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

step one: commission portrait

as he fades into insignificance there will be plenty of time for him to sit for a portrait! Got to admit one of the only things I will credit Chuka with is how he is a shining example of making male pattern baldness look stylish and sexy. Still a total fucking waster tho.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEVYsmpcbvk

I feel like Chuka hasn't really gotten over the wheels falling off the Blairite bus at the exact point at which he became the anointed one. The very fact he became so in the first place is possibly an indication of poor bench strength but he must be regretting his decision not to stand in 2015.

For a hotly-tipped MP/would be 'big beast' he just doesn't come across as very bright. I don't agree with Stella Creasy on a range of issues but her amendment this week was a real example of how you can have a concrete positive effect even when your wing of the party isn't in charge. Chuka's just came across as opportunistic, self-defeating and inconsistent with his past pronouncements.

"but he must be regretting his decision not to stand in 2015."

Would he have been considered the left leaning candidate in '15, and Corbyn wouldn't have been nominated? 2015 seems like a decade ago.

He's to the right of Andy Burnham, maybe even Cooper, but to the left of Kendall I believe.

*goes to cupboard, dusts off micrometer*

meanwhile, this highly speculative thread asks a pertinent question abt the nature of the DUP's hold over the Tories:

Something’s been bugging me about the Tory / DUP deal. Musings follow: 1/

— Chris Williams (@Chris_A_W) July 2, 2017

also this, mainly bcz i like the insult:

Everyone goes to school, and their teachers went to university so checkmate, judas-pob https://t.co/hNPORbwEWS

— 🌹Josie Long 🌹 (@JosieLong) July 2, 2017

If such a £1bn smoking gun exists then it would need to be something a lot more damaging than who paid for a few adverts.

A friend is impressed but bemused that the crowd at the Lions game in New Zealand is singing "Oh, Jeremy Corbyn".

i watched the game and i'm fairly certain it wasn't "oh jeremy corbyn" - it was "oh, maro itoje"

i think very hard to lay the DUP story out as provably laundering from the outside: if something a bit shady happened it also seems largely kinda covered by anomalies in the rules between NI and the mainland: the DUP did want brexit and NI parties don't have to declare their donors (ftb risk of threat to them given NI history) so why wouldn't brexiters with money channel funds this way, for the DUP to then buy mainland ads? (which apparently they quite expensively did) (i've seen stories quoting quite a lot more than just 70k, closer to half a mill in some versions)

this is NAGL maybe but no more so really than the the billion bung? all's fair in love and elections and confidence and supply blah blah

however if the DUP -- who would have been on the inside -- were threatening not just to "tell all" but to tell it from the inside in the most damaging possible way for the tories? of course it'd be a real go-for-broke threat bcz it wd implicate them extremely badly as well…

anyway the question what hold the DUP had does still seem pertinent to me, and to need better explanation: corbs as PM is as big a fear for either side, which would tend to lessen the hold either side had over the other

to be clear the half a mill is a somewhat mysterious donation not an ad buy: £425,000 from the Constitutional Research Council

anyway i don't know enough abt the rules -- and more importantly the sanctions -- associated with donations and ad-buys in referemdums to judge what leverage this wd give the DUP if senior tories were involved ie if they said "imagine the email trail getting out…" And my guess is embarrassment rather than prison all round.

What does 'pob' mean?

The kids' tv/book character

Haven't heard of that one before!

I don't really agree that Umunna doesn't seem bright. He usually seems quite thoughtful, as an MP, to me.

I don't think I now know what his distinctive or characteristic positions are. He is not massively and consistently hostile to JC.

You must be joking Pinefox. Chuka was openly ripping the piss out of Corbyn on the eve before the referendum on PM. He was having a right chortle with IDS about Corbyn being "our star striker", when he was allegedly there to campaign for Remain.

I see. I didn't see that. It doesn't sound good to me.

However, more recently (eg, since JC's second leadership win) I've tended to hear CU saying very respectful things about JC. With a certain sense that position-taking / maneouvring is going on somehow. But without much sense that CU himself is about to become a leadership contender or anything like that.

I think that CU, separated from the chance of much 'power', has tried to pose as more of a 'thinker'. Tristram Hunt did the same move very briefly - then quit politics.

Then again CU is also a constituency MP and might be doing some good works for the people who elected him, aside from all the higher-level stuff.

That PM appearance by Chuka sort of summed everything that is wrong with him imo. Like thinking having a public laugh with a Tory Leave campaigner about how shit your party leader is when are meant to be campaigning for Remain is quite an ok way to conduct yourself. Then having the gall to join the PLP Right chorus of "Jeremy didn't campaign hard enough and must go".

What's PM?

R4 current affairs show w/ Eddie Mair

Ah cool.

Wimbledon warns supporters against political chants and slogans amid fears of outbreak of Corbynism

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/30/wimbledon-warns-supporters-against-political-chants-slogans/

Centre Court is pretty much the most Tory place in Britain so they must be shook.

Someone should have a word with Jack White, a version with amended lyrics could be Xmas number one!

I expect the Evening Times letters department will be inundated after this....

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/15385013.Bloodshed__drunkenness_and_triumphalism__the_Orange_Order_on_the_streets_of_Scotland/?ref=fbshr

Chakraborttyy on typically good form reH Haringey:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/03/britain-power-contempt-grenfell-labour-haringey-social-housing

However easy it is for pundits to conflate today’s Labour party with Jeremy Corbyn, to do so ignores the daily experience of people under many Labour councils that are his ideological opposite. Such as the zombie Blairites who run Haringey, and who bear as much resemblance to Corbyn’s Labour as Jive Bunny does to death metal. This shower recently sold an art deco town hall to Hong Kong investors to turn into a boutique hotel and expensive flats – with just four affordable homes.

They spent more than £40,000 of taxpayers’ money this year to swan off to a property fair in Cannes and sell their land to multinational developers. Alongside nuggets about how easy local transport connections make it to leave the borough, their investor brochure bursts with computer images of a FutureHaringey full of shiny towers, a bit like Blade Runner for buy-to-let landlords. Strangely, for an area in which around one in four residents is black, it features not a single black face. The council’s own 2015 assessment of its housing strategy says: “Black residents may not benefit from the plans to build more homes in the borough.” It goes on: “The ability of local people to afford the new homes being built, is dependent on them … increasing their incomes to a sufficient level to afford the new homes.”

you can totally see the grandees buying this mogg bs http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-trending-40432921

Those are some weak memes

oops sorry SV. I posted that Chakrabortty piece to the Grenfell thread earlier before I'd clicked on here.

upping their meme game is apparently a priority for the tories

The Conservatives will go to war with Labour on digital media and create a network of Momentum-style social action groups under plans being drawn up by the party.

In the face of a furious backlash from MPs, the party will seek to “broaden its appeal” and quadruple the number of staff engaged in social media campaigns, according to a leaked memo being circulated at Conservative campaign headquarters (CCHQ).

horrified by the idea that having dodged the threat of Prime Minister Boris Johnson we might end up with Prime Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg instead.

re councils: a lot of bad things are happening with property, inc where I live - where recent 'development' has been a disaster.

But while I think councils have made bad decisions I don't think they are all malicious in the way that quotation describes. I think many Labour councils have just felt battered by debilitating cuts, and unable to make good decisions, and desperate to take any option (inc 'development') that fills a financial hole.

I didn't have much idea of how bad it was till the Tom Crewe essay on local government in the LRB.

You make it sound like they are somehow innocent + oblivious to the fact that social housing tenants are getting lied to and getting one-way tickets out of their homes and London, when they actually know very well that is happening under their schemes.

Where I lived in Walthamstow there were accusations about the local Labour councillors being slum landlords, corruption, etc. I get the impression that this is pretty common across the country, that local government is full of corrupt scumbags. The party they are in seems to be irrelevant.

I remember reading somewhere last year that nearly a quarter of Labour MPs were landlords and many of them with multiple London props on their portfolios. Which is a separate issue really, but fuck these bozos.

Breaking: @DavidLammy @CatherineWest1 have this morning written a joint letter to @ClaireKober asking her to "pause" HDV plans (1/n)

— Aditya Chakrabortty (@chakrabortty) July 3, 2017

Well at least this might be some good news for once.

Wow @ that article. Takes no prisoners. Thank god he's around.

It looks like it might have have actually made a difference as well.

Lol! Is Keith Flett (mentioned on here the other day) really still going? I don't know if it's fake but there is a twitter acct in his name with "Stakhanovite epistolarian" in his biog.

chakrabortty's been writing abt the HDV before but i think the shape and dynamic of such things has actually changed since grenfell and also lammy has decided to be seen to be on fire about it

re flett: he's definitely on twitter, i have friends who post abt beer (and beards) and flett is in their larger circle

(don't know if he's still a swuppie since the split in 2013)

Chakrabortty liveblogging on the Haringey council meeting suggests that "zombie-blairite councillors" is probably way too kind an
epithet for some of these fuckers.

Councillor Goldberg responds to deputation that an Asian centre (Bangladeshi, by the names) will be made homeless pic.twitter.com/Dd6gkleRAf

— Aditya Chakrabortty (@chakrabortty) July 3, 2017

Most heartbreaking moment: After being told they'll be homeless and that there's nowhere for them to go, the Asian centre thanks the council

Aditya Chakrabortty‏Verified account @chakrabortty 11m11 minutes ago

After hearing dozens of councillors and locals raise serious questions and objections, Haringey cabinet kick out public.
7 replies . 74 retweets 16 likes
Aditya Chakrabortty‏Verified account @chakrabortty 9m9 minutes ago

In seconds, they vote through the largest privatisation of its kind. Demolition of homes, huge payouts for Lendlease, little accountability
7 replies . 68 retweets 13 likes
Aditya Chakrabortty‏Verified account @chakrabortty 8m8 minutes ago

The LibDems will likely call in the motion, then there will almost certainly be a Judicial Review.

So where is Corbyn/Leadership in this exactly? One of the few criticisms of him that sticks.

HDV voted through, has he even vocally opposed it yet?

More needs to be done than mere lip service or polite letters from Lammy to stop this rot.

There were sickening scenes at that meeting tonight in Chakrabortty's reportage, too many to mention as well.

The gigantic mound of paperwork that tenants were supposed have digested in a couple of days.

The fucking slug-like councillor talking about the poor doors like he was a good honest guy for being so upfront.

and this bit was nice:"After hearing dozens of councillors and locals raise serious questions and objections, Haringey cabinet kick out public."

and this"Another cllr raises point I made today: the council promises right of return but docs show they'll prioritise tenants being moved (out) once"

Best wishes to you and yours, cal. This really needs to be jumped on now but I'm not seeing any major news sources talking about it. This fucking country.