"we'll change the things that need changing and that's all we'll change": the paSUKification of post-brexit politics 2021

Keir Starmer is "electable" but can't win elections , he is "professional" but does things really badly - these terms are used by the media to describe aesthetic states , the look of 'electabilty' and 'professionalism', that are unrelated to the actual common meaning of the words

— Solomon Hughes (@SolHughesWriter) May 8, 2021

nothing that hasn't been said before, but Hughes has been consistently good at calmly dissecting the hot twaddle that the likes of Toynbee and Freedland write about Kieth.

Toynbee literally said he is electable and if voters disagree it’s on them, satire is dead

Small in the scheme of things, but just thinking about that cunty tweet Starmer's people did about Mikel Arteta when Arsenal were having that terrible run before christmas. Hope Arteta has allowed himself at least a small chuckle at all this

would love to see him go head to head with Jez in an Arsenal pub quiz, he'd get fucking skinned.

Just surrounded himself with these ppl.

Here is Labour's new strategy director laughing at @survation for correctly identifying Labour's surge in the 2017 election. https://t.co/pkaVhOxxPb

— Alex Nunns (@alexnunns) May 8, 2021

not the first time a bearded prophet was sneered at by a mob of half-witted fools!

Tim Shipman has the wrong end of the stick, Kier Starmer’s wife has banned him from playing Champ Man.

It was for his own good, he kept getting Man City relegated.

lol

Chipping Norton (Oxfordshire) council result:

Lab: 42.6% (+8.5)
Con: 40.9% (-4.3)
Grn: 10.9% (+8.2)
LDem: 5.6% (-10.6)

Lab GAIN from Con

Bananaman: what did KS say about Arteta? I can't remember and can't find it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxDkJd_Br_Y

... no, hold on, that was Angela Rayner.

xxp

I'm getting reports that Oxford are also shutting out the Reds

Problem for Labour is the realignment is still relatively asymmetric. Worthings are relatively few compared to the much speedier realignment towards the Tories in the north and midlands.

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) May 9, 2021

"problem" talk is almost entirely poll-focused = arse backwards = why the Labour Party is such a fucking mess now mostly

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/09/woman-sexually-harassed-by-ex-hartlepool-mp-says-labour-failed-to-support-her

Brabin has won so there will be another by-election to look forward to.

she got 30 000+ more first pref votes than the Tory man-boy, not quite Burnham level but an impressive win for her.

by-elections are good again

itll be a real test for starmers labour

there is a big Muslim vote in Batley, so a good chance of a lower than 2019 turnout and the Tories to win by a few thousand.

if Kieth is looking for a good chippy there is one called Howies that has been there since the 50's and does their own house special "Irish Curry Sauce". Some people might tell him to fuck off though!

I'm sure his team have already briefed him that working class people eat chips - and little else - in advance of any visit to the constituency.

as in Biffa Bacon in the north people just go up to chip shop counter and grunt "fuckin' chips"

Just going to cut and paste this great post from plax at the dying end of the last thread
--

my sense is that politics and labour in particular is so populated by a huge array of think tank people PR hype men and career politicians shuttling back and forth between lobbying westminster and charity, desperately clinging on to the narrow idea world that supports their careers. anything that really challenges this status quo is the real enemy. The ideals of centrism and neoliberalism were supposed to craft a fairly comfortable niche in the end of history for all these people, the overarching hostility to 'populism' etc I think is borne of this. Anything transformative of this status quo is much more challenging to their position than labour becoming even more defanged than they currently are. I think the vaccillating anxiety around what the current tory government are doing from this point of view comes from the way in which they are obvioulsy both in the business of shredding norms (human rights, 'standards') and fortifying others (corporate hegemony, cultural conservatism).

But yeah I agree that they are deeply uninterested in winning power, they already have the kind of power they are interested in. and I agree that its not some 4d chess they're up to just knee-jerk aversion and hostility to anything that upsets basic tenets of what they consider modern approaches (c. 1996) and can thus bizarrely construct the notion of 'free broadband' as something dessicated and backward. They're sincere whey they say this isn't 'grown up' 'sensible' politics but what they mean is really because it upsets their idea of what it is to be a grown up, to move smoothly through a professionalised world where they wear a suit and say things with confidence. I think the career of chuka umunna is pretty instructive. anyway, i'm pretty sure this is the end of the line for the nhs so there's going to be a hell of a lot of consultancy roles for them to fight over once they've completely collapsed the labour party.

― plax (ico)

A senior Labour figure told a meeting with the leader’s office that Angela Rayner was “dressed inappropriately” on a visit to Hartlepool. She was wearing leopard-print trousers, heavy-duty stomper boots and a hoodie.

nice blend of misogyny and classism getting leaked from the Starmer office, vile people.

Runners and riders for Labour selection for Batley and Spen by-election, according to local sources: Salma Arif, Leeds council cabinet member for public health, is who some believe the seat will be "stitched up" for

— Patrick Maguire (@patrickkmaguire) May 9, 2021

Owen Jones tweet, guessing he is probably not just making this up

The reason the Labour reshuffle isn’t happening is because the shadow ministers Keir Starmer’s team are trying to demote are refusing to move, and are betting the house on the fact Starmer no longer has any political authority.

— Owen Jones 🌹 (@OwenJones84) May 9, 2021

oh please let this be true

it's a bed-in!

with kieth and jenny and the gang

That's that then. Labour loses control of Bristol City Council, ties for biggest party with the Greens on 24 councillors each

— cryskttlty (@cryskttlty) May 9, 2021

Brabin hasn't officially won yet but still

oh they are still counting, lol I thought I figures I saw on my phone were the final count. 90 000 ahead on first prefs

Are these Greens positioned for a real ascendancy or are they a comedy party

the Greens are not positioned for a real ascendancy

Leeds 2nd pref results through.

Brabin (Lab): 20,312 (112,624 total)
Robinson (Con): 11,579 (72,248 total)

greens = 00s lib dems (?)

What happened to the Sensible Party or whatever the labour exiles were calling themselves,

They lost all their seats and then went off to cushy jobs and non-executive directorships.

One shad cab member tells me they'd quite like to know whether it's worth them turning up for work tomorrow. Nearly 7pm Sunday night and unaware if they're invited to tomorrow's meeting.

— Kate Proctor (@Kate_M_Proctor) May 9, 2021

lol politicians are such pissy bitches

Brabin (Lab): 49,753 (310,923 total)
Robinson (Con): 32,970 (209,137 total)

Tracy Brabin is officially the new Mayor of West Yorkshire.

now confirmed Kieth has another by-election to lose

So many thinkpieces on ee by gum Northeners deserting the Labour Party to write, so little time.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E05uMwfWYAAQS_i?format=png&name=small

You dirty old man!

BBC liveblog has gone with this image

https://i.postimg.cc/3w0n2rBC/Screenshot-20210509-201105-Chrome.jpg

Tim Shipman hasn’t tweeted since he deleted the tweet yesterday #FreeShippers

— Ed (@emcnally96) May 9, 2021

Today’s Sunday Times highlights Labour’s dire financial straits. If Starmer is considering scrapping shadow cabinet posts to make up costs, would make a reshuffle even harder with less posts to go around. pic.twitter.com/2wLGOrMVT8

— James Heale (@JAHeale) May 9, 2021

"an empty husk of a party" that had over 600 000 members

This isn’t as good as John McDonnell liking a tweet about how the hug emoji is a communist though

he's got absolutely no filter on his likes and it's amazing pic.twitter.com/8QXtdDlZ7X

— Doug (@redandriveting) May 9, 2021

Allies of Nick Brown say he has been sacked as chief whip

— Patrick Maguire (@patrickkmaguire) May 9, 2021

I don't really see how party discipline has anything to do with any of Kieth's multitude of problems in the last few days. Lol because was a Brown creature maybe he's too left-wing!

It has my privilege to serve...for 36 hours?!?!

Another badly photographed letter for fans of the medium

The 2 most recent tweets from Michele Donelan are:
-Her being appointed education secretary
-Her resigning as education secretary pic.twitter.com/HHtKIJVywZ

— Okuliĉo 🌺🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (@okulico) July 7, 2022

I still think this country could calmly function as it usually does with -29 cabinet ministers!

People be taking jobs purely for access to impressive stationery

Boris Johnson has agreed to stand down

— Randeep Ramesh (@tianran) July 7, 2022

Hold on

Boris Johnson has agreed to resign, but wants to stay on as PM until new Tory leader elected by autumn
Boris Johnson has agreed to resign, the BBC’s Chris Mason reports. He says he wants a new Tory leader to be in place by the party conference. He wants to stay on as PM until then.

Hmmm

That’s normal. It takes a while for the leadership election but I think they will force him out before then. Recess is soon so idk if that affects things because they can’t get it done in that time and assume they want a new pm in once parliament returns

Recess is July 22nd iirc, because it has to go to Tory members it’s probably not possible to get a new leader in by that date? Let’s see on that timetable though, they could delay recess. They surely want a new leader in for conference (September).

I don't understand why he'd want to hang around, it's not as if he's been enjoying it much

Kind of love his last act being sacking Gove

xp oh he loves it, not the day to day of course, he doesn't give a shit about that, he just loves being the big boss man

yeah I guess so, he just can't say goodbye

Oh, he'll be writing his farewell speech from now until the day, and will be expecting the laughs, cheers, and clapping as he walks out of the commons...

David Cameron's speech was broadly tolerated at the time, even paid tribute to Corbyn's longevity and resilience if I recall..

Resigning to spend more time with his families.

I don’t think Cameron walking away whistling aged well

Not very Churchillian of Boris to shit his pants and immediately give up when Graham Brady told him he had no hope of winning a leadership contest.

ITV finished the Lorraine TV show, and have gone to ITN News.

Well, there was a "Nesquik" still for two minutes, and now they're all reporting away, but no sound.

That's gonna be popular!

Ah, sound's back. nm..

He wants to be able to say he outlasted May

Aiming high there.

Ridiculous person.

The beautiful thing is that you don't JUST loose Johnson - if he goes, Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees Mogg go too. Total BOGOF.

— Caitlin Moran (@caitlinmoran) July 6, 2022

Before Johnson there was this expectation of cloaking your evil in a thin veneer of politeness and good manners, now he seems to have blithely smashed that convention, and it's going to be hard to put it together again. I guess this is... good, on balance? idk.

Tory demands for him to go immediately starting to pick up, be good if the “he’s done the decent thing” lot could wake up and give us another day of infighting.

And a Q just gone in about Lebedev which got a bit lost in the noise yesterday.

Hahahaha

I can reveal what happened last night with @michaelgove. Gove gave @BorisJohnson till 9pm to resign. At 8.59pm the prime minister fired him.

— Isabel Oakeshott (@IsabelOakeshott) July 7, 2022

No surprises here, but am told it's no longer a certainty that ministers will publish the Channel 4 sale bill before recess. Having said that, the legislation is all but drafted and releasing it into the wild would not stop a new PM from ripping it up.

— Jake Kanter (@Jake_Kanter) July 7, 2022

I guess he must have realised that if he resigns he can finally leave the wife and kids

That absolute c*nt Steve Baker talking some shit on BBC this morning, apparently even though we might vote for other parties, we're all Tories at heart, get fucked forever sonny. I bet he gets in.

I guess he must have realised that if he resigns he can finally leave the wife and kids

Cummings claims in latest Substack Boris Johnson told him in January 2020 that on account of his "fucking divorce, very expensive", and the pressure of being PM, he wanted to concentrate instead on writing his Shakespeare book. pic.twitter.com/4EG4kITZB1

— Henry Dyer (@Direthoughts) November 12, 2021

Good advice.

I think it’s time for a new thread for the post Boris era.

Hold on though, maybe he won't resign

like the queen this thread will never die

We're relying on you to come up with a snappy title for the new thread

all I care about is the FPN

new thread, titled with all the care and attention you've come to expect
like the queen this thread will never die: in which we ALL resign (ourselves to disgusting miseries to post-boris politics 2022)

"A state led by Sunak, Gove or Truss with reforming zeal would be an unpleasant place to live. But it’s also damaging to be governed by intellectually deficient, personally ambitious, corrupt or simply uninterested ministers. Fewer ministers than ever care about their departments, as the internecine vortex of Westminster and dreams of a slot on Question Time suck in most of their attention. This has been especially true since 2016, though the problem is of longer gestation. It doesn’t entirely explain why Britain, after twelve years of Conservative government, is run-down, stagnant, expensive, underpaid, unequal, corrupt, socially fractured, backward-looking, hungry and fearful. But it doesn’t help. It will take far more than dislodging Johnson to change that."

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2022/july/johnson-his-fall

Can we lock the thread now:

Bet y'all are wishing Jo Swinson had been the UK's next Prime Minister right about now, huh?

— Young Liberals (@YoungLiberalsUK) July 7, 2022