PMs change and lol we're all gonna die (but brexit will never end)

It was also such a rarity for a politician at that time to have a sense of humour that it felt that this redeemed a lot (compare the grimness of Tebbit, IDS etc), and Boris was cut a lot of slack for a long time.

There's a moral here about never treating anyone in politics as a harmless comedic fringe figure but remember how we all laughed when Farage crashed his plane on election day 2010.

(Not everyone quoted up there was on the left at the time by the way, or even the centre left)

(xp) True, 'funny' politicians on the left no better tbh. Could never bear that Stephen Pound guy, for instance.

John Mann repeats, this time on national radio, his v strange belief that a majority of Labour voters in the North and Midlands voted to Leave. A belief that is hard to reconcile even with the 2016 referendum result and election result *in his own seat*. pic.twitter.com/uIANQaMxKA

— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) September 9, 2019

I thought it sounded like Swann was pulling those labour leave voting stats out of his arse this morning. What a dickhead.

this kind of relentless commitment to facts bodes well for his role as antisemitism czar

So much water under the bridge since 2004

Didn’t manage to build his bridge but he sure spaffed a lot of money not building it.

bridges weren’t the only place he was irresponsibly spaffing iirc

Oooof at that old thread

ILX simply habe es nicht gewusst

Lol I was getting Mann's name confused with a Stephen King baddie. I still dispute that boris is or ever was liked in the north. He'll soon enough find out if he has that Heineken appeal but I think he's more like a bottle of warm stuff labelled Tory Piss up here.

As much as I hate to change the topic from what people thought of Boris when I’d barely finished school*, I passed the PCS picket this morning and was reminded how Laura Pidcock and RL-B had both been up there recently. It’s such a sea change from the way Miliband was wishy-washy on unions.

* a slight exaggeration but not by very much

how would the melts demonise Pidcock if she was the LOTO? immature communist? more hard left divisive politics - they wouldn't be able to use AS against her.

Chippy

they wouldn't be able to use AS against her.

Sure about that?

she served in the most antisemitic opposition party in uk history! she refused to condemn their disgusting behaviour! SHE CAN’T BE TRUSTED!1!!

I have been on ilx since 2001, and am a Belle & Sebastian fan who lives in London.

I would never have said anything positive about BJ, and never will. He is scum and has always been scum. He has never said anything funny or entertaining in his life, except on those occasions - like idiotically failing to recite the police caution - where he flounders and fails and this has its own entertainment value, because he is an utter scumbag.

It's not accurate to say that the Con party in 2004 seemed that they would never be in power again. Insofar as politics is somewhat cyclical, you can always assume that a major party will come back in some form. And the Con party is the most formidable and dangerous election machine in UK history. In 2005 they reduced the Labour majority by about 120. Precisely how they would eventually come back was, to be sure, unknown, as I think was Cameron.

xxp
well for a start I she'd be much sharper than Corbz on social media when it comes to recognising protocols of the elders of zion type imagery and clicking bloody like on them!

speaking of which this david graeber article on antisemitism & labour is worth a read https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/first-time-my-life-im-frightened-be-jewish/

My RW cousin told me AS would be solved by the removal of Corbyn, but that it would be a mistake to replace with anyone else form the AS wing of the party

AS has grown rapidly over the last few years as the people who have joined are inherently anti-semitic, attracted there by Corbyn.

Criticism of banks, corporations and capitalism itself are fig leaves for AS, younger Labour voters are more adept at hiding it

I know this is deeply into Meghan McCain territory but someone is pumping this stuff out

The article is excellent.

so the idea anti-semetism won't be levelled at Pidcock is optimistic. Whether its successful or not is another matter

I just nearly booted my radio when I heard Simon Schama was coming on, obv the mind-warping AS of Corbyn is working on me.

Wonder where jel is these days. Such a classic old ilx era poster.

Corbyn made it easier for them to level AS at him by being a bit thick at times and tolerating Jew-baiting trash like Williamson. I don't Pidcock would make the same mistakes, so it would be much harder to make anything stick.

Schama was moaning about Ash Sakar being on the hitler series, is he butthurt that he wasn't asked on it?

Here is vaguely positive Johnson post today, never mind 15 years ago: this week Parliament is to be shut and Johnson will tell the cops and twitter QC to fuck off.

I don't Pidcock would make the same mistakes, so it would be much harder to make anything stick.

― calzino

She won't need to make the same mistakes, she won't need to make any mistakes. The work is already done, and ongoing. When Corbyn goes, this isn't going with him

Agree.

I think people who try to ban Sarkar from things like that are dreadful. Disappointed that Schama would do it. Thought better of him.

Jel was one ilxor I can recall who I think actually talked about voting Con. I think I can remember 2 others.

It looks like parliament will be prorogued today. Note that the Prime Minister was scheduled to give evidence to the Liaison Committee this Wednesday. Prorogation means the committee can't meet, and Johnson avoids scrutiny and accountability yet again.

— James B (@piercepenniless) September 9, 2019

Namely: Mark C and Ken Chu. But this might just be hearsay.

but they were out of harm's way in 2004

except for all the ones systematically destroying the Labour Party

Also I very much enjoyed the pinefox calling the scum Boris Johnson scum. Because he is scum.

Wasnt on ILX 15 years ago, but I did encounter plenty of otherwise apparently reasonable people who thought johnson was a total ledge and were surprised by my disappointed reaction when they said so.

Before we close the round window, a point that carsmile was old left - I'd put money on him having heard of Jeremy Corbyn before anyone here short of Mark - finding it 'odd' that people like him can be fonder of tories when they're out of power is a failure of understanding.

Laura Pidcock, RL-B and Angela Rayner all get smeared as “thick” from people who dismiss them for their politics, their accents, their class. They get angry about injustice (uncouth!) and are serving in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet so they must be thick and have no minds of their own. But hey, support women in politics!

Having *heard* of Jeremy Corbyn?

I think I'd heard of him by about 1990 at least.

yeah Rayner get's totally smeared on her w/c class roots and accent, usually by people by people who are quite thick as well.

it's almost like only men are allowed to escape her type of poor as fuck background and progress in a political career.

AR’s accent makes her sound “thick”, Jess P’s makes her sound “authentic”. Funny how that works! Esp when AR isn’t quite as left as JC.

I had two of my local mp's retweeting that awful showboating by jess last week, yuck!

Hi, I have been UK left since before I moved here - my dissertation was on Thatcherism’s obliteration of the UK social contract ffs. I’m a lifetime DFL voter (what Minnesota calls its Democratic Party) and would always be a Labour voter if I had the vote here, definitely had heard of Jeremy Corbyn before marching against wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, liked Ken Livingstone until he started being an anti-Semite in a headline kind of way, was ecstatic when Blair won/GFA went through. My policy is never to attack the left from its right or to encourage anyone else to.

xxp

I think AR is more left leaning than some might think, she has made some iffy comments about Blair's legacy that I don't agree with. But she doesn't seem interested in wasting any time in undermining the leadership and seems a massive McD fan.

Also in basic charisma terms, Rayner has more than Pidcock who has more than Long-Bailey. xp

pidcock and long-bailey are surely more educated and qualified than a lot of MPs. rayner might have a few more patches of ignorance but blunders like pronouncing the chinese helmsman 'chairman mayo' are p minor and she's a great communicator. RLB is v charming tho imo !

They should send her out to do more media work instead of Emily Thornberry. At least we're seeing less of Baz G these days

Enjoying the questions being asked of BJ in Dublin. The guardian liveblog has him with a Leo with the deliberately messy hair - don’t think he realises how that plays over there (or cares).

Pidcock and RLB are very well educated but went to an ex-poly, so none of it counts.

I am not impugning anyone's left credentials (and may well lose my money), just establishing Carsmile's :)

I dont think attacking on accent is necessarily going to work next time out, I'm not even sure they'll try it. It doesn't easily fit the likely 'Northern Strategy', at least without being careful how they do it.