like the queen this thread will never die: in which we ALL resign (ourselves to disgusting miseries to post-boris politics 2022)

Bus strikes are over.

🚨NEW: Over 1,800 bus drivers employed by Abellio in London have won an 18% pay rise following strike action.

— Taj Ali (@Taj_Ali1) February 13, 2023

"The Labour Party I lead today is unrecognisable from 2019. There are those who don’t like that change... To them I say in all candour: we are never going back. If you don’t like it, nobody is forcing you to stay."

ok Kieth

breathtakingly arrogant to say and believe that the way things are now is how they always will be forever. how stagnant. kinda says it all about his worldview tho.

to Kieth, in all candour, I'd like to say I hope you get a terrible disease and your nuts drop off.

trying to think of a person I hate more, nobody comes to mind

Nicola Sturgeon resigning.

the terfs are going to be even more insufferable now

xp Jesus, the transphobes are going to be (even more) insufferable about this

snap

Whatever you may think of Sturgeon, she pissed off all the right people.

chief political correspondent Nick Eardley reports that a source close to first minister said: "She's had enough."

She needs a better line than this though.

I think Sturgeon has been one of the better UK politicians in recent times.

I note once more, reading their comments, that KS and Hodge are disgusting scumbags.

really about the worst possible timing given that there doesn't seem to be a reason beyond she's getting tired of the pressure of the job etc.

she gave lots of very valid reasons for leaving in her speech. i am very sad she is going (even though not an SNP fan) but after listening to what she said, think she is absolutely right to go. she is such an iconic and thus polarising force in Scotland. literally everyone in Scotland has made their minds up and has a very strong opinion about Nicola Sturgeon and in some ways that is a barrier to changing minds on independence.

gonna take slight comfort in this overshadowing Labour granstanding over pretty basic changes made since 2020 that a somehow sustainable Corbyn-led gov would've presumably also made

I can see why she'd choose to do this, my main concern is it's a victory for the current terf momentum

sturgeon whiffing GRA reform by sitting on it long enough for the culture to become as toxic as it is and then resigning at the best possible time for it to be contextualised as the inevitable result of a politician being vaguely trans-inclusive - go girl!! give us nothing!

— Siobhán Casey (@PolygonalShivs) February 15, 2023

Agree with Nashwan's point, except to note that KS's Labour is much, much more racist and discriminatory than JC's.

What are they going to write about at the Daily Telegraph now? They are absolutely obsessed with Nicola Sturgeon and the loathing they have for her is way off the charts.

She was unbelievably amateurish in trying to deal with Alex Salmond. If you’re going to stitch someone up good and proper, don’t have a series of meetings with your civil servants showing your workings !

And one less for Clarkson to hate. (was going to say loathe, but etc)

she did piss off a lot right-wing scumbags and terfs, but also she was frequently lionised by the dreaded English melts + FBPE's of the UK commentariat, who frequently made her a lock in for them pathetic fantasy GNU's they kept doing during the brexit meltdowns and seemed to have a very exaggerated sense of what a formidable and sharp politician she was.

... tbf that's in comparison to the dross in Westminster.

Jeremy Corbyn to stand as an independent if blocked by Labour https://t.co/iTkBLbWwYo

— The Guardian (@guardian) February 15, 2023

I know very little about Scottish politics but U.S. Twitter is being overrun with triumphant trans-bashers claiming victory. So how much of a factor was the gender bill in Sturgeon stepping down?

It wasn't one, according to Nicola Sturgeon.

She has been doing the job for a long time. The timing is unfortunate to say the least.

FUCK KEIR STARMER! pic.twitter.com/trnh0wGRAR

— Marlon Kameka (@MarlonKameka) February 15, 2023

Calzino leading the crowd in a cheery chant there.

I was there! just for 15 mins though, and earlier on. wish I'd been there for that bit.

let's get the tories out, because we have a LOTO here who is already well on the way to becoming as much a hate figure to the left and mostly everyone under 30 as Thatcher was in the 80's. He's done a good job of that tbf.

So how much of a factor was the gender bill in Sturgeon stepping down?

not much of a factor but it must have been 1) exhausting and 2) indicative of how Sturgeon became Scottish politics and consumed the vast majority of its oxygen. it speaks highly of her imo that she could see that bubble needed to burst.

Starmer gets a lot of criticism for trying to be all things to all people but to me Sturgeon has been just as guilty of this as a leader. Look at the GRA bill - the anti-trans brigade are pissed off because the SNP have tried to pass it, but anyone who actually respects trans people isn't going to vote for a party that dragged its heels on this, or allowed Joanna Cherry to maintain the whip. By trying to appease "both sides of the argument" (ffs treating trans people's rights to exist as an arguement is fucking mental isnt it) she's lost the support and respect of both.

Sturgeon's success is not because she's a great politician, it's because the bar is so low. Look at the potential successors within the party, never mind the UK political landscape at large. The SNP are not a radical party, we just live on an island where "let trans people live in peace" is seen as a far-left position.

Good from Mic Wright on Corbyn debacle: https://brokenbottleboy.substack.com/p/fringe-interests

Yes. I like the Rivkah Brown quotation in that.

boxedjoy v otm

so a large-scale expulsion of more Jewish members, more than Labour has ever previously expelled at any period in its history is actually working towards rooting out antisemitism? I might need a grown up to nuance this for me, or perhaps just someone who is so warped and full of shit that any kind of truthful analysis of events matters nothing to them.

v otm boxedjoy

I never voted SNP, but I think it’s fair to say that Nicola Sturgeon was the best British leader we had in a generation. I like that she stood up for harassed minorities, it was brave, and will be part of her legacy, though it’s clearly a position the UK is not ready to embrace🙄

— stuart murdoch (@nee_massey) February 15, 2023

"Starmer gets a lot of criticism for trying to be all things to all people"

FWIW this isn't true. He gets criticism, from sensible people, for being a scumbag whose main aim is to persecute socialists and pursue reactionary policies.

He doesn't at all try to be all things to all people! I wish he did!

(xp) Lib Dems no doubt grateful for Stewpot's continuing support.

Boxedjoy hugely otm

But pinefox's point about Kieth is also correct

he does try and be all things to traditional Conservative voters and Red Tories tbf

Yes, Starmer shows no interest in or empathy for any group other than Daily Mail leader writers and Telegraph columnists.

the BBC just informed me he's more popular than ever and that labour is back baby. they always frame it as now labour is no longer racist we can flirt with starting to take them seriously again. I've never met anyone with a nice word to say about him irl but everyone who likes him (or pretends to more likely) seems to work in media

The man's sexual kink is lying, openly and brazenly, and have powerful people applaud him for doing so.

Quite Johnsonian really.

The BBC, from what I have heard, mainly endorses his immoral lies, and doesn't seriously consider querying any aspect of them.

The Guardian's leader column is 'two cheers for KS' and his campaign against racism.

I sometimes feel like I am back in, what was it, 2018, when the lies about JC all day every day made me feel like I was living in a looking glass land, where reality was no longer a consideration for most of the voices telling me about reality.

This gaslighting, if one can call it that, goes on still, as they have nothing positive to say. Their politics consist of lies and abuse.

The Guardian op isn't as fawning as the headline makes out and does make a few of the same points as itt at least

as noted in the thing above the way antisemitism is apparently reflexively being equated with insufficient support for britain and nato and so on all the time is troubling and very antisemitic - in the obvious ways but also in the whole fifth column disloyalty framing of it all which is a part I wish I saw acknowledged more often. it's very similar to how the papers (and the board of deputies) wrote/talked about left wing jews 100 years ago and now as then it pairs very well with anti-immigrant racism. except now their racism makes them righteous anti-racists because of how fucked UK media discourse on this issue is