brexit negging when yr mandate is is trash: or further chronicles of a garbage-fire

feat.pundit accountability now: EAT THE BOOK

actually let's start with this thread, on the fact that powersharing has collapsed in NI

It's important not to let the DUP's general grossness overshadow just what a colossally irresponsible move this is from TM. It's INSANE.

— Jack Bernhardt (@jackbern23) June 9, 2017

Bookmarked, stoked for the madness to come.

Owen Patterson apparently suggested there would be a vote on restricting abortion time limits in return for DUP support on R4 this morning.

Though he isn't a minister iirc and might just be talking out of his hat.

I was going to go with 'Lame duck a l'orange - UK politics in the comedy clown car era' but this works as well.

Nick Timothy, the prime minister’s joint chief of staff, used to love reminding people what a hierarchy was and how it worked. If No 10 was run like a business, he would do well to remember that the customer is always right.

And the customer has spoken — a hierarchy bigger than Nick, bigger than the prime minister. At the top of the chain sit the people who put you there in the first place — the electorate. I have written before about a whiff of arrogance emanating from No 10. It turns out the public couldn’t just detect a whiff, the place bloody well stank.

If you run a presidential style campaign with a woman who doesn’t like media interviews, then you have to accept that it’s better to do them and run the risk that they go badly than look like you are running scared.

suspect murdoch may be a bit cross with his creature-as-was

The Times can generally say what it wants (it backed Remain after all) but The Sun has do his bidding. There are reports of Murdoch having stormed out of the room when he saw the exit poll though.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQz573JCZwzL2DPiHp-nVif5DjzD5caFC1psntEaiIvWZvcyViP
Murdoch since he saw the exit poll.

shame he wasn't the priest that gets the drain geyser up his cassock

There's an article in the Telegraph talking about who will and won't be axed in the Cabinet reshuffle but she surely isn't strong enough to risk making any troublesome enemies at this stage? Will there be DUP representatives in the Cabinet? How does that even work.

i believe troublesome enemy no.1 the disgraced dr liam fox has himself refused to be part of her continued shitshower

Would be lolz if the DUP insisted on Arlene Foster being made Deputy Prime Minister. In fact, the DUP could have so much fun with this, if they believed in fun.

the DUP's idea of fun? erm.. kneeling on broken glass or something.

pic.twitter.com/nJhqsHalY3

— 346 days till OrbDay (@WildBilbo) June 9, 2017

Oliver Duggan suspects the abortion quote is nonsense - which would match my understanding that the DUP dgaf about anything much outside NI.

Fact check: Owen Paterson (not a minister) said "You might get a debate on further reduction of abortion times as medical science advances." https://t.co/7lYdFWp9Pf

— Oliver Duggan (@OliDuggan) June 10, 2017

It's incredible how quickly Prime Ministerial authority seems to evaporate - literally overnight in the case of Thatcher, Major, Brown, Cameron and now May. Cameron at least had the good sense to know when his time was up and shoot himself in the head quickly, but I'm guessing May has taken a long look and decided she'd rather be John Major instead.

I think May's authority was very illusionary for the last few weeks, but before election night it was just about still there .. and then it's gone in a flash!

Tory breakdown with Lab figures in brackets.

18-24 2% (9%)
25-34 7% (19%)
35-44 11% (20%)
45-54 18% (18%)
55-64 24% (18%)
65+ 38% (16%)

— Anthony Painter (@anthonypainter) June 10, 2017

Judging by this, you'd have to assume that a) Tory support in modern Britain probably peaked in 2015, and b) they're about to crash headlong into a demographic ravine without a major change in direction.

xp

yeah, it's the difference between obviously playing a shocker but getting a tiny win anyway and playing a shocker and being held to a no goals draw by non-league opposition

"a tidy win"

still in two competitions, lets just focus on the big european match coming up

Squeaking back into government humiliated with the backing of a far-right fringe group is like a trophy really.

I noticed that some of the historical Blasphemy acts were only abolished in '08, there might be some "fun" times ahead.

I'm sure there's a millwall joke in there somewhere xp

Judging by this, you'd have to assume that a) Tory support in modern Britain probably peaked in 2015, and b) they're about to crash headlong into a demographic ravine without a major change in direction.

Thatcherkids don't seem very fond of the Conservative Party.

We're living through strange times.

Brought my kids to football practice in Islington this morning and I have to confess I wasn't expecting this... pic.twitter.com/Fc5BhgPGot

— Giles Coren (@gilescoren) June 10, 2017

"For the first time, more than half of MPs elected to the House of Commons were educated in state comprehensive schools" (sutton trust via the guardian)

Chris Leslie on #r4today making the salient point that Labour still ended up with nearly 60 seats less than the Conservatives. #GE2017

This is astonishing - this cunt should be grateful!

this belongs in the old -- soon to closed? thread really, but

i call this painting "MONEY WELL SPENT"
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DB4Q80gXsAA8jIR.jpg:large

keep thinking back to the interview the second biggest boy gave after the brexit vote where he all but said labour were now on an election footing. you could see it from the easter flurry of policy announcements, which were v well handled. while our credulous media were blindsided by the snap election call, team jez seemed very well prepared and up for the fight. striking that the other day when asked about the election, he said we're going to win... now, we can quibble abt the meaning of win all you like but when he said it I believed he believed it.

"very next generation realized the stakes and spoke up"

the absolute non-boy flubs doge-speak and anyway it's all abt melt-speak these days

Wow. So good Labour stronger. So good Brutal Brexit rejected. So good next generation realized the stakes and spoke up.

— David Miliband (@DMiliband) June 9, 2017

Chris Leslie share went from 50 - 70%. Sorry you won't have a career in the shadow cabinet, now will you kindly fuck off.

There you go:

Low Value Person‏ @Mc_Heckin_Duff 2h

Even now it's fragile. We still don't know that the 13M voters who turned up this time will show up next time.
1 reply . 2 retweets 11 likes
Low Value Person‏ @Mc_Heckin_Duff 2h

But you work on trying to make it 16M, don't just say 13M wasn't bloody good enough ffs.

I'm still going to need a translation for 'second biggest boy'.

Ok. You win. I will be eating my book on Sky News at 4.30pm.

— Matthew Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) June 10, 2017

^^^smallest boy

reading on FB that may in fact tried to resign yesterday and the tory grandees said "no, you go in the autumn, you're not scuttling away like yr predecessor"

so are the grandees still genuinely a thing? it was good nasty internal party-politicking that did for thatcher, not grandees

story is in the sun, i won't link it -- i suspect it these days just means "ppl in the party you've heard of", rather than an inner cabal of men in grey suits with direct links to bilderburg and/or the illuminati

more searching that me that iain duncan smith is considered a grandee by some -- this reminds me of tom ewing's pinned tweet of a while back "michael gove is not a big beast"

Nick Timothy (co-chief of staff) has resigned..

I would wait and see if she is still leader by Tuesday. The big all-MP meeting to deal with recriminations is Monday morning and polling suggests she has already lost most of the grass roots members.

She's lost the dressing room.

Fiona Hill has gone too

reading on FB that may in fact tried to resign yesterday and the tory grandees said "no, you go in the autumn, you're not scuttling away like yr predecessor"

these grandees sound scary. makes me think of the republican party meeting in the simpsons, with sideshow bob.

always a worry if they replace her they'll get a dead-eyed cat bounce in the polls

What are the chances of any sort of a dcam return after say a three, four year period

only in the guise of george i'd have thought

No way, he was never interested in politics in the first place.

i think he's quit for good

i have also (reluctantly) given up on my michael portillo long game theory

douglas hurd ftw

oh fuck there's going to be a stalking horse throwing his hat in the ring isn't here

or hers, sorry ruth

really difficult with hooves tbf

you'd kind of need to get the brim of the hat between two hooves and then you're not gonna have much leverage to throw it

it's a metaphor i think

Found out today that she's nicknamed Ruth the Mooth.

maybe if you buckarooed it off your packsaddle

TM may throw in the towel before the stalking horse has a chance to throw their hat though.

DCam is not coming back, apart from anything else they couldn't possibly afford him

Boris was cracking towards the end of the election. Nobody likes Hammond. Davis would probably go down ok within the party but not with voters. Rudd would be at huge risk of losing her seat.

Liz Truss at 25/1 might be worth a fiver.

Thought: does May drink?

"Only to excess, sir"

I think Rudd's seat can be worked around, albeit at a certain cost.

According to Peter Hitchens, Ruth is not conservative at all and a "classic liberal" which of course wouldn't be the real reason she won't be a serious leadership candidate.

Formal coalition is on then sez the Guardian. What ministry/-ies will the DUP want/get? NI obv not possible. Women and Equalities?

i assumed they had data to show boris is really unpopular and that explains why he was kept under lock and key for the entire campaign, apart from one or two instances?

May is irresponsible and arrogant enough to give DUP northern Ireland post I think. DUP might see it as a poison chalice though.

I thought pretty much everyone was kept under lock and key, at the behest of the now-departed?

SNP are mostly wee fannies but it was good when they got this even, er, wee-er fanny sacked
https://stephendaisley.com/2017/05/08/my-survival-plan-for-labour-its-not-to-get-diane-abbott-to-count-the-votes/

I imagine Boris couldn't be trusted to keep his mouth shut and stick to the script. Also they were gungho on picking up working class votes in the North, where Boris is perhaps not so popular as he is in Penge.

the vim is going out all over boris we shall not see it lit again in our lifetime

[a child 500 years in the future] daddy, why do we force the village idiot to eat a book every Absolute Boyday?

— kash (@badinfinitum) June 9, 2017

This is interesting on SNP -> Tory:

SNP supporters blaming some kind of Labour tactical voting for the swing to the Tories need to face up to what's happened in Scotland

— Andrew Dunn (@AnndraADunn) June 10, 2017

Boris was cracking towards the end of the election.

Do you mean "brilliant" or "losing his mind" ?

Is anyone else swallowing this Owen Jones mea culpa stuff? Like idk at 9:59pm on Thursday I was fully prepared to defend Corbyn from big losses at 5am. By 3am I felt happy but also really fucking sick of these people coming up on TV telling me the Labour 'family' had come together. Now I'm seeing the spetacle of Owen and Harris who called for him to go now turning and thinking whether they'll fuck off at the first sign of problems.

I think the only ones who stuck up with him through thick and thin were Dawn Forster and Rachel Shabi. Mae O'Hagan is getting attacked on my TL rn but I don't think she ever called for Corbyn to go.

xp
Boris seemed half pissed during the election campaign on a few occasions, even his *celebrated* verbosity seemed diminished! His opportunism and abandonment of principles to go with the Brexit wing and completely undisciplined ways have probably done his party career in.

his body language since the day after brexit is just broken, he looks small bloated lumpish and haunted

Sort of feel if OJ has something useful to contribute and he's prepared to show some contrition and self-awareness about how and why he got this wrong then ugh, fine, welcome back, but yeah get to the back of the queue behind the people who stuck to their guns

The people trying to be "I was completely humiliatingly, wrong about Corbyn in every imaginable way, wow. Here's what he needs to do next" can gtf in general

his body language since the day after brexit is just broken, he looks small bloated lumpish and haunted

He's a veritable embodiment of the nation! He must be our next PM!

LOL:

Boris Johnson is getting "tonnes" of MPs calling and texting saying if it all falls apart he is the only choice. He is biting his tongue

— Matt Chorley (@MattChorley) June 10, 2017

"Here's what he needs to do next" can gtf in general"

that be Campbell and Iannucci on QT last night.

i regret to inform you that clicking on matt chorley's face to enlarge it and drink it in is will worth the time and investment

high resolution photos of British right wing columnists who appear to be made entirely of ham

Poeple who were dead set against Corbyn you'd ofc ignore and laugh at. People like OJ are more in the middle but still you wouldn't listen to what they have to say in future. I know people make mistakes. Unfortunately he works full-time to provide analysis and informed commentary and you couldn't take anything OJ says seriously.

indy piece arguing that corbs and mcdonnell (and i guess milne) have made harold wilson in 1974 their model:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-prime-minister-ted-heath-harold-wilson-labour-party-minority-government-a7783336.html

wilson is underrated as tactiican and strategist (he won four elections) but i have several caveats abt the supposed similarities here (may as heath?) and abt where they're pointing (thatcher comes after heath)

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/theresa-may-election-latest-internet-regulation-downing-street-speech-manifesto-a7783186.html

is there going to be an easy way of undoing the damage she's doing once she's gone?

Was hoping the DUP coalition thing might be famous last words. Hoping that what I heard about meetings early next week might add some nails to taht coffin, but does she need to be staked too?

Heath was a chilly uncomfortable weirdo too.

weird that she seems to have modeled her laugh on his, also

Some amusing snapshots from Kensington constituency today:

*Labour voters ECSTATIC and saying now that it's gone to Labour they'll redouble efforts to keep it that way
*Akala turned up to the farmer's market today and had his ear bent by the youfdem (I congratulated him for his viral post and we chatted for a bit about Patrice Lumumba's family being mates with Corbyn).
Tory voters (farmers who are traders) are extremely demoralised!
A friend of mine who is a jewellery designer (and makes T May's statement necklaces) had nowt to say but she is posh and Greek and I suspect she doesn't have a vote anyway
Thought this thread needed to be called Bad Friday Agreement tbh

saw that joke already too often on twitter, also it's now saturday

Is the double is in the title deliberate?

this is clearly a nightmare on stilts for mummy tho

"the sometimes flashy, often innovative leadership of jeremy thorpe - who sometimes travelled between campaign events by hovercraft"

who is our jeremy thorpe

It's not impossible that Corbyn's team listened to some of Owen Jones's criticisms and reacted positively to them - I'd be surprised if he didn't have a strong connection to some in the camp, younger backroom staff especially. There's been a marked improvement in Corbyn's media performance over the last couple of months and that's not just down to campaign rules forcing TV to give him a fair hearing - he's used the platform much better. The difference between OJ and some of the others is that he was coming from a position of fundamentally wanting Corbyn/the Labour left to succeed - others were willing him to fail.

The Tories had no such figures warning Theresa May's team about their approach, certainly not before the campaign, and look what happened there.

The coverage and narrative will be very different next time - a buoyant opposition leader with his authority hugely enhanced vs a brittle PM whose authority has collapsed within their own party - the complete inverse of last time, except May has a big pile of Brexit shit to deal with. This Chris fuckwit, who I'd never heard of before today, would do well to stfu.

I still think that Boris might struggle to win over his own MPs.

x-post to wins: *makes haughty joke-is-over-yr-head sign*

who is our jeremy thorpe

simon danczuk

unfair, i thought Thorpe was likeable

Answering that question could be libellous.

hey guys try this on for size:

prime minister jacob rees-mogg

Seeing a lot of "the pollsters didn't see this coming", when YouGov in fact predicted almost this exact eventuality, so presumably they spent the whole of yesterday downing tequila shots and doing lines in the office.

Yeah OJ definitely wanted it to succeed but went really off in the end. Never a huge fan but I couldn't help but watch his um, journey.

I didn't see huge improvements in Corbyn's performance - I think the extra polish just came with time in the job. Then again he has never quite been in those General election settings before so not sure there are points of comparison. All of the warmth toward people, the rallies and so on, there as always and that stuff really translated.

whoever it was suggested leaking the manifesto deserves a jar of JC's jam, that was inspired

Owen Jones' first job out of Oxford: John McDonnell's researcher.

lol david allen green just followed me

tonight perhaps a good night to liveblog the second gor film, for his lawerly benefit

That's a great first job for anybody, never mind for Owen Jones. Shame he couldn't keep on the path when needed.

In other news:

"Corbyn’s politics need to be fought and his leadership undermined. I’ll do my best," says @OliverKamm

if we can make someone eat a book, we can win a majority

This is beautiful stuff:

Andrew Lilico‏ @andrew_lilico 3h

2 of biggest consequences of #GE2017 1) In future parties will hv much more explicit youth voter offers. eg house prices being affordable. +
10 replies . 8 retweets 9 likes
Andrew Lilico‏ @andrew_lilico 3h

+2) We now need urgent constitutional reform so our system cld resist a Marxist-Socialist Commons majority for a time to test if public +
12 replies . 12 retweets 8 likes

Andrew Lilico‏ @andrew_lilico

+really want it. 1 option's stronger monarchy & 2nd chamber+more economic & equity principles built into the law. Alternative ideas welcome.

Kamm is one of those people where you read his bio and assume he's a standard Tory hack and then you realise

Has he eaten the book yet?

Dying now that I've discovered the hashtag assigned to this palaver is #MayDUP

lol!

Don't ever say I am not a man of my word pic.twitter.com/DIxbYBilAL

— Matthew Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) June 10, 2017

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DB-IyZ9XsAIFLi4.jpg:large

i feel he is only eating bits of it

LOL @ MayDUP

pic.twitter.com/f7euzcfST9

— wint MP (@parliawint) June 10, 2017

Waiting for her to go so hashtag army can move onto #fuckDUP

"It may be entirely co-incidental that the man who channelled £425,622 to the DUP had such extremely high level Saudi connections. We simply don’t know. We also don’t know whether the current Saudi ambassador had any knowledge of his father’s connection to Richard Cook. But here’s the thing: the DUP claims not to know either. And that is at best reckless and at worst illegal."

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/what-connects-brexit-the-dup-dark-money-and-a-saudi-prince-1.3083586?mode=amp

Barwell is the new Chief Of Staff.

@parliawint is a goldmine

Looking forward to see what Atul Hatwal on Labour Uncut has to say about all this

and will anybody care?

Meantime:

The DUP has "agreed to the principles of an outline agreement" to support the Conservatives on a 'confidence and supply' basis

This margin is tight as hell. Five barking Tories could give Corbyn a chance to form a government at any time. I don't think there are any that mad, but there are enough to otherwise paralyse, well, just about everything. Do the Tories agree on anything? Gutting the NHS perhaps.

Sorry I just fucking love this: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/09/jeremy-corbyn-west-nato-russia-215242

Labour’s more sensible officials have done their best to moderate or mask Corbyn’s underlying attitudes in order to make him more electable.

do the dup agree on gutting the nhs? this is their manifesto: http://www.mydup.com/policies/a-world-class-health-service

on the whole -- aside from stuff relating to religious ideology -- they want more money investing in NI resources, not cuts

Do the Tories even agree on the DUP being suitable bed partners.
Haven't heard if that was a widespread agreement or just TM thinking that it made things up to the majority figure when she was in a bind.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/northern-ireland/2017/06/no-theresa-may-dup-will-not-join-formal-coalition

^^^this is sensible on how the dup will roll

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DB9o6sKXkAE1xsS.jpg:large

dup priorities re hung parliament as set out in 2015

(i don't actually think it's bad politics for opponents to belabour their attitude on sexuality and gender and etc, bcz it puts pressure on the tories -- but the dup have little leverage to impose these beyond NI, a very practical recognition of the limits of their abiluty to do so, and the harm it would do them, and much investment in the devolved GFA status quo… they no more want a return to the troubles than anyone else there. the bigger danger is the tories fucking up and destabilising NI as they flail, with a minor additional danger that being pressured when they're in such an awful position will cause them to fuck up… they are (as tom d said above) world-class trolls with obnoxious beliefs, and they are, along with the whole of NI currently, stuck in a stupid situation of their own making, the cash for ash scandal, but on the whole i trust their brinkmanship more than i trust may's)

that embed^^^will enlarge if you open image in a new tab, i think

somebody just shared this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsGVghRBdKI

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/jeremy-corbyn-vows-oust-theresa-10601306#ICID=sharebar_twitter

It’s back to the seventies with Theresa May

delicious

is jonathan pie our answer to chapo trap house or something

The Mail On Sunday dedicates 80% of the front page to suggesting Johnson is mounting a leadership campaign and the remaining 20% to an offer for a free head massager, which seems about right.

Jonathan Pie is our answer to an excruciatingly unfunny twat

b) they're about to crash headlong into a demographic ravine without a major change in direction.

The thing about young people is they become old people.

the thing about these young people is that there old age is not set to resemble that of our current set of old people

MAIL ON SUNDAY: Boris set to launch bid to be PM as May clings on #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/12DFS4LK5k

— Helen Miller 🗞 (@MsHelicat) June 10, 2017

Tory member of government: "Boris will never ever be PM. If he tries to go for it now he will never be forgiven. MPs don't want him" https://t.co/DJX5GIRv3f

— Sam Coates Times (@SamCoatesTimes) June 10, 2017

i love a good donnybrook

a fight to the death

As young people grow old there will always be a tendency to believe that the world is going the wrong direction and that our downward spiral should be arrested or reversed, if only because youth are more naturally optimistic and forward-looking than they will be later on, as their fondest hopes fade and their health deteriorates. This is not fated, but the way that humans are put together favors this outcome over the next most common alternative of growing more contented with the world and being filled with admiration for the next generation coming up.

makes u think

Chuck Tingle weighs in:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0721G15FD/

At first, news of a hung parliament during England’s election of prime minister doesn’t concern Yon, but as the night unfolds, things start to get a little weird. Suddenly, the citizens of England appear to have lost all decision-making power, wandering the streets unsure of what to do or where to go as the curse of the hung parliament befalls them.

The LOLs have arrived

Statement on behalf of @Portadownlol1 pic.twitter.com/JFCkWZhxkt

— Portadown LOL 1 (@Portadownlol1) June 10, 2017

LOL.
like I thought that was going to mean it was the Northern irish Daily Mash or something.

The Sun cover today read "she's had her chips" with that picture of her eating some chips with a face like a bulldog licking piss off a nettle.

Seemed like they'd turned on her already

Richard Burgon has said that Labour gained 150000 new members in the last 3 days taking membership up to 800000.

I was thinking when membership goes beyond a million, maybe cries of "entryism" must surely become redundant. Well apart from withing the lunatic centrist fringe of the party :p

the thing about these young people is that there old age is not set to resemble that of our current set of old people

^ ^ ^

I remember when McDonnell promised a million members last year I flatly did not believe it. When was the last time it passed a million? Must be the 50s. Blair peaked at 400k, I think.

Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, expressed concern at the weekend over the impact of a DUP deal on gay rights and other issues.

But one DUP source said: “Someone is stirring the pot with Ruth, who we regard as a hero of the union.”

*boak*

The Conservatives' habit of blowing things up and then insisting that only they can restore stability is starting to grate slightly

— John Gapper (@johngapper) June 9, 2017

xxp 52 according to wikipedia, if 800k is right then already the largest since 64. Legit teared up this morning thinking about the real possibility of a labour majority.

Westminster voting intention:

LAB: 45% (+5)
CON: 39% (-3)
LDEM: 7% (-)
UKIP: 3% (+1)

(via @Survation / 10 Jun)
Chgs. w/ GE2017

— Britain Elects (@britainelects) June 10, 2017

Here's a first, linking to the Express
http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/815141/Election-2017-DUP-Theresa-May-Arlene-Foster-Brexit-coalition

The LOLs have arrived

Statement on behalf of @Portadownlol1 pic.twitter.com/JFCkWZhxkt
— Portadown LOL 1 (@Portadownlol1) June 10, 2017
― stet, Saturday, 10 June 2017 22:52 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOL.
like I thought that was going to mean it was the Northern irish Daily Mash or something.
― Stevolende, Saturday, 10 June 2017 23:03 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I too was expecting a cheap unfunny ripoff of Portadown News (RIP) but I guess life itself is a cheap unfunny ripoff of satire now (and maybe always)

John Gapper otm

Turns out the answer ton the wave of right wing populism was just to wait for them to fuck it up themselves through eye-popping stupidity and arrogance

LOL @ the DUP being the moderating influence on May's goverment (xxxp)

BREAK: DUP has NOT yet reached any agreement with the Tories. Sky sources: Downing Street issued the wrong statement in error.

— David Blevins (@skydavidblevins) June 10, 2017

This grinning must stop

This sniggering is in no way constructive

This is reminding me of when Rangers were going through their administration troubles (appropriately enough given the involvement of the DUP) when every single news story was like a little ray of sunshine in your life.

North is very interesting ATM

Paisley and McGuinness dead. No working relationship between their replacements, and everything soured quite badly on foot of a bitter recent election that leaves things very close to split right down the middle, a situation that Unionists will be very uncomfortable with across the full range of that sect, from minister to orangeman to demobbed uvf to PSNI rank and file (assuming of course that you aren't all four of the above)

Brexit held -in buzz terms at least- the prospect of a closer all-ireland relationship as all sides wish to avoid full border, tensions surrounding this as SF and no few wags on our side of things obviously treat it as bringing a 32 county nation inevitably closer. Complex.

We frankly coulda done without Foster getting a blank check, as the balance was already quite fraught and not many who've observed her performance so far would trust her not to injudiciously apply any extra powers she might wring from this.

I can't believe the Shinners are still persisting with that abstentionism garbage in the year 2017 tbh.

What is this, 1972?

For a gang a fellas that torture and execute widows with ten kids they sure are very fucking proud of their oaths tho but

You get banned from boards.ie for saying shit like that fyi

Harshes ppls mellow tbf

Downing Street issued the wrong statement in error

ok I take back the unfunny part, this week has been fucking hilarious tbf

Ha, they don't have a single MP with a positive score:

Some polling from @YouGov pic.twitter.com/C3COUbFVy1

— TSE (@TSEofPB) June 11, 2017

Mail on Sunday tripe - I am backing Theresa may. Let's get on with the job

— Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) June 10, 2017

May in the tweets, leaked SMS messages in the broadsheets

— Shafik Mandhai (@ShafikFM) June 11, 2017

lol Gove's figures

Should've included may out of respect

car crash fallon on marr. "with our friends in the DUP..."

earlier on Toby Young got schooled on the impossibility of a hard Brexit now by Gideon. TY is such a loathsome little shit he even makes Gideon seem like a human being.

i was slightly concerned for myself by enjoying GO's commentary on election night :/

A real 'kicker conspiracy' night for Osborne.

Peter Hyman (you'd be forgiven for thinking 'who?')

“If you think the Tory majority was only small and May fought a terrible campaign, this should have been an election that Labour won. It is like a football match where you are 5-0 down, you claw it back to 5-4 and claim you won the cup. Well we haven’t won the cup. We have done better than expected, but we are not in power. None of the policies that people want from that manifesto are going to be implemented.”

corbyn amazing on marr (mostly because not being asked stupid questions about nuclear immolation)

http://mailchi.mp/survation/post-election-poll-for-the-mail-on-sunday-1118541

One week is a long time:

65% of all EU Referendum voters stating a view believe Theresa May not be PM when EU negotiations are complete - 45% of Leave voters and 67% of remain voters.
Boris Johnson most popular choice for next leader of Conservative party
Public opinion little changed on EU Referendum voting intention
Public believe Brexit negotiations should not be delayed by 65% to 25%
Only 36% of public agree PM is “strong and stable leader”
Only 33% of public approve of Theresa May’s DUP deal

Please can we have Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party.

"I've got youth on my side!"

OMFG XD XD XD

LOL:

Paul Mason‏Verified account @paulmasonnews 36m36 minutes ago

Lord Heseltine - ditch Brexit or Corbyn becomes PM.

Never Forget Gideon's hateful propaganda about benefits scroungers while dressed in a high viz and all the other crimes. But it is hard not to feel his gleeful enthusiasm for May's painful death.

The thing about young people is they become old people.

That doesn't seem to be bearing out though - a lot of the voters in or approaching middle age appear to still be stubbornly voting Labour. Their biggest share of the vote came from people aged 35-45 which is the time where all received wisdom would be expecting Toryism to be kicking in. Obviously a lot of those people came of age during the New Labour era but they haven't switched to the Tories even now - although it's worth remembering how politically and socially toxic the idea of voting Tory was back then.

More to the point the Baby Boomers are a unique generation with unique advantages that subsequent generations haven't experienced. It makes a big difference.

I didn't see huge improvements in Corbyn's performance - I think the extra polish just came with time in the job. Then again he has never quite been in those General election settings before so not sure there are points of comparison.

Maybe, although Corbyn was really quite bad on TV in the early days of his leadership - the energy didn't really come through, he'd get visibly tetchy with interviewers etc. This time round he was able to laugh those dumb questions off, bat others away, answer comprehensively and generally come across as a human being. That sort of stuff comes with proper preparation and training, with the exception of the human being bit which you can't fake, but you maybe need to work to bring out in a hostile interview situation. Then again I didn't anticipate quite how uniquely dreadful May would turn out to be on TV, and even at her most media trained she was worse than Corbyn ever was.

None of the policies that people want from that manifesto are going to be implemented.

still incandescent when i see these lying bastards write shit like this, NONE OF THOSE POLICIES WOULD HAVE BEEN ON THE MANIFESTO IF YOU HAD YOUR WAY DIE DIE DIE

^^^p much jonathan pie's shtick ;)

i mean it :/

I love that Corbyn has a "made" aura about him now and is talking about how only Labour can offer the stability the country needs.

JC back to being favourite to be next PM at 10/3 as well!

https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics

Lol remember tho leftards that labour actually lost and u shd all be sad

As well as boosting the Labour vote, the manifesto prevented the expected collapse in their vote in core constituencies. We don't really know what would have happened under another leader but they would be more likely to have taken a Tim Farron-esque approach to Brexit, or at least a Milibandish one which would have played right into May's hands.

The Corbyn approach to Brexit was still a bit of a fudge but the genius of the campaign was about making the election about everything *except* Brexit, neutralising May's biggest electoral advantage.

though it seems to be missing Boris Johnson altogether from that, despite having him being fav to be next Tory leader, bah

wow, no, this is william hill today!

11/10 Jeremy Corbyn
5/2 Boris Johnson
9/2 David Davis
10/1 Amber Rudd
10/1 Phillip Hammond
10/1 Yvette Cooper

brb just putting £100 on owen smith

the fudge works because i'd guess the majority of the electorate aren't that bothered about the details of Brexit - sure there's a strong "kill all immigrants" wing but it's not the majority by a long stretch and there's a solid element of continuing support for Brexit which is largely "the referendum shd be final, just get on with it". in those circs as long as Corbyn keeps saying "don't worry we're Brexiting" then enough voters will be fine with that. of course the papers will get pissy about individual concessions as they are made, but that applies equally to whoever's running the negotiations in the end.

The odds I saw had George Osborne as third-favourite despite no longer even being in Parliament. Those look more realistic but I just don't see most of those people winning a Tory leadership contest. I don't think Johnson will get past his own party - too many enemies - ditto Davies. Rudd's majority is too small. Philip Hammond is too boring and a Remainer, although the boring bit might help right now.

Andrew Neil is completely shitting on some hapless Tory whip right now, it's been a long time since I've seen scenes like this. I've just realised how long they've carried this aura of arrogance and unassailability for, a decade at least.

time for the Quiet Man to appear back out of the shadows

i know alastair campbell is a cunt but he fucking destroyed the tories on bbc, yesterday, i think, saw the clip via twitter. the blood is most certainly in the water.

Agree there was techiness with interviewers and the like but the moments he really got through to people were all campaigns: for the leadership, then the leadership challenge and now the GE. I do agree it has been better.

Its gonna be interesting to see how he does back in parliament. It should be easier for him as he has pretty killed off any challenges and only out of work Blairites will keep going on about how he didn't win.

Young (Labour) becoming old (Tory) really comes with -- as one twitter thread (that I recall mark s posting) comes with 'strong and tsable' material conditions - pensions, a paid mortgage and so on (its not as facile as that but its amazing how some people don't know how hard these things are won when you don't need to save for them, there is way more to this ofc). That isn't really happening for anyone over 30 now unless something radically changes and Labour are the only ones offering that.

Tory Remainers hugely emboldened right now as well, which is going to make soft Brexit more likely. Anna Soubry is going "the people have spoken, they've rejected a hard Brexit".

I don't see any way in which this can continue for very long without collapsing. The LibDems at least feared electoral wipeout from breaking the coalition. Even if the DUP do form a formal coalition, I'm guessing their voters will continue to vote for them whatever happens, they have very little risk from walking away. w

yup open season on tories rn and they're just about to tear themselves apart over europe. this was all just simmering under the surface, and cameron managed to just about keep a lid on it with his majority victory but that lid wasn't that tightly sealed...

doesn't apply so much to neil, maybe, as he's way up the chain, but there's bound to be a lot of pent-up hate at e.g. the tabs for the entire boss layer -- the venom that comes out in these kinds of times is not faked, like they actually have dacre in their head as they're writing, and this allows them to switch it that much closer

i know alastair campbell is a cunt but he fucking destroyed the tories on bbc

For all his many flaws he hates the Tories more than pretty much anything else in the world. I'm quite happy for him to go on TV delivering savagings for as long as he keeps away from frontline politics.

the fudge works because i'd guess the majority of the electorate aren't that bothered about the details of Brexit - sure there's a strong "kill all immigrants" wing but it's not the majority by a long stretch and there's a solid element of continuing support for Brexit which is largely "the referendum shd be final, just get on with it". in those circs as long as Corbyn keeps saying "don't worry we're Brexiting" then enough voters will be fine with that. of course the papers will get pissy about individual concessions as they are made, but that applies equally to whoever's running the negotiations in the end.

― There's got to be a Corbyn after (Noodle Vague), Sunday, 11 June 2017 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm. Its just a basic recognition we can't undo the referendum and as I was watching this the results basically went: -10% UKIP and +5% Tory +5% Labour through the night...I mean it was simply the right call.

yeah i am back to thinking brexit will never actually happen. even if you had a government of genii with a huge mandate and majority, it would still be a herculean task. as it stands it's just not actually possible. it's quite amusing to see the way the word "brexit" is used, like as a compound word for so many decisions and problems that are yet to come. "we will deliver brexit" etc - what does that mean? why is "deliver" the word being used? it's classic civil servant stuff - hijacking the meaning of a verb to attach it to a noun that has no meaning at all.

here's the campbell interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0LDvLthbw0

i love the feeling of boundaries being pushed back that's in the air right now, and he really taps into that. the days of reckoning have arrived for these cunts.

sorry, many xposts

i love the feeling of boundaries being pushed back that's in the air right now...
― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Sunday, 11 June 2017 09:42 (twenty-nine seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we made a grown man eat a book

we made a grown man eat a book

anything is possible now!

He actually didn't really, which is kind of better

did giles coren really say he'd eat his children if JC become pm?

squad goals either way, teach him to diss sub-editors #theabsolutegrudge

My god, the sight of the giant Muppet waving goodbye to May is brutal.

stage 1: force a guy to eat his book live on air
stage 2: pic.twitter.com/wf054QsUx2

— Jonathan (@demarionunn) June 11, 2017

My god, the sight of the giant Muppet waving goodbye to May is brutal.

what is this?

When u peer pressure ur lame friend into smoking and they don't even inhale. Fkn woeful display https://t.co/pAMzvMXa55

— cera palmer (@TytoPollens) June 10, 2017

;-)

In the Campbell interview there's footage of a guy dressed as Elmo just waving at May as she's walking past.

"I'm sorry Theresa May, you can pray to god in that church right now, but you. Have. Had. It."

that tickled me

Always like when Campbell attacks Tories but its just bollocks re: Labour. I know JC will say "my door is always open" but now its more about allowing the membership to get greater democratic control and looking at selecting people who are actually representative of the country to stand as Labout MPs in a potential autumn election - and less about Yvette Cooper being a shadow cabinet member.

Although I'd like to see how Ed Milliband would do in a shadow Cabinet post..

maybe if the centrists just care deeply about Labour he could appeal to that and show them his mandate again

and then if they really can't deal with democratic socialist policies in a democratic socialist party they can just quietly slink off to the Lib Dems

"I'm sorry Theresa May, you can pray to god in that church right now, but you. Have. Had. It."

yeah it was nice he managed to get a good dig in at religion too.

FWIW I don't think Yvette Cooper would make a bad Shadow Cabinet minister because she has shown she can work with the leadership in some capacity (eg chairing the refugee taskforce) and hasn't joined in the constant carping you associate with people like Phillips, Dugher, Hunt etc. No guarantee she'll be asked, mind.

There's a salient point to be made about the dangers of ruling via a small closed circle and it's affected virtually every PM in my adult lifetime. But the people you bring in from outside have to show that they're worthy of that trust - maybe some of them will now.

ha! ok thread on what the Tories should do:

If the Tories were smart, they would put Davis in as PM & run a minority govt without a DUP deal—dare the DUP to vote them down & get Corbyn

— Edmund Griffiths (@EdmundGriffiths) June 10, 2017

NV yeah its the biggest problem for a centrist to join a Corbyn shadow cab - can they really, credibly, talk up that manifesto and much else. They will be seen as awful opportunists and the quotes will be thrown back at them. I know Ed called for Corbyn to give way to Owen Smith but he was relatively quiet and I believe him to come from a similar place to Corbyn.

However I'm thinking of a few centrists more to pad out parliament and marginalise further the cunts that can never take Corbyn.

assume davis is hated since he was allegedly responsible for the snap election

xpost

no scottish tories willing to go on sunday politics scotland 🤔

Ruth the Mooth has bigger fish to fry these days.

the sight of english conservatives pleading for ruth davidson on a bosman 😂

how would that go down with their friends in the DUP

lol i just sitting at my kitchen table bursting out laughing with happiness every ten minutes

Its just night and day from last weekend.

Can't wait to see how Portillo's smug perma-smirk is holding up.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/53666000/jpg/_53666246_jex_1086877_de27-1.jpg

(No benefits, no torture)

Xp

Its just night and day from last weekend.

Was properly, deeply glum on Wed night. But now!

LJ sort your man out:

So... this election sorted a lot out didn't it! The tories got the most votes but didn't win & Corbyn is celebrating a labour loss! 😩😂

— Lee Westwood (@WestwoodLee) June 9, 2017

there is still grim shit on the horizon in my life (partner's PIP appeal coming up, switch to universal credit), but fuck it, for once the absolute bastards haven't won!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCCNFYiXcAARxxx.jpg:large

LOL can't believe this:

It is understood that Juncker had advised May to call an early general election as a result of his concerns that the 17-seat majority she had inherited from David Cameron would not be enough during the pinch points of the negotiations, including over the issue of the UK’s divorce bill, estimated to be as much as €100bn.

“During bilaterals, in the margins of summits, Juncker repeatedly told her he thought she should do it,” one EU source said. A second European diplomat added: “People don’t understand. We want a deal more than anyone. We are professionals, we have a mandate to get a deal and we want to be successful in that.”

make john mcternan eat tony blair

— hang marine A (@posadistintl) June 11, 2017

It is understood that Juncker had advised May to call an early general election

Lol playyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyed.

So May was right about the EU trying to meddle in British politics... errrrr.

The list of people Tories blame for their failure just keeps growing.

Difference between us and the Russians is that we're trying to save ye

Holy russia trying to save all of European civilization iirc

Mother Russia

Fucking hell Helen Lewis has a piece in The Guardian, her analysis of the election. Its sickening anyone wants to fuck with anything coming out of her keyboard right now and forever after.

You underestimate the influence Luxembourg plays in British politics at your peril.

I keep thinking of Ziggy from the Wire screaming "Bad advice! You gave me bad advice!" at everyone

Labour’s right and centre must weather the gloating of Corbyn supporters

the poor lambs

It would be churlish for people like me and other Remainers not to give her political backing.

There are Labour MPs who want to work in the national interest and will support her if she does the right thing for the country.

Mainstream Labour MPs, who worry about the impact of the continuing Corbyn revolution on centrist voters, should be prepared to stand by the wounded PM, and likewise she should welcome their approach in the national interest.

Mandy in the Mail with the quality advice

it doesn't make any discernible difference how they (Labour Right) weather the gloating, their days are numbered and they know it.

brb punting £100 on frank field still a lab mp in 3017

what can you say? the guy loves socialism

McDonnell on Peston saying we still need to get out of the SM might be misreading his voters a bit.

Surely it's EEA all the way now, no?

the specifics should be debated and voted on, like every other big decision govt makes. or is that chaotic and crazy

Saving Labour Twitter account has been extremely quiet of late. Virtually all of the MPs they said were under risk under Corbyn ("this poll result would lose us Wes Streeting" etc) now have sizeable bumps in their majorities. Wes Streeting himself can hardly complain when his majority's increased by 10,000.

More generally, this Medium post is very good and broadly approximates my own opinion.

David Cameron only took his party back to power because, albeit only to an extent, he detoxified it. Small ‘l’ liberals — who make the difference at British general elections — will vote for a hard-headed party which has some sort of soft heart. But they won’t vote in anything like the numbers required for a hard-headed party with no heart; least of all one which has led Britain into a period of political chaos unparalleled since the Second World War.

Cameron called the EU referendum to sort out an argument not among the British people, but within his own party. May called a wholly unnecessary snap election to do the same. Both put narrow party and personal advantage ahead of the country; and both, as should become clear within days, will pay the ultimate price.

But the trouble for the Tories is: their reputation for competence is so shredded, the chaos they’ve unleashed so real, that no alternative leader can possibly make the remotest difference.

Voted on by the public? I'd like that but not sure I can take it xp

He has proved he is a great campaigner, but can he bring unity to Labour and win over dissenters?

LOL Helen Lewis, who gives a damn what they do now?

Helen Lewis's favoured line of attack for a while was 'Harriet Harman is a feminist, and people who criticise her for the welfare ban clearly only care about one kind of equality'. I'm not saying every Corbyn supporter for a feminist but virtually every study has shown that women - especially poor women with children - suffer disproportionately under austerity. The argument didn't stand up to even the slightest bit of scrutiny.

I am expecting a bring David Cameron back take any minute now.

wow, from the piece linked by matt dc, hadn't seen this before
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEcMW6RmC_w

Trump has, apparently, delayed his state visit.

#thingsCanOnlyGetBetter

Lol has there ever been a man who has been more consistently self-owned than Toby Young pic.twitter.com/BQOVnmJ4KQ

— Ellie Mae O'Hagan (@MissEllieMae) June 11, 2017

more ppl the tories can blame^^^

Peter Mandelson:

I believe if she shows flexibility, most of the country will back her.

It would be churlish for people like me and other Remainers not to give her political backing.

There are Labour MPs who want to work in the national interest and will support her if she does the right thing for the country.

Mainstream Labour MPs, who worry about the impact of the continuing Corbyn revolution on centrist voters, should be prepared to stand by the wounded PM, and likewise she should welcome their approach in the national interest.

Chopped meat over here

impatient for corbyn's first post-election shadow cabinet

can caroline lucas be in it?

:D

I'm amused by the opening sentence.

http://www.politico.eu/article/how-theresa-may-lost-it-uk-election-brexit-jeremy-corbyn-jim-messina-lynton-crosby-uk-sarah-palin-campaign/

Halfway through Britain’s seven-week snap election campaign, some in Theresa May’s team came to the conclusion that they had a problem — the candidate.

But morale remained high, you see.

Relations among the core team remained good.

At one point in the midst of the manifesto shambles, Timothy approached Hill and ruffled her hair in jest from behind, moving to the other side of where she turned her head. The pair laughed. “There is a genuine intimacy there,” an observer said. “They are just really good friends. It’s obvious from the way they behave.”

was just listening to ex-Scum editor Yelland talking about Momentum's successful social media campaigning. I didn't realise "that" video got 7m hits and others they did getting 1m +. That was definitely resonating beyond the echo chamber.

yorkshire ranter on the rival facebook campaigns (labour's had much better reach):
http://www.harrowell.org.uk/blog/2017/06/11/the-election-in-data-and-software/

What's "that" video?

the one with the father explaining to his young daughter that the dystopia they are in was cos he voted for May

Tory Britain in 2030 - Daddy, why do you hate me? is the full title.

Ah, yes.

I just watched that and I'm struggling to work out how the "what's that?" "That's a free school meal" exchange would work. Not that it matters really but I like a bit of narrative credibility around what is clearly just a photo of a plate of food.

What's that?
It's an Instagram photo of avocado and sourdough toast with a poached egg on it.

lol no stet! voted for by parliament, you know, our representative system of government

The Sunday Times is claiming a source saying that the DUP want Farage to be given a formal role in Brexit talks.

if they put boris in as leader that is definitely an extinction burst

The Brexit Bubble - literally less than a dozen people in a position to make it happen who also want it.

The Sunday Times is claiming a source saying that the DUP want Farage to be given a formal role in Brexit talks.

― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Sunday, 11 June 2017 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Can this plz be true?

I think the right wing press has lost the plot along with the Conservative Party.

labour would only require a 3.4% swing next time out to pick up a further 17 seats in scotland

NEW: @itvnews has seen WhatsApp messages sent by Boris Johnson to Tory MPs urging them "to calm down and get behind the Prime Minister". pic.twitter.com/43oizi2ZE7

— Daniel Hewitt (@DanielHewittITV) June 11, 2017

oh well then

Alt='Be good, and wait six months'

Or "Whoever he or she may be"

Gove for environment. Something something no need for experts in that dept eh mutter mutter

He'll also need to face the farmers in that job too.

worst whatsapp group chat ever?

"BORIS YOU LEGENRND"

You're MY absolute Boris

cometh the hour
https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/styles/story_medium/public/indy100/bklNcAXeJSW/26809-yfhdpw.JPG

Can someone put this into pastebin or some such for me:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v04/n06/tom-paulin/paisleys-progress

How David Gauke voted on Welfare and Benefits #
Generally voted for reducing housing benefit for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms (which Labour describe as the "bedroom tax")

Consistently voted against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices

Almost always voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability

Consistently voted for making local councils responsible for helping those in financial need afford their council tax and reducing the amount spent on such support

Almost always voted for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits

Consistently voted against spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people who have spent a long time unemployed

I don't think many people could be much more grotesque and vacuous than Damien Green, but Gauke will make another fine work and pensions secretary and have a good try.

Hunt is just never getting reshuffled huh

xxp it's not firewalled.

It is, for me.

It's quite a substantial excerpt, admittedly.

sometimes the paywall is activated by your use of ad-blockers or by how many recent "freebies" are on your cookies from a particular site.

Oh yeah me too, sorry.

Trump connection btw:
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/calls-for-dup-to-reveal-source-of-500-000-brexit-donation-1.3115919

"The DUP, which backed the proposal for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, spent heavily during the campaign, including £282,000 (€325,000) on a newspaper advertisement and £32,750 (€37,500) with a data-analysis company linked to Donald Trump. It spent only about £10,000 in Northern Ireland."

!!!

Amazing details in there.

I was to quote and paste but there's too much to quote.

Cynical thought for the morning: those older Tory voters have gotten a Tory government, but with the pension triple lock retained, and no dementia tax.

The greatest thing you'll see today...pic.twitter.com/q7XvNzT6Q0

— Angry Salmond (@AngrySalmond) June 10, 2017

Was pleased to learn that the man behind Lord Buckethead used to be the head of classic video nasty label Vipco, who brought us Driller Killer, Zombie Flesheaters etc, back in the day.

Time for a new franchise

lord buckethead grows in my estimation daily

that'll be the helmet

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCHDxs2WsAAhWJF.jpg:large

wow

Lots of chat from the FT and others this morning about a muddling of what is meant by "soft" Brexit. I, and I think a lot of people, took it to mean "leaving the EU but not the EEA, keeping single market access and so on". Whereas it is suspected that what both Tories and Corbyn/McDonnell mean by it is "not the WTO option -- eg no brutal "no deal" option but still leaving SM/FoM".

Let's be honest I imagine there is only every going to be 'hard Brexit' and 'fucking hard Brexit', right?

keeping the pound low against the euro will do more for discouraging internal immigration than any set of statutes that can be devised imo

the weekend after brexit i was in a minicab and the dude driving told me that the economics of it don't work for him anymore because the whole idea was to make money to send back home, and now that money doesn't go very far

i realize this is the quintessential lolFriedman methodology of analyzing major global trends but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

'i had that tracer hand in the back of my cab the other day, i offered him a stinging critique of macroeconomics through the prism of my lived experience'

from ilx's favourite politics editor tom newton cunt:

Will Theresa May have to soften her Brexit terms? LBJ's rule, the numbers are all. Our Commons tally today; pic.twitter.com/sqlI6QQi4y

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) June 12, 2017

wonder what rupert thinks of that

Will Theresa May have to soften her Brexit terms? LBJ's rule, the numbers are all. Our Commons tally today; pic.twitter.com/sqlI6QQi4y

— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) June 12, 2017

who's the 5 Labour?

i'd like to know myself but the sun's website is so terrible i can't actually find the story i presume this graphic is part of

Kate Hoey?

Graham Stringer
Kelvin Hopkins
Roger Godsiff
+1

real big hitters

real big shitters more like amirite

*shrug* tbh I understand the urge to troll the moaniest of the remoaners

All of them not too far off taking an eternal nap as well.

+1 is corbs surely, his masters in the communist league will not brook error on this

I was gonna postulate Corbs as the Fifth Man, of course

Explicitly pro-Leave Labour MPs:

Ronnie Campbell - Blyth Valley
John Cryer - Leyton and Wanstead
Frank Field - Birkenhead
Roger Godsiff - Birmingham Hall Green
Kate Hoey - Vauxhall
Kelvin Hopkins - Luton North
John Mann - Bassetlaw
Dennis Skinner - Bolsover
Graham Stringer - Blackley and Broughton
Gisela Stuart - Birmingham Edgbaston

Just realised that if May fails to make it through the rest of the month then she has the ignominy of failing to last even as long as Alec Douglas-Home, who pretty much no one remembers.

who?

Home is memorable for a number of reasons, including the fact that he held a cabinet post after his Prime Ministership iirc - Foreign Sec or Home Sec under Heath, early 70s?

also the last member of the Lords to be PM apparently

He's in a Monty Python sketch too. Gisela Stuart isn't an MP anymore, she stepped down at the last election, her evil work done.

and he either spelt or pronounced his name funny depending on yr perspective

also he feels like the last leader of the Tories who you could've plausibly described as a grandee before all the arrivistes took over

reposting form the real england thread, where i (correctly but unhelpfully) first parked it:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/12/no-10-refuses-to-confirm-queens-speech-will-go-ahead-next-monday

"Any delay in the Queen’s speech would be difficult to accommodate, given the monarch is scheduled to attend Royal Ascot from next Tuesday until the end of next week."

in fact I gotta say the mummified husk of Alec Douglas-Home wd make an excellent unity candidate for the post-May leadership contest

I remember a Spitting Image puppet of Home in an ex-PMs nursing home sketch.

Or, failing that, Jacob Rees-Mogg. (xp)

I'm thinking of putting money on David Davis to be the next leader of the Conservative, he is kind of their Corbyn, in a lot of ways.

i for one would love a prime minister who still has a nanny xp

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the I Can't Believe It's Not Butter of long-deceased Tory bigwigs

Don't they all blame Davis for persuading May to call the election in the first place?

I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT BUTLER

jacob rees-mogg, the real-life tommen baratheon

had to google him

I could see DD being next leader. He probably could carry off "strong and stable" as well - as he looks like he might have even committed cold-blooded murder with his own bare hands before.

pop quiz, hotshot: was the below picture taken in the 1930s, 1940s, or 1950s

http://www.chewvalleygazette.co.uk/images/news/2016/jacob-rees-mogg-new-baby.jpg

MP for North East Somerset Jacob Rees Mogg, has announced the birth of his fifth child, Alfred Wulfric Leyson Pius.

Alfred was born on Monday 22nd February, just before 9am.

A brother to Peter, Mary, Thomas and Anselm and a fourth son to Jacob and his wife Helena.

Mr Rees-Mogg’s other children have been equally blessed with meaningful names. Eldest son Thomas is Thomas Wentworth Somerset Dunstan, whilst Peter is Peter Theodore Alphege, and the couple’s youngest son is Anselm Charles Fitzwilliam. Many of the children’s names including baby Alfred’s come from saints.

Thomas’ Dunstan derives from Dunstan, the Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey who became Archibishop of Canterbury and is accredited with restoring monastic life in England in the 10th Century.

Peter’s Alphege is homage to the 10th Century St.Alphege who become the elected abbot of Bath,

Whilst Anselm is Anselm of Bec a Benedictine monk one of the most prominent figures of the monastic era, and a founding father of Scholasticism.

According to Mr Rees Mogg the inspiration of newest addition to the Rees-Mogg dynasty are:

Alfred the Great

Wulfric of Haselbury, a saint.

Leyson, after Louis Leyson Rees Mogg who died at Gallipoli.

Pius, Pope Pius IX.

Even older Tories joke about Mogg being the "minister for the 1800's".

he's looked exactly the same his entire life, so i'm not willing to rule out entirely that he may be immortal and was actually a minister in the 1880s

pop quiz, hotshot: was the below picture taken in the 1930s, 1940s, or 1950s

God, I saw that thing the other day and was honestly baffled at the idea it was an actual recent shot.

have the DUP seen this picture (and that list of names)? more reasons the queen's speech got delayed IMO

Was convinced Wulfric was a girl's name.

Too many left footers in yer party, so there is (xp)

I suppose that retrospective pardon for Rangers FC might be a sticking point too.

amazed it's taken this long for a rangers joke to pop up itt tbh

True, it's such a life or death issue for so many DUP voters.

don't know why they'd get worked up about a club that doesn't exist anymore

I'm hoping someone on the Tory negotiating team lets slip something similar. (xxp) You won't have seen my 'No Pope of Rome' post upthread then?

not sure i understand this lame duck PM business. ducks mostly fly or swim so waddling ability not quite so crucial in their survival; may is more like a boiled coot imo

Zombie duck.

she's plucked turkey imo

quacked actor

10m ago 17:42
Jessica Elgot

The prime minister told MPs “I’ve got us into the mess and I will get us out of it,” according to another MP leaving the committee room. The MP said:

"She was very concerned about people who have lost their seats, the party is going to help them, some of them are in dire financial situations. She did say sorry, several times. She apologised for colleagues losing their seat, for making the call about the early election."

xp lol

and not xp lol

^ i feel fucking livid reading that. the dire financial situations of people formerly on a MPs wage? oh just fuck off xp

Struggling to shake the image of Theresa May in the grip of cocaine psychosis being interviewed by Alan Yentob in the back of a limo traveling through the desert "There’s … there’s a fly, floating around in my milk..."

Remember those awful Corbyn meetings with backbench MPs. Leaks to journos before the end, MPs trying to "break him".

How the wheel turns...no doubt this will be reported more favourably but expecting some good lols in time.

She was very concerned about people who have lost their seats, the party is going to help them, some of them are in dire financial situations.

Maybe Tory HQ can provide the addresses to foodbanks in their area. Come to think of it, I was sure I saw Gavin Barwell sleeping outside King's Cross station today.

ben gummer gofundme

"some of them are in dire financial situations."

I want some photographic evidence of this, so I print my own line of humourous lol-tory-poverty x-mas cards. Every election the bbc runs sympathetic pieces on how hard it is for MP's that get unceremoniously ejected back into Plebsville. http://patriotden.com/fotki/smileys/Fiddle_Player_Smiley_Face.GIF

wait i thought conservatives were fiscally responsible

Saw the PM convoy hustle out of Westminster there so she has survived the 1922

they've fitted her with an explosive collar set to detonate unless she stands down some time in the next 72 hours

I don't much about how these type of 1922 committee struggle sessions are conducted when they are going to dispose of a leader, but I hope there is a suitably menacing Urquhart type executioner chairing the meeting.

This is really hilarious:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/conservative-social-media-strategy-attack-jeremy-corbyn-labouir-twitter-facebook-video-stormzy-akala-a7784406.html

Sharing between users also meant Momentum only needed to spend £2,000 advertising its content on Facebook.

lol! this is beautiful to hear in comparison with the Tories allegedly spuzzing away £3m of "dark money" from donors on their FB campaign.

Strikes me that the Tory campaign only had a very limited understanding of the sort of content that flies on social media and thought that just outspending the opposition was enough. I'd been talking to a few professional social media types for work in the weeks running up to the election and they were all saying the same thing - that Labour was easily winning the social media election. Having not seen any of the Tory videos, even accidentally, I was pretty surprised to hear the kind of sums they were reportedly spending.

It was exactly that "I've not seen any of these Tory videos" thing that was giving me the fear. I worried that they were being incredibly well targeted to a bubble of old, Northern, nuke-heads so far from my own bubbles that I wouldn't even be aware of the damage they were doing.

Yelland was saying the other day on R4 that the Tory videos were averaging 100000 hits at best and many of the Momentum ones were hitting the millions with ease. I suppose the downside is they might have learned a lesson there and make their arms race spending on social media count for something the next time.

looking forward to their answer to #grime4corbyn!

making shareable videos is hard, unless you're doing i dunno recipes or fights or boobs

More election analysis, on Kensington: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/12/labour-kensington-general-election-london#

And um, its been a long time since I read Gransci, time to dust it off to see if this is any good: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2017/jun/12/paul-mason-jeremy-corbyn-defeat-ruling-elite-antonio-gramsci

tory slime videos
tory kinder unboxings
tory paint mixing videos
tory minecraft videos

The Rees-Mogg family doing accapella folk songs

looking forward to their answer to #grime4corbyn!

They're hard at work right now, just start at 1:30 in this clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NEZRPzNF2Q

shame they blew all that cheddar just to be stuck with a party that's completely crackers

Statement on behalf of @Portadownlol1 pic.twitter.com/JFCkWZhxkt

— Portadown LOL 1 (@Portadownlol1) June 10, 2017

That young ones video is blocked for UK people because it's owned by BBC worldwide... (The irony)

And I doubt the DUP will settle for concession on orange marches.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2017/06/theres-something-everyone-has-missed-about-dup-and-fixed-term-parliaments

tory kinder unboxings

:(

i'm always going gunz on Frankie Boyle for his shitty disablism, but his election show was actually very good and funny as fuck.

yes, it was.

the closing monologue was rub, but hey

Tory MP says May reassured 1922 that DUP "views on LGB...what's the rest of it?" would not affect Govt policy.

"the closing monologue was rub, but hey"

yeah, the way too long Nuttall monologue was totally dogshit.

Apparently austerity is over everyone, time to pack it in, Tories have now heard us.

https://capx.co/all-that-matters-now-is-stopping-corbyn/

Someone linked me this and I thought it was satire, turns out its from a Centre for Policy Studies offshoot.

Lilico and Kamm have been the best of this 'lets get a fucking coup if necessary'. Really wish I could listen in to some old colonels around the table.

so many gems in that

At that stuff about the IRA, Hezbollah, the Falklands, nuclear weapons, a maximum wage, mass nationalisation, appointing Communists, abolishing the monarchy and empowering the unions was all true and ought to have made him utterly inconceivable as a prime minister, but it didn’t. Young voters didn’t care, or didn’t believe it, or actively wanted it.

Abi Wilkinson was on Newsnight discussing Corbyn and mentioned the 'absolute boy' thing. The person (and people that I follow around on my Twitter TL) who came up with it has absolutely slated her/Owen Jones and Mae O'Hagan, most of it with good reason although some of it is just an inevitable letting rip on so much frustration with the media coverage.

"Apparently austerity is over everyone, time to pack it in, Tories have now heard us."

Cool, I'll just inform the missus with MS that the pip appeal is cancelled and DLA restored - Go benevolent Tories!

No no Austerity hitting Tory targets has been postponed. Hitting Labour voting demographics is still tickity boo

"Austerity is over"

laying in the submissive position, letting a gang of trolls piss all over me and saying "Im getting too old for this shit" like a bad ass

— wint (@dril) June 12, 2017

timing is...uncanny.

some amount of energy, humour and (understandable) b*ttern*ss from the twitter left outrider crew
xps

v understandable - he set out his reasons eloquently enough (and I won't say more because its on twitter and he has locked his account for now), its just weird seeing these things crop up from twitter to TV/Newsnight.

Astonished that young voters don't care about Corbyn's attitude to the Falkland's War, it was only 35 years ago after all.

The Times:

"An additional delay may be caused by the fact that the Queen’s Speech is written on goatskin parchment paper, which requires several days for the ink to dry."

We literally have to wait for ink to dry. In the 21st century.

Random Goat 4 PM

@dustshoveller
I was Director of the @UKParlArchives for 6 years and I can tell you that the Queen's Speech is not made of parchment, goat or otherwise.

Make Speeches Goat Again

disappointing lack of tories-tearing-themselves-apart tbh

it's probable that their shookness over the possibility of fighting another election right now is keeping them in order, plus the lack of any credible challenger. give them time to start unravelling in parliament, it's very hard to believe she'll see out 5 years.

i seem to recall a certain "short-lived cleggeron era"

The tabs seem worried by the fact that all SF's MPs are flying to London today. No suggestion that it isn't just for administration business atm but there is a press conference later, I think.

Cleggeron didn't have to deal with Brexit. The Tories are keeping May in place so she can cop the blame for that impending disaster as well as the election. Then they can get a new broom in.

What's the average by-election rate, 2 or 3 a year? That's yr majority right there.

anyone who thinks they came up with "the absolute boy" doesn't understand culture or politics tbh

is yvette cooper a big beast

all the big beasts are gone, we're on our own now

Haha he has disowned whatever five min joke that was.

He understands politics far more than Owen Jones (this might not be hard)

Haha he has disowned whatever five min joke that was

^^^he doesn't understand politics or culture, making his account private is sensible

For now its usually an open account (you have rt-ed this person btw)

no fact more damning tbr

We're the big beasts now

full firm beasts

RTs by big firm full beasts are no endorsements ofc

The lrb paisley essay is now a free-read, btw.

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v04/n06/tom-paulin/paisleys-progress

Tx Jed will look later

was listening to Gove earlier trying to dismiss his erratic voting record on environmental matters as a "misrepresentation" and he has previously claimed to be a "shy green". That would be shy in the same manner that IDS was a shy disability rights advocate.

lord buckethead on brexit fyi

https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/19105883_10154601561077411_6088932478758234175_n.jpg?oh=36e957940ee5ec48ff880b95de5050dc&oe=59D62331

Rudd has refused to apologise for pulling figures out of her arse on the tv debate last week when she exaggerated what is spent on disability benefits by £13 billion. It's a good job they didn't use her fucked up math on the re-count as well.

just imagine the fuss if she was non-white and maybe called Diane Abbott.

no but it's different when diane abbott does it because uh

Turns out Stroud is the scene of the longest-running personal political rivalry in UK politics but no one outside Stroud has ever noticed. pic.twitter.com/E1JgYt1Eei

— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) June 12, 2017

The person (and people that I follow around on my Twitter TL) who came up with it has absolutely slated her/Owen Jones and Mae O'Hagan, most of it with good reason

RMDE if people are slating Ellie Mae O'Hagan, who has been broadly supportive throughout, actually bothered to talk to Momentum supporters and understand them, and literally went out campaigning for Corbyn in marginal seats, then they aren't able to tolerate the tiniest bit of even constructive/healthy dissent.

xp kinda surprised by that, would've assumed everywhere in the Cotswolds was die-hard Tory.

cheltenham was quite close between the tories and libdem iirc.

Conservative
Alex Chalk
Votes 26,615

Liberal Democrat
Martin Horwood
Votes 24,046

Labour
Keith White
Votes 5,408

getting a bit worried about Corbyn's performance radicalizing people on my FB timeline guys:

"With Corbynism on the rise fighting back against the excesses of high Toreyism, it is time for the Housemartins to make a comeback. They are needed now in these troubled times, more than ever."

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/anthony-barnett/age-of-corbyn-i-most-powerful-person-in-land

"Two days after the election and writing for millions of readers Mandelson shows us that he is the twentieth century politician. He instructs the ‘moderates’ among Labour MPs to… support Theresa May!"

Greg Knight!

http://danielrachel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Red-Wedge-036__Melody-Maker-front-cover.jpg

The word coming out of Number 10 is that the election result changes nothing about their approach to Brexit negotiations. This doesn't strike me as wise at this particular time.

The raw numbers are striking in Stroud. 7,000 extra labour votes that weren't there two years ago.

Also, lololololololol, proposed boundary changes would give, on 2017 results, a majority of NI seats to Sinn Fein http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/boundaries2018.html

fucking hell, greg knight in the melody maker!

his election jingle keeps popping into my head so it's well-deserved tbh

he discusses arsequake with the stud brothers iirc

would read

Thinking seriously about legislation they might be able to pass, the lock-down-the-internet stuff looks very difficult now- you've got a handful of tory mps who like to grandstand on the issue of civil liberties, and more importantly you've got Big Tech giants opposed, the kind of people the tory party exists to serve. Big Tech more than capable of buying offenergetically lobbying a few dozen tory mps, especially with such a lame duck PM.

Also it was fucking stupid and unachieveable from the start and everyone except May seemed to know that.

One reason the Fixed Term Parliaments Act is good thing and not a bad one, is that it's harder for minority govts to arbitrarily designate tough votes as confidence issues, to force things through, as the Callaghan and Major govts used to do all the time.

There's still scope for governments to blackmail their own mps of course, but it's more difficult, more hoops to jump through. A small step on the long road to bringing British democracy into the 19th century

the harperson speaketh (to the correct thread this time)

Harriet Harman, the former Labour party deputy leader, has said Jeremy Corbyn should take the credit for the party’s success at the general election and she would now expect all Labour MPs to want to serve in his shadow cabinet.

Speaking before a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party (PLP), Harman, who has been in the Commons since 1982, conceded that her earlier doubts about Corbyn’s leadership had been misplaced.

As another influential Labour backbencher, Clive Efford, argued that the existing shadow cabinet deserved to keep their positions, Harman said she would expect former critics in the party to now be happy to serve under Corbyn.
Analysis Labour manifesto 2017: the key points, pledges and analysis
Unpicking the party’s 128-page document for the election, including tax plans and a pledge to renationalise the water industry
Read more

Harman told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she had been wrong in her assumption that Corbyn could not take the party forward.

“He’s confounded those expectations. Just as, if we’d have lost seats under his leadership, he would have had to take responsibility, we’ve gained seats under his leadership, and he can take the credit for that.”

Harman said the atmosphere among Labour MPs even shortly before the election had been morbid: “We were expecting the Tories to lay waste to us. Instead it turned around and we come back coherent, united.

“The atmosphere is verging from on one hand relief to jubilant, and the Tories are in disarray. And Jeremy Corbyn has to take the credit for that, because he was the leader and he’s gone forward.”

can't believe the number of conservative MPs who want a hard brexit is 295.

stephen bush had a good piece yesterday on the effects of the FTP act on the DUP's leverage

hey, just because she couldn't police the entire internet doesn't mean she couldn't make it a bit shittier

missed this a couple of days ago but the lols are as fresh as ever

Not only is a there a poll showing the Tories behind Labour, there’s also one showing every replacement for May would make them less popular pic.twitter.com/3qvAu7MvRJ

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) June 10, 2017

Stephen Bush wrote a piece yesterday saying that the Fixed Term Parliaments Act gives a disproportionate amount of power to the DUP even by Hung Parliament standards. Essentially the DUP can withdraw their support on anything they want, inflicting defeat after defeat upon the party, unless they get their way, because the FTPA means that only a No Confidence vote can bring the government down.

Result = zombie government unable to do anything, OR one in which the DUP get whatever the hell they want.

the dup are finding themselves in the wholly unfamilar position of being able to hold a gun to someone's head to get what they want

oof

but at least they can force May to go full term

haha

strung and stagnant

fucking hell, greg knight in the melody maker!

his election jingle keeps popping into my head so it's well-deserved tbh

― cast your vote for fully automated gay space luxury communism (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 13 June 2017 10:22 (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I remember that. The debate was basically "Red Wedge, good or bad", and GK was sat next to Chris Dean of the Redskins on the "Bad" side of the table. He sort-of made the mistake of thinking they was politically allied. CDean told him, quite forcefully without actually looking at him, that this was not so.

Essentially the DUP can withdraw their support on anything they want, inflicting defeat after defeat upon the party, unless they get their way

Or any other faction/bloc/caucus, right? It could get merciless, bouncing between policies the DUP find acceptable and those the leftie Scots do

DUP will i think stick to stuff in NI itself; they won't venture into mainland cultural politics -- so the question is, what are libertarian and cult-lib tories prepared to defend?

i'm trying to remember how much salience this all had when it was gordon brown doing the same deal -- when it was more or less pre-internet, certainly pre-twitter

what it actually does is put present-day NI under the lens of all for a change: which will change the dynamic there a LOT i suspect

I have been wondering how counterproductive it might be in the long term for the DUP to put a spotlight on the aporiae within the constitutional settlement of the UK

john major largely otm

I am concerned about the deal, I am wary about it, I am dubious about it, both for peace process reasons, and for other reasons as well ...

My main concern is the peace process. A fundamental part of that peace process is that the UK government needs to be impartial between all the competing interests in Northern Ireland. And the danger is that however much any government tries, they will not be seen to be impartial if they are locked into a parliamentary deal at Westminster with one of the Northern Ireland parties. And you never know in what unpredictable way events will turn out. And we cannot know if that impartiality is going to be crucial at some stage in the future ..

If there difficulties with the Northern Ireland executive or with any one of a number of things that might well arise during the Brexit negotiations, it is very important that there’s an honest broker. And the only honest broker can be the UK government.

And the question arises, if they cease to be seen as such by part of the community in Northern Ireland, then one can’t be quite certain how events will unwind. And that worries me a great deal about the peace process.

If only the Shinners would take their seats in Parliament... on second thoughts, maybe no.

The ..... only..... honest broker?

i did say 'largely' otm tbf

on the whole i would say, if there is one party in UK politics which is by culture and temperament disinclined instantly to gorge itself on free icecream until it is vomiting and comatose, it is the DUP: it is stubborn and parochial, and almost entirely hostile to visionary flights of the imagination, or any other kind of indulgence -- it does not proselytise, it holds on

but we are in an era of surprises, and arlene foster is not the reverend paisley (no one is), so who knows who will do what

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/816361/theresa-may-queen-jeremy-corbyn-sinn-fein-gerry-adams-arlene-foster-dup-westminster

i can never remember which UK papers are the trashy ones, so can someone tell me what's going on

That's the trashiest of the lot.

gotcha -- i need to keep a list or something

Lot of competition there though.

what you need is a league table xp

SF always come over to get their milk money

this would be a hilarious week for them to hang around in a teasing fashion obviously

Liverpool echo finish fifth

i think we're all overlooking the real story here though, which is that twitter sensation ed miliband is going to be presenting jeremy vine's radio 2 show next week, while burning sensation ian duncan smith will be spinning the platters that matter the week after

i look forward to knuckledragging white van man callers competing to offer up the worst bacon sandwich joke while ed is on the air

shadow minister of fandom, call him by his title

the vitally important frontbench role he was born for

Evening Standard front page is a picture of Arlene going into no.10 with the headline "We're the masters now", in case you were wondering how Osborne is taking it.

osborne fairly well-versed in master/servant relationships on several levels iirc

As the DUP leadership turn up in Downing Street this lunchtime, here's our second edition @EveningStandard ... pic.twitter.com/O2ODW3pmDD

— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) June 13, 2017

We're the Masters Noyyyyy, So We Are

look at those shit-eating grins

so much for the humourless ulster unionists

if anyone's going to gorge himself on free icecream until vomiting and comatose, it's osborne -- imagining the design room eye-rolling at one another as he charges across the office for the third time in an afternoon: "let's do a new front page! do it! doooooo it!

i hope you're not suggesting osborne's boundless energy and regular attacks of the munchies are chemically-induced

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2015-03/18/9/enhanced/webdr09/anigif_original-grid-image-25709-1426684476-28.gif?crop=225:225;26,-1&downsize=715:*&output-format=auto&output-quality=auto

i am suggesting he does not always pace himself

corbyn looking fly as fuck in the commons right now with a red tie and giant red rose on his lapel

looking, dare i say, prime ministerial in fact

does the DUP not remember how this coalition thing worked out for the lib dems?

They only have to please a tiny local vocal constituency

Further thoughts on the election that I hadn't really processed until now:

- Amazing the extent the which the economy was barely an issue this time round. It's usually centre stage and I think this was a serious error on the Tories' part. Health, education, immigration, security, social care, transport and taxation all came up time and time again but usually the economy blows all of those away when it comes to influencing voting. Not this time.

- The decline of the Tories as the party of aspiration. This is *huge*. Labour leadership candidates, playing catch-up to the Tories, banged on about aspiration so much in 2015 that they barely saw Corbyn coming. In practice, "aspirational" policies have tended to mean lower taxes, help onto the property ladder and rising house prices thereafter. But we're talking about a generation now that feels their aspirations are being shredded - who cares about lower taxes when you feel like your route to a well-paying job has been cut off? Housing equity means nothing if you feel like you're going to be renting for the rest of your life. The focus on "strong and stable" ignored the question "stability for whom?"

- The frustrating thing about Sensible Labour (RIP) is how it always seemed to be fighting the last campaign - Burnham, Cooper and Kendall all immediately seized on the results of those 'Why didn't you vote Labour?' surveys and made them the centrepieces of their campaigns, without stopping to think about whether that would be the case in 2-5 years' time, or thinking too deeply about what underlying truths they might be revealing below the surface. The same goes for publications like the Guardian and the Staggers, except this time it was Brexit they were obsessing over. If they'd spent half as much time trying to understand Corbyn voters as they did trying to understand UKIP voters, they might have seen this coming.

Brexit perhaps the gloomy background constant that allowed the manifesto to make the impact it did?

shurely you mean the golden road to the future prosperity the parties were fighting over

Brexit was certainly a catalyst for increased voter turnout, but Labour neutralised it successfully during the campaign by making it about everything except Brexit.

I think it might be dawning on younger voters that when somebody on the news says "this is bad for the economy" then what "the economy" means is "wealthy exploitative scumbags"

I think it was more that a substantial part of the Tory leadership privately thought that Brexit was going to destroy the economy anyway and tried not to mention it.

oh I was just showboating but inasmuch as the vote breaks down across age lines the young have way less reason to be enthralled by the abstract Economy

Brexit is now our third rail: because it splits across party lines (apart from the Libs), most politicos are wary of talking about it for fearing of alienating a section of their vote. (Eg witness baby storm after McDonnell comments the other day).

And you can't raise the economy without someone raising Brexit so that also becomes something to avoid, aside from generic "we need a strong economy" refs.

(Of course, it was too late for the Tories anyway. They might not have mentioned it in the campaign, but their Remain vote heard them hammering on about hard-as-hard-can-be Brexit for the months leading up to the campaign.)

booming 'further thoughts' post from matt dc there

obviously "it wz the youth whut wun it" is incorrect anyway, but insofar as the perspectives of the young mattered, it's partly bcz they impact on the perspectives of, like, their parents! who love them and worry abt them!

(i know i know #notallparents but #plentyofparents)

so the 35-45 cohort aren't just voting self-absorbedly here either

lol bastani is calling for a 650-seat strategy

deny him that you melts

more tweets like this plz

George Bridges off (the talented one in DexEU). DUP deal tricky. Scot Tories drawing red lines. Arguments over Brexit. Gvt weaker & weaker

— Sam Coates Times (@SamCoatesTimes) June 13, 2017

- The decline of the Tories as the party of aspiration. This is *huge*. Labour leadership candidates, playing catch-up to the Tories, banged on about aspiration so much in 2015 that they barely saw Corbyn coming. In practice, "aspirational" policies have tended to mean lower taxes, help onto the property ladder and rising house prices thereafter. But we're talking about a generation now that feels their aspirations are being shredded - who cares about lower taxes when you feel like your route to a well-paying job has been cut off? Housing equity means nothing if you feel like you're going to be renting for the rest of your life. The focus on "strong and stable" ignored the question "stability for whom?"

Yeah, "aspiration" was all over the 2015 Labour pledges. Looking at it now, I'm staggered by just how mealy-mouthed and vague it all is, offering absolutely nothing concrete to suggest what Miliband's fantasy government would've done differently from Cameron's.

https://lbpreston.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/img_5445.png

110 of these mugs. Did any get bought? I'd like to believe they were ground up to a fine powder and buried in an unmarked grave along with that tombstone Ed was photographed standing in front of.

http://www.cityam.com/assets/uploads/content/2015/03/labour-mug-55195e39b3dc0.jpg

this is amazing:

Research has shown that in this seat any mention of local issues will push voters to Labour. I know it is tempting to discuss local issues as this is Labour’s approach, but we must not be tempted. If we once discuss local issues on literature, social media or the doorsteps, we risk losing this seat. I know you have put together pledges that you wanted to get out in the final few days, this simple cannot happen now, if it does we will risk losing the seat. By discussing local pledges you'll push voters away from us.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/speakerscorner/2017/06/how-tories-lost

i'm trying to remember how much salience this all had when it was gordon brown doing the same deal -- when it was more or less pre-internet, certainly pre-twitter

Wait holdup is this 2010? You'd had a twitter account for at least a year dude (and had been on the internet IE here for most of a decade)

This is amazing as regards Theresa May's inability to correct what's wrong with her (though she is presumably hoping that she won't face the public for another five years)

https://www.indy100.com/article/uk-general-election-2017-hung-parliament-conservatives-theresa-may-repeats-buzzword-7785491

yes for some reason (unrelated to my advancing years i'm certain) i was confusing 2010 with 2000: however i still do NOT recall its salience on the internet much, or indeed twitter -- so what we're talking abt as much as anything is the changed nature energised political ecologies?

That advice is genuinely astonishing.

hah! don't remind the electorate of how austerity is destroying their local services, just deal in platitudes. I could just imagine how popular that must have been with the doorstep campaigners.

resident opens door, canvasser screams "STRONG AND STABLE" in their face, tip of the hat, move on

This was classic from yesterday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw129jaW4Sk

Someone at work just burst out the other day "oh I am so tired of hearing about 'strong and stable'!"

So much for hammering a message.

RMDE if people are slating Ellie Mae O'Hagan, who has been broadly supportive throughout, actually bothered to talk to Momentum supporters and understand them, and literally went out campaigning for Corbyn in marginal seats, then they aren't able to tolerate the tiniest bit of even constructive/healthy dissent.

The animosity largely comes from this blog.

Anyone who argues Labour’s woes are purely the fault of Jeremy Corbyn is living in a fantasy land. However — and here’s the rub — anyone who thinks that Corbyn isn’t transforming an existential crisis into an unmitigated catastrophe is equally delusional.

Except she didn't call him to step down so I don't share it, so avoiding the trap that someone like Owen Jones fell into - but like I said some people who really stuck with him are now lashing out and I certainly don't want to know how sorry anyone who wrote those pieces are. They just need to withdraw from public life and do something else.

Jeremy Corbyn gets standing ovation as he comes into Commons for first time since the election pic.twitter.com/6mZQxVhMvp

— Esther Webber (@estwebber) June 13, 2017

MUST SEE: "Oh! Jeremy Corbyn!!!"... Jeremy Corbyn greeted on first day back in Parliament with chant from delighted Labour MP's. pic.twitter.com/HPDZ5RuyxJ

— EL4C (@EL4JC) June 13, 2017

looking forward to the Ealing Studios biopic

passport to parliament is the best i can do, sorry folks

the boy in the absolute suit

I think that blog post falls into the category of well-meaning wake-up call fwiw. The majority of people who supported Corbyn clearly didn't think he'd make it this far, and a lot of writers who did support him were constantly belittled (usually with a hefty dose of misogyny in for good measure). After the by-elections you would have been forgiven for fearing a wipeout and the destruction of the left, but he got his shit together after that and these writers swung behind him when it mattered. There's a gulf between that and people like Jason Cowley and Sarah Ditum.

You know who's been really quite lately? Tom Watson.

slowly, but surely...

DUP MP tells me there may be no deal with Tories until weekend & is predicting Queen Speech won't be until Monday 26 June, put back a week.

— joncraigSKY (@joncraig) June 13, 2017

How is it possible that this is still going on? They have to be deliberately putting this shit out there to win as many concessions as possible.

Labour probably have a vested interest in keeping this thing on life support for a while yet, the longer it goes on the worse the headlines will get. The caveat to that is that we're in a highly unstable political and economic environment right now (and the turnaround in Labour's fortunes since the local elections proves that) - difficult to see how they can come back from having to bargain to get every bit of legislation through, mind.

Do they have that long? I thought they had 14 days to form a government before Corbyn gets to have a go. And Brexit negotiations due on 19th

(I'm not sure where I got this 14 day figure from though: it's not in the FTPA, and I learned about it from a tweet)

Ah, it is in the FTPA, but Elections and Queen's Speeches don't count: 14 days from a failed no-confidence vote and that alone.

This is fantastic:

While the usual commentators are scratching their heads, guy this nails Corbynism in 85 seconds. Book him on all yr current affairs shows. pic.twitter.com/qlNrxyqx5m

— hrtbps (@hrtbps) June 12, 2017

I think that blog post falls into the category of well-meaning wake-up call fwiw.

'delusion' in respect to supporters and Momentum members fell into slurs. Agree that O'Hagan's heart was in the right place and she did excellent work thereafter.

I'd argue that a lot of those supporters privately feared the worst and they kept on campaigning anyway. Not to feel any doubts at all about the likelihood of success would be pretty weird.

looking forward to the Ealing Studios biopic

Meanwhile, who the fuck is going to want to watch a docudrama depicting Theresa May's rise to power last year?

Theresa vs Boris: How May Became PM was commissioned before Mrs May called the snap election.

... I'll bet it was. Nice try BBC.

Its one thing to have doubts but 'delusion' is a bit over the top.

Tom Crewe at the LRB also talked to Momentum members earlier this year to similar effects at times. Defending them and yet..

Can't wait for his follow-up. And fuck knows what Runciman is going to write.

Unexpected playoff win and promotion means fairweather fans and glory hunters. We'll need those lads to compete for the title. They'll be dancing in the streets of Westminster tonight

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/509B/production/_96453602_gove_pa.jpg

Gove?

If they were serious about this they'd have Andy Serkis in a spitting image mask to play gove

ffs are the bbc going to pay us to watch this shit?

"dramas" that are just stuff in the news/biographies of famous people from the 60s done by impressionists for an hour and a half are some of the great BBC productions of the last 15 years

who can forget Tony Blair and Gordon Brown Didn't Like Each Other, Doctor Who is a TV Programme from the 1960s or The Secret Life of Peter Sutcliffe?

all starring Michael Sheen

oh don't forget The Night Manager 💩

💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩

💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩💩

Tony Hancock wasn't Funny All the Time

Jolly good evening watching the British football team - proper ordinary British fun!

Put your hands in the air like you just don't care pic.twitter.com/y5WI4DEnOW

— James Doleman (@jamesdoleman) June 13, 2017

Fuck it's the dark crystal isn't it

Or one of them

As featured on the first mentions thread:

Meanwhile, someone has just alerted me to the uncanny resemblence between dominatrix Tory MP Theresa May and a Skeksis...

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 14 April 2003 11:10 (fourteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I keep having to remind myself that there is a not insignificant constituency of people out there who actually think like this

The UK negotiating team on Brexit SHOULD be; David Davis. Jacob Rees Mogg. Nigel Farage. Scare the hell out of the EU.

— David Vance (@DVATW) June 13, 2017

Thankfully there are not too many people like David Vance around, he's a nutjob.

Most of them are in the DUP though.

God help us if there's a war when your most rabid jingoists' idea of 'scary' is Jacob Rees Mogg.

we are prepared to front up with the silliest man in the history of the british isles, that is our level of confidence

think it's more "chinless, monocled Gestapo officer" he's thinking

this is a face that was born to swim into focus, heavily backlit, in a bare-concrete interrogation room

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p038tmsj.jpg

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/1920x1080/p038tmsj.jpg

'in hushed tones they refer to him as mozart. the human nervous system is his orchestra and he has written many exquisite symphonies of pain'

tbf that is a weird animal snarl to be failing to keep out of photos of you

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-S1N-biMH6Jg/U1rldhEPLPI/AAAAAAAAOMA/QwZ1rsYPb5w/s1600/P4260453.JPG
Juncker, Rees-Mogg

I believe that's the innate hauteur of the nobility

the innate inability of the terminally inbred to properly control their muscles

lol calzino, perfect

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/14/corbyn-labour-rethink-strategy-chuka-umunna-yvette-cooper

^
there is probably an important kernel of truth here - ie it WILL indeed be very very difficult for Labour to win next time. It follows that 'broadening the tent', etc, is a perfectly viable idea.

But apart from the general self-centredness of the column, it really lost me when it said:

"Umunna as shadow chancellor instead of John McDonnell?"

I mean, isn't that like saying: "for Corbynism to succeed, Corbyn should stand down in favour of Liz Kendall"?

(And btw I actually like Umunna as media performer, think he may be able to help, and hope he will be involved in some productive way.)

i read that earlier and my primary reaction was wtf

To win power, Corbyn and/or Labour (preferably both) have to change. In fairness to him, he is showing signs of tacking to the centre – most obviously in accepting the party line on Trident renewal.

the most significant victory for labour in recent memory comes on the back of a straight-up leftwing manifesto and this prick is desperate for them to row back to an entirely imaginary centre

I would argue that to win he has to embrace his former critics elsewhere in the party: Chuka Umunna, Yvette Cooper, Angela Eagle, and all those who wanted nothing to do with the Corbyn project and wished it ill.

fuck no, these blairite shits are the ones who should be compromising

at least harriet harman had the good grace to admit she was wrong

I think we can safely disregard these bozos at this point

I mean, one catches ones breath at the sheer myopic inflexibility of these choads, the staggering lack of insight, self- or otherwise, but really it's just groans of the dying

yet more names to be inscribed in the bizarro gazzara 'HURRY UP AND DIE' file

"turns out people really like that whole integrity thing Jeremy, and 'for the many not the few' is playing great with some demographics, but if you could just hitch it to some empty platitudes about hard-working families and legitimate concerns then you might be onto something"

I do want to see those people on board and working for Labour victory. But I agree that it should be on JC's terms, not a trade-off. And the fact is, JC has always been generous and positive towards all these people. It's they who have had the problem.

JC clearly really likes and appreciates McDonnell and vice versa - it's very genuine, very unlike eg May & Hammond or any number of other MP relationships.

I, like some others, don't really hugely like McDonnell as presence, but JC will surely think: McDonnell is the right Chancellor for what I want to do socially and economically - why would he change? (I also think JC would be too loyal to JM even to consider any of this.)

But if JM does eventually get moved for whatever reason - JC could perhaps put Rebecca Long-Bailey in as Shadow Chancellor to good effect, and possibly even gain a bit of support that way, while retaining leftist social democratic position?

one other thing about 'dilemma of bringing in the centrists':

not long ago the issue was that, bcz of these people's actions, JC didn't have ENOUGH people to fill the necessary posts. Hence Thornberry doing two jobs, etc.

So surely there are enough posts to go round?

can someone photoshop lord buckethead in place of vader here thx

http://i.imgur.com/MDOmo9K.gif

in these situations pinefox I honestly admire your optimism and ecumenism, but I don't believe that most of the centrist PLP can be trusted or that they have any genuine interest in social democratic economic reform. JC, as you say, did not start this fight.

re: the phrase "legitimate concerns"

sometime ilxor big beast tom ewing noted yesterday on FB that a tory minister had just use it of ppl wanting more money for public services

i'd love to think the plp would be taking a long hard look at itself in the light of the election results but they've not done much to earn the benefit of the doubt, for sure

xp: yes, I do have ecumenism, though not usually so much optimism.
I could be mistaken to be optimistic about what the PLP will do.

xp also: hilarious about Ewing as big beast! :D

Was going to say, ecumenically and optimistically:

It is great that we have gone from 'no one will serve and Labour is collapsing' to 'look how much "talent" we have'.

I am happy for eg Yvette Cooper to be Shadow Home Secretary*, + other such people to come back (NB Cooper was never part of any 'revolt', having refused to serve in the first place). Give Umunna a Culture / Arts job, why not?

(*I don't see any reason to think that YC would be 'too right-wing' in this post. One of her causes has been refugees, for instance.)

BUT I am also glad that Labour has shown how well it can do without such people - would the heroic BARRY GARDINER, perhaps the greatest star of the election, ever have had the chance to shine so brightly otherwise? He and Thornberry have earned a ton of credit and the right to top posts.

And we have the relatively leftist young talent of Rayner (also a great election figure), Long-Bailey - maybe a future Labour PM and Chancellor team! (!?!!) -- and I believe that Clive Lewis will return.

This is heartening.

re: the phrase "legitimate concerns"

sometime ilxor big beast tom ewing noted yesterday on FB that a tory minister had just use it of ppl wanting more money for public services

someone's gonna bollocked by conservative central office for using 'legitimate concerns' about actual concerns which have legitimacy instead of its actual proper meaning, which is as a fig-leaf for expression horrible opinions about immigration

a twitter thread perhaps worth reading on this same piece:

Can you actually imagine. Why will Jeremy Corbyn not listen to me and shoot himself in the foot?

— James B (@piercepenniless) June 14, 2017

(sorry deems, sometimes it's the only way)

("same piece" = the stephen moss piece)

also Stevie T's fave LISA NANDY - she has been too critical of JC for my liking - but these people don't have to have big controversial jobs, do they? I mean there are tons of junior posts they could be given?

Idea I just had: is it possible that some of these Labour MPs did well on June 8th partly BECAUSE they were refusing to serve in cabinet roles and thus had 'more time to dedicate to their constituents'?

lol, thread in question actually starts here:

Some thoughts on frankly embarrassing piece in the Guardian on Corbyn and how the new shadow cabinet should work: https://t.co/50cDlfXgJx

— James B (@piercepenniless) June 14, 2017

Mark: yes I am quite persuaded by that thread and didn't like the G article at all. He's right that the soccer metaphor is a bad waste.

But there is room for a lot of compromise here. No need for so much aggro; much need for unity and common purpose. No evidence yet that eg Cooper would turn voters off Labour, or would do anything bad and reactionary if appointed. The Chancellor Umunna idea is where it becomes absurd.

I can think of a certain newspaper and online media empire that needs to rethink its strategy lol

there are plenty of MPs whose stated objection to the kind of policies in the manifesto was that "they aren't popular enough" - they were wrong. if they still have objections, I'd like to hear explicitly what they are

The Guardian is rethinking its strategy.

it will soon be a tabloid!

Yes.