The car's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel - The Tory leadership elections

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DuDtreoXQAEi8iU.jpg

Latest odds:

Boris Johnson – 3/1
Dominic Raab – 5/1
Michael Gove – 8/1
Jeremy Hunt – 10/1
Andrea Leadsom – 16/1
Matthew Hancock – 16/1
Rory Stewart – 16/1
Sajid Javid – 16/1
Penny Mordaunt – 20/1
Amber Rudd – 33/1
Jacob Rees-Mogg – 33/1
James Cleverly – 33/1
Priti Patel – 33/1
50/1 bar

Hancock may be worth a punt at 16/1 but would expect someone going for the full Brexit. Bold prediction it won't be BoJo.

Docked points for resisting 'cunt-off'

https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/british-politics/next-conservative-leader

them odds are stale, boris is widely available at odds on.

My feeling is that the old rules of 'dull compromise candidate wins' don't work any more with their newish voting system, so people may be overrating Jeremy Hunt

xp love reading the 750-1 odds whenever these things come up.

This time: William Hague, Ken Clarke, Michael Portillo, Grant Shapps, John Redwood, Louise Bagshawe, Heidi Allen

people may be overrating Jeremy Hunt

this goes without saying, i'm just noting that he'll win

he's a steady cuntinuity character.

Was a bit premature with my list as a big beast prepares to enter the fray:

Sir Graham Brady confirms he's considering standing to be PM so has stood down as chair of the 1922 backbench committee

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) May 24, 2019

I can't believe you put Liz Truss above Some other Muppet.

to be fair to the tories, this only underscores what a deep bench of ghouls, frauds, idiots and maniacs they have

Seamless succession already laid on.

https://www.conservatives.com/-/media/Images/Site-Redesign/Profile-Pictures/Stephen-Crabb/Crabb-01.ashx?h=600&la=en&w=519&hash=FC4D54583B4C91F888D7EFC05B608CCDA414BC82

that lad who was 7th person to take the dwp brief in 2 years, really stood head and shoulders above the rest of them by erm.. being welsh.

And sexting to 17 year old constituents - that was him wasn't it?

... I beg his pardon, 19 year old.

and i seem to recall rumours he was afflicted with some old good fashioned christian fundamentalist hypocrisy when it came to fucking men as well!

it'll be Rory won't it?

too fey and asexual for nasty party imo.

the logical conclusion of that post could mean I'm sexually attracted to Boris and Theresa. Just checking if my local vets practice castrates humans as well.

the internet's thriving nullo community has come great diy advice if the vet is reluctant

Went for Penny Morduant - little to no public profile (and if you want to do evil and fool ppl that you aren't quite that this is important), and a Brexiteer. Kate Maltby said that (unlike Leadsom) she isn't socially conservative. Lol and all but if she can get to a Cameron-type likeability across then I can see it happening.

negatives: name is a jk rowling villain

Negatives only to libs, the con faithful are all 1000 years old and wouldn't know wtf that is

xxp I think not socially conservative is a little bit of a stretch because that certainly doesn’t apply to her stance on the military or historical war crimes

Yeah totally, what Kate must mean is will be sympathetic on women's issues or some such guff.

cometh the hour cometh the man, michael gove

Voted Gove cos he’s clearly done the legwork to make fellow MPs forget what a snake he was, he’s headbanger enough for ERG & the membership and has a lot of press sympathy. Plus the MPs can block Boris but they can’t block everyone and Gove seems as likely to get to the final two this time as anyone. Plus let’s face it, the banter heuristic demands it.

Too weird looking to be PM, sorry not sorry.

This is also SV’s logic but it doesn’t apply outside a GE scenario (and applies to Stewart at least as much?)

Applies to 95 percent of UK prime ministers tbh

And also Gove is what the Tory party (but afaict no other part of the country) considers to be warm and intellectual and personable, so...

Too weird looking to be PM, sorry not sorry.

negatives: name is a jk rowling villain

last time they basically chose Dolores Umbridge, so

Write-in vote for Coldplay's In-a-Gadda-da-Vida album

weird looking UK PM's from the old era don't count, these days Anthony Eden would get arrested walking too slowly past a school. Back then he was a certified sex symbol - proof: he had a hat named after him!

Hitler had a moustache named after him tbf

if you asked for a Hitler on Savile Row they wouldn't pass you a moustache tho!

Hold on, Boris isn't popular enough with the (non-Tory) general public but Michael Gove is??!?!? This is Boris all the way unless there's a concerted effort by the parliamentary party to stop him, in which case it's Raab. Hunt insufficiently Brexity.

the general public just need the same XXX strength beer goggles sarah Vine wears.

Feel like the canniest candidates might just turn up on Love Island this summer

I’m talking about this specific election which is confined to Tory MPs and members. Gove would get turned over in a GE.

(xxp) Sarah Vine, there's another drawback. I'm wondering if Boris might even decide to sit this one out when he realizes the enormity of the shitshow that's developing.

This is the thing - he'll have to do work, which is beneath him

Sarah Vine would be piiiiiiiiiiisssed offffffff if she had to give up her column, for which she is paid silly but not quite Boris Johnson at the Telegraph money. Come to think of it, Boris Johnson must be skint from divorce lawyers etc....

Oh yeah he won't be able to keep it in whenever he meets a hot head of state either.

Boris wins the vote.

He calls a GE as soon as the reins are in his hand, convinced of his own popularity.

He loses.

...to such an alarming degree he's forced into forming a coalition government with Labour.

What, those Marxists?!

Matt Hancock, who is apparently the Health Secretary, has thrown his hat into the ring.

his perpetual beaming grin countenance will make him a hit with Cliff Richard fans.

Sad state of affairs when that insignificant little squirt thinks he can be come Prime Minister.

what's lower than 'the dregs'? May has long since passed the barrel scraping stage of Conservative talent.

I fear not!

Boris wins, don't think he'll call a GE though (also got to factor

Wouldn't be surprised to see a post-victory pivot of some sort though, maybe second referendum

xxp Mark Francois

Dancing on May's grave on Newsnight last night. Oddly enough it would've been an antidote to the 'she's human after all' dreck if it wasn't coming from such a disgusting place

I saw Owen Jones’s clip of him saying why May deserved no sympathy was doing numbers on US twitter last night, which was nice.

Banter heuristic: Johnson or perhaps Rees-Mogg sneaks onto the final membership ballot (with inevitable victory to come) by a margin of one or two votes, thanks to the three CUK defectors

I've worked out what Matt Hancock reminds me of - a vicar in an 80s sitcom whose daughter has brought a punk boyfriend to dinner.

Bananaman's prediction would be hilarious if it wasn't so terrifyingly likely to happen.

rory stewart has the only endorsement that matters

Thank you https://t.co/UaiseKqnWQ

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) May 25, 2019

lol

I saw Owen Jones’s clip of him saying why May deserved no sympathy was doing numbers on US twitter last night, which was nice.

Exceptionally good!

Cackling at the Hedges endorsement, that’s incredible.

God knows there’s enough of the other shite about. It’s bad enough the pious finger-wagging when these fucks die and you decline to pretend they were good people, we certainly don’t have to take it for a fucking career change

I also enjoyed Nicholas Winton’s daughter coming out to slap down May (figuratively) and Lord Dubs too.

any people talking about her premiership and legacy without even mentioning little things like Hostile Environment, two child tax credit rape clause, continuity Gideon austerity - the very things that make her widely reviled everywhere outside the tory heartlands, can totally get fucked. Sometimes OJ is a bit of a prat, but he was spot on yesterday I thought.

loving hancock's pitch. "vote for me, I'll lose to jeremy corbyn in a GE by christmas"

admin note, this^^^ is the thread for discussing these various bozos and why hunt will win

this other thread is for exploring why boris will lose:
the boris project: slouching blond beast who can or shrunken cowardly lump who was never going to

I think this leadership contest might be more unpredictable than people seem to be assuming . They couldn’t get rid of May earlier because there were too many candidates and factions.

— Wrath of Kahn (@allthatisol) May 25, 2019

I open up my ballot
And it's full of cunts

Any time someone professes to thinking Rory Stewart is ‘quite good, for a Tory’, I point them towards this magnificent New Yorker profile revealing him as a vainglorious berk who can barely boil an egg. https://t.co/JDOd2Z8M8u

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) May 25, 2019

He had discussed with friends an idea that might help prepare him: he would live in a housing project for two or three years, to better understand British poverty

lool, the children would eat him alive where I live!

I also enjoyed the bit where he describes himself as lower middle class and then there’s a quick segue to him tutoring Prince William and Harry on the basis of being friends with Prince Charles.

Royal Family notoriously middle class iirc

They didn't go to Eton after all.

His dad is officer/spy class but I suppose he’s not actually in The Peerage index so in his world, that’s non-U.

Something I've been wondering - it seems to be taken as read that whoever wins will be acceptable enough to the DUP to allow the government to continue. Is that actually the case?

they will play hardball with every option as ever: it's not abt acceptable so much as gameable

I presume the threat of Corbyn marxist govt is even more unpalatable to them, but they can't be happy with some of Mcvey's braindead pronouncements on the border question - not that she's a serious contender - but I think Raab and others are chatting similar shit.

Anyone going on about the backstop and how it needs to be time limited or abolished and how the evil EU are trying to “annex” NI is acceptable to them; the moderates (if they exist) trying to pass a similar deal will very much not be. Anyone inconvenienced by reality will have the support withdrawn.

Also there is as far as I can see no way around the big problem - that the pronouncements any candidate needs to make in order to win are the exact same things that will lead them to fail at the job, even on their own terms.

Yep. They can promise and even get no deal - but they will still need to sit down with the EU for a deal in the end.

Re: DUP. As long as the winner pays up I don't see the problem. All good bar the backstop.

the GFA binds the EU also :)

LOLz if the Maybot is replaced by the Raabot. Could barely manage about 30 seconds of Marr inteviewing a vacuum this morning.

He genuinely thinks being a lawyer is a selling point.

the winner will be the biggest wife guy = it will be hunt vs gove

= it will be hunt

Hmmmmm

https://i.prcdn.co/img?regionKey=iWqH6b7%2BNqrQaR9yb6gwrw%3D%3D&scale=100

Heard some joker (been watching too much marvel shit probs) referring to Gove vs Boris as a "tantalising battle" on 5live earlier.

if it involved heavy blunt instruments and was to the death, sure

I mean, it'll involve at least one.

If Miliband can't run the country because he eats bacon like a horse I demand Michael Gove be held to the same standard for these atrocities pic.twitter.com/5rUeMatc8U

— James Felton (@JimMFelton) May 26, 2019

There was a decent joke about Gove in here - https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ng-interactive/2019/may/25/stephen-collins-on-boris-johnson-cartoon

i just passed Rory Stewart in the street, giving an interview to camera, and he was shockingly thin and twig-like, which i probably wouldn't have noticed except his suit was so large in comparison, it looked like it was going to swallow him head-first

Do not underestimate the determination of the skeletal man.

Has 10 Downing Street ever been a tabloid-style "love nest" before? Or has every PM in living memory been a smug married (apart from Heath of course)?

bet Stewart could still tek Gove in a feight. I could picture him having a preternaturally deadly strangle grip!

Marmite in the end today, better than no jam tomorrow.

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) May 26, 2019

Come again?

Gets my vote

wife guy vs yeast guy

i'm trying to delete it

You can see why most of these idiots end up talking like robots, as soon as they go off-piste they embarrass themselves 9 times out of 10.

Rory Stewart tells Sky News he would lock MPs in parliament right through summer recess until a Brexit deal is reached

— Kylie MacLellan (@kyliemaclellan) May 26, 2019

Hahaha Tracer, if *you* think someone’s a twig....

indeed

Give it to Stewart for this gurn alone.

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/4dab3fe85ea10cd281a9b0e1cb06eeaacf5edcb5/0_0_2560_1536/master/2560.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=42c68e9854a135ee8a3f0c708a6bb6de

It beats Raab squashing his face against a pane of glass.

Surprised Raab hasn’t been caught licking windows.

I had literally never heard of Rory Stewart before about three days ago.

I had, in the context of someone complaining a few months ago about one of the worst modern Foreign Ministers being at 75% approval on a conhome survey while Rory Stewart, who mostly just keeps his head down* and gets on with his work, is at 17%.

*I'm aware that being good at your work as a Tory makes you a bad person, but that's not a differentiating attribute as a Leadership Contest contestant.

No-one, not even Rory Stewart, hopes that Rory Stewart happens as much as Eddie Redmayne does.

r stewart wears a permanent look of having just been startled awake from some kind of eggy hibernation sac

god that new yorker profile of stewart is fucking perfect, i could read it over and over again

It is good.

Just had my mother on the phone feeling sorry for Theresa May, but interrupting with Trumpy talking points when I was trying to outline the Windrush scandal as part of the explanation of why I did not feel sorry that she'd asked for. Then she asked about ‘that Boris guy’ (she thinks he’s ‘creepy looking’) and actually allowed me to run down all the shitty things he’s done. Then on to Brexit itself: ‘why can’t they just have another vote?’

*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

Correction:
Marmite today, in the end better than more jam tomorrow.

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) May 26, 2019

Can't wait til this douche milkshake ducks himself

"Rory Stewart, who mostly just keeps his head down* and gets on with his work"

Not keeping his head down now is he?

xp Milkshake? Duck!

I promise I'll be done with Gove after this, but this monologue on the Scottish deserves to be seen. pic.twitter.com/PiAgabv3wg

— Chris Morris Bits (@chrismorrisbits) May 27, 2019

unsurprisingly he absolutely sucked at being young as well!

christ, in that thread there is something about young edge-lord Gove interviewing Alan Clark and during a conversation about Iraq suddenly displaying graphic pics of dead Kurdish chemical attack victims, including children straight to the fucking camera.

And laughing.

Now - if anyone is around and wants to talk - in Kew Gardens - for the next hour pic.twitter.com/E45A26Y5uR

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) May 28, 2019

Turn your location on, Gove!

TALK OR CHALLENGE ME U COWARD

I love Barking. Now moving up from McDonald’s to Costa - come and talk or challenge me pic.twitter.com/7XoCxuJl7G

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) May 27, 2019

BRB going to buy a gauntlet

A photo with an innocent black punter he’s met on the street? He’s got my vote!

Let's be fair to the intrepid fellow: Ludo from The Last Samurai would have considered him as a surrogate dad for at least three seconds. He can speak fucking Pashto after all

hey did u know rory was in afghanistan, nbd

Practising my now - rather rusty - Dari. #Barking pic.twitter.com/xaa0qjAkSL

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) May 27, 2019

Stewart knows Dari but not Pashto, whereas SV fave/leadership no-hoper Tom Tugendhat says he can speak Dari, Pashto, Arabic, as well as French (he is half French).

Hunt speaks French, Chinese and Japanese I think?

he's secured the crucial fatty soames vote

We need to come together as a party, and we need someone who can sort out Brexit, and restore pride, hope and confidence to Britain. That person is @RoryStewartUK. #Iamhonouredtosupporthimhttps://t.co/rfrjt93JFf

— Nicholas Soames (@NSoames) May 28, 2019

the only other underfed-looking posh people I can think of had sizeable opiate habits which I'm sure isn't the case here.

no point talking about politics to bookie degenerates, the average punter only reads the back pages of tabloid newspapers. Although they might mistake him for a jockey.

Hahaha he totally looks like a jockey.

Whoever would have though there was space for a British Beto O'Rourke

beto o'rourke is not an aquaphibian

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/4RwAAOxyF0pThwEy/s-l300.jpg

Grauniad are doing a poll tracker.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2019/may/28/tory-leadership-contest-odds-tracker-whos-up-and-whos-down

Or actually a not-poll tracker

"The percentages are the implied probabilities of each candidate becoming the next Conservative leader, based on the latest betting odds."

here's an idea - just show the betting odds instead, because turning into a percentage doesn't make it any more of a science!

whither nate silver in our hour of need

🚨 Tory leadership latest 🚨

Chris Grayling is *not* running for the Conservative party leadership. He will be backing "someone else".

— Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) May 28, 2019

They’ll be waiting with bated breath for his endorsement.

a shocking lack of vision from one of the conservative party's most accomplished frontbenchers imo

chris grayling, go on ballot

there have been many many jokes about the lib dems receiving grayling's application to be leader, guess this works with that

He considers himself a member of the lower-upper-middle classes which means – despite this accent – he’s quite posh but not properly so. Eton and Oxford, yes, but also – if briefly – the Black Watch and, eternally, Scotland too. I suspect he thinks of himself as an outsider on the inside; a member of the club but in some vague way not quite a full, or born, one.

That’s from https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/05/the-refreshing-ridiculousness-of-rory-stewart/

ah yes, one of those classic outsiders who enjoys the patronage of the royal family

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/TOsOZmznPGc/hqdefault.jpg

^^^^

Officer class. Dad posted abroad at just the right time for the government to pay his son’s school fees - no flies on Daddy, apparently.

The Auld Acquaintance Cairn, near the border at Gretna, would be, he hoped, ‘a lasting marker of our union, something that future generations will look back at and remember, with deep gratitude, the moment we chose to stay together’. This was very Stewartish: slightly unworldly, romantic, and easily mocked. But even if Rory’s Cairn has been largely forgotten now, there are reckoned to be 100,000 stones there, brought to it by people from all across the United Kingdom. And it is still there.

me: https://caleythistleonline.com/uploads/monthly_2016_08/a2dw7lawtzjtwo0ibb48cpndsr6v7h.jpeg.169b7e4592f17fe58cbb03d9d5d5979d.jpeg

can we not traduce rasputin by association with rory stewart pls

Tired: voting for Morduant in an internet poll for Tory party leader.

Wired: actually joining the Tories to vote for Rory Stewart and bring world peace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed-ARQhR9Bg

are you pretending to hold your phone?

— Matthew Champion (@matthewchampion) May 28, 2019

Yes

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) May 28, 2019

the lower-upper-middle classes

only in England...

https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/5c0a7851965aa0162203f983-750-422.jpg https://e3.365dm.com/18/04/768x432/skynews-james-cleverly-mp_4296288.jpg?20180429152715

lol with Dumberly and Malthouse yesterday.. some real big beasts entering the fray. I think Malthouse needs to announce again today.. no-one noticed yesterday.. maybe 2nd time's the charm.

Malthouse raised eyebrows on Tuesday by suggesting the government could buy up lamb chops to feed to schoolchildren in the event of no deal. Malthouse told LBC: “Something like 80,000 tonnes of sheep meat is exported every year. Now if we go out with no deal, they think that will be significantly affected … could we use it in hospitals and in schools?”

and uh who's going to pay for it

quality leadership race content, featuring the most Tory Boy Tory Boy of all time
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-48408025

Harry Bickling-Baker FFS

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/156DA/production/_107107778_hhb.jpg

Bradley Goodwin is also impressed by Mr Raab's intellect and grasp of policy that he says "other Brexiteers don't have".
"He has been making demands of the EU that even Theresa May has not been making," he adds.

intellectuals read "books" right?

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/87ac2b939073caab25c6e807bc77198f8d063d84/35_0_953_572/master/953.jpg?width=620&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=94f652335b55d15474fa275778221328

I mean fair play to the lad - he’s got books on his windowsill that I wouldn’t have in my toilet.

raab's intellect and grasp of policy: "“I hadn’t quite understood the full extent of this,” he said. “But if you look at how we trade in goods, we are particularly reliant on the Dover-Calais crossing.”

he clearly hadn't yet gotten around to reading the imposing hardback volume which explains the basics of modern british industry

and indeed ancient british marine geography

or Arnie's autobiography

Things you were shockingly old when you learned (cos of library consisting of readers digest book club staples - which you haven't read)

tfw you need to appear smart on tv but you don't own any bookshelves

having the time of my life with a bunch of bookshelves, they're all just out of frame, laughing too (at me)

Bookshelves obviously crammed with unsold copies of "Britannia Unchained".

at home with the Raabs

a good book is a magical portal to another world pic.twitter.com/IpfxVJ17af

— Alex Norris (@dorrismccomics) December 19, 2018

He’s the one with the injunctions involving two women, right?

Really? Never heard anything about that, but hardly matters with Boris "Family Man" Johnson in the race.

I am p. sure books should not be on windowsills, given how faded the books on my bookshelf in the vague proximity of a window which doesn't even get any direct sunlight are

but I guess they're only going to sit there for an hour and then the intern will be sent to take them back to the remainder bookshop they probably all came from an hour before the shoot

"the thickest books you've got in your £3 section, please. Arnie? sure, whatever, it's a hardback and has classy-looking shiny text"

look there's no reason to bring back up the allegations of 'inappropriate behaviour with a woman' which afflicted mr raab some two years ago, have never been conclusively proven and thus in no way are a cause for concerns about his character

nor indeed the ones which similarly bedeviled rory stewart, who did you know actually walked across afghanistan and speaks dari

i think dominic raab buys his books by the kilo

Pound, surely?

fuck you're right, i've exposed my soft latte-sipping underbelly

anyway, while we're on the subject of raab and books, here he is defending his sketchy understanding of the good friday agreement

He also admitted he hadn’t read the Good Friday Agreement – crucial to peace in Northern Ireland – start to finish.

“At various points in the negotiations, when issues have been raised, it has been an important opportunity to delve into the different aspects very carefully,” he told MPs.

“It’s not like a novel where you sit down and you say ‘do you know what, over the holidays, this is a cracking read’.”

harry bickling-baker schooled and owned

Posting for posterity: That transformer textbot today, fed something about Boris, threw up "Bozzers has a face like the scene of a crime."

i did enjoy that two of the tory boys interviewed for that piece were named harry

"Bozzers has a face like the scene of a crime."

o fuck it's gaining sentience

:)

harry bickling-baker schooled and owned

― mark s, Wednesday, May 29, 2019 2:30 PM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark

easy targets yes, but old enough to know better and to be mocked by middle aged message board denizens

tory boys are never old enough to know better

Bad news, these are all moderates now, since Esther McVey has declared that she would pursue No Deal as her first and only choice.

having the time of my life with a bunch of bookshelves, they're all just out of frame, laughing too (at me)

My boy has taken opium then.

Rory Stewart’s a canny good illustration of the violence wreaked upon British masculinity by TE Lawrence, Patrick Leigh Fermor and Bruce Chatwin

— Viva la Paul Crowther Brigada (@pdkmitchell) May 30, 2019

Mildly interesting thread on Rory Stewart lit

Wait...is he genuinely your choice or are you actually in the tank for some mad accelerationist fave?

Choice for leader? No, I don't care I want a general election and Corbyn at 10 (and btw I'm no accelerationist either, but I know I can give that impression).

He has added some mild unexpected amusement to what is a fucking grim situation, just riding that wave rn.

Fair play.

Malthouse or death.

Love Gove. McVey’s the way. Raab’s fab.

Hunt's Not A Cunt

let’s not sell ourselves short, we can have malthouse AND death

hey Malthouse has a middle-classerised scouse accent, it must have been as laugh-a-minute as being in Bread growing up in his house innit Jess?

This is sweet:

A very moving symbol of modern Britain in Woking mosque. Thank you so much for the hospitality #greenfairunited #rorywalks pic.twitter.com/n2H218792D

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) May 31, 2019

Shane it will enrage the racists in his party

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2019-06/1/4/asset/buzzfeed-prod-web-05/sub-buzz-30790-1559379473-1.jpg?downsize=1040%3A%2A&output-quality=auto&output-format=auto

curb your enthusiasm theme music is strong with this montage

what has happened to Cleverly and Javid here? I know they are both fucking running jokes ... but no more than the rest of them!

... Harper, Malthouse. Javid's one of the frontrunners, suppodely.

..osedly

Re that montage

I’d like to report a murder pic.twitter.com/XxKZ1N8lYS

— Leicester Legend Grace Petrie (@gracepetrie) June 1, 2019

god javid is such a moron

lads ye will have yere fun with thick paddy here but if ye for a second think i swallow an actual tory mp called penny mordaunt i mean rly

she’s named after a ship darragh

The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one... but still they come...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/02/sam-gyimah-joins-tory-leadership-race-offering-second-referendum

Waiting for May to throw her hat in the ring at this point

"Stewart has done well to bump an actual contender (Mordaunt) from there."

Is that why she's not standing?

... yet.

Yeah I’d actually missed that Mordaunt hadn’t declared but I’d be very surprised if she doesn’t.

James Cleverly first to withdraw from leadership race

— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) June 4, 2019

with his name as trench as a caption by matt

I'm assuming most of the no hopers, while vain enough not to see themselves as absolute no hopers, are more motivated by thoughts of selling their support to a big dog in exchange for patronage in the next cabinet than they are than they are by thoughts of winding up behind the wheel of the clown car

I didn't know he entered the race.

Tory Party has now backed itself into a situation where anything short of a full-on state of exception looks like weakness https://t.co/zoiQxpnxOV

— Will Davies (@davies_will) June 5, 2019

From earlier in that thread - this is why the Anyone But Borises have been giving way to Anyone But Raabs

NEW: Raab becomes the first leadership candidate to refuse to rule out proroguing Parliament to force through a no deal Brexit

He says ruling anything out is “weakening our hand with the EU... If I become PM we are leaving at the end of October”

— Alex Wickham (@alexwickham) June 5, 2019

If Raab gets a decent headwind he could split the hard Brexit vote and prevent either of them getting on the final ballot.

Is there a single Remain Tory in the race or have they all decided there's just no point?

YES! YES! YES!
THANK YOU @SamGyimah !!!
Oi!! Tories! You now have a contender who isn't going to "f*** business" (Boris) via no-deal or turn the UK into a "slave state" (Mogg) via the deal. If you want ANY chance of saving your party, Sam Gyimah is your Obi Wan!@Conservatives https://t.co/Q6aOHq7dyJ

— Femi (@Femi_Sorry) June 2, 2019

excruciating

So excruciating. He was on the Trump Sucks march yesterday wearing an over-laundered T-shirt that said I’M FEMI - ASK ME ABOUT BREXIT and honestly, the FBPE provoked some serious RMDE.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/resources/images/9948538.jpg?display=1&htype=0&type=responsive-gallery

detail from hieronymus bosch's "snivelling little scrote descends into hell".

Oh, he's fine with being Scottish now, is he?

Talking of snivelling little scrotes, this one stops just short of using the H word to describe Corbyn...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/05/majority-of-voters-think-boris-johnson-would-make-bad-pm-polling-expert

for starters wasn't that De Gaulle fellow a bit of an anti-semite.. anyway I thought Hancock is supposed to be mr nice guy? that's a terrible slur to make against someone and absolute hyperbolic claptrap to boot.

Excuse me, Richard Nixon?

seeing as it's already national ahistorical nostalgia week let's also pretend all Western leaders have never been anti-semites since h word.

Churchill was a raving antisemite. It’s debated that De Valera was ...oh sorry, I forgot, Ireland isn’t a “western” country when people are trying to paint Corbyn as “anti-western”..

he had the 3rd reich on speed-dial did that cunt!

@matthancockmp sends vile tweet about "queers". Cameron shd sack him now, or is this how Tories really think? pic.twitter.com/0BEEl7DGqb

— Steve Reed (@SteveReedMP) October 2, 2014

My boy restoring order to democracy:

We live in a parliamentary democracy. You can try to lock the gates of parliament. But to do so for this purpose would be unlawful. This plan is unlawful, undemocratic, and unacheivable. And the idea itself is profoundly offensive to our liberty constitution and traditions. https://t.co/2yjQiNje1q

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) June 5, 2019

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Interesting to compare these results with the ones from a cpl months ago - Who will be next Tory leader?

Hunt now less popular, Gove still a strong fav, Raab has fallen out of the running, but Boris Johnson, totally written off by ilx last time round is now the leading candidate.

Boris Johnson 7
Michael Gove 6
Some other Muppet 4
Jeremy Hunt 4
Rory Stewart 3
Penny Mordaunt 3
Jacob Rees-Mogg 2
Andrea Leadsom 1

With the one

Jeremy Hunt 7
Michael Gove 6
Dominic Raab 3
Penny Mordaunt 2
David Davis 2
Priti Patel 1
Jacob Rees-Mogg 1
Amber Rudd 1
Rory Stewart 1
Tom Tugendhat 1
Gavin Williamson 1
Andrea Leadsom 1
Sajid Javid 1

I can only conclude ilx doesn't have a clue

In my veins:

BREAKING: the latest YouGov poll puts us narrowly in the lead, once awareness is taken into account- ie once you remove the “don’t know enough about this candidate” I am now ahead of Boris and the other candidates. This is vital as we build awareness. Thank you. Let’s keep going.

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) June 7, 2019

Can't help think that the Stewart vote is bit of wish fulfillment for a slightly less nasty, less Eurosceptic Tory to win.

Let's keep going on a long march into the desert to won over the natives

Cue swelling Maurice Jarre orchestration

once you remove the “don’t vomit enough about this candidate” i am in the lead

The two things that made Cameron a winner with people who didn’t really agree with him, wrt the grass roots, were that he was recognised as ‘one of us’ or a social superior and he was the kind of vaguely smart, successful person they would like their granddaughter to marry. Get through the first stage of selection by the party as an inoffensive anyone-but-x candidate and he has the laity locked down.

I may have picked the wrong Pashto-speaking, ex-forces, centre-right, upper-middle-class MP but I think this is still true.

Also the laity is now somehow even more extra super mental than it used to be

do people really want their granddaughters marrying that homonculus-looking mf

*reads a bunch of 19th century novels* yes, they do

NEW: Channel 4 will broadcast the first Conservative leadership debate, with a live studio audience. Apply to attend here: https://t.co/dbJl3sz72T

— Survation. (@Survation) June 7, 2019

Conservative Leadership Debate is taped in front of a live studio audience

Michael Gove admits to taking cocaine on 'several social occasions' https://t.co/0n4t4ziFoo

— Guardian politics (@GdnPolitics) June 7, 2019

loool the Stewart effect kicking in. next Jeremy Hunt talks about his accidental exposure to some M-cat in 2008.

which one did DMT

"well it said "plant food" on the label... and there was no clear warning Not to snort it like a fucking deranged greedy pig on it's last night on earth ... etc..

I can only conclude ilx doesn't have a clue

Hmmmm, not quite, mark s hasn't a clue, he's been trying to persuade the rest of us that Boris is a busted flush and unelectable for years now. Never bought into that tbh.

So you're saying that you voted for Boris previously but Mark hacked the poll?

the current betting market is totally not concerned with stupid fucking latest ClickbaitGov poll: BJ is red hot fav @ 8/15 and Opium boy is 33's.

can boris get to be prime minister by the new* tory means of not bothering to stand for election: possibly (tho i'd still bet against it)
can boris win a GE: nope

*as in developed largely since i last noted that boris is over

S Bush reckons Boris would be perfect tory leader for Corbyn to run against and beat, can't remember his working out but agree with him. Having him as leader would be effectively signalling that have given up on a significant chunk of their voters - specifically the "moderate" remain voting lot.

SB's reasoning is iirc largely based on careful attention to polling -- including polling negatives (as well as patiently sceptical familiarity with the attitudes of MPs)

adapting my two startling post-baldrick political insights so that they actually interact with one another: if it's true that mnay's intransigence has enormously damaged the "normal" working of the various intersecting institutions she was embedded in (claim made up uthread), then that certainly includes their ability to protect themselves against long-term self-harm (which has to date been the tory party's secretest and yet most public weapon: it is after all by far the oldest political party still extant, even counting globally). which means its protections against the massive harm of bojo -- whatever they actually are -- are also reduced: so yes, he may stumble through… but the state of said institutions if/when he does will be such that they will immediately just wreck him

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/83/d5/4d/83d54d6d5ee7c71773f1da13b8bd4ad8.gif

.@sajidjavid: I like a cigarette, I punched bullies first and I love a cheeky Nando'shttps://t.co/ZfKC4OkpEZ

— Telegraph Politics (@TelePolitics) June 7, 2019

when is one of these authentocrat jokers going to try a solemn + respectful Nandos ffs.

wtf is a cheeky motherfucking Nandos?

lol i typed out the phrase "as a tory i always insist on a dignified and respectful nandos" and then deleted it bcz the bufton-tufton telegraph is long dead and there is no benefit to pretending otherwise

To go back to Tom D's point on Boris its kinda surpising that he hasn't pulled any stunts or said shit (or too much of it anyway) or admitted to drug taking. So far anyway.

And to square with Mark's point its true that Boris is unlikely to win a GE, but I think that's true for any Tory winning this. I mean what we are seeing is Nandos, cocaine/youthful (at 31, which is young for Tory I suppose) indiscretion, walks and chats about *stuff* on the street and shitty social media. Anything but policy apart from: a) who is going to be hardest brexity on brexit or b) Raab's Unchained stuff which would be under the spotlight in a GE should he win and something I don't see playing that well at the doorstep. Its the total lack on the policy front that is fucking these Tories up.

that Graun piece on the Peterbrough by-election result yesterday highlighted that campaigning on policies (rather than degrees of brexit or brexit betrayed) is still doing the biz with the electorate and all is not lost.

Its always going to be that. Often you get one of those back bench Tories saying Brexit today Jerusalem tomorrow but people want them to show some working and the Tory party is too exhausted for coherent bullshit rn.

tory leadership hopefuls scramble before all the good drug confessions get taken and they're left having to confess to misguided teenage nutmeg binges and attempts to huff pritt-stick https://t.co/sTqICTlTEg

— Ben (@cinemashoebox) June 8, 2019

Crack or gtfo

drug abuse has totally been tapped out now.. maybe the masturbation confessions next?

Gove outs himself as much loved ILM poster Turrican

Frighteningly plausible.

lol talking of masturbation.

Pretty sure Turrican has never regretted anything. But then neither has Gove.

Raab's Unchained stuff which would be under the spotlight in a GE should he win and something I don't see playing that well at the doorstep.

c'mon workers do want to test themselves in Victorian sweatshop conditions - you get to make fat oligarchs richer and find out if you're as nailz as your ancestors were .. it's a total winner on the doorsteps!

PETER HITCHENS: The truth is Britain's entire elite has been corrupted by drug abuse for decades

lool!!

I have to say Mr Gove’s confession comes as no great surprise to me. Our entire political and media elite, across all major parties, have long been corrupted by drug abuse. I am not talking about the teenage follies they sometimes confess to. Legions of them have taken illegal drugs far more recently than they care to admit, and even more of them, idiotically, allow their teenage children to do so.

I ain't takin' no shorts,
whether for the rap or the dope game,
bitch, I'm still a man

Peter Hitchens

By the nature of the crime, they probably cannot remember all the occasions when they broke the law.

tbf he's fucking nailed it there!

Well, we’ve had caners as PM and as Chancellor already; I have good gossip about the former’s antics at Notting Hill wedding receptions.

no doubt about that degen! PH reminds me of my dad accusing me of being a "glue sniffer" when I was dabbling with the bad stuff!

like we don't these pig fucking degenerates are strangers bacchanalian excess!

know

hmm .... shouldn't have smoked that drug before typing during a dizzy spell.

PH as ever the only person actually sticking to the horrible principles tories affect to stand for, for this he has my grudging, um, still not respect tbh but relative lack of contempt at least

I like him much more than most terrible professional politicians of the Labour and Conservative parties as well fwiw tbh.

media lens seem to love him unconditionally

are they like novara media? not heard of them before g/s I just did.

hardcore pilger / chomsky stans, they do letter writing campaigns to any media figure who isn't ideologically pure, which works out as everyone. I agree with them 90% of the time, but their blindspot regarding anyone who isn't USA/UK establishment is ridiculous, and they have spent way too much time defending wikileaks

PH is high on himself anyway etc etc

He's wrong and not exactly perceptive but he has the principled consistency thing going on, and I guess he's not a grifter?

his Grenfell piece was absolutely spot on. Obv I'm not saying give the cunt a medal, but when you compare the vile apologist responses of people like Nick Robinson or just about anyone in the current Con party at the time - then you realise he is a different type of conservative beast. Still an arrogant, pompous, bigoted, 1914 declinist bore but he'd only have bad crims strung up by their neck!

I've mentioned before but I've had cause to encounter Peter Hitchens at my place of work and he was extremely polite, pleasant and respectful - whereas Kwasi Kwarteng is a dick, though not as much as Andrew Gilligan, truly an obnoxious toad of a man.

got to give him some credit; of the Britannia Unchained crew he's only slightly less thick as pigshit as Liz Truss is .. but only slightly... I love it when R4 gives him half an hour slots to make anodyne programs about the Empire that have the effect of leaving you feeling like you know less about a subject after wasting your fucking time listening to it.

When he was Secretary of State, Michael Gove brought in a lifetime ban for teachers who used cocaine. pic.twitter.com/DYuGCOTZqb

— Steve Lapsley (@stevelapsl) June 9, 2019

what a loathsome little twat.

Yes, but they weren’t ‘experimenting’.

Chemistry teachers maybe

Someone has to show the kids how to manufacture crack-cocaine in your kitchen, vital life skillz!

Mildly interesting skim on Boris' operation this time around.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/09/boris-johnson-kept-from-media-in-ruthlessly-organised-campaign

No mistakes this time. If he gets there he'll save it for his negotiations with the EU.

there is only so long you can hide the cunt in a box or as the The Graun would have it a "ruthlessly organised" campaign of great professionalism!

Maybe now would be the time for journalists to closely scrutinize Johnson's financial supporters and allies rather than next year after we're in Mad Max world

https://www.ft.com/content/8d7d7e0e-8719-11e9-a028-86cea8523dc2?segmentId=5b3cb929-a23e-88ae-662f-4cae036b0dee

Well this is brutal...

Could non-subscribers have a few paras of that?

If you google the title you can click through from search results and view the full thing.

Most Tory candidates also speak cheerily of “no-deal Brexit” as if it were an end state, and Britain could live happily ever after in autarky, sealed off from a continent with which it has traded since the Bronze Age (and where it currently buys insulin and time-sensitive cancer treatments).

this can't be repeated enough fucking times to these "put no-deal on the table" numbskulls as well as the demented head-bangers.

Anyone watching the contest to become British prime minister has to wonder about the cognitive skills of many Conservative candidates. Put simply: are these people stupid? They include several Brexiters who have put Brexit at risk by repeatedly voting against real existing Brexit. Now most of them are promising to renegotiate the UK’s withdrawal agreement with the EU, even though the Europeans insist they won’t renegotiate, having already refused to do so with Britain’s last two prime ministers, Theresa May and David Cameron. Plainly, the EU cannot cave and give Britain a sweetheart deal, or else every member state would want one and the single market would fall apart. Yet Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn plans to renegotiate, too.

Most Tory candidates also speak cheerily of “no-deal Brexit” as if it were an end state, and Britain could live happily ever after in autarky, sealed off from a continent with which it has traded since the Bronze Age (and where it currently buys insulin and time-sensitive cancer treatments). Meanwhile, Conservative MPs, the people choosing the shortlist of two candidates, keep making basic factual errors about Brexit.

What explains the poor cognition of Britain’s governing class, which, unlike voters, is supposed to grapple with policy detail? Here are some possible explanations:

• Many Tories are cynics faking it. They publicly back no deal, knowing it would be a disaster, but are counting on the rest of parliament to stop it. They just want to sound hard, because they live in fear of deselection by their hard-Brexiter local parties. Tory MPs know that the job market for ex-Tory MPs is currently pretty weak.

• The corollary: there is no political advantage in grasping reality if your voters don’t. Steven Sloman, cognitive scientist at Brown University, points out that most people cannot describe the workings of a toilet. The EU and the international trade system are even trickier. Sloman says the only way to handle complex issues is therefore to listen to experts. Politicians sometimes did that, until populism came along.

• Widmerpoolism. Kenneth Widmerpool, the creation of English novelist Anthony Powell, has become a byword for the blind will to power. Educated at a school modelled on Powell’s Eton, Widmerpool builds a glittering career (including a stint as MP) on tireless manipulative infighting. Powell’s insight applies here: after correcting for birth, power goes to the people most committed to getting it.

• An inability to admit past error. If you have supported Brexit for years, you will look silly if you let new information nuance your views. Recall how Dominic Raab was mocked for confessing he “hadn’t quite understood the full extent” of the UK’s dependence on the Dover-Calais crossing for trade. Karen Bradley received similar treatment for admitting that she only discovered while Northern Ireland secretary that Northern Irish nationalists “don’t vote for unionist parties and vice versa”. It’s safer for politicians to be consistently wrong.

• If your genuine beliefs contradict reality, deny reality. Tory MP John Redwood is a fanatical Brexiter. So when he wrote that the UK’s exit bill on leaving the EU was “Zero. Nothing. Zilch”, as if Britain held all the cards, he was probably forcing himself not to see reality. A related Tory trait is what the French call volontarisme: the notion that willpower can change reality.

• Denying reality proves your fanaticism to other fanatics. Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski tweeted in February: “Britain helped to liberate half of Europe . . . No Marshall Plan for us only for Germany.” In fact, as thousands of people swiftly told him, Britain was the Plan’s largest beneficiary. Yet Kawczynski stood by his false claim for two weeks. By holding firm against reality, he signalled his loyalty to the cause.

• Laziness. In the British gentleman-dilettante tradition, many Conservative politicians leave boring detail to civil servants. Added to that is the callowness of today’s Tories, the luckiest members of the luckiest British generation in history. When you know your class will always prosper, you can afford airy gambles. Hence Cameron’s bet that a referendum would put the European issue to bed, reunite the Tory party and see off the threat from Nigel Farage.

• Stupidity and ignorance. Some people sound stupid or ignorant because they are stupid or ignorant. That could explain the Tory MP Nadine Dorries’s complaint that May’s deal would leave the UK without MEPs after Brexit; or MP Andrew Bridgen’s belief that “English” people are entitled to ask for an Irish passport (that Ireland is a forgotten British possession probably played a role too).

Ignorant people can succeed if success depends on other, unrelated qualities. Many companies promote good-looking people. The Tory party promotes articulate public schoolboys.

In the classic essay “The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity”, the late Italian economic historian Carlo Cipolla warned: “A stupid person is more dangerous than a bandit.” He explained: “Stupid people cause losses to other people with no counterpart of gains on their own account. Thus society as a whole is impoverished.” Let’s hope the next prime minister is merely a bandit.

that is great, but nothing we didn't know already

there's something particularly juicy about a really devastating list of bullet points, i agree

this longer version of that Lorraine Kelly/Esther McVey clip might be the most brutal thing I've ever witnessed pic.twitter.com/B8NTPes6uT

— Matthew Champion (@matthewchampion) June 10, 2019

I bet this isn't the first time this has happened to McVey.

Victoria Derbyshire competing with Lorraine Kelly for the best 30 seconds of morning television today. pic.twitter.com/sdvP657ftZ

— Jono Read (@jonoread) June 10, 2019

lool

i will never tire of people calling jeremy cunt by his name

also that lorraine kelly diss is brutal

obligatory

http://viz.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Screen-Shot-2015-06-02-at-16.43.48.png

:)

Rory Stewart, the international development secretary, has just told the World at One that he has secured the eight nominations he needs to ensure that he will be on the ballot for the first round of voting by Tory MPs on Thursday.

also did u know he walked across afghanistan and speaks dari

Esther McVey has officially launched her leadership bid with a speech to the ultra-Brexit Bruges Group in which she pledged to deliver no deal by not allowing MPs any votes on the departure process ahead of the 31 October deadline.

lorraine kelly, we need you now more than ever

Hahahahaha LOOOL

Jeremy Hunt: “Where’s my wife?” pic.twitter.com/31nuHeudik

— Matthew Champion (@matthewchampion) June 10, 2019

Wow. A very aggressive man has just stormed the stage accusing the audience of fake news and calling MPs traitors for supporting May’s Brexit deal. pic.twitter.com/LM4QMxwA7P

— Thomas Colson (@tpgcolson) June 10, 2019

lol no

or alternatively lol yes but they don't care

at least the strategy of keeping boris bolted inside an armorgard box keeps the security requirements low, but perhaps that fucking shouty idiot was a boris fan?

"The Diary of Boris Wimp"

The clown car of Conservative candidates answers questions from CH readers
https://www.conservativehome.com/tag/15-questions

Stewart and Johnson with far far more comments/questions than any of the others.

14. From reader hertscommuter: What is the naughtiest thing you have ever done?

This is a slightly difficult question for someone who spent quite a number of years working in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I expect by naughty you mean something less intense. My mother would probably say that when I was nine, against her instructions, I sat on a cactus and she had to spend the next hour picking prickles out of my back side.

3. What would you do to strengthen the Union?

I am a passionate Unionist – part Irish, part Scottish, part English. I set up the Hands Across the Border group during the referendum on Scottish Independence. As Prime Minister I would seek to build on this record to heal some of the tensions that have bedevilled our Union in recent years. I am clear that a No Deal Brexit would do immeasurable damage to our Union, and so have ruled it out. This is particularly true in Scotland and Northern Ireland where secessionists see No Deal as the ultimate opportunity to seize their objective. I do not believe that any leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party should take such a reckless gamble. Instead, I will establish the position of First Secretary of State for the Union, with real heft and budget within Government, to ensure that, as we leave the EU and build a greener, fairer future for our country, we look to strengthen our Union wherever possible. I have already visited Scotland and Northern Ireland as part of my campaign and I passionately believe that more dialogue and understanding between our constituent nations will help strengthen us. One of the ways I would seek to foster this is through an enhanced National Citizen Service. This would be a compulsory month-long programme bringing together 16-17 years olds from all over the UK to develop life-skills and build relationships that will help better prepare them for adult life.

.@michaelgove picks Queen’s “One Vision” as his campaign song pic.twitter.com/46jUoO0Azi

— Robert Peston (@Peston) June 10, 2019

Ein Fleisch, ein Blut,
ein wahrer Glaube.
Ein Ruf, ein Traum,
ein starker Wille
Gibt mir ein Leitbild.

So the only candidates who couldn't get enough support to get on the ballot are Cleverley and Gyimah, hmm, wonder if there is any sort of pattern here...

(xp) One cokehead showing his appreciation for the work of another cokehead.

All these coke confessions will get the biggest cokehead off all, BJ, elected won't it? :(

Gyimah:

14. What is the naughtiest thing you have ever done?

It’s a long list, and not for public consumption, but I’d candidly suggest that standing for the Tory leadership on a second referendum platform must rank quite high.

Aw bless kinda

3. What would you do to strengthen the Union?

I have Welsh and Irish blood and spend part of my childhood in Scotland.

14. From reader hertscommuter: What is the naughtiest thing you have ever done?

It has to be falling off a table while dancing in a Soho bar and breaking my ankle while at my wife’s work leaving party. I was rumbled when I bumped into a journalist at St Thomas’s Hospital A&E (what were the chances) before taking Home Office Questions some days later – complete with a pair of crutches!

I also had to go to Algeria on a ministerial engagement as Immigration Minister. David Cameron, Nick Clegg and the Algerian Minister all thought my mishap was rather amusing. Theresa May, regrettably, did not. Still, that’s certainly naughtier than running through a field of wheat!

(xp) He'll be used to being called Cunt then.

I assume Mark Harper's scraping up the 8 nominations is related to his previous job as Chief Whip.

I'm surprised that only Esther McVey went off the cliff on the following question:

2. “The UK should set a zero carbon target for 2050.” Do you agree and if so why?

If you want to guarantee failure, get politicians to set a target.

Preserving our natural environment is vital for the legacy we leave future generations and we must take action to combat climate change.

Our approach must combine the urgent need for action with protecting the livelihoods of working people. Reducing carbon emissions should be a continuous, dynamic process where we recognise the importance of technology and business in helping us achieve this. They don’t need targets – they just need government to stop slapping taxes on them.

We should recognise that it’s often working people in traditional industries who are expected to pay the price. Climate change affects us all, but this is a hard message to land with someone who has lost their job. It is also true that many of the measures proposed by more wealthy environmental activists would result in rising costs for working families.

cbf to check the number but xps to AF - check this lad’s Wikipedia page for multiple lols

This is a slightly difficult question for someone who spent quite a number of years working in Iraq and Afghanistan

Can't the whole country just vote one of them off every week for the next couple of months instead of allowing 100,000 weirdos to do it for us?

missed this

The former equalities minister Maria Miller introduces Raab, saying one day she might convince him he’s a feminist after all. Gets a laugh. I don’t find it that funny.

— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) June 10, 2019

Matt DC OTM except the final two die together.

raab is an MRA

Raab has a lot of skeletons just waiting to tumble out wrt women (as does Johnson, obvs).

rory stewart’s book on afghanistan is not bad. he wipes his arse with a hand full of gravel at one point

well that explains the haunted look i guess

I can remember people joking on here about hitler and billy bremner etc.. on the labour leadership election before it looked like Corbyn was more than a placeholder. this most amazing tory 10 shortlist is more toxic than the stale farts of death in the fuhrerbunker and bremner's coffin combined, and then thinking about the freakazoids that get the last vote on this contest .. lol i just give up.

Tory leadership campaign pic.twitter.com/XsYJE2LB93

— ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) (@neka) June 9, 2019

proving to be the most prescient UK tv program ever!

Hot take - the most likely candidates don't actually intend to follow through on the promises they're currently making, they just understand the value of pitching to their party before pitching to the country. Unlike, say, Liz Kendall or Yvette Cooper who tried to do the opposite.

what could possibly go wrong

Matt is right that Johnson's tax proposal isn't really a proposal, it's a statement of which wing of Toryism he's aligning himself with. the on the nose-ness of it, plus the current media strategy - don't engage with the media - feels like he's trying to create the same procession that led May to the leadership. I don't see any way he ends up unopposed but he might well hoover up a bunch of the other candidates and shorten the ballot process.

i also think he's reasonably explicitly demonstrating to the faithful that he wants to go full Trump/Bannon and it's just crazy enough to work as long as he can get to the final 2. i don't think any of the potential opponents are seriously going to try to attack him from the left.

But then after already pissing off vast swathes of the electorate he should be trying to win over for the sake of 40 odd thousand head-bangers, he has to do a damaging policy u-turn in a GE cos he didn't really mean it. It doesn't seem a good strategy to me.

obv he isn't thinking that far ahead - but he should be. and they have to let him out of that box at some point as well.

His approach is working so far, but then the great British media allows Boris to get away with shit no other politician would dream of even attempting to get away with. I only hope the infidelities, abortions, illegitimate children, coke, sexual harrassments, racism is going to be flung in his face when he does stick his head above the parapet but I wouldn't bet on it and, a la Trump, I'm not sure anyone really cares.

he has to do a damaging policy u-turn in a GE cos he didn't really mean it

He may calculate he can pivot without much damage, he may even be right. There might not really be that much calculation to it

But also if your trade is in identity and persona then policy isn't even all that relevant, so what if you u-turn

He’s *possibly* toast at the next GE because Labour people in his constituency have been running an unseat Boris campaign for two years.

some of the noise from his camp has been about how he is still the one nation liberal tory who was mayor ...blah blah .. and the only way they can project this nonsense by keeping him out of sight. That is the Boris they'd pitch to the electorate imo .. and maybe Trump style stuff wouldn't be by design and maybe they'd calculate he could get away with some of it .. but going full Trump/Boris would be a complete fail imo. When people say he's popular with members, don't forget that is such a small number these days they daren't even disclose it out of embarrassment and good lot of them are probably dead!

Would be so sweet if Johnson pulled a Balfour and lost his seat while PM

Hot take - the most likely candidates don't actually intend to follow through on the promises they're currently making, they just understand the value of pitching to their party before pitching to the country.

It is probably true that they either already know "renegotiate the backstop or No Deal" is nuts and doesn't make sense, or will find that out just like May did, and similar may apply regarding tax plans etc; but I'm not enjoying watching the press gamble the entire country on this without asking any questions more relevant than "what posters did you have on your wall when you were 14" while we helpless onlookers try to uncover traces of the line between "pretending to be recklessly dictatorial and cronyist for votes" and "actually being recklessly dictatorial and cronyist", and I imagine it's not winning us a great deal of goodwill on the EU side, or indeed Scotland.

(Or from any other non-Westminster-and-maybe-DUP govt/institution except Trump, and if anyone thinks his momentary blurtings of apparent goodwill are worth a thing, well...)

Yes, none of this matters because there's nothing I can do about it and we all need to sit through it and not scream ourselves too hoarse to make some kind of futile protestation afterwards that it wasn't actually our fault.

is such a small number these days they daren't even disclose it out of embarrassment and good lot of them are probably dead!

A third of them might be dead, a third of them are pensioners many of whom may not have actually paid any attention to politics since 1981, and a third of them are Brexit Party entryists swelling the ranks to vote for the looniest loon. Yay!

I think there's a good chance he or at least the party is toast at the next election btw but I can't see us getting a GE any time soon because they know that, and even the "never Boris"/"never No Deal" Tory MPs are probably "never willingly giving up a seat by voting no confidence" Tories long before they're never anything else.

CH has been keeping its own list of declared MP supporters: https://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2019/06/leadership-election-candidate-support-numbers-hunt-27-johnson-19-raab-13-gove-12-javid-10.html

the winner of the leadership race gets potentially 3 years as PM before having to win a general election. they've got little reason to be appealing to anybody beyond their membership.

Maria Miller, who is backing Dominic Raab to be Tory leader, says allegations which led to him signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement were brought "vexatiously". Under the terms of the NDA, the other party can't dispute that claim. #r4today

— Kevin Schofield (@PolhomeEditor) June 11, 2019

The NDA refers to sexual harassment claims brought by a woman. The judge who granted it was Tom Tughendhat’s father Justice Michael T, who should have recused himself from ruling on his son’s friend’s case. #RevokeA50 #StopRaab

— Kate Makuen FRSA 🖖🏻 (@VesperUK) June 11, 2019

could this finally derail #tugmentum

SV to thread!

Mark Harper’s leadership launch material is certainly different pic.twitter.com/xJWmP9AXOp

— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) June 11, 2019

(I said "I think there's a good chance <Boris> or the party is toast at the next election btw" earlier but even that strikes me as too optimistic now - but I have done enough howling at the moon and clutching my tinfoil hat on this thread already so I'll try to shut it with the "we're doomed" for a bit)

Interesting that not-so-keen-on-Brexit types Ed Vaizey and Oliver Letwin are listed as backing Gove. Then again I was already confused by the Cooper-Letwin Bill because iirc Letwin shares the hardcore Brexiteers' desire to see the NHS sold off. Maybe that's just a given for a Tory these days. I guess Gove, Vaizey and Letwin were all "Cameroons".

(my parents live in Letwin's constituency and their elderly neighbour waited 5 hours for an ambulance while lying on a cold stone floor with a possibly broken back - the neighbour's son drove down to the south coast from Up North quicker than the ambulance got there from 20 miles away - so they were going to write to Letwin, and I sort of felt that they should, but also sort of didn't want this saga to be recited as an example of how the NHS is failing and rip it apart already)

Nah I think your posts were very otm spacecadet and you should post in these threads more!

If anyone remembers, Letwin was the guy photoed dumping confidential papers in St James’s Park(!) so maybe it’s as well ye didn’t contact him
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/oliver-letwin-caught-throwing-away-85337

I think anyone coming in realistically knows they can't be an unelected pm for 3 years and face the prospect of remainers tanking every no-deal brexit/hard-brexit they try and get through parliament, as before. There simply has to be an election much sooner, unless they can compromise even more than May was willing to which would make a joke of all the tough talk. Or as McVey suggested just go full dictatorship and don't allow any more parliamentary votes!

Donald Tusk: “Please do not waste this time.” pic.twitter.com/6rqOXrHbI9

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) June 11, 2019

dear god

more like a scrawny, tb-stricken fox with three legs and lead shot embedded in half its face

or a strigiform with acephaly issues idk

Simplified Brussels view on Tory race:

Johnson - generally regarded as the devil incarnate
Gove - very much on the pantheon of hated Brexiteers
Raab - negotiated a deal and then quit to vote against it

When you get down to Javid and Hancock I doubt many here have heard of them

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) June 11, 2019

What about Cunt?

That's on a previous tweet - basically Amber Rudd thinks he's a respected statesman but no one in Brussels respects him due to his first major intervention being to compare the EU to the USSR.

Wasn't it Hunt that made the Slovenia/Slovakia mixup "Soviet vassal state" booboo? And then said in his pitch video that he was the right man for the job because if people didn't get the details right the EU might not give us the best deal? Arf.

japanese/chinese mixup as well, but was about his wife tbf!

also keeps insisting his surname begins with an 'h' which is clearly untrue

For good or ill, Rory Stewart would absolutely annihilate Jeremy Corbyn in a general election.

— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) June 11, 2019

only one of them has walked across afghanistan and speaks dari tbf

xp, lol, “for good or ill”

I see we’re back to this narrative

I’m well aware of his voting record. The support for austerity et al stinks. But Corbyn *couldn’t beat Theresa May* & Stewart’s at least a hundred times more impressive than her.

— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) June 11, 2019

Only one of them has eaten cold Tesco own brand baked beans straight out of a tin.

Given that Rory Stewart is never going to be leader of the Conservative Party it's like one of those pointless, "Would a zombie beat a vampire?" pub conversations.

.@RoryStewartUK electrified this tent. He delivered the most coherent and lyrical launch speech of any candidate. On this showing the Tories have found a proper star. But they will reject him, because his “moderate” views are out of touch with his party. Labour will be relieved

— Robert Peston (@Peston) June 11, 2019

Only one of them can boast this key life experience

He is also a friend of the Prince of Wales and was holiday-tutor to Princes William and Harry when they were schoolboys. He accidentally locked himself in the loo on his very first night at Highgrove - the key snapped and he had to be rescued by Charles's Special Branch bodyguards while Charles himself hovered nearby in his dressing gown, fretting.

These people are paid to comment on UK politics btw.

Mr Jame Sob has been a cunt as long as I’ve been aware of him. Peston just comes across as a bit thick.

LOL seeing as Islington North boasts 100 different languages spoken by his constituents, and he’s reasonably good at other languages, if Corbyn doesn’t know how to ask someone how they are in Dari (which is basically Farsi) I’d be pretty surprised.

If theres anything that recent political history of UK indicates it's that folk are crying out for a moderate Tory PM.

Oh wait no

xp Corbyn speaks Spanish fluently!

He certainly does!

I'm sure mr O'Brien has a very broad criteria for what makes an "impressive" pol, but I'd imagine not being called Jeremy Corbyn or being ever so slightly to the right of centre-left would be a good start with him.

Anyway, here’s the only proof you need:

Is @RoryStewartUK looking for the cat-lovers vote? 🐈🗳️

The Tory leadership hopeful's been spotted outside Number 10 patting Larry the cat ahead of a Cabinet meeting.

Latest on the race here: https://t.co/hlfeB6YEeT pic.twitter.com/G5JyoFT0D7

— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 11, 2019

cats are a bit like tories, ruthless vermin and overrated!

I think most people are currently underestimating how much of a potential menace Stewart is. The more I see of him the more I suspect that he has the same kind of sociopathic, authoritarian, self-righteous, narcissistic traits as Blair. Blair deceived many initially by hiding behind a façade of photogenic reasonableness. Being photogenic is obviously not a tool at the disposal of Stewart, but he is doing much the same thing with his shtick of eccentric, cheeky-chappy approachability.

xp how dare you, I’d fp you if I wasn’t on zing

the most surprising thing about rory stewart is that he looks that malformed while only being a bit posh and not a full aristo

Only some dogs are Tory Calzino, otherwise that's just objectively wrong!

cats are individualist anarchists after the fashion of max stirner

cats are a bit like tories, ruthless vermin and overrated!

― calzino, Tuesday, June 11, 2019 8:30 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it is with great regret and a heavy heart that yaddayaddayadda fp

cousin fucking has a lot to answer for across the class spectrum. I bet he still makes some average upper middle classes seem like hoi polloi just by having posher connections.

don't make me tap the sign

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6MW0grDhZyE/VYMjKYh0yLI/AAAAAAAAM60/l1Fs_LopfZo/s1600/Andercon%2Bpuppets%2BAquaphibian.jpg

For the avoidance of any doubt - I have read the Labour motion proposed for tomorrow and I will NOT be voting for it.

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) June 11, 2019

"Just as I was starting to like you" - FBPE reply person

Can’t believe the Tory turned out to be a Tory.
Still mad about that cat dig

Jeremy Corbyn’s Xmas card! Is this El Gato? pic.twitter.com/8sgxgdWNzb

— steve hawkes (@steve_hawkes) December 14, 2018

lmao at all these fucking idiots in the replies who are shocked (SHOCKED!) that a tory is acting like a tory

or what gyac said

A lot of Lib Dems dying to vote Rory at a general election. Missed a trick there, might be his welfare bill moment

there is nothing that says moderate one nation tory more than putting your poxy political career before preventing a national crisis.

Even if he made it to the final two, the members aren’t going to vote him in.

Lol I hadn’t seen he’d said otherwise, sceeeeenes

.@RoryStewartUK says he will support the @jeremycorbyn @oletwinofficial initiative to take no-deal Brexit and risk of parliament being prorogued (suspended) off table. He is ploughing his own course. The audience here love him. Some of his MP colleagues will find this challenging

— Robert Peston (@Peston) June 11, 2019

(This was before his tweet when he said he wouldn’t)

Lol

Depends on how badly Boris will fuck up once he has to open his mouth in this campaign. The membership did elect a man they hated before because he came across well.

can’t believe a man who walked across afghanistan and speaks dari would be so two-faced, smdh

calz otm re catz

Whippets are dog hardware using cat software, can’t we all just get along?

It's too late, they've already spread their mind control parasites to most of humanity.. all is lost!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/hannahalothman/we-went-to-parliament-to-play-with-dogs-because-its this is for calz (and I should add that I also have a dog who is a complete moron but I still prefer cats)

There's a reason the thread is called, "The cat's on fire and there's no driver at the wheel"

rob halford joining me in tapping the sign

zhttps://twitter.com/mhn_animals/status/1138180230902734849

Rob Halford (Judas Priest) pic.twitter.com/Ae8mJmReHr

— Metalheads n animals (@mhn_animals) June 10, 2019

lol ffs

the cat's on fire

i'm sure ILX can come to a consensus that a cat would make a better leader of the Tory party than any of the candidates running

Cats are anarcho-capitalists iirc

https://schroedingerscat.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/austerity-cat-returns_thumb.jpg

i can haz austerity

critical support for the cat comrades thriving thanks to the immortal science of juche

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/72/69/49/72694945e2c47a4b991a791c59e526c3.jpg

https://66.media.tumblr.com/5250e9001f89fbfc1315e8f116e92e94/tumblr_p4f21hoFvg1vqgiqeo1_1280.jpg

my dog was barking at his own farting arse the other day. It's moments like that stop me looking too deep into the abyss!

Rory Stewart pledges to walk through every county of the UK as prime minister

— John Stevens (@johnestevens) June 11, 2019

Just posting as I find 'em

i mean if that's all he does

I first became aware of him as prisons minister, and he was promising to resign if he hadn't sorted out the violence/drugs/suicide/low staff morale problems he had inherited. but I guess there was a "if i get promoted before that year is up then fuck 'em" clause.

the first rory stewart mentions are all abt his book but I did enjoy this one from the archives

Until Chuka Umunna loses to Rory Stewart in the 2022 elections.

― Meowsy McDermott, Monday, May 10, 2010 8:30 PM (nine years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

2019 David Aaronovitch all like yes that's right is something amusing

i'm sure ILX can come to a consensus that a cat would make a better leader of the Tory party than any of the candidates running

Chris Marker said 'A cat is never on the side of power'.

that wasn't Chris Marker speaking :p

I got into politics because I wanted to give back to our country, which has given me so many opportunities. I'm proud to be able to share my story with you. Check out my campaign video and join me at https://t.co/idVRwMVc79 pic.twitter.com/L7cypOHNmA

— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) June 11, 2019

If he doesn't win maybe he could walk through every county dressed as a different historical figure?

Take a (Tory) cat along and he could dress as Dick Whittington.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/16/c7/c9/16c7c98938497632643b01261a33257e.jpg

pack yer bags pal!

although this particular cat might struggle a bit if it was a leadership candidate....

At least our entire political landscape isn’t a humiliating fucking bin fire at which the rest of the world stands agog while we contemplate which of the parade of universally unsuitable cretins will take the wheel of the shit-laden twatbus and crash it into our fucking houses. pic.twitter.com/oxZrEywsa4

— 🏳️‍🌈 Max 🏳️‍🌈 (@SpillerOfTea) June 11, 2019

Beth Rigby: Why did you call Muslim women letterboxes?
Boris Johnson: British people want politicians to say what they mean.
Audience applauds.

— Maurice Mcleod (@mowords) June 12, 2019

so this is my first proper leadership contest as an actual Westminster person and honestly it's such a hoot, someone clicks their fingers and suddenly all your pals are sorted into different teams and fighting each other while you drink with them all, huge fan of the drama

— Marie Le Conte (@youngvulgarian) June 12, 2019

Would it be a bit too much to point out that MLC’s obvious terribleness is visually telegraphed by her dressing like she’s raided the sale rail of a Surrey village hospice charity shop?

xp a rare glimpse at the truth

xp I think that's one of those questions where if you have to ask it, you already know the answer, suzy - and anyway I don't see anything here other than 'when office humour happens via Twitter'

Old people leaving money to the Tory party in their will: https://t.co/2W0uPgUtvg

— Tanya Gold’s husband (who is fat) (@misslucyp) June 13, 2019

just listening to The Saj sounding incredulous and butthurt that his party might just be a teeny bit racist in snubbing him from the Trump shinding.

I thought the question needed to be asked in public especially because other French journos I know are like ‘what the actual fuck is she wearing?’

xp a rare glimpse at the truth

― ogmor, Thursday, 13 June 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

xp I think that's one of those questions where if you have to ask it, you already know the answer, suzy - and anyway I don't see anything here other than 'when office humour happens via Twitter'

― Andrew Farrell, Thursday, 13 June 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A glimpse at the truth and yet some people remain blind to it.

I think I've been on twitter for long enough and see it enough times on there but its always interesting to see how it plays in different contexts, the sheer variations of this kind of tweet (from the little I know she wasn't someone born into privilege like Boris or Osborne who are just placed into these journo offices, as oposed to MLC who is hoping to get to a powerful position by licking 100 boots a day every day) and how it presents itself. Someone who is doing it for laugh like Boris doesn't want to hang out in fucking offices! In fact they want to see whether they can burn the office down for a game. Otoh the likes of MLC see it as a game to be continuously played, that all the participants should be interested in this game (the game here = politics, instead of a matter of life and death).

Poor fools will be used and liberally discarded once they make a mistake that is picked up by enough people at the top. They aren't smart enough to avoid it.

This was just above a thread about how much she fucking despises Boris, so I guess that is me checkmated?

What is she, team Rory?

Meanwhile the con goes on:

There is a huge parliamentary majority - which includes me - for stopping no-deal. The fact that Labour failed to take control of the order paper today tells you almost nothing about how parliament could block a leader committed to no-deal. https://t.co/tg1dlgTaGa

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) June 12, 2019

Ban Twitter.

throw a bag of flour into the ocean who cares

Tom D is just waiting for twitter to be nationalised before he can join.

prorogue tom D

You'll never take me alive, copper.

I'd like to thank BoJo and his bozos for greatly improving the exchange rate for non-Brits such as myself. There is no greater act of hospitality than the gift of cold, hard cash.

Just dropping this here for the anti-MLC argument

me at literally the freedom association christmas dinner 'honestly it's such a hoot. Here's who she pals around with: https://t.co/h9HKKgEEq6 pic.twitter.com/nmlkABIK4E

— Change UK The Independent Group (M-L) (@wariotifo) June 12, 2019

so who goes today? Harper? McVey? maybe Hancock?

Stewart clearly vulnerable too but hoping that rich seam of lulz isn't quite tapped out yet

Hope it's lying cretin McVey how did she even get enough names o wait

Hancock should be fine - the four vulnerable are Harper / McVey / Stewart / Leadsom.

Of some interest is whether Boris can get to 105, which would guarantee him a place on the last two.

"of some interest" is a bit MLC there -- you mean "of some ugly horror"

My devotion to her redoubles with every inept assassin!

lol people unsure if phoneless Ken Clarke turned up to vote in time

told David Davis denied a vote because he forgot his ID, trousers

Can’t wait for Rory Stewart and his backers to fall in line and “regretfully” back Boris.

xxp which part of her hanging out with her Tory m8s, their fash friends and tee-hee-hewing about politics that cast people into misery and sometimes death draws such devotion from you?

Can’t wait for Rory Stewart and his backers to fall in line and “regretfully” back Boris.

So this is what 'devotion' to MLC looks like. ok. xp

iirc it was Jess Phillips two weeks ago. I see a pattern.

xxp I know literally nothing about Marie Le Conte aside from what's been on this thread today and from this evidence she is indeed terrible.

It seems to me it's entirely possible to telegraph terribleness by the way you (I) dress but dressing as if you had "raided the sale rail of a Surrey village hospice charity shop" wouldn't be one of them IMO.

but just *imagine* the calamitous faux pas of waltzing up to a bloomsbury soiree garbed in assorted rural-rich hand-me-downs

No, I’m talking about the type of schmutter Andrea Leadsom would have brought there in bin bags.

Leadsom also terrible but I don't think her terribleness is signalled by her dress sense either.

Also rural-rich hand me downs eg. tattersall shirts, utilitywear and grandad’s tweed jackets are fairly de trop amongst the Lamb’s Conduit massive (I’m scared to ask a few of the non-Labour ones what they think of Rory Stewart, but I know they all fucking hate Boris Johnson).

Leadsom dresses just like the c.1998 shit Tory landlady I had, who was v. good at telling you what a Christian she was while withholding part of a deposit, after being presented with a flat left much cleaner and better decorated than when we had found it.

boris has broken 110 :(

She dresses like many, many lower middle-class women of her age dress, particularly outside London I think. If your point is that people who dress like that are all "telegraphing their terribleness" then I'll understand but I wouldn't agree with you.

xp this seems like... terrible news.

it's 105 he needed to be be on the final ballot.. god help us.

Boris Johnson - 114
Jeremy Hunt - 43
Michael Gove - 37
Dominic Raab - 27
Sajid Javid - 23
Matt Hancock - 20
Mark Harper - 10
Rory Stewart - 19
Esther McVey - 9
Andrea Leadsom - 11

Fuck's sake

But she isn’t LMC! She’s from a family of offshoring gazillionaires! That dress style is also very Christine Hamilton so it’s handy for identifying female golf Nazis.

So he's now automatically on the final ballot no matter what? Or he could lose if people switch away from him?

xp Suzy, your question was about dressing a certain way telegraphing terribleness. I don't think it does, though I'm sure many terrible people dress that way.

Be that as it may, at least Boris Johnson isn't about to be PM.

xpost

Oh hang on, he is.

His fashion sense is extremely concerning.

i dunno man, Stewart is gaining some traction

Was going to spectlulate about who might pick up votes now, but cannot even attempt to venture into the diseased mind of someone who would choose Andrea Leadsome to be the prime minister.

Tories love a winner, they'll all swing behind Johnson

What a sick and sad world.

and now live to MR Seumas Milne for his response to this ballot

https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/images/emperor-palpatine-1555323736.jpg

poor shit McVey and her 9 socks

I don't think BJ is *guaranteed* to be in the postal ballot by virtue of 33%+ of the votes (i.e. guaranteed top-two if this was the penultimate ballot), but it's clearly over as a contest. I guess they'll go through the motions and he'll end up beating Hunt 220-93 or something by the end of next week and then on July 22 arrrrrrrgh

That's that then, congrats new pm lol boris legend

DJ Nihal on Five Live - whose lightweight celebrity gossip steez i normally avoid like the plague - doing an excellent "why are Tory MPs supporting career racist Boris Johnson?" bit at the moment

Be good to get a dynamic operator behind the wheel of the flaming car

we need Lorraine Kelly to go off on Johnson now. Save us Lorraine!

Can't believe the Tories have walked right into Labour's trap.

A taste of the new regime

NEW: Ballot closed and I’m told by sources on ‘22 that it was decided to disallowed phones in room because of an aggressive whipping operation from Team Johnson. Told had been instructed to take photo of their ballot paper to prove they’d backed Johnson.

— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) June 13, 2019

after being so secretive for years they have disclosed they have 160000 ish members left now - because it will come out in the wash anyway, and every dead vote for boris will count as well.

kinda looking forward to the more pie-eyed end of the FBPE massive getting to see what a Tory party in full self-preservation mode looks like tbh

the boris project: slouching blond beast who can or shrunken cowardly lump who was never going to

also i think it will be hunt #bantz #huntz #secretweapon #weapon

― mark s, Friday, May 24, 2019 12:59 PM (two weeks ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

When you think about it, the dead should count for more, they have so much to teach us.

agree that Boris can still be stopped

Boris will not be stopped

Nothing quite says ‘Tory leadership contest’ like #politicslive recollecting Thatcher only won the nomination because the frontrunner suggested “very poor people should be sterilised”.

— Frances Ryan (@DrFrancesRyan) June 13, 2019

Worth emphasising that the frontrunner in question was her mentor and she was effectively standing in his place.

also she probably agreed with him

I think at this stage boris could probably say the same and get away it by saying he merely misspoken.

the bloke on the radio this morning said exactly that for the 'fuck business' comment - 'he probably didn't mean it'

Why would he need to ‘get away with it’? Seems like a solid vote-winning platform

He got away with:

- Made up articles about how 'orrible the EU is when still a journo
- A blatant lie on the side of a bus
- Racism
- Xenophobia
- Doing 180s on "where he stands", promises etc

He's very much like the 'mini-Trump' mentioned in today's Graun article abt Europe being mortified about the prospect of PM Bozzers.

this one https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/13/mini-trump-across-the-channel-european-media-on-boris-johnson-as-british-pm

I didn't think thatcher had any positive qualities but actually she would have been even worse if she'd gone in for bantz, so perhaps that's something in her favour

What is it that especially outrages people about Johnson? We've just had May as PM who is also racist, xenophobic, did 180s on a weekly basis, has blatantly lied to us (and the Queen lol). She wasn't a journo but she would totally had a symbiotic relationships with the gutter press.

At the moment Johnson is walking over like May did with very, very little scrutiny and on his record as London Mayor - as if his tenure at the Foreign Office never happened.

hitler

billy bremner ..

May lied more and just as seriously as Boris. Let’s also not forget that she made him foreign secretary during a period pretty much most other PMs would have let him slink away

Anyway

Jess Phillips saying Boris Johnson's "authenticity rubs off with even the slightest brushing" pic.twitter.com/0lrz4BLZTJ

— Dan Howdon (@danielhowdon) June 13, 2019

Thought it was very cool how most journalists expressed some concern at his MP supporters booing one of their number yesterday - only presumabley to go back to breathlessly devoting pages of coverage to him like that never happened.

jess is the gold standard authentocrat, so that's such a very serious burn!

You don't have to like May to think Boris is a cunt.

We should probably stop baiting Andrew F

Johnson's 'I was a great mayor' schtick is entirely aimed at people who have never lived in London but are nevertheless convinced Sadiq Khan has 'ruined it'

— Jack Saundrs (@jack_saundrs) June 13, 2019

expecting a dead cat poll bounce for CONs once he is installed + a summer of LAB infighting -> BJ will fall into same trap as TM and drink his own look aid. will then try to crush the saboteurs, pivoting to NDB to put nigel back in his box. october election will probably return a LAB (minority?) govt on a derisory share of the vote

in the meantime we’ll have liz truss chancellor

Ah, an optimist

Gove chancellor imo.

give it tugendhat

what annoys me abt BJ is i said "boris is over" a lot so i look bad and foolish not good and smart if actually he isn't over, also tom d gets to clown me

however him being "apparently in charge" doesn't mean he's no longer shrunken and hunched, the air was already out of may's balloon long before the 2017 election

I googled “Tom Tugendhat Boris” and this was the second result, which was timely as fuck for this thread!
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/conservative-party/house/house-magazine/102726/unparliamentary-language

I was mostly commenting on LBI's post. Johnson hasn't done any worse than May. This is also true for most of the crowd in this contest and if it isn't its because they haven't been put in charge of something for long enough (thinking of Rory here, but then again Rome wasn't built in a day and all that).

I mean May was a kind of absent PM in a lot of ways and that came from the non-debate in the last conservative leader non-contest. The contest so far is aping what happened then.

Johnson is crasser and people who are paid to publish their shit political opinions think he’s clownish. That’s why he is perceived as so much worse than May (who’s going to get dewy-eyed shite written about her before the year is out).

Both are terrible but Boris doesn't pretend he's not, and having someone in charge who is upfront about that will embolden racists further.

Boris is much more dangerous than a fearful maintain and meander, plodding type of evil tory like May. Because he's more likely to have more new ideas and implement them more forcefully + more often to add to to all the other bad policies that are already in place is how i see it.

Rory bodied from beyond the grave by Seamus Heaney

Been re-reading Seamus Heaney’s The Cure at Troy:

Human beings suffer
They get hurt and get hard…

History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) June 13, 2019

“Anyone with gumption and a sharp mind will take the measure of two things: what's said and what's done”
Seamus Heaney

— Daniel (@franeyd1) June 13, 2019

xp I think this is overly pessimistic, he’s lazy as fuck and would rather leave the hard stuff to others. May was awful because she never let go of the goal to just keep hurting immigrants.

May was a kind of absent PM in a lot of ways

i mean this was her shtick yes, in terms of public affect, but this is not my reading of her effect on the institutions (see long post here: Seizing back control: The ILX lol brexit is how we're all gonna die thread. )

other differences: may has a grasp of the concept of duty, which she hugs to herself and deploys to push her promised policy ends (which are very bad) through; BJ has no such sense

this is mid-life crisis boris with his big shot being an immortal ledge - it'll be different to when he was mayor.

although he probably still was in mid-life crisis mode as mayor tbf!

Both are terrible but Boris doesn't pretend he's not, and having someone in charge who is upfront about that will embolden racists further.

― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, 13 June 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Not sure how much a few crass comments here and there will do that having three years of the Brexit shitshow hasn't - as well as the hostile environment before that. xps

it will be lit bantz, you'll see the flames from space

xxp Johnson, the Tory party and certain sections of Britain are all going through prolonged midlife crises with no end in sight

Not sure how much a few crass comments here and there will do that having three years of the Brexit shitshow hasn't - as well as the hostile environment before that.

The hostile environment didn't really embolden racists in any way because racists weren't paying attention to it, they were being fed propaganda about how the UK's too nice to immigrants instead.

It's going to be considerably more than "a few crass comments here and there", btw.

I would say the things Boris has said and continues to defend have a damaging effect on society, even if May may harbour views that aren't alien to those more crass outbursts. Having a scattergun populist as your PM corrodes things in a different way to May. They certainly aren't the same.

Daniel otm.

Plus supporting no deal brexit also might have an effect on this country - we prob should start a brexit thread.

I could do picking the brains of chemistry ILX with a "How to manufacture homemade sodium valproate in yr kitchen" thread before the brexit one.

Daniel - I reckon the racists are paying attention - its not enough for them, but I reckon they'd be aware of the hostle environment, or when Sajid doesn't allow a UK citizen to return from Syria.

I am not convinced it will be more than colourful comments because that would require actual work but maybe you are right.

xp = Lets flip this around, did Cameron's socially liberal comments have had a more positive effect on society?

Christ

the hostile environment is a mentality, a sort of psychic warfare that doesn't just slowly trickle down from the top but has to be carried out by regular ppl (like me!) in all manner of institutions on the frontline who when dealing with ppl now have questions about nationality and bureaucratic evidence swimming around in their mind

PM Johnson will hire Bannon as his Crosby y/n

I googled “Tom Tugendhat Boris” and this was the second result, which was timely as fuck for this thread!

Read this as “Tom Tugendhat Blues”, which is almost a Tom Waits song I think?

what annoys me abt BJ is i said "boris is over" a lot so i look bad and foolish not good and smart if actually he isn't over, also tom d gets to clown me

Watch this space.

i mean this was her shtick yes, in terms of public affect, but this is not my reading of her effect on the institutions (see long post here: Seizing back control: The ILX lol brexit is how we're all gonna die thread. )

― mark s, Thursday, 13 June 2019 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Totally (I said absent but also "in a lot of ways" as a shortcut caveat :)), and this is another way in which May has been very much more damaging than I reckon Johnson could be.

We could go to no deal under his watch but that as much to do with events yesterday, I'd say, and the point we have been bought under by May.

Daniel - I reckon the racists are paying attention - its not enough for them, but I reckon they'd be aware of the hostle environment, or when Sajid doesn't allow a UK citizen to return from Syria.

The true extent of the evil that the Home Office gets up to with the UK detention system is kept far away enough from the eyes of the public that even well informed lefties often don't know the whole story, imo.

Cameron's socially liberal comments were pandering, chasing after what was already established as the mainstream, and as such probably had no effect either way. Boris, however, wants to establish a new mainstream, which I think is different.

Trump is also less harmful than Hillary because he delivers neoliberal fascism straight, amirite?

Boris is worse than May because we were saved from the worst of May more than once by her inability to talk in public, charm in private or appear human, frankly. lol legernd has some ability here and it's the infuriating and polity-damaging kind Trump has too.

Didn't pom put up a poll showing that people have been very favourable on the hostile environment (I get that, as ogmor says, its a lot more than a policy, but it has its beginnings in a bunch of actions by the Home Office)? That's what I mean - people don't have to know the ins and outs of it, just that there is effort to make life miserable for non-UK citizens. I feel like that message is getting through.

re: comments I don't see anything Johnson himself says as enough of a shift, as in it will make people who are not born here feel more unwelcome. It might be embarrassing for liberal UK citizens, but anymore than that and I'd like to see a bit more speculation on what that might actually mean. xxp

I think this is overly pessimistic, he’s lazy as fuck and would rather leave the hard stuff to others.

this and the v remote idea that since he is such a self-serving wildcard there is like a 0.0001% chance he will spontaneously backtrack on everything if he thinks it'll work to his advantage somehow (this is obv a v remote chance which would surely backfire in some way anyway) are basically the only tiny straws I can clutch at for why everything isn't entirely hopeless now

but (as opposed to in his mayor days) now the "others" who will do the hard stuff are likely to be Bannonites so I'm really not sure this helps any more

he’s already partially walked back his tax policy

this backtracking will blow up in his face if he does it in the midst of a GE

Say what you like about May I think it's very unlikely she'd meet with Steve Bannon.

Just Victor Orban and directed her MEPs to support him too.

Boris is worse than May because we were saved from the worst of May more than once by her inability to talk in public, charm in private or appear human, frankly. lol legernd has some ability here and it's the infuriating and polity-damaging kind Trump has too.

hitler

billy bremner

antonescu

gary lineker..

It's naive to assume that political representation only happens at the policy level. Nothing is ever 'merely' symbolic in politics, and Boris openly stands for a dumber, bolder, scrupleless Britain, one that owns up to its hostility to foreign elements. This may in turn galvanise the resistance, yes, but not before causing nigh irreparable damage.

no Turkey in the EU but a foreign-born gobbler in 10DS

Rory Stewart says if Boris prorogues that he (Rory) will sit across the road in Methodist Hall and hold an alternative parliament

— Esther Webber (@estwebber) June 13, 2019

We all know who the star of this contest is.

HoP will do a Notre Dame soon enough

internecine etonian bantz

rory founds alt-bullingdon where proles are allowed to watch through the window

This is amazing - we’re getting some real momentum here. Thank you so, so much. Let’s push this through to the end. It’s increasingly clear it’s me against Boris. And let’s win #rorywalks pic.twitter.com/YvvAf8oEE5

— Rory Stewart (@RoryStewartUK) June 13, 2019

#rorywalks

Portillo is done

dominic grieve to set up alt-alt parliament in neighbouring westminster school hall. wonder if all old boys are invited *looks into purchasing a tie*

not before causing nigh irreparable damage

but comrade alph's point is that a great deal of this damage is already done and (within normal political procedures) already irreparable: BJ isn't the primary cause of whatever's coming, he's a symptom

Pom otm. Saying this stuff doesn't matter is a form of defeat in itself. At worst it's exonerating the fact that the next PM freely uses racial slurs. Even if it did have "no effect", which we seem to be assuming is only on the country's direction rather than individuals, the actual things said should be condemned as should anyone saying them.

But I wouldn't claim to speak for anyone in a minority targeted by Boris as to how safe or unsafe his comments made a person feel.