GARDINER, perhaps the greatest star of the election, ever have had the chance to shine so brightly otherwise? He and Thornberry have earned a ton of credit and the right to top posts.

And we have the relatively leftist young talent of Rayner (also a great election figure), Long-Bailey - maybe a future Labour PM and Chancellor team! (!?!!) -- and I believe that Clive Lewis will return.

This is heartening.

re: the phrase "legitimate concerns"

sometime ilxor big beast tom ewing noted yesterday on FB that a tory minister had just use it of ppl wanting more money for public services

someone's gonna bollocked by conservative central office for using 'legitimate concerns' about actual concerns which have legitimacy instead of its actual proper meaning, which is as a fig-leaf for expression horrible opinions about immigration

a twitter thread perhaps worth reading on this same piece:

Can you actually imagine. Why will Jeremy Corbyn not listen to me and shoot himself in the foot?

— James B (@piercepenniless) June 14, 2017

(sorry deems, sometimes it's the only way)

("same piece" = the stephen moss piece)

also Stevie T's fave LISA NANDY - she has been too critical of JC for my liking - but these people don't have to have big controversial jobs, do they? I mean there are tons of junior posts they could be given?

Idea I just had: is it possible that some of these Labour MPs did well on June 8th partly BECAUSE they were refusing to serve in cabinet roles and thus had 'more time to dedicate to their constituents'?

lol, thread in question actually starts here:

Some thoughts on frankly embarrassing piece in the Guardian on Corbyn and how the new shadow cabinet should work: https://t.co/50cDlfXgJx

— James B (@piercepenniless) June 14, 2017

Mark: yes I am quite persuaded by that thread and didn't like the G article at all. He's right that the soccer metaphor is a bad waste.

But there is room for a lot of compromise here. No need for so much aggro; much need for unity and common purpose. No evidence yet that eg Cooper would turn voters off Labour, or would do anything bad and reactionary if appointed. The Chancellor Umunna idea is where it becomes absurd.

I can think of a certain newspaper and online media empire that needs to rethink its strategy lol

there are plenty of MPs whose stated objection to the kind of policies in the manifesto was that "they aren't popular enough" - they were wrong. if they still have objections, I'd like to hear explicitly what they are

The Guardian is rethinking its strategy.

it will soon be a tabloid!

Yes.

When you see he's tipping Ruth Davidson (not currently an MP) or the famously telegenic Philip Hammond at the next Tory leader you realise he understands virtually nothing about politics, and that's before you get onto the Labour stuff.

if they still have objections, I'd like to hear explicitly what they are

'b-b-but the poor might not get 100% crushed by the forces of late-stage capitalism!'

It is funny about the dilemmas for national parties re: being an MP or being an Assembly member.

Sturgeon presumably rules the roost most of the time in Holyrood but would be rather swallowed up in London.

Davidson will turn up again crowing at Holyrood about her MPs, but oddly - they are not her MPs.

Same thing with Wood, Jones in Wales, and the NI Assembly (if it ever gets going again).

It really is an odd thing - that Davidson is probably not the line manager of those Scottish Con MPs. But everyone talks as though she is.

I find that, unlike most others, I really hate Davidson. I am encouraged in this by ilx poster 'conrad'.

scots tories are generally the worst people on earth ime

i had taken it (without, like, actually checking)* that davidson worked quite closely with the architects of the scottish tory success (their campaign was entirely independent from the one run in england and wales): which wd give her a certain standing among scotcon

*(sometimes i think i wd make a good pundit)

Yes, I understand that. She is head of 'Scottish Con Party' or whatever.

But I think the MPs are still technically more independent of her than people make out? It's almost as though they forget that she is not an MP.