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

I would say the changes around universal credit (the stuff she was vigorously defending) are part of that kind of project. Accept its not entirely her bag. However its process over effect on the ground. Xp

https://lindenwrites.wordpress.com/2017/09/27/my-night-with-the-hard-left-and-why-i-could-have-done-with-a-bodyguard/

Some very neat editorialising going on here, a few concerns but also a few lols

ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahaaaaaaa pic.twitter.com/r6SFEnFpyo

— Clon (@clonmacart) September 30, 2017

I can't completely understand the logic whereby someone in govt. is unsackable. Can someone explain it to me?

when their latest idiotic/racist/offensive gaffes or plotting keep being useful distractions from more awkward questions, when the pm is floundering through another interview. Oh lol, that's just the Head boy, he is always showing off.

I assume it's a combination of:

Without Boris's legendary and tumescent popularity, the government must surely fall.

Boris hasn't actually stopped being Boris since his elevation, so if it's a bad idea for him to be in the job now, why wasn't it a bad idea last year?

it's usually explained by t.may's "weakness" which i've never really understood either but take to mean that any bojo allies could scupper her razor-thin majority out of pique?

(i don't buy that that would actually happen tho)

the general logic is -- whatever the very good/not-so-good reason for the sacking -- the act would likely topple the sacker even when it doesn't strengthen and embolden the sackee

the argument here almost entirely is about forces and strains internal* to the party, not (IMO) to do with a trust or lack of it any given MP's wider public popularity (one of the excellent consequences of 8/9 june is that the tories are EXTREMELY SHOOK as regards their judgment of what the public wants)

*this is why there's such a blizzard of proxy briefing

Or mount a leadership challenge. She's too weak to do pretty much anything without pissing off someone on her benches so she's trapped trying to appease everyone. Which would be funny if it wasn't leading to complete paralysis on Brexit.

to return to and this time misuse a word i overused last year, everyone with leadership ambitions in the tory party (inc TMay's to be leader for any length of time) has zugzwanged themselves and everyone is waiting for someone else to make the first move, bcz the situation is so degraded and brittle (*much* more than it was a year ago)

Xp mark s has just said most of this, anyway...

As far as I understand it, the only point now is trying to avoid a leadership challenge as it would look terrible in context of brexit negotiations and because of the chance that somebody stronger that you don't like would win. May is at least malleable. Also the initial challenger never seems to win these things, they get branded as disloyal, so there is a disincentive to be the first out of the gate. But all it takes is one small faction deciding to give it a go.

Last night's doc on Boris (really should stop watching politics TV) surely underplayed the strength of his popularity among the Tory base and round the country due to his antics around the Brexit vote.

Only popular in comparison to other Tories, which is why J R-M talk lasted longer than 5 mins.

Yes I could have been clearer, I meant popularity or at least “respect” within the party, based on (possibly the myth or ghost of) popularity with the public - the idea (which I don’t necessarily subscribe to) that if he was fired he could expect support for any ructions he gets up to, because he’s not just a candidate for the next leader but the candidate, and so picking the wrong side would be more dangerous for others than it would be with a wider field.

Footnote to myself: a) I’m not sure how popular he still is, and b) remember the fate of the most popular politician in the US in 2013, outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

shook (cont.):

Repeatedly told at #cpc17 Tories are fighting "not just for the party but the survival of capitalism".

— Dawn Foster (@DawnHFoster) October 2, 2017

damn straight

Momentum must be more tooled up than I realized

Tories being warned of saying Venezuela more than twice in any one speech for fear of it suddenly materialising around them.

super-psyched for the collapse of capitalism tbh, can't wait to look back at theresa may with gratitude for ushering in our fully-automated gay space communist society

you missed 'luxury', learn 2 meme properly m8

i can live without the luxury tbh, but def unwilling to negotiate on the gay part

dude, space is the key to luxury

space is the (luxury) place iirc

bachelor pad
launch pad
galactic pad
cosmos pad

it's weird that the tories are focusing so much on demonising Corbyn, this didn't seem to work very well during the election campaign, so why would it work now?

(I guess the argument is - at last election no-one thought there was any chance of Labour forming the next govt, so ppl could vote Lab without worrying too much about Corbyn's suitability for role of PM, this will not be the case next time around - but I get the impression that there are not enough ppl who buy this "most dangerous man in Britain" description to make it work as an attack? particularly as they're now focusing on his economic policies, which a lot of the country seem quite keen on, rather than his position on nukes, terrorism etc)

They seem intent on doing something even more bizarre than demonizing Corbyn, selling Capitalism to the uncomprehending masses who are, apparently, poised to become fully-fledged Marxist-Leninists.

luv2cheerlead for wholehearted embrace of capitalism at a time of unprecedented income inequality

capitalism will continue until morale improves

They are demonising Corbyn because they don't have any direction or new policies or even a single idea and they can't really talk about brexit because they've fucked that.

They're saving the awesomeness of Brexit for when they really need it, their ace in the hole.

They're falling apart in front of our eyes and it would be a+ hilarious if the stakes weren't so incredibly high right now

they have the backing of the silent (and absent) majority tho

Huge blocks of empty seats at the Con conference, sections closed off for want of bums on seats. Labour was packed pic.twitter.com/c7E6p5bEWU

— Kevin Maguire (@Kevin_Maguire) October 2, 2017

xp
yeah it would be very entertaining to observe this unravelling from a safe distance, but they will take loads of us down with them.

banks of empty seats and softballs getting launched at Tories by protester crowds outside are memorable images of this conference.

I've been pondering whether protesty mobs are a good thing tactically or whether they just smell of the SWP but I don't care really

if the pm won't visit the people, the people must visit the pm

and then, ideally, kill and eat the entire cabinet

I know the disabled protesters were definitely nothing to do with the SWP, and when they are depriving Tories of tv shots of them making a dignified entrance to the conference, then good work I say.

Packed house at #CPC17 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/MIrKWsi9P9

— Kevin Pascoe (@KevinPascoe) October 1, 2017

fucking hurry up and die you shitheads

Dunno who the two Morrissey groupies in front are but surprised they got in with those jeans.

What's Len McCluskey doing sitting there in the middle?

Dunno who the two Morrissey groupies in front are but surprised they got in with those jeans.

tolerating denim is the tories' latest attempt at youth appeal, look for rees-mogg to appear on question time in a full canadian tuxedo by the end of the month

Was just listening to a quote on PM from a Tory activist who has been attending conferences since '84. It was something like: attendances and takings both way down, previously there would be queues for many of the speeches, prevailing mood of defeatism, worst ever etc

absolutely loving conference season. conservative conference is a shitshow

For the last 25 years the Tories have been a shit-show. Could be argued (and has been by a Marxist somewhere) that Blair's government was the most stable period of Toryism.

But they are the party of establishment, they aren't going away, May got 40%+ - so I am not sure how this is going to play. Down but never out. I can see them doubling down on racism and authoritarian nationalism. Cameron's liberal detox now gone for good you'd say there is little else they can do.

They do need to find someone they can go to. Boris is really too toxic now, so it'll be someone unknown.

Can't take your eyes off these bastards.

So yeah, thinking out loud: the establishment party are being hollowed out. They will fight back, but how?

Anyway, this was really good: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2017/oct/02/protester-tells-jacob-rees-mogg-hes-despicable-video

Young angry man is very good + wasting his breath on that fool. He could have a lengthy debate with Mogg and lay precarious employment, disabled people dying, endemic child poverty, and all the other austerity ills out in an articulate fashion. All he would get back is that pedantic Oxford debating society shit: Well actually a shambles is butcher's back room you fucking pleb ..etc...

"Let's leave my despicableness to one side for a moment" > "Strong and stable"

Hammond today: "Ladies, and Gentlemen, 40 years ago this week, here in the north-east…"

...We nuked Hartlepool, because they fucking deserved it!