Free as a Dodo: UK Politics Welcomes 2021

Tory MP Cheryl Gillan has died, this means a by-election of course, but she represents Chesham and Amersham in Buckinghamshire, which has never dropped below 50% tory vote since its creation in 1974, so nothing to see here.

I completely disagree with Jesus House’s beliefs on LGBT+ rights, which I was not aware of before my visit. I apologise for the hurt my visit caused and have taken down the video. It was a mistake and I accept that.

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) April 5, 2021

An admission of error! I thought the miracles were meant to be yesterday.

A bit harsh of him to call his odious shadow chancellor of the duchy of lancaster a total fucking liar!

um

Hartlepool, constituency voting intention:

CON: 49% (+20)
LAB: 42% (+4)
NIP: 2% (+2)
LDEM: 1% (-3)
REFUK: 1% (-25)
GRN: 1% (+1)

via @Survation

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) April 5, 2021

The ppl Starmer is chasing clearly appreciate it.

The -25 is the key here, the Tories would have won Hartlepool in 2019 if not for the Brexit party.

Still, you have to laugh, grimly.

a "20 points ahead" gain for the tories in a seat that Corbyn Labour won twice and yet the melts are already blaming his legacy for Kieth parachuting a total cock into Hartlepool that is likely to lose by a fair margin. And lol at NIP reducing the LibDems to Count Binface status.

and fuck Hartlepool tbf!

and fuck Hartlepool tbf!

twice

NEW Survation Poll – Leadership ratings
(Hartlepool voters only)

Johnson/Starmer:

Net Rating:
+19% / -14%

Favourable49% / 24%
Unfavourable30% / 38%

502 sample, by phone for @CWUnews. 29 March-3 April. pic.twitter.com/LMERxwTWYG

— Survation. (@Survation) April 5, 2021

NEW Survation Poll (Hartlepool voters only)

Support or oppose a policy of providing all households and businesses free broadband by 2030

Support 69%
Oppose 18%

502 sample, by phone for @CWUnews. 29 March-3 April. pic.twitter.com/kMzkraRYtm

— Survation. (@Survation) April 5, 2021

kieth is done.

NIP put out this awful tweet earlier about having a Northern football team with a Greggs sponsored kit. They do annoy all the right people but it's hard to take them seriously when they don't seem to be able to resist boosting a scumbag bookies and a poverty wage company when like we've already got Bet 365 sponsored Starmerism ffs!

Labour seems to be edging towards opposing vaccine passports, which is good I guess.

Describing them as "un-British" is Kieth's way of signalling he will oppose them for completely different reasons than why Corbyn opposes them

that Toynbee piece in the Graun today is her most embarrassingly bad work since her Owen Smith piece in 2016

lol when has sleaze ever ‘felled Tory governments’? The best guess most academics made circa Cash For Questions is that it cost them two seats.

Is the sleaze a ref on The Back to Basics type stuff in the Major-era followed by sex scandals?

It’s both that and the whole business with al-Fayed. The impact was negligible.

Cash For Questions seems so antiquated now, especially as one of the longest serving Labour MP is a registered "Professional Lobbyist" and the likes of Jenrick can get away with outrageous conduct without the Labour leader or even the Mancunian great white hope of the soft Left calling their head.

People get fussed, let's say, about the smaller stuff.

Spending billions on PPE that never happens, is a thing. That the money went to a "crony" is incidental detail, whatever.

An MP claims a duck-house on his expenses, however, is an easily assimilable image to enrage.

It's the old "nick a tenner, go to jail. nick a million, get a knighthood"

Someone should perhaps tell Polly that Boris Johnson is the current Prime Minister, not Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

It's very on-brand for a Guardian liberal to think that the problem with the Major government was poor optics rather than, idk, Black Wednesday and the ensuing economic devastation.

Major could have done with someone like Polly and her fellow SDP chums to rip apart the Labour Party like they did in the 80s.

Am I right in thinking the Guardian have simply ignored today's Hartlepool survey, as opposed to all the Corbyn-era by-elections - Oldham West, Peterborough - when they couldn't wait to file misguided predictions of Labour's polling day doom? VMIC if so.

It's covered in the politics live blog

After thinking about it for a while, I have an idea what 'VMIC' might stand for, but a search for it yields:

https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/VMIC

Acronym Definition
VMIC VME Microsystems International Corporation
VMIC Virginia’s Manufacturing Innovation Center (James Madison University; Harrisonburg, VA)
VMIC Vermont Maple Industry Council
VMIC Vietnam Meeting and Incentive Club
VMIC View and Markup Information Center
VMIC VLSI (Very Large-Scale Integration) Multilevel Interconnection Conference (IEEE)
VMIC Veterinary Medical Information Center (est. 1977; Purdue University; West Lafayette, IN)

I initially mistyped it as MVIC which was even more doomed to failure.

vmic

It's very on-brand for a Guardian liberal to think that the problem with the Major government was poor optics rather than, idk, Black Wednesday and the ensuing economic devastation.

I don't pretend to understand 'the economy', and I suspect that 'economic success' might often mean success for some people, not others. But can it be said that, in terms most people understand, 'the economy was doing badly' by May 1997? As far as I recall, the opposite - Labour inherited a boom (again, defined on certain terms).

My recollection FWIW (see acronym list) is that the nearest recession to this was around 1990-1, not post-1992.

In which case why did the Major government fall? There are reams of books on this but I think a certain sense of 'government fatigue' was relevant, ie: they had hung on for 18 years; and 'sleaze optics' was part of the general atmosphere. It may be relevant that their majority was small by then anyway - they had lost MPs from an already quite weak point in 1992, and were, I think, relying on UUP support - so they were not a very 'strong government' by the end. Effective opposition (unlike KS) was also relevant.

Imagine if Blair had employed a KS style "constructive opposition" in '97. Even with all the fatigue and sleaze optics it still might have been a hung parliament or a struggling Labour minority govt. John Major said he'd have still lost if he had run against himself - but he'd never met Kieth at this point!

I think there were lots of factors involved, including the splits over Europe, but Black Wednesday killed the automatic right the Tories had enjoyed, since god knows when, to be regarded as the default party of economic competence. As soon as it happened, they were polling under 30% and didn’t win a by-election again until Major had gone.

The economy didn’t go into recession but iirc inflation and negative equity were perceived at the time as being huge issues.

John Major said he'd have still lost if he had run against himself - but he'd never met Kieth at this point!

That's amusing.

Black Wednesday helped the economic situation, as devaluing the pound helped exports and meant interest rates could be lowered without the need to prop up the currency at an unsustainable level. But it meant that the government didn't get credit for the subsequent economic acceleration, as it was the humiliating failure of their policy that made it possible. Tbf to the labour party of the time, they were good at not letting people forget that.

Probably most importantly, the press barons never forgave Major for it.

Final closure of virtually all remaining coalmines around the same time was also massively unpopular at the time, but doesn't get remembered at all by Serious Pundits

It was, but that was late 1992 (or the protests were) - I don't really feel that it was a big causal factor in May 1997.

Every photo he looks creepy af pic.twitter.com/aCydfVDlpY

— K 🦋 🌸 (@stealmoonshine) April 7, 2021

three word horror story: starmer gaetz sleepover

I can't believe his campaign office would consider that a good pic to put out there!

"Do you want to see some puppies?" That can't have been released by the Labour Party surely?

some of the comments are suggesting it was! Maybe they are thinking it never did Hancock any harm getting filmed looking like a leering creepazoid with a semi!

Tony or Matt?

giving off Salmond ice cream girl vibes xxxp

is kieth a known drinker? he's looking a bit red cheeked these days.

I’ve been in Hartlepool helping get MPs out campaigning, listening to people on the doorstep. Let me know what day you are coming to do some canvassing and for how long x

— Stephanie Peacock (@Steph_Peacock) April 7, 2021

Labour MP on MP action here. Would like to see more of this stuff spilling out into the open, tbh.

And of course she utterly ignores the substance in Trickett's article, just for a cheap snipe

so the loyalists/drug dealer gangs are kicking off in the 6 counties. the unionist establishment isn't exactly helping matters. arlene posted on twitter that a mob firebombing a bus (with the driver in it) was taking away the focus from "the real criminals" the shinners, because nobody being charged over the heavily-attended and covid protocol defying funeral of bobby storey last year is the purported rationale behind this rioting. that along with brexit and arlene foster helping to create an economic united ireland

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/northern-ireland-bus-hijacked-and-set-on-fire-as-disorder-continues-1.4531437

that shit from Arlene this morning about the funeral kicking all this off is absolutely barmy!

"is kieth a known drinker? he's looking a bit red cheeked these days."

his face looks really puffy and bloated and has aged a lot in the last couple of years - I'm no oil painting myself and am only judging here because it's the ham with a bad plan. But going by his current rate of aging he will look older than Corbyn within 2.7 years. I heard he had a remarkably well observed portrait made in 2019 that captured the rotten essence of his hollow decayed soul so well he had it locked it in his attic, where it get's more handsome and vital looking every day!

Spot the difference pic.twitter.com/2nrnSG7T2B

— Ben 🟨🟥 (@Ben_Jolly_9) April 7, 2021

the ham with a bad plan

Amusing!!