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

It seemed quite hilarious at the time, but I do get irrationally giddy about certain words for some reason.

'Birling' (not burling!) is one of those words that is designed to be spoken in a Scottish accent, or maybe the Scottish accent developed in order to do justice to this and other words. Wee Eck has a habit of slipping a Scots word or two into his pronouncements to maximise couthiness.

Couple of pieces for today:

Owen Hatherley's round-up (ambivalent on what he does) was good.

Can't say I have much time for George Monbiot either however his piece on the poverty of the media coverage managed to be reflective.

xp
yeah I think a word like Birling is definitely most effective in a Scottish accent. And also there is something quite amusing about folk in public life invoking other folks dead parents spinning (and maybe even vomiting) in their graves!

i linked owen's piece on my lions after slumber thread but it has encouraged no further bites

"as a major player smith is a twerp but apparently he's well respected wonkwise by all sides in NI, and this will rankle been deeply as everything should"

Hmm ok, its a delicate post and from what I saw he is so prone to a gaffe or two. xxp

Do ppl want their politicians religious?

Do they want them to be religious but unaffected by this in their politics/working life (isn't this just CoE?)

Would suspect that we're heading towards a rapid generational divide showing preference for if not atheist politicians then at least ones that show strong preference for secularism

suspect the issue with TF is that he was trying to go for the "religious but unaffected" move but his priest or pastor or whatever was saying "no, that's not on, we're very clear on this and tbh you have to be too, we won't go public against you but it's a problem"

well we don't want a politician too religious in britain. remember blair and being annoyed at being asked if he prayed with bush? it just seems too weird to the agnostic masses. also he was literally undergoing a conversion to catholicism while he was in office but more or less kept shtum about it for obvious reasons.

then in farrow's case there's the fact that for a liberal politician, in the broad sense of the word, strong religiosity that precludes you from answering the question "is homosexuality a sin" in the negative, and in a convincing manner is not going to go down well with your target audience - or conversely your coreligionists

Do ppl want their politicians religious?

Do they want them to be religious but unaffected by this in their politics/working life (isn't this just CoE?)

Would suspect that we're heading towards a rapid generational divide showing preference for if not atheist politicians then at least ones that show strong preference for secularism

I don't think anyone cares that much in the UK (NI not included obviously). If anything they're suspicious of religious politicians, not quite since Cromwell, but certainly in living memory.

https://www.premierchristianity.com/Blog/Tim-Farron-is-our-first-openly-evangelical-party-leader-in-a-century.-Will-he-survive

... no. I served with William Gladstone. I knew William Gladstone. William Gladstone was a friend of mine. Tim, you're no William Gladstone.

Keir Hardie was an evangelical

First pastor post never gonna take off so

CLASH OF THE TITANS

Am told likely contenders in @LibDems leadership will be @normanlamb and Ed Davey

— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) June 15, 2017

mairzy doats and dozy doats and norman lamb, ed davey

orson_welles_applause.gif

hahaha

gonna make a kickstarter to get nickb a twitter account

^ Would follow

I sympathise as a non-religious person, but also find this hypocritical as our society seemingly wants politicians to be religious ('the vicar's daughter', 'the son of the manse', 'the man guides by his Muslim faith'), yet ... doesn't REALLY want them to. It's good to be a vicar's daughter, but it's not good to actually say 'I have devoted myself to Jesus', the kind of thing real vicars are presumably supposed to believe.

I think this makes sense - people are nominally Christian but not actively; it's part of the culture but it's not part of people's moral reasoning.

i have a shit twitter account that you both already follow you numbskulls. it is not very entertaining. xp

Yeah, not that, it needs to have this content ^.

voting percentages from yougov; imo it's better to have done this with <60% youth turnout, more scope for improvement

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCNySVCXUAAKp0h.jpg

https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/06/13/how-britain-voted-2017-general-election/

jeezus you shouldn't be allowed the vote over 70, you've got no say in what happens in the future

olds can still play a vital role in society tho

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4a/e8/a3/4ae8a3d5317274ba6adf885d64849e51.jpg

i like that idea ogmor. room to grow!

olds can still play a vital role in society tho

https://sciscomedia.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Corbyn-Hat.jpg

jeremy's 68, he's got 18 months left in him

WTF is Owen Smith doing in the Shadow Cabinet?

hoping no-one notices, probably

apparently it is mostly an appointment designed to absolutely piss off Hilary Benn, so maybe not totally an objectionable move

Having brought peace to Northern Ireland once, he can surely do it again.

As Mark S pointed out yesterday though, he seems to be legitimately respected there.

As pointed out elsewhere he was a SPAD in NI so has been handed something that he can do, that will keep him busy.

I'd guess that being very conspicuously Welsh is probably an advantage in NI?

In what way? Not English, you mean? Or Scottish, lol.

corbs is saying "big beasts so-called no! this one teenytiny beast however is ok"

aaaalso the organisation required for JC to win that second contest was i suspect not unhelpful in what just happened: corbs is pro party democracy bcz it's good for the party, and he enjoys capaigning, and OS stood against him openly after brexit had not gone the way the party wanted, i don't actually think that is in principle bad

unlilke the chicken coup, which was unconscionable -- though in the end i think it ended up damaging their wing of the party more

(of course the sense of a split party helped depress corbyn's and labour's numbers, which encouraged may to call the snap election: if lab had been riding higher, we wouldn't be where we are now) (not sure where i'm going with this: mr been for the lords maybe)

Hilary could be Minister for Punching Fascists

corbyn understands and champions democracy which is almost unheard of in uk politics

well it smacks of populism

Owen Smith did get a large chunk of the party to vote for him to lead it. Progress wastemen and chicken coup plotters otoh represent no-one but themselves.

(of course the sense of a split party helped depress corbyn's and labour's numbers, which encouraged may to call the snap election: if lab had been riding higher, we wouldn't be where we are now)

even the best of all possible worlds requires us to wade through horrific and interminable amounts of shit

It's very dialectical: bad things are actually good.

It's like reverse accelerationism.

something something sluggish something something slugs

YouGov are saying there has now been a full-circle reversal of fortune and that TM's favourability ratings are now as low as JC's were in back in November.

absolute scenes

i'd hope the entirely avoidable deaths of hundreds of people under may's watch would absolutely put a dent in her approval ratings

it's the cunts who still support her that worry me

the poor in spirit will always be with us

brittle brittle brittle

Poll done on 11-12th. After this week even the Tories will be thinking about getting rid of her.