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

is it only the second time they've used + betrayed the Kurds and left them to be murdered tbf

zombie hitch finally turns on trump

someone once told me the US pres has very little influence on US military strategy, or it might have been that principle only applied to Obama

Wasn't this the intention all along? To pre-emptively box Farage in, and convince Farage voters Boris means business. That needed a certain theatricality given short time frame to win them over?

It won't work, because when they don't deliver Brexit at the end of the month Farage will be crying betrayal and failure very loudly. Brexit Party voters in general are low-trust and probably low attention especially when it comes to the details of Parliamentary procedure. Probably exacerbated by the fact that Farage and Cummings hate each other.

Whether it works or not is another matter but surely thats been the purpose for all the theatricality over since Boris came in?

As for low attention I don't know about that - and why would they need details? They just need to see Boris clearly being stopped by parliament. He just needed that story out there as much as possible, which he's managed. Why bother with a People vs Parliament narrative unless that was the intention?

As for trust, same deal, shift the issue of trust onto the MPs

Farage is struggling to find a place while Boris is pursuing this strategy. I don't know if it will work enough, but I'd say he's pre-emptively blunted a fair bit of Farage's support

I pretty much agree with that assessment. I think Farage and the Brexit Party have blown it by soft pedalling on Boris in the hope of getting some sort of electoral pact - which has only had the effect of making a pact less likely - and they've left it a bit late to switch to attack mode.

He needs to build up that narrative and will make a big deal out of it on November 1st but I don't think it will be enough, even if they see him being stopped by Parliament it's more likely to be portrayed as failure and weakness and they'll go and vote for the Brexit Party anyway. He was ramping the rhetoric up to full by the time of the Brecon & Radnorshire by-election and the Brexit Party still got 10% of the vote and handed the seat to the LibDems in the process.

It may also be that a proportion of those voters will never vote Tory whatever happens but will happily vote for Farage.

People v Parliament only works if it can win him a majority, and it's too divisive to do that, otherwise he's right back to being blocked all over again. They'll be tearing him apart as a loser whatever happens.

I hope so but fear the worst tbh.

I really enjoyed this takedown of the Rory Stewart myth, even if I doubt that he'll actually win.

https://huw.substack.com/p/sweet-moderation-heart-of-this-nation

that’s a good piece, cheers

in the current doomy climate some total tory bullshitter painting whimsical floating castles in the sky and taking selfies with scruffs outside bookies might just win it in London .. you never know.

Sadiq Khan remains quite popular and a lot of Londoners get protective of him as a result of all the shit that gets thrown at him. I have a feeling that Rory banally kumbayaying every time a teenager gets stabbed is probably going to evoke a backlash as well.

According to YouGov, Khan is more popular than any Labour politician that isn't Ed Balls, and he's something of a special case. (Corbyn is in at #4, with David Blunkett at #3 weirdly). Blair way down, below Gordon Brown (!)

By contrast, Rory Stewart is/was the 35th most popular Conservative politician, one above Chris Grayling and below such titans as Grant Shapps, Johnny Mercer and, err, Zac Goldsmith. Our current PM and previous Mayor is #1.

yeah his bullshit shtick probably would start working against him. But like Giggsy and Solskjaer he isn't a quip whip merchant, he needs a 25 year plan to show his outstanding abilities!

quick whip merchant i meant!

Sadiq Khan remains quite popular and a lot of Londoners get protective of him as a result of all the shit that gets thrown at him. I have a feeling that Rory banally kumbayaying every time a teenager gets stabbed is probably going to evoke a backlash as well.

he should join the tories if he feels like that.

otm!

Khan doesn't really have any major achievements to speak of as Mayor but he doesn't have any have any significant fuckups either, and he does have the advantage of having led London through a genuinely traumatic summer in 2017 and responded well to events. Knife crime is a problem but the people who personally blame him for it tend to be Home Counties keyboard Nazis without a vote in any case.

I still remember when Khan used the word "power" about 87 times in a speech when he was elected, specifically to undermine Corbyn and underline how unelectable he was. It was some crude Labour Right internal politicking and I've never liked him since tbh.

Stewart's campaign might be worth it for the lols of watching Shaun Bailey finish below the Green candidate and maybe one of the other plucky independents as well.

surely someone who is a perfect posterboy for not using unnecessary anti-ageing skin products can't finish below the greens!

> sweet-moderation-heart-of-this-nation

does this phrase exist outside of a billy bragg lyric? (between the wars)

no, he's quoting billy bragg

(but was billy quoting anyone? answer appears to be 'no')

my local MP boosting the is-it-a-majority-yet-no-not-quite-yet Lib Dem numbers: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/07/former-tory-mp-heidi-allen-joins-liberal-democrats

100% expected this to happen as the only chance she has to keep her seat

Khan doesn't really have any major achievements to speak of as Mayor

No London Mayor has any major achievements tbf. Apart from Nazi Ken possibly?

my eyes did a ski-jump off the page when Prof D Edgerton described him as "one of the more interesting and intelligent people of the 80's left" or words to that effect in Rise and Fall of the British Nation

Was reading about Livingstone's bust up with John McDonnell, which I knew nothing about. Johnny Mac had the cunt's cards marked way back then.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EGTm-LJU0AAURo-?format=jpg&name=medium

lol even a broken clock .. etc

you secretly love the hitchenses!!

definitely not! Dead Hitchens was a vile arsewipe and this bumptious tool thinks Blair was a Marxist and marijuana is at the root of all evil, but I still prefer him to Blair.

look there are members of the Nazi party that i prefer to Blair so

at least Speer served his time!

exackly, also admitted being responsible for slave labour

It's all kicking off this morning btw.

The news this morning where No 10 are briefing about a surely invented Merkel phone call (Germany could leave the EU 'no problem' but the U.K. can't because of Northern Ireland, 'Merkel said that the PM should tell Northern Ireland that it must stay in full alignment forever, but that even this would not eliminate customs issues') is weird in that it assumes that no-one reading has the ability to check with other sources.

No 10 source on a roll is it

Who to believe on the Merkel call: the Times’ well-respected, pro-Brexit longtime Brussels journalist or a Downing Street that frequently misleads us? It’s a three-pipe problem!

— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) October 8, 2019

Arlene Foster says that Angela Merkel's comments have revealed the 'real objective of Dublin and the EU'

'The PM's proposals have flushed out Dublin's real intentions Northern Ireland in the EU customs union forever

'We will not accept any such ultimatum or outcome'

I can paraphrase that for you - No Surrender Ya Fenian Bastards.

banter heuristic now demands that germany leave the eu with no apparent effort while forcing the uk to remain

Khan

having led London through a genuinely traumatic summer in 2017

What was this about? I'm afraid I can't remember, though I was in London the whole time.

Oh - you must mean Grenfell Tower. Yes. I had thought it must be a terrorist attack.

things continuing to go well I see

xp

The EU to become just the UK, Ireland and former Warsaw Pact territories

see the gov are planning to bury the report on grenfell by releasing it on 30/10

I would think that the trouble with Stewart is that he takes far more votes from Cons than from Labour and thus is actually likely to make Khan's reelection easier -- like Ross Perot in 1992.

I really don't see a lot of Labour voters voting for this ex-Con, whereas Cons who don't like Brexit, and Lib Dems, will.

Peter Hitchens often says things I agree with - he is generally against foreign military intervention, for instance.

yes same, and he was the only right wing conservative columnist who was correctly scathing about the causes of the Grenfell trajedy. But I won't get too carried away!

Poor old Farage has woken from his slumbers and started frantically tweeting as he's realized the Tories have comprehensively outflanked him.