Free as a Dodo: UK Politics Welcomes 2021

"If Thomas Mair ran in the Batley and Spen byelection he'd easily save his deposit wouldn't he"

a ridiculous suggestion, he was born in Scotland

He should run for leader of the DUP.

He'd definitely be assured of votes.

I strongly agree with the refusal to vote for Khan because he is a reactionary weasel.

But I would never not vote. The only question is whom to vote for. I think Green, but there are tinier progressive parties that can tempt. We used to have a local 'people before profit' one where I live.

I think some left Lab will vote for Sian Berry but, some commies aides they end up as Lib Dems in disguise a lot of the time.

Might vote for Piers Crobnysm just for lols

I’d vote for Khan if I had the vote purely to wind up the crypto- (and far less crypto-) Islamophobes.

I’d vote for Khan if I had the vote purely to wind up the crypto- (and far less crypto-) Islamophobes.

How to keep over 10M voters motivated

Expectation management from Keir Starmer: “I don’t think anybody realistically thought it was possible to turn the Labour Party around from its worst GE result since 1935 to a position to win the GE within one year. It was always going to take longer than that.” @BBCr4today

— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) May 4, 2021

A lot, lot longer..

The Toynbee article today is interesting:

Voters have no excuse, with Keir Starmer and his frontbench a thoroughly electable, decent and honest alternative compared with the rogues’ gallery opposite. As Johnson arms himself with a hyped-up culture war of English nationalism and Brexit tribalism, he thrives on a more dangerously divided country.

Why oh why will people not vote for the party the press had collectively determined was Marxist, anti-semitic, anti-white, anti-British and pro-terrorist when they've gone to all the trouble of changing the leader.

Starmer is making his excuses, I'll make mine.

"decent and honest" Labour politicians whose ability to make some serious mazuma has been badly impacted by over a decade out of power

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “I hope we don’t lose” Hartlepool, which strongly backed Brexit and has been gradually slipping away from Labour for years.

2010: 42.5%
2015: 35.6
2017: 52.5
2019: 37.7

It's almost like Starmer actually believes the easily debunked factionalist bollocks he talks is actually true.

"Voters have no excuse"

I'm having my hair permed - for the next decade at least.

definitely going to vote so i can spoil my vote

for the mayor one i might just quote sadiq khan from jan 2020

enjoyed looking up all the headbangers running for mayor though, lots of citybankers suffering the effects of high levels of rat poison in their cocaine

I think some left Lab will vote for Sian Berry but, some commies aides they end up as Lib Dems in disguise a lot of the time.

Their actual platform has been consistently to the left of labour. Opticswise though it'd have helped if Sian Berry didn't slander ppl angry at Corbyn's expulsion as anti-semites.

i preferred natalie

Really dispiriting to even go through the Assembly candidates and try to figure out where any of them stand politically. My local lab candidate hasn't been endorsed by Momentum, is pretty much all I ended up with.

It was fairly cathartic to post my ballots with “black lives matter” scrawled over them the other day

Might do a straw poll at work and see how many are going to bother voting/are aware there is an election

Sian Berry is terrible: smug, middle class Guardian feminist. Maybe without being a terf but still an appalling person on almost every level.

There are some days when you look at the miserable doorstep pictures where everyone is old and white and wonder if that’s what they wanted. Fewer leafletters but more acceptable to nostalgic Facebook group types.

I’d vote for Khan if I had the vote purely to wind up the crypto- (and far less crypto-) Islamophobes.

― the thin blue lying (suzy), Tuesday, 4 May 2021 12:19 (one hour ago) link

This was my position until I heard about him approving of the 2019 election result which, nah, insult too far, fuck him

Has Berry even posed with boxing gloves on yet?

Sian Berry is terrible, no way I'm voting for her.

Sian Berry is terrible: smug, middle class Guardian feminist. Maybe without being a terf but still an appalling person on almost every level.

Beat me to the punch there!

oh id vote for 'FARAH LONDON' ahead of any of the 'real' candidates

City mayors are just there to help ambitious wankers to build their shitty political careers afaict.

“People made the right choice” is a fucking stunner of a beetle bearing in mind that that campaign went heavy on Islamophobia and the only people defending SK from racist shit was his own party!

Disgraceful and reactionary attacks on successive days from senior Tories on the #BlackLivesMatter movement and Sadiq Khan.

Trump may have gone - but the Tories are still using his rotten playbook.

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) February 12, 2021

its £10k to run for mayor so these creepy libertarians must see some advantage to their future prospects in blowing their deposit etc

Cheaper than paying some PR company for you surely, Jimmy Fox’s bet-down son is getting all kinds of free coverage from it.

Has Berry even posed with boxing gloves on yet?

― nashwan, Tuesday, 4 May 2021 15:07 (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

someone pls to make videomontage of uk pols posing with boxing gloves, in black and white with Cavalliera rusticana soundtrack

oh yeah, i voted for SK and at the time felt like it was symbolically important to have a muslim mayor and i think that's been borne out by the way he's become a worldwide magnet for islamaphobic conspiracy wingnuts. Im actually happy at a couple of things that he's being blamed for like the pro-cycling rezoning which has made my street infinitely more pleasant practically overnight and seems the only sensible thing if we don't want to all die from fumes as london gets ever denser.

But yeah, he clearly exemplefies so many of the worst, self-interested cynicism and cliquishness that is the hallmark of the labour right and his smug interventions into the corbyn leadership were gross, especially given the allegiances of many who voted him into office. the ghouls he has assembled around himself at city hall are the absolute worst howlers for 'competence' while displaying very little in the way of competence themselves. The shambles of his appointment of amy lamé though is the thing that has soured most people I know in london who pay little attention to politics like all of us weirdos on this thread, the weird convergence of cronyism and uselessness (where her profile has been massively boosted, but the thing she was supposed to sort out - collapsing nightlife - seems to have only sped up (before covid obviously but i'm not sure what the nightlife tsar plan is there anyway although she has got a lot of press for herself jumping on the night charter for women thing, the most empty and useless of gestures)). Anyway if we as an electorate were right not to vote for labour in 2019, he hasn't convinced me that there's any compelling reason to vote for them now.

https://www.thebusinessdesk.com/_files/images/mar_21/Screenshot-2021-03-23-at-10.30.35-e1616531877900-500x333.png

I can see why Brabin is 1/10 fav for W Yorkshire Mayor. Her main rivals are two boiled eggs and a bearded man-boy from the tories.

lol tories really don't want to control any more metro mayoralties do they

I know the night czar from WAY BACK (there are a limited amount of Americans in London who are around the arts and/or don’t play dudebro team sports) and she was very friendly when we were both on the up, before she pivoted to politics. She wants to be an MP and went for Tessa Jowell’s old seat in 2015. I describe her to friends in nightlife as the ‘nice to SEE you’ woman, also the type who turns her friends list into a public figure page.

I think some left Lab will vote for Sian Berry but, some commies aides they end up as Lib Dems in disguise a lot of the time.

Their actual platform has been consistently to the left of labour. Opticswise though it'd have helped if Sian Berry didn't slander ppl angry at Corbyn's expulsion as anti-semites.

― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, 4 May 2021 bookmarkflaglink

I know but it's the Green Party. They are small and are allowed to write fiction.

Today marks the end of the Battle of Điện Biên Phủ, a victory of the revolutionaries of Vietnam in 1954 and the end of French Colonial Rule in South East Asia. Although the road to true liberation was decades away this marked an important turning point for regional independence https://t.co/6ueZjlUuwf

— Dr. Professor Sir Bane QC KCB MP (@BaneNook) May 4, 2021

i definitely know THE NIGHT CZAR from /around/ (not personally) and real 'always networking' (not a good) vibes.

She lives around the corner from me (her partner is the chaplain of the residential college nearby, although I think they may have separated) and every time I see her at the supermarket I cringe a little, but at the same time find myself saying hi. Prefer having Alexei Sayle for a politics neighbour, obvs.

I know but it's the Green Party. They are small and are allowed to write fiction.

That could be said about p much every minority leftist party in Europe, and indeed is the regular accusation thrown at communist parties in Portugal ("you'll never get into govt so you can just write whatever you like").

I think xyzzzz meant specifically Berry exploiting the Corbyn/antisemitism situation there

Also her name is too close to Shaun Bailey.

Ah ok. Yeah I agree she seems like a terrible choice for leader.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words

https://img.maximummedia.ie/joe_co_uk/eyJkYXRhIjoie1widXJsXCI6XCJodHRwczpcXFwvXFxcL20wLmpvZS5jby51a1xcXC93cC1jb250ZW50XFxcL3VwbG9hZHNcXFwvMjAyMFxcXC8xMVxcXC8xMjEzMjkzOFxcXC9nYW1tb25zLXNwbGl0LnBuZ1wiLFwid2lkdGhcIjo2NDcsXCJoZWlnaHRcIjozNDAsXCJkZWZhdWx0XCI6XCJodHRwczpcXFwvXFxcL3d3dy5qb2UuY28udWtcXFwvYXNzZXRzXFxcL2ltYWdlc1xcXC9qb2Vjb3VrXFxcL25vLWltYWdlLnBuZz9pZD00OTdhNzlhOGM1MjRmYjVlYzYxOVwiLFwib3B0aW9uc1wiOltdfSIsImhhc2giOiI5NGY2OWQxOWZmYWRhMDFiMDA1MTg4MzQ4M2NjNDI0NjYxYmM0NTI5In0=/gammons-split.png

Ian Beale vibes

Their actual platform has been consistently to the left of labour. Opticswise though it'd have helped if Sian Berry didn't slander ppl angry at Corbyn's expulsion as anti-semites.
― Daniel_Rf, Tuesday, May 4, 2021

Yes, this party's indulgence of this mendacious and poisonous attack on socialists is the main reason I am doubtful about voting for them at all.

It would be good to be canvassed by a Green person so I could get them to tell me what they actually think about this BS. But won't happen.