Stability is change: crossing the floor from potato to potahto in uk 2024

Get in here, loons

Very good

Oddly starting this with Mason news.

Breaking: ISLINGTON NORTH Labour shortlist Sem Moema . Praful Nargund

— lee harpin (@lmharpin) May 22, 2024

breaking: stoya cancelling travel plans

From The Guardian blog quoting a tweet by a pol analyst:

Was in Westminster all day. Understand there’s 5 major reasons for @RishiSunak July 4 election gamble

1/ Key aides told PM inflation is now at its “election sweet spot” - 2.3% was today’s print - & warned it may rise again by autumn

2/ No fiscal space for NI cuts in Sept 1/

3/ Concern legal challenges will further delay/block flights to Rwanda taking off

4/ Mess in the English Channel with small boats during the summer months

5/ Nigel Farage hasn’t yet decided whether to front Reform UK, so snap poll may boost Tory prospects

Praful Nargund?

if they won't accept Comrade Mason they should offer a spot to Dunty

https://x.com/IanDunt/status/1793343773667480015

truly the most perfect idiot in the whole world, a brain as smooth as his scalp

Nargund is a private IVF clinic chief executive, who really cares about healthcare inequities

Dunt isn't an idiot, he just plays one for money.

Mason the early Starmer adopter, most consistent apologist/obsequious toady towards him for almost 5 years and all he gets in return is one humiliating rejection after another - which is all he deserves tbf.

I am sorry Tom D you will not be able to vote for this man

I didn't make the shortlist in @IslingtonNorth . Thanks to all those in the CLP who signed up to campaign for me, and to SERA for endorsing me. It's vital that we get out the vote the selected candidate, and keep Islington North red! ✊

— Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) May 23, 2024

No-one likes him he does care.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtTdQm57_MU

100 empty spots to fill, keep on keeping on Paul

If he wasn't such a weirdo who likes making a shit ton of noise he would've got into one of those.

as well as being a foolish and deeply unlikable man I don't think he's ever been forgiven by the right for his supporting Corbyn years.

Yeah there's no place in today's Labour for people whose politics change with the wind to support their own personal aggrandisement

that's what they'll throw at Starmer, he can offer evidence that he helped finish off Corbyn by quoting the "People's Vote was a conspiracy" parts of the Eagleton book!

he's an embarrassment because he actually believes things, even if he has forced himself to believe them to fit in. I remember a kid like him at school.

No Rwanda flights till after the election. If Reform get their act together its even worse for the Tories.

It also means a very grim debate where Starmer has to promise deportations of sone kind.

Getting suicide-by-cop vibes from all of this, like Sunak is pleading with the election to put him out of his misery.

the guy just wants a long summer break in california so he can pick out a house, move there ASAP, and die horribly in the record-breaking wildfires of 2028 enjoy a long and happy life

maybe it was just a case of lose a suicide-election in the summertime or lose a confidence vote and resign

The calculations are that Rwanda flights will never get off the ground, that inflation might go up (so no interest rate cuts), and that they cannot offer anything but tax rises bcz of the state of public finances.

to gazzara's point, the domiciled tax status laws are getting changed next year yeah?

the way he brought up the furlough scheme yesterday seemed desperate, it was almost like he was inferring he paid it all out of his own pocket.

it was like in the manner of a slimy boss giving you a tiny inconsequential pay rise and then never letting you forget about it

The only time the guy was popular is when he gave lots of people money.

also when he gave us rona dinners

How soon we forget "dishy Rishi".

eat out to help out just a porn video name to most people now

a furlough scheme that was actually proposed and pushed for by McDonnell iirc and which sunak was originally dead set against…

and a furlough scheme which deliberately excluded hundreds of thousands of self-employed people, my wife being among them

xp
to me there's no question that if Corbyn and McDonnell hadn't been at the despatch box in early 2020 we would never have got the furlough measures we did get, flawed as they were

Quietly impressed by The Green Party response here. Has the right people crying about it.

Nothing to see here. Just @TheGreenParty⁩ leader on Radio 4 failing to condemn one of her fellow Green candidates for liking a post which said "we have to destroy Zionism". And she has the chutzpah to refer to the EHRC report into Labour's antisemitism to boot. What a state. pic.twitter.com/QrAo4fynZz

— Mike Katz (@mikekatz) May 23, 2024

From a locked acc:

"On Politics Weekly, Kiran explains that Sunak would rather get drenched than be compared to noted brolly loser Steve McLaren. Optics discourse is incredible"

Union Jack gazebos are a thing:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/165496541979

behold, the Racism Cube

Don't let Starmer know or he'll be doing his press conferences from inside one.

he already is, psychically

dismal

Keir Starmer needs you to vote for Reform on July 4th.

A vote for Reform is a vote to put Keir Starmer into power. pic.twitter.com/CGVoo5snGc

— Conservatives (@Conservatives) May 23, 2024

in fairness his politics are more or less identical to theirs

And I would have got away with it if it hadn't been for you meddling Conservative Party Central Office political advisers.

A more abstract approach would be better: "vote Labour, you get Starmer as pm" with Starmer getting a Starmer mask yanked off, revealing that this confirms that he is indeed Starmer.

^^
I'm giving this one for free, if my name was saatchi & saatchi I could charge millions for this shit!

I like that, you'll go far in this game

Still an opportunity for Paul Mason

NEW
 
Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats
 
When candidates ask when the deadline is, they have been told it’s 48 hours, according to 2 I’ve spoken to
 
Some Tory associations are pretty livid at having been left in such an unprepared situation pic.twitter.com/baBLr6TiMK

— Paul McNamara (@PGMcNamara) May 23, 2024

lol, only a matter of time before serial carpetbagger Mason declares that the only way to advance the class struggle is by running as a Tory candidate.

Islington North too, he could run against Corbyn after all!

It’s official!

https://www.islingtontribune.co.uk/article/jeremy-corbyn-why-i-am-standing-as-an-independent-candidate-at-the-general-election

Excited for the Lab right focusing a proportionate amount of time and attention on this.

... and the Tories. Stoked for this particular madness.

Lol

One #bbcqt audience member: "I've come to this program really wanting to listen to what the Labour Party is going to say. I used to vote for the Labour Party, and you've not answered any question at all"

Bridget Phillipson smiles. pic.twitter.com/W6rwKMLvuq

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 24, 2024

6 more weeks of this to come.

https://x.com/dril/status/473265809079693312

a dril for all seasons

Bridget Phillipson smiles and a baby dies

she looks like she's actively getting off on this

hitler horn

your mission should you choose to accept it is to go on question time and say nothing of substance

All these Labour women with Gina McKee in Our Friends in the North haircuts, can barely tell them apart.

This is fascinating, to me

not an original observation but it’s fascinating how many Starmer leadership pledges have been unceremoniously dumped pic.twitter.com/Zv7PBwLyJL

— Jim Pickard 🐋 (@PickardJE) May 23, 2024

I also find it fascinating that he had an affair with Baroness Jenny Chapman

All these Labour women with Gina McKee in Our Friends in the North haircuts, can barely tell them apart.

― steely flan (suzy), Friday, 24 May 2024 11:57 (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

They've all copped Gina McKee's haircut from Our Friends and Gina McKee's attitude from Brass Eye

"I'm going in now, like a bad boy"

This another McKee haircut?

The graffiti says "Stop art-washing"

It is in response to Seret International Film Festival, which is funded by the Israeli government.

The Israeli state is committing a genocide as we speak.

Get a grip lol https://t.co/8j8Q6aVhQu pic.twitter.com/bikHJH3nHV

— jewdⒶs // ייִדהודה (@jewdas) May 24, 2024

She's my local Labour candidate. I will enjoy not voting for her.

Here is the briefcase who is going up against JC

Congratulations @prafulnargund - you will be a fantastic Labour MP for Islington North, and I can’t wait to join you on the doorstep to help get you elected! https://t.co/2T7eaiZpOw

— Sem Moema 🌹🐝💪🏾 (@Semakaleng) May 24, 2024

good luck chump

even before you read about his private healthcare background, he's just so visibly an absolute cunt!

yeah he definitely gets voted out early on the apprentice

I've got to admit I was somewhat worried they might pick the other candidate, who seemed quite pleasant and sympathetic, but how beautifully in character for them to settle for this utter bellend.

https://www.prafulnargund.co.uk/

Private Site
This site is currently private. If you’re the owner or contributor, log in.

The other one had to dip out because she was a political ally of the Hackney P**do.

So many Labour supporters online seem to be apoplectic about Corbyn's decision to stand as an indie and his resulting expulsion from the LP. Why?
You'd think they'd be happy he's out of the party and they now have the chance to win the seat for Starmer's Labour? What gives?

only Islington North betting I've seen quoted was from William Kedjanyi who had made Corbyn the 8/13 fav, but was from before the stuffed suit challenger was unveiled.

I was looking on the bet365 site, it has a ton of consituencies there but no sign of Islington North yet

xxp

like he has waited until the day the Labour candidate is announced, not badmouthed the party. There is nothing they can criticise him for here.

I expect Will’s odds will go even more favourably for JC. The stuffed suit looks like someone who appears on You’re Fired in week 3 of an Apprentice season.

they’ve never let ‘there’s nothing they can criticise him for here’ stop them criticising him before tbf

Lol just came across this interview with members of D:Ream

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2017/jun/05/how-we-made-d-ream-things-can-only-get-better-tony-blair-election-alistair-campbell-

"The song’s become associated with great times and positivity. This year, for the first time in my life, I’m voting Labour."

Published in...2017

to be fair it's not really possible to vote Labour when you live in Northern Ireland.

Standing down: Michael Gove!

Fantastic! Get tae fuck!!!

OMG this guy... the teeth, the hair, the eyes...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsdpQT9bb5M

He looks like Garry Shandling.

Gove should check with Baddiel whether he fancies making another series of A Stab in the Dark

I genuinely dislike making fun of names, but the fact that this guy's name is similar to pratfall is apposite, for the role he's being given

Apparently we are also saying adieu to Dread Some Anal.

Has this cunt got the easiest path to PM ever? This is like when some extremely mid NBA team winds up facing injury depleted squads and lucks into a championship. Corbyn had fuckin Brexit around his neck the whole time

So Kieth is the Minnesota Timberwolves now?

The path looks stupidly easy, it's mainly for comedy's sake I hope he fails, but also because he's an evil cunt who represents evil, either way

He's an evil reperasentative!

All set up for him to win 400 seats, be completely useless and doom y’all to another 12 years of Tories right?

that could conceivably happen with him getting 2 million less votes than Corbyn got in "worst ever result for the Labour Party since 1935". It won't happen though because of Gaza, Galloway, the Greens, other Indies after encouraging results in the Locals, I think the SNP will do better than the polling suggests and of course even the Tories are never going to get wiped out as badly as the polling suggests, especially against an insipid cunt like Kieth.

its likely to be a low turnout election, probably the lowest post 1945 (and therefore presumably ever), as support for all of the parties has evaporated (and the new ukip/brexit party doesn't look like taking any advantage of that at all)

If Labour win the Tories will self-immolate though, one part will say they weren't right wing enough and the other part will say they were too right wing. Can't tell which side will win out and it could take a long time to pan out, think the first group will eventually win out though. UK voters have a relatively unusual incumbency bias, and in the aggregate tend to vote for 'the government', whoever that is. Might change going forward but if Labour win this one they'll be odds on for the next one too and potentially the one after that

There's also structural stuff about how each party torches part of its future vote that doesnt come into play until years later, with voter distribution changing with tomorrow important seats not necessarily being todays important seats

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/25/election-pm-change-politics-keir-starmer-rishi-sunak

frankly amazed The Guardian still lets Chakrabortty call out what they essentially stand for

Boris Johnson launches an attack on Keir Starmer in the Daily Mail

"He takes responsibility for everything that took place on his watch - except of course for the failure to prosecute the paedophile, necrophiliac and BBC superstar Jimmy Saville"

Boris otm. You vote Starmer - you get legalised necrophillia.

Sounds good to me

Boris speaking truth to power

The Mail's front page is somewhat amusing for having the Johnson 'back to the 70s (you know a decade we were in power for half of) with Fidel Keirstro' rehash directly above the splash of a desperate vow by Reeves that they won't ever deviate from the What Would Tories Do? little blue book.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/25/thames-water-vomiting-bug-cryptosporidium?

The incoming collpase of Thames Water is another reasson for an early general.

I would love to be certain that Corbyn will win but there's a lot of soppy middle class liberals in this area, all of whom are going to turn out to vote and will experience no problems trying to vote.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/25/loved-islington-voters-40-year-connection-to-jeremy-corbyn

yeah tbh I think it's 50/50 at best

i don't think he's a lock either and fun as it will be if he wins there are bigger PLP fish to fry

Doesn't matter if JC loses he'll - - and I don't say this to slight him - - just keep doing campaigns till he is no longer able.

Yeah but the briefcase banter will be intolerable

Today on Twitter: many briefcases complaining about the_far_left calling them briefcases.

If I see one more "Starmer is a horny-handed son of toil" tweet I'm gonna run amok I swear

Guardian reporter doing the rounds in Islington North just happens to bump into Boaby G (I had no idea he lived in the same constituency as me!)

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/25/defeat-would-be-a-big-blow-labour-faces-double-trouble-of-corbyn-and-abbott-in-islington-and-hackney

... no guarantee that he does, of course.

I think he’s up in Highbury?

Further up Highbury Park, the Primal Scream singer Bobby Gillespie is on his way to celebrate his wife’s birthday. “I’ll definitely vote for Corbyn,” he says.

He described the former Labour leader as a “great British patriot who wants the best for everybody”. Getting into his stride in a long disquisition on the state of Britain, he says he’s disillusioned with parliamentary politics, quotes Noam Chomsky and denounces the “worldwide network of financial capitalism” before finishing off with a two-fingered salute and: “Fuck Labour.”

Right on Boaby :)

Getting into his stride in a long disquisition on the state of Britain

You can sense said journo edging away, panic in their eyes

"But by the same token, defeat would mean an ignominious end to a parliamentary career that has spanned five decades and will almost certainly be the final nail in the coffin for Corbynism."

Thames Water will need a government rescue by the end of the year. The things thrown up by the Corbyn leadership will not go away.

Corbynism, that's totally a real thing

Lol I know.

Meanwhile if this narrows more as time goes on I am really going to enjoy these ppl squirm.

🚨 NEW: The first Opinium poll of the general election campaign sees its highest Tory share since March

🔴 LAB: 41% (-2)
🔵 CON: 27% (+2)
🟠 LDM: 10% (+1)
🟣 RFM: 10% (=)
🟢 GRN: 7% (=)
🟡 SNP 2% (-1)

23-24 May
Changes w/ 15-17 May

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) May 25, 2024

The Blue Bounce continues

Breaking

The prime minister unveils a plan that would see 18-year-olds given the choice of a full-time military placement for 12 months or a scheme to volunteer for one weekend a month for a year

"Sixteen- and 17-year-olds could be given the right to vote if Labour wins the general election, Keir Starmer has confirmed."

But why oh why believe him etc.

rishi's desperation is just incredible. he called the election just a couple of days ago and he's already stooping to nonsense like that? can't wait to see what he's got up his sleeve next

more concerned that he'll give Labour ideas tbh

Lab's response was to go on about cost. That's their default for everything

Hope Sunak just starts announcing debates like Trump while Keef cowers. GB News will probably empty chair him.

The Conservatives are pushing for six TV debates, one each week of the campaign, but Labour officials will only commit to two - run by the BBC and ITV.

tbf on the empty chair - it's probably more capable of pretending to be a human being and giving substantive answers to questions than Starmer is.

xyzzzz__ at 11:08 25 May 24

Lab's response was to go on about cost. That's their default for everything

I can guarantee you that the 18 yr old who volunteers one weekend a month will turn up hungover, uninterested and useless, be put in a cupboard to do some basic filing, and nobody will get anything out of the experience - especially the 18 yr olds who won't be able to get a part-time job because their availability for retail and hospitality will be ruined. Not that it needs repeating, but this is nonsense that's been dreamed up by someone who has no clue how the world operates and looks in 2024.

Nailed on that his girls wouldn’t be doing this.

Tories have finally run out of minorities to shit on so they're shitting on the young.

The funding question was a good one, seeing as the answer seems to be "by cracking down on Tax evasion"

Yeah, right. That's gonna happen!

'There will be no return to austerity under a Labour government,' says Rachel Reeves

Guessing nobody challenged the glaringly bullshit premise implied by the phrase “return to austerity” here

Also rest assured she will have also said “difficult decisions” 500 times

you know I am absolutely no fan of labour, but mentioning the massive expense of national service is a pretty easy and effective response rather than getting bogged down in the other reasons it's a stupid idea
― This is Dance Anthems, have some respect (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Sunday, 26 May 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Costs can be weighed one way or another. If this was a coherent plan, with an ideology behind it that was communicated properly, 'cost' wouldn't be a response.

As the boat crossings increase due to climate emegencies cost will quickly become an inadequate response to the Rwanda plan.

Tha lawyers love him.

Everyone I've spoken to about @Keir_Starmer whilst he was at the Bar has a story to tell like this. It's really striking: there's a genuine, consistent and strong admiration for him. Let's hope he finds and exhibits this quality as Prime Minister. https://t.co/9wMYmEhwku

— Jo Maugham (@JolyonMaugham) May 23, 2024

he's just so friendly to dogs as well, i hear

I'm sure Jimmy Savile felt the same.

A doozy of an article.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/26/it-is-foolish-and-self-indulgent-for-the-anti-starmer-left-to-split-the-labour-vote

this "Starmer is a good person" shit would be more convincing if it didn't suddenly appear in the context of rallying support to elect somebody who looks like a venal self-serving little cunt every time he speaks in public

important good faith thoughts from Sonia "I'm voting for anybody but Corbyn" Sodha

At least a dozen other Graun regulars could and probably will front p much that exact same article over the next five weeks.

Meanwhile theres's gall and then there's this:

“It will be an outright outrage if Murdoch supports Starmer,” said Mackenzie, the Sun’s former editor. “He was the man who brought prosecutions against journalists. They were cleared, but they had their lives destroyed or disrupted. It would be a low blow.”

Hm, what would be the funniest way for Kelvin Mackenzie to have his life destroyed?

meanwhile, in scotland

Ouch. After trying repeatedly to dodge giving an answer, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar admits on Sunday Show that his family's wholesale business (in which he no longer has shares) does not pay all its workers the real living wage despite his party's plan to improve it

— Tom Gordon (@HTScotPol) May 26, 2024

His whole family are dodgy as fuck, if you ask me.

Labour Friends of Sweated Labour

Rachel Reeves in The Daily Mail:

https://archive.ph/OPqc1#selection-1423.0-1427.76

But I know from talking to businesses over the past three years that stability and investment are not enough to kick-start our economy. We need reform, too. That means a serious plan to get the long-term sick – who have been let down by ballooning hospital waiting lists, failing mental health support, an inflexible welfare state, and inadequate employment support – back to work.
If you can work, you should work – that's why we're called the Labour Party.

Far from the worst thing, but for me the most insultingly lazy erase-the-past pish

https://i.scdn.co/image/ab67616d0000b27333723c1fa5d2d862c5d90870

Forced Labour Party

businesses have been telling you they're crying out to employ the seriously ill and disabled have they Rachel? that boosts the economy does it? it's not just murderous performative cruelty? you're gonna fix it by investing in healthcare and listening to what disabled people tell you about what they need? yeah it's gonna be great

get the idle rich to put an honest shift in first perhaps

LOL

‘Int milk brilliant?’

Rishi Sunak here looking like he’s in a scene from the Fast Show

Good lord it just gets worse and worse

pic.twitter.com/AYAgv7GIDA

— Stuzi 🐝🐝 (@stuzi_pants) May 26, 2024

"sleepy Kier" is really desperate, pitiful stuff, so of course all the sensibles are signal boosting it to death

Who needs bots?

i wonder what the text from labour hq said x pic.twitter.com/kVsAjSeC0H

— Ben Smoke (@bencsmoke) May 27, 2024

Labour’s manifesto launchpic.twitter.com/qTfviN1A9Y

— troovus (@troovus) May 27, 2024

lol

Imagibe getting back to hung parliament

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/27/labour-polling-lead-conservatives-overstated-tory-election-expert

the After Laughter (Comes Tears) election, but it will be worth it just for the laughter.

Overstated polling lead not reflected in the bookies odds (yet?)

But I noticed UKIP are shorter odds than Reform. I didn't know UKIP still existed, or what it is Reform offer that UKIP didn't

Eton educated MP (and son of Prue Leith) Danny Kruger argues in favour of national service on the basis that it challenges the "prevailing culture" of 'I'll do what I want, and Govt can do the work of looking after me.'

The National Service idea divides opinion - naturally. It's a bold proposal that challenges the prevailing culture of 'I'll do what I want, and Govt can do the work of looking after me.' There are good liberal reasons to object to anything compulsory... 1/2

— Danny Kruger (@danny__kruger) May 28, 2024

seems like some of these guys are resigned to the fact they're going to lose and now just openly expressing their contempt for the electorate?

Its a virtue signal

it's ingenious of them to find a way of taking the fact that everyone thinks they've done a crap job of running the country and reframe it as evidence of the entitlement and fecklessness of the public - oh, so you think the government should do everything for you?

how many days before he announces he's bringing back hanging?

For everyone between the ages of 18 and 24.

That and the "quadruple lock" on unfreezing tax (which they froze in the first place) so that pensioners will never pay tax is just a sign that one of the neurons has latched onto "old people vote and should love us" as the plan.

Also: lol
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/tory-mps-blamed-poor-start-123657177.html

the brexit hardman is on holiday in Greece for a GE campaign, that is slightly amusing.

xxp i wonder if they will shift strategy when this doesn't work

State pension has risen to just a bit above the UK tax threshold so they have to do something about pensioners getting a surprise tax demand for a grand or so.

Ed Davey fell in the water on purpose in a desperate attempt to remind the electorate he exists and you can't convince me otherwise

NEW: I can reveal Labour’s investigation into suspended MP Diane Abbott’s racism comments finished 5 months ago

A source says she was given a ‘formal warning’ in Dec ‘23

Ms Abbott was required to do an online ‘anti semitism course’ - which she did in Feb

Yet source says she…

— Victoria Derbyshire (@vicderbyshire) May 28, 2024

Insert Cilla gif here

Hateful party for hateful voters

This vibe as a voter offering

I met Cilla Black once - she sat at a table I'd reserved and refused to move. Her spiteful arrogance was astounding. pic.twitter.com/AY86JjznfH

— BeCo (@BeCo74) August 2, 2015

Labour Friends of People Who Sit in the Train Seat You've Paid For

so Starmer has been hiding behind an investigation that finished 5 months ago when dodging questions about Abbott. Pathetic little lying fucker.

xxp That's Rachel Reeves' look at you when you ask why she won't tax wealth to feed kids

you could see the visceral hatred towards Abbott in the texts between party insiders and the consensus probably is they want her out but it's just ever so slightly nagl to drive out the only senior black female MP. Nothing to do with having a shred of human decency, it's just makes for awkward PR.

What's the betting the media will "suddenly" discover the scale of anti-black/anti-muslim racism in the Labour Party 6 months into the new parliament?

Speaking about taxing wealth, did we see that Starmer's answer to why he won't tax wealth is "we can't afford that" ?

xp especially when you theoretically want the votes of black people

Islington North odds with bet365

Labour 1.72
Corbyn 2.00
Lib Dem 34.00
Conservative 41.00
Reform 251.00
Green 251.00

Starsports have Corbyn fav but similarly close

Pretty sure they assume black people will to vote for them anyway so they don't give a fuck.

so Starmer has been hiding behind an investigation that finished 5 months ago when dodging questions about Abbott. Pathetic little lying fucker.

Yeah he needs dragging for this wtf

Jesus Christ

EXCL: A white Labour candidate who publicly apologised after saying he had the “worst tan possible for a black man” at a Black History Month event privately dismissed criticism as being “part of a smear campaign” against him.https://t.co/3Kyzm4v4Ah

— Joe Pike (@joepike) May 28, 2024

Brit pol getting better.

Very emotional moving sign off from @IainDale who has just announced he is stepping back from LBC to try to get selected as a Tory MP.

— Ayesha Hazarika (@ayeshahazarika) May 28, 2024

“part of a smear campaign”

okay yes i did leave the car windows open last night during the rain and i'm sorry, but frankly the criticism about it feels like a smear campaign on your part, honey

Sweet.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/may/29/junior-doctors-strike-england-june

for FUCK’S sake

https://x.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1795832705265135975

🔴 POPLAR & LIMEHOUSE: It seems that sitting MP Apsana Begum may be subject to a renewed deselection attempt. https://t.co/PrzbQfa7Er

— @Tomorrow'sMPs (@tomorrowsmps) May 29, 2024

Looks like her ex-husband is at it again. Why has a domestic abuser been allowed to carry on as a Labour member?

This 'left-wing' landlord has also been barred from standing

D:Ream - Things Can Only Get Better (1993) (Official Video) https://t.co/GX4196SX1f via @YouTube

— Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP🌹🏳️‍🌈 (@lloyd_rm) May 22, 2024

how cruel and completely unnecessary 🤭

I'm sure some of you won't click on this because of where it is (and absolutely fair enough) but I keep thinking of this series of articles from conhome on how an unexpected election and overly-centralised campaign shafted the Tories in the 2017 elections. Given the source, they don't credit Corbyn at all, but it's a scene with some echoes - more on Labour than the Tories, this time?

“The whole candidate process was dreadful,” admits a senior Parliamentarian, and draws an unflattering comparison with the enthusiasm of the Corbynite grassroots: “It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that creating an actual mass movement in which people have some control has a potential benefit.” Ruefully, he adds that the modern Conservative Party is “almost a structure set up to discourage participation. It’s not something you can love anymore – it’s something you fear because it’s a totalitarian state.”

https://conservativehome.com/2017/09/05/our-cchq-election-audit-the-rusty-machine-part-one-why-the-operation-that-succeeded-in-2015-failed-in-2017/
https://conservativehome.com/2017/09/06/our-cchq-election-audit-the-rusty-machine-part-two-how-and-why-the-ground-campaign-failed/
https://conservativehome.com/2017/09/07/our-cchq-election-audit-the-rusty-machine-part-three-what-can-be-done-to-fix-it/

The Scottish National party has deleted an election video on TikTok after it emerged it featured a sexually-explicit song by American rap artist Big Boss Vette, which also uses the n-word.

The track, Pretty Girls Walk, carries an explicit lyrics warning on streaming platforms and starts with the verse: “No matter what the fuck these hoes talkin’ ‘bout, just know you a bad bitch, every motherfucking time that you wake up, and you look in that motherfucking mirror”

I'm sure that's exactly what John Swinney does every morning.

BREAKING: Iain Dale tells LBC he has now abandoned his bid to become the Conservative candidate for Tunbridge Wells, after this clip of him telling listeners he 'never liked the place’ and ‘would happily live somewhere else’ was revealed https://t.co/vr3FnfeuX2

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) May 31, 2024

lol 'all talk'

Excellent.

surely there are many residents of Tunbridge Wells who have never liked the place and would happily live somewhere else, they deserve a chance to vote for a candidate who shares their views

It is a selfless piece of service, if you think about it, to represent a place you've never liked in the hope of making it better.

or worse!

ppl should feel some kind of civic pride in what a loveless dreary shithole yr town or city is.

Kent towns shittier than Tunbridge Wells, pt. 1:

Ashford
Maidstone
Tonbridge
Dover

move over John Redwood pretending to sing the Welsh national anthem and Peter Lilley adapting the Mikado, there's a new kid in town

Please God, make it stop... 😩

"When it comes to football, the country shouldn’t just be worried about the Danes, Slovenians and the Serbs. They should be worried about Captain Flip-flop and his band of socialists. I think victory is in sight and we’ll bring it home." #newsnight pic.twitter.com/wwXW7i2zS2

— paulusthewoodgnome 🇺🇦💙 (@woodgnomology) May 31, 2024

Obviously not the parts of the country which will be cheering on the Danes, Slovenians and Serbs.

I presume D:Ream will be giving back all those royalties they’ve earned over the years thanks to the Labour Party? Or would that be too far?? https://t.co/CHCNG7I2EP

— Rhys Goode (@rhys_goode) June 2, 2024

i can't stress enough how this one gesture from D:Ream has made up for years of having to hear their terrible record

piss can only get boileder

Time to spice things up

Breaking:

Nigel Farage is the new leader of Reform UK as Richard Tice formally stands aside

Farage says it is 'the dullest most boring general election campaign we have ever seen in our lives' being fought by two near identikit leaders

— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) June 3, 2024

"dullest most boring" bleakest most disheartening general election campaign would be more accurate

Stopped himself short of saying Richard Tice is the dullest, most boring party leader he'd ever seen.

Standing in Clacton where Douglas Carswell won for UKIP in 2015 - Douglas Carswell who now lives in Mississippi!

Prominent anti Brexit campaigner and former Lib Dem donor Charlie Mullins seeks to be a candidate for Reform UK (2024) pic.twitter.com/J1b9QchJiN

— insane moments in british politics (@PoliticsMoments) June 3, 2024

Charlie is back(in the country possibly - no confirmation yet if he's in his luxury Spanish Villa or the £10m riverside penthouse in London). But as a plumber he knows where there is shit, there is brass!

Well there's a vacancy in Black Lace if he fails.

Brilliant day canvassing in Trinity ward, Sutton Coldfield. A lot of young professionals are fed up with Tories nationally and Brum Labour for going bankrupt.

And now just the one in #PlanetSuttonColdfield pub of the day The Four Oaks. pic.twitter.com/wObdqwAgdC

— John Sweeney (@johnsweeneyroar) June 3, 2024

oh ffs i didn't realise that was happening

Can you imagine how bad that hat smells

Fuck washing John Sweeney's hat

barely standing John Sweeney

Nobody can stand him.

I wonder how likely the following scenario is: Farage wins in Clacton, Tories decimated to under 100 MPs, Farage switches sides and becomes Tory leader

it's plausible enough but it's also plausible that the conservative brand ends up so tainted that it's not really in his interests, and it's not like the press won't be happy to treat him as the opposition leader in that case

I assume he has a good shot of winning in Clacton (though is his record a bit patchy when not running specifically on Brexit?), and as a strategy It seems plausible at least.

Is it in his interests or not? I'm not sure. The move has interesting timing, to say the least. If it did happen, he would swoop in as saviour, at least from his perspective. And the more damaged the conservative party and brand is, the more leeway that would give him to shape the party the way he wanted. Likelihood of something like this is difficult to measure, but I could see a potential path to it

*begins typing bet3... into browser*

lol sorry

Starmer to promise to 'close the door' on Putin

https://i0.wp.com/skwawkbox.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/mandelson-putin.png?w=1370&ssl=1

he needs to 'close the door' on Mandelson first, lol

I reckon deselecting Putin was the right call actually

I agree, Farage absolutely will return as the saviour of the conservatives. There's no way the "conservative brand" will become too too tainted, it's the most successful political party in history, the English have a co-dependent relationship with it, it's the vampire which never dies and cannot be killed. It's just waiting for the right person/movement to resurrect it.

only just reading about all the kids in kosovo named tonibler after tony blair

another word for 'bootlicker' eh

Mandelson is the Jeffrey Epstein of British politics and no I won't elaborate further

Can't see the Tories ever accepting Farage, I'm not convinced he'll win Clacton anyway. They'll either carry on down the far right route with Badenoch or Jenrick or some other ghoul or they'll completely shift to the centre.

Apsana Begum confirmed as Labour candidate

xp famously he has never won a Parliamentary seat he has stood for, he's 0-7 on that score. Begs the question of why our friends in the media keep platforming him...

Beats talking to Keir Starmer.

There would have to be a paradigm- shifting massacre for the Tories to accept Farage as a leader, I agree, but let's see ...

My older relatives are Tory or Tory-leaning and Farage is an uncrossable line for them. They'd vote for Mordaunt, though.

I am curious, though - what is Farage useful for, exactly, as a politician? He is bad disliked as an orator and personality, he has no consistent base, he has no reputation as a power broker or thinker or organiser, he can get "coverage" but it's usually largely negative - what do others who value the things he represents find him valuable for?

My main thought on Farage is "let's not give any oxygen to this cunt" but having seen a couple of media appearances over the last day I've noticed that they are actually questioning him on his hypocrisy this time and in return he's coming across like a furious foaming-at-the-mouth loon.

I mean metaphorical oxygen but literal oxygen works too

thinking of these two clips

Farage has a meltdown on BBC News and then refused to go on Newsnight

Ben Thompson, "Call it a pressure group, call it a party, you were a candidate to be an MP on a ballot paper"

Nigel Farage, "How many times have you stood?"

BT, "I'm just asking"

NF, "What do you know about… pic.twitter.com/HDa5KdCmEx

— Farrukh (@implausibleblog) June 3, 2024

“I can take you to streets in Oldham where no one speaks English.”
“Or they could speak two languages? Don't your own children speak another language?”
Exchange with Nigel Farage on #r4today, Mr Farage asked how he knows people he hears speaking another language have no English👇🏾 pic.twitter.com/zL62EOTECb

— Darshna Soni (@darshnasoni) June 4, 2024

He's winning rn in terms of headlines. Guess now we have to see his face every day for weeks. Can imagine him winning (and yeah ending up Tory/eventual PM have thought so for a while) but can't imagine him spending much time in the Commons or indeed in Clacton tho. Pretty funny in that it just seems like he was triggered into running from his own supporters questioning his loyalty or whatever (don't think it was that really but nor was it based on Trump being found guilty as that was on the cards for some time and he didn't have to mention Trump at all when explaining why he wasn't intending to run).

The more racist the talking points the livelier this election will be, with bigger ratings across TV and radio.

Everybosy wins.

feel like they didn't challenge him on his obvious bullshit like this so much before
― This is Dance Anthems, have some respect (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 4 June 2024 14:07

Well yeah, he's no longer a useful foil/brake against a left wing labour party

Theresa May did 'they don't even speak our language' in 2016 get some new material

Farage is looking kind of ratty and rundown to me these days and I think he's trying to introduce a more belligerent MAGA style, less chummy fellow at the golf club, approach and that's not going to go down well.

I mean there are prominent members of the Tory Party who are arguably more right wing than he is so he is having to outflank them.

My older relatives are Tory or Tory-leaning and Farage is an uncrossable line for them. They'd vote for Mordaunt, though.

I am curious, though - what is Farage useful for, exactly, as a politician? He is bad disliked as an orator and personality, he has no consistent base, he has no reputation as a power broker or thinker or organiser, he can get "coverage" but it's usually largely negative - what do others who value the things he represents find him valuable for?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GPO9v12W8AA5hJH?format=jpg&name=medium

lool, he has been milkshaked in Clacton!

National Service required for her...as UK PM

the really zoomed out one where you can see her do it and then walk off also has a lot of charm

Farage-milkshaking hun is the drunk “Tommy Robinson? He’s a cunt x” of this election

looking forward to some very furrowed brows telling me this was an unhelpful thing to do

we regret to inform you that milkshake Nigel is racist

oh so u support political violence do u

(well, yeah)

ah this is glorious. perfect aim, right in the face, the follow up with the cup and the nonchalant walk off - tens across the board https://t.co/ExOfE2U4Ao

— she/hererzade (@tubbsOreally) June 4, 2024

AND THE CUP

🙏

iconic photo

*Mwah* https://t.co/uGsWbanlYy pic.twitter.com/6B5hrvEWpd

— Michael Walsh (@thatbloodyMikey) June 4, 2024

if we're replaying the greatest hits of farage's previous public humiliations in this election cycle i hope there's a small plane ride on his travel itinerary soon

There's going to be some fun cognitive dissonance in the debate tonight.

"I think it's unacceptable for MPs' safety to be threatened in this way, and we will have to crack down on this aggressive behavior"
"No, I think banning arms sales to Israel is the wrong decision"
"I am prepared, at any moment and without much thought, to begin the process of ending all life on earth"

you mean uk media?

it's tonight on bbc and itv, isn't it? not that'll be watching

Perfect, very entertaining

Just Nigel Farage getting a beer chucked at him pic.twitter.com/txnioRDyrD

— RobGoff (@robertagoffin) June 4, 2024

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:qjzrpzlcmir3bkss4b5nh6ox/bafkreie2gfweuyfamtpmnvt6m3gnnvww62yshlkvr2xskcyr745aaeyfcu@jpeg

👑

Makes me proud to be British.

ah milkshaking. a British tradition I can feel proud of

Don't think there's a party leader in this election you wouldn't be happy to see receive the same treatment

get Luke Akehurst next

lactose the intolerant

That lady who shouts "That wasn't from any of us" or whatever. Like a kid at school who's worried the teacher's going to tell her off

such poise!

Disgraceful assault on Nigel Farage today. Completely unacceptable and wrong. No one should face intimidation or assault in an election campaign. Thank you to the police for responding.

— Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) June 4, 2024

I believe the only appropriate response to this shit would be to milkshake Yvette Cooper next

https://i.imgur.com/4KABQ1R.png

LOL @ Starmer making a dog's dinner of the leader's debate.

it's almost like there can't be a fucking winner when both of the dire cunts are racing to the bottom, but apparently Sunak edged it by 1% in a YouGov flash poll

(though is his record a bit patchy when not running specifically on Brexit?)

As Neil S pointed out, his record is the opposite of patchy!

Also it's not a beer unless they serve beers in Clacton with cup lids and straws, 100% a beautiful moment though.

Banana milkshake. Perfect.

There’s a meme going around where the arc of the flying shake matches a Fibonacci curve; this is a thing of beauty.

it even reached this thread!

it's almost like there can't be a fucking winner when both of the dire cunts are racing to the bottom, but apparently Sunak edged it by 1% in a YouGov flash poll

― vodkaitamin effrtvescent (calzino), Tuesday, 4 June 2024

Worth noting how no one here even bothered with the debate.

i read a bit of reaction afterwards and apparently they were both extremely dull, who knew eh

i wouldn't watch a debate if there were well-intentioned human beings with policies intended to effect genuine change on it, so why the hell would anybody subject themselves to Rishi/Kieth unless they've got a serious masochism kink/more worm than brain?

I saw some of the aftermath with a drunk Johnny Mercer having a pretend argument with Wes Streeting and then the two stumbling off like bosom buddies.

I dunno, did 20% of schools in the old Eastern Bloc also double up as emergency food banks to deal with mass child hunger or does this only happen in superior economic and political systems such as the UK's? pic.twitter.com/BcRHpeMjMi

— Mr Demos of Pnyx (@gem_ste) June 5, 2024

The Is He Real Or Is He A Parody legend that is Mike Tapp named as one of Labour's "rising stars". God help us all.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/05/rising-stars-who-could-play-a-big-part-in-a-labour-government

I tried watching the debate but had to turn it off after about 10 minutes; it was so unbearable that I literally couldn’t look at the screen.

I put it on accidentally and had much the same reaction.

Good for her.

The Daily Heil accidentally making her even more iconic. pic.twitter.com/dnGC21EFI1

— Jack D 🏳️‍🌈 (@JackDunc1) June 4, 2024

i thought Tories loved young entrepreneurs

well she's hardly going to be a Starmer supporter, he'd have her prosecuted for common assault faster than you can say Jimmy Sav....

Solemnly, regrettably providing +33 pics out of pure public-spirited service.

Vote of no confidence in Welsh First Minister Vaughan Gething today,; turns out he's a massively corrupt liar. Shocking for a Starmer acolyte.

This reddit post helpfully illuminates all the issues:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Labour/comments/1d84e2r/welsh_first_minister_vaughan_gething_premiership/

IDS should win the seat again.

It’s official @faizashaheen will run as an Independent Parliamentary Candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green.

We send solidarity from Newham.

Please support her campaign and let’s help her to deliver a victory for the many! ✊🏽 pic.twitter.com/5p7MwIcoX8

— Newham Independents 💛 (@NewhamIndParty) June 5, 2024

Good work Labour Party!

Labour outrage about Tories lying about Labour policy is some real "Windmills of Your Mind" shit

Hope Jenrick loses seat and everything else

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jun/05/siyabonga-twala-stranded-in-turkey-can-return-to-uk-home-office-u-turn

Keir Starmer claimed tonight that GB Energy would generate energy, just days after confirming it wouldn't generate any energy because it was just an investment vehicle. This is getting ridiculous. We don't appear to have any reporters willing to call this out. What is going on?… pic.twitter.com/UbMaRDWj4K

— MSM Monitor (@msm_monitor) June 4, 2024

it's outrageous that the Tory leader lied about a Labour policy, that's f-cking Kieth's job

Since announcing his campaign ten days ago, Lib Dem candidate for Sutton Coldfield John Sweeney—who earns £3,000 a month on Patreon for his on-the-ground coverage of the Ukrainian War from his gorgeous Victorian townhouse—has posted eight photos of him having Just The One® Drink. pic.twitter.com/DgNCplfJL7

— Eyup Lovely (@eyuplovely) June 6, 2024

Booze shaming is bad yo

To me its amazing how the guy is finding so much joy from this election.

Guess you would if you made 3k from 'work'.

if stays in the pub getting shitfaced rather than doorstep campaigning, then he is improving the lives of many people in Sutton Coldfield

On the Local Housing Allowance.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/05/14-years-tory-housing-benefit-homelessness-poor-cities

"The option is there for Labour to take a different route. Simply reverting to the pre-2010 position and linking LHA to the 50th percentile again would ease a lot of pain overnight. But this means committing to spend more on benefits – something the party seems currently completely unwilling to do.

Longer term, a package of rent control for the private sector and a rapid increase of social housing, via acquisition and new building, would break the cycle of rising rents and rising benefits. Whether Labour has the political will and the guts to do this remains to be seen."

Eighty years ago today, the sun rose on a new day of hope after the dark storm of the Second World War.

Kieth's D-Day post, his attempt at jingoistic solemnity is so fucking hamfisted and clueless. ppl are replying it happened during WW2, the daft cunt thinks that was the end of the war, lol.

Yes, it's OK, nobody else died at Arnhem, Remagen, Battle of the Bulge etc etc.

a new day of hope in Hiroshima

I want to see Sir Antony Beevor saying "omg where do they get these cunts from these days?"

wow he is even shit at being the stereotype patriot he aspires to portray himself as, wtf is he good at?

Bullying women.

broke: labour leaders dancing a jig at the cenotaph

woke: labour leaders blithely displaying total ignorance of historical events

I was watching an old vid clip of Denis Healey singing The Ballad of the D-Day Dodgers and talking shit about his part in the Italian campaign. He was a cunt as well, but at least he wasn't as dumb as Kieth is.

the longer i live the more Healey looks like a towering paragon of integrity and socialism even tho you're right calz

woke: the old Labour Right

broke: a bunch of corrupt, cretinous racist morons

was listening to old interviews with the likes of Hattersley and Healey t'other day and was thinking these lads would get deselected by Kieth in no time for occasionally being funny and almost seeming like human beings in their more forthright moments

it's one of the most telling things about what a cesspit the Party is now when you think about the values that even those old Labour Right lags took for granted

I always say I'm not left wing it's just that the Labour Party became right wing.

Hearing that (some not all) political journalists are choosing not to pursue stories on Labour because they are expecting a massive majority, and so don’t want to burn bridges with prospective contacts in government. Hanging onto the coattails of power rather than challenging it!

— Matt Zarb-Cousin (@mattzarb) June 6, 2024

Utter, mendacious, barely-disguised contempt for their own voters

The Green Party would introduce a wealth tax of 1% on all assets over £10m increasing to 2% on assets above £1bn

Shabana Mahmood says that ordinary working people would end up paying part of it. How many ordinary working people does Mahmood know with assets of over £10 million? pic.twitter.com/yfjXpocfJw

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) June 6, 2024

what a load of old pish this D day story is

it's optics, and as far as the media is concerned, optics is everything, especially now they are willing to use them to get the boot in.

RISHI DISRESPECTED ARE BRAVE BOYS, 'ANGING'S TOO GOOD FOR THE BLEEDIN' ROTTER

(ps please remember to vote for sir kier starmer on july 4 to ensure a more competent right-wing government can be installed to further the interests of deeply-entrenched power in the uk kthxbye)

"Not fit to be Prime Minister" roar the Lib Dems!

I'm losing the will to live here.

Convenient dead D-Day cat given the Frank Hester revelations (not that there's anything very revelatory about them)

I'm still waiting for some distinguished historian to attack Kieth for his botched and thick as fuck D-Day post, but I guess you need to be a genuine hater to gaf about how shit his posting is.

the video of Ed Davey doing his morning care routine with his autistic son seems to me - I hate to fucking say it - genuinely relatable and not done in a tacky exploitative way. But then I think: you fucking cunt, you know first hand how vital social care is and how much worse it has got after 14 years of austerity. And you were part of a regime that cut or completely stripped away benefits and disabled services for people like your son. I have this duality of having a modicum of respect for him because he seems like a good parent/carer who has a lot on. And also, fuck him - I hope he dies a very painful death, the fucking Tory piece of shit!

anyone else hear a really high-pitched noise, almost like a whistling or something, when anna soubry is speaking here

Anna Soubry says Rishi Sunak doesn't understand what D-Day means to British people pic.twitter.com/b7ITQtMpB1

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) June 7, 2024

“At the time of writing, and following Sunak’s self-inflicted D-Day gaffe, every single digital ad on the [Tories’] main pages has been switched off. Currently, the campaign has no active ads on Facebook, Instagram, Google or YouTube.” https://t.co/kkm4YyKJaY

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) June 7, 2024

Ha ha, Keith Vaz, Claudia Webbe and the official Labour candidate all standing in Leicester East. Tory gain?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/07/disgraced-keith-vaz-kicked-out-of-labour-as-he-stands-for-one-leicester-party

This seems effective:

Latest #LabourParty #election advert has arrived. It's fast work, a quick-grab message, and potentially very high impact. pic.twitter.com/mJdGDB2Cah

— Dr. Max (@DrMaxPolitics) June 7, 2024

Jolly japes

if Kieth would have been pm and stuck around to bloviate with Macron and Biden, a load of the usual tedious ahistorical bollox about defending democracy and some hackneyed Churchill misquote or whatever. Then that would make him a better person? Weird fucking country with a completely warped and delusional mindset.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GPeTmveX0AAKVdB?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

Kiwi diaspora having their say there. Respect to the honest respondents on 21% at the foot of the chart.

IT'S THE BELGIANS WOT WON IT

Amazing that we can have 24/7 WWII programmes on TV and yet

they need to teach operation bagration in UK schools (or to future pm simpletons like kieth), to help dispel false historical narratives. It was uncle joseph who smashed army group center and finished off the nazis as a serious fighting force ffs.

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

who's watching this debate and how are the lib dems already the most viscerally repellant out of all these oily freaks?

Turned on and two seconds of Stephen Flynn's Dundonian accent was enough for me.

Ok phew, nigel's already reclaimed his crown without even missing a beat

Just had to pop out for 5 minutes there for some milk, long enough to notice seven Vote Corybn posters in shop windows. Of course, it's not this part of the constituency he needs to worry about.

there was another all-white Islington pic posted by the anti-Corbyn Labour candidate yesterday (including Neil Kinnock,lol). If not for the London style townhouses in the background you could be forgiven for mistaking him as the Labour candidate for [whatever hellish N Yorkshire gammon zone shithole] rather than in ethnically diverse London.

Love how things like this won't consider that Lab could fuck up badly once in power.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/08/from-humiliation-to-annihilation-could-this-election-mean-the-end-of-the-tory-party-as-we-know-it

there's a Youtube advert for Scottish Labour I keep getting and they're definitely doing something with the lighting on Anas Sarwar

Their rescue is a glimmer of hope in the darkness.

this is the expression Lammy used to describe a massacre committed by IDF soldiers who arrived on the murder scene in a humanitarian aid vehicle. I've always detested the prick and since he became foreign sec in waiting he's got so much exponentially worse. What a fucking evil cunt.

"He’s no keener on dreamy leftwing utopianism than empty rightwing boosterism, taking issue with both the campaign for a universal basic income (UBI) and the anti-capitalist writer David Graeber’s popular “bullshit jobs” thesis, which argued that too many jobs in the modern economy are pointless, paper-shuffling make-work designed to keep the masses distracted. (UBI is too expensive if it’s generous enough to ensure nobody now on benefits loses out, he argues, but positively damaging otherwise; meanwhile, research shows a cheering number of Britons find their work meaningful or socially useful.)"

https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/jun/10/great-britain-how-we-get-our-future-back-by-torsten-bell-review-a-roadmap-to-the-new-normal

This is the kind of wanker who is going to hopefully be stopped from making policy when the world burns.

“radical incrementalism”

there is no such a thing, but I guess it works as bullshit political jargon for people who believe in nothing.

These people are so going to be overtaken by events.

funny how many people free from the grind of employment are such big fans of the healing power of employment

..our low productivity, chronic wage stagnation and American-style high inequality (but sadly without the higher growth of the US)

just need Reeves to press the magic economic growth button that didn't work for Truss, then the high inequality wont be so sad for the Graun writer.

An ex-Miliband adviser being feted as a big-brain economic whizz. Even more worse than it used to be.

these lads all seem to think they just need to find the sweet spot where capitalism works for everybody when the evidence of the last 40 years of growing inequality and accelerating environmental disaster is right in front of their eyes

only if you choose to look! it's much more fun and more lucrative to squint right past it

funny how many people free from the grind of employment are such big fans of the healing power of employment

― i love a man in a unicorn (Noodle Vague), Monday, 10 June 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Who are we to argue with a random poll. Work makes us cheerful!

Probably not a coincidence that this guy was advising labour when their vote really bottomed out, in 2010 and 2015

a total loser from the brains trust that commissioned the Ed Stone has got some things to say about Graeber, has he?

^ uses more words, but somehow pithier

luke the nuke’s promo video is some laugh

lol it's getting brutally ratio-ed

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GPt9OApXUAAW53n?format=jpg&name=medium

people clowning on him for looking like absolute refried dog diarrhoea but this might actually be the most put-together i’ve ever seen him look tbh

Maybe it was best not to attempt any bits where Luke is trying to converse with the humans he is appealing to for votes.

I just saw a vid of Starmer strangely guffawing at a young girl who was talking about living with heating poverty (having to wrap in multiple blankets at home) and his dismissive one-way conversation reply was that his 15 yr old son still loves his onesie. He's far weirder (and more sociopathic) than the Maybot of '17 when she awkwardly faced the public.

very telling that these absolute sociopaths are out there revealing their awfulness in public and the media response is just a huge shrug

How shameless is this worm.

BREAKING: Keir Starmer accuses Tories of "Corbyn-style manifesto"

The Conservative Party is to launch its manifesto at 11.30am

Latest: https://t.co/aj0cjpNqAp

📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/Gezma89zz4

— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 11, 2024

spineless dog dirt of a man

Laying himself open to people pointing out how both 2017 and 2019 were fully costed. Let's hope some brave, heroic reporter/anchor steps up on this

he should be nervous about mentioning Corbyn, because that opens him up to: well you were in his shadow cabinet and campaigned for him. But it doesn't matter, he's got it in easy mode and the outcome of the GE has already been decided.

What an utterly despicable cunt.

Looks like Les off Vic Reeves having a leek waved at him

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/11/nigel-farage-barnsley-objects-thrown-man-arrested

Looks like Les from Vic Reeves having a leek waved at him

https://i.imgur.com/f8G0ge8.jpeg

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/11/nigel-farage-barnsley-objects-thrown-man-arrested

apols for guardian but good riddance:

Robin Harper | The first ever Green parliamentarian in the UK, Harper has crossed the floor (sideways?) to join the Labour party, saying they are the only ones with a serious prospect of fighting climate change. The move will be much less contentious than Conservative defections, some of which have dismayed Labour members. It’s unlikely to cause too much distress in the Scottish Green party, which Harper left last year, disagreeing with its support for trans rights.

Labour welcoming transphobes, surely not?

Great news from EC. He really has changed. https://t.co/r3OLyEu9Vv

— Tariq Ali (@TariqAli_News) June 11, 2024

Ooft, neither of those racist fossils is someone you want in your corner

Sometimes I really feel the British state and that class of people could be so easily burnt to the ground.

‘There’ll be all sorts of things that I would have wanted as a kid that I couldn’t have - famously Sky TV'@RishiSunak reveals the sacrifices his parents were forced to make when he was young

Watch full interview on the Tonight programme on ITV at 7pmhttps://t.co/WN3WqEFirH pic.twitter.com/6XNLBJdMM8

— ITV News (@itvnews) June 11, 2024

They were forced to send him to one of the most expensive schools in the UK.

3 more weeks of this shit

Sky dishes would be considered infra dig in the circles his parents wanted him to inhabit.

Just think he couldn't watch Sky TV in any of the six bedrooms in the family home, oh the humanity!

still more honest than when Kieth does his phoney maloney routine about his dad walking the factory floor, without mentioning that he owned the business. lol, the proper way to do it would be to say: we had a vintage b+w tv and no tv license, my mum would shut the curtains, tell us to hush and ignore the door when the tv license people came knocking.

Remembering the early ‘90s time a friend and I saw a TV Licensing van in the street on our way to work, loudly mocked it, only to be rounded on by a young woman who shouted: “vat’s ma bawfriend, how dare you, I hope you get done!”

My friend looked her up and down, then said “you’d never get fucked otherwise, I guess?”

Well of course he didn't have SkyTV growing up, he was twenty seven when it was launched. https://t.co/yAlAaLXOV4

— Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley (@lottelydia) June 12, 2024

if Corbyn had done this, the UK media would be going through his entire childhood history with a magnifying glass and calling him out as a lying fucker. I can't even remember Blair having it this easy.

Sky in the 90s was cheaper than Netflix now. And when there was a shit video on MTV we got on our bikes and we bricked Keir's windows.

Sir Window Smasher

The deepfakes are getting good fellas.

'My dad was a toolmaker'

*Audience laughs* pic.twitter.com/1EME2W2C0u

— j (@jrc1921) June 12, 2024

Kieth was actually not floundering in his appearance on this Sky bullshit - he's not really answering any of the more pertinent questions either. But yeah, the only enjoyable part was the spontaneous jeering audience laughter during his "my dad was a toolmaker" bit.

great photo of rishi making an impression at the g7 summit in today's grauniad

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/48fd7e8a87ad9a4b1ff646ffb54ce7377210fba2/0_82_4238_2543/master/4238.jpg?width=1900&dpr=2&s=none

The stuff that isn't happening.

Manifesto of @TheGreenParty in summary: #RealHopeRealChange https://t.co/vBH2hnRfj3 pic.twitter.com/XTaZgPVttz

— Natalie Bennett (@natalieben) June 12, 2024

Well I guess all the melts that said we shouldn't judge Labour until we'd seen the manifesto will be ok with us judging them now

The hard questions are being asked:

Q: [From the Guardian’s Pippa Crerar] Sunak has struggled to lead a government of integrity. Will you do any better?

Yes, says Starmer. He is determined to do better. He will get on with changing ethical codes from day one.

most normal deputy leader of a uk political party

Deputy Green Party Leader admits to performing hypnotherapy to 'enlarge' women's breasts in the past https://t.co/BSf4vyqU0z

— LBC (@LBC) June 12, 2024

Is it in the manifesto though?

It's so obvious that the media is soft pedalling on Starmer and Labour because they know they'll get a whopping majority and thus be secure enough to not to have to rely on any of the usual chummy "you scratch my back" garbage. A powerful government can make things tough for the media.

I like think Starmer was channelling Jurassic 5 here. "Let's take it back to the concrete streets,
Original beats with real live MCs,
Playground tactics,
No rabbit in a hat tricks ..." https://t.co/L1Eh2qcKi7

— Rafael Behr (@rafaelbehr) June 13, 2024

🔴 Oh dear, it seems some of these retiring Labour MPs who had peerages dangled in front of them to encourage give up their seats, didn't know that in its manifesto Labour was about to impose a new age limit for members of the Lords, of 80 at the end of each Parliament.

— @Tomorrow'sMPs (@tomorrowsmps) June 13, 2024

oh dear, a major blow for some people's dreams of joining the job 4 life superannuated corpse set. Can't believe Kieth has lied to people again.

Love this when they will have to nationalize the water industry and put up flood defences.

The shift from Labour under Corbyn to Labour under Starmer in a single chart👇
The bars here show you how much each manifesto - 2017 and 2019 under Corbyn, 2024 under Starmer - pledged in new spending, taxes & investment.
It’s night and day… pic.twitter.com/KHuk4EAgPD

— Ed Conway (@EdConwaySky) June 13, 2024

basically austerity

Got to wait till you turn 80 to get in the House of Lords eh

i need Rafa Behr's address so i can send him the bill for the costly surgery i need to uncurl my toes

Carla Denyer has become the Corbyn proxy in these useless fucking debates and I guess at least she makes Labour look as fucking awful as they are.

Farage, emboldened by Reform being ahead of the tories in the latest yougov poll, says we need to build a new home every two minutes to deal with this mass influx of unchecked migration.

"I was on free school meals" "my father was a toolmaker" the Angela and Kieth handbook of irrelevant speak when difficult questions are asked

we need to build a new home every two minutes

he has this talent of mixing in incontrovertible truths with his toxic hatred, it's like a special gift

a new home every 2 minutes and things like the 2 billion trees from the last election always sounds faintly ridiculous until you remember there are 60 million people in the country capable of working in parallel.

no trees arms race this election that I've seen, i kind of miss it.

Seen the video and I'm amazed this meeting wasn't a cold handshake, at most, for the cameras.

Doesn't Sunak know she's a racist?

He’s an uptight investment banker; she’s a kooky free spirit who wants to send migrants to camps in Albania

This summer, Paramount Pictures proudly presents: pic.twitter.com/iOmQTWozem

— Peter Wolf (@peterawolf) June 13, 2024

Reform party pol broadcast. Weird. Basically one freeze frame with a slogan for 5 mins.

That was on one of the TVs in the pub and for a couple of minutes I thought tonight's ABBA tribute act had the weirdest stage show ever

Omigod this Abba band are better than the entire history of the Labour Party I take everything back

Baby Reindeer’s “real-life Martha” reportedly sent Sir Keir Starmer nearly 300 abusive emails while living in his constituency.

Fiona Harvey allegedly sent the Labour leader abusive messages over an eight-month period which described him as a “stupid little boy” and used a disabled slur to insult his wife, according to The Sun.

Til that Kieth achieved accidental pop culture relevance by receiving 276 abusive e-mails from Fiona Harvey

Reform and Tories neck and neck. Farage extracts maximum concessions from Tories, Reform stand down to allow them a clear run, Kieth fails to win an overall majority, hilarity ensues.

It’s too late to be removed from the ballot paper now I believe?

As good as the banter would be.

the polling in Clacton is tight, but it seems the best way of keeping Farage out would be a tactical vote for the Tory candidate!

Looking forward to tonight’s climate hustings in Islington North.

We owe it to those we seek to represent to defend our views. That is what democracy is all about.

I am not afraid of discussion. Why is the Labour candidate? pic.twitter.com/1GbFny5IC9

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) June 18, 2024

Jez is getting salty

there's a twist at the end of this story. https://t.co/GTq5WNYM4Y

— bat020 (@bat020) June 18, 2024

lol, one of the Galloway party candidates, an old scouse git from Southport, claims he would have been on the Titan submersible's final voyage if (really important detail here) he could have afforded the 250k fee.

Nigel Farage is on track to overturn a huge Tory majority to win in Clacton while Jeremy Corbyn, standing as an independent, is predicted to lose to Labour in Islington North.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/18/labour-landslide-projected-tory-seats-conservatives-general-election

Damn it to hell.

the Clacton polling I saw had Labour/Reform/Tories all around 30%. Can't believe the Graun is relishing the prospect of Corbyn losing.

Corbyn, the former Labour leader who lost the party whip, is predicted to lose to Labour, which would pick up 54% of the vote in Islington North, while all independent candidates combined get just 13%.

lolwut

sounds like bs

a lot of bs here

"The Greens are making headway in Bristol Central, where they are challenging Labour’s Thangam Debbonaire"

the polling had them 13 pts ahead a few weeks back and they've just recently won a shitload of council seats, Thangham is toast.

Yeah I am prepared for Corbyn to lose because everything is awful at all times and only likely to get worse but less than 13%, that just doesn't scan.

That has to be a classic Grauniad misprint.

it would be funny if it turned out the polling data was madly skewed by ppl forgetting he's an independent and meaning Labour as Corbyn.

LOL

Faiza Shaheen has got the Rocket Ron endorsement

Corbyn, the former Labour leader who lost the party whip, is predicted to lose to Labour, which would pick up 54% of the vote in Islington North, while all independent candidates combined get just 13%.

No real way to know of course but this seems highly unlikely and possibly even a case of motivated reasoning, if not the more obvious case of a misprint

I think there could be shy Corbyn voters amongst the posh white liberal melts of Islington N, the other guy is such an odious little shit - I feel like there might be buyer's regret concerns that will haunt ppl in the voting booth.

It's not clear if they actually interviewed lots of people in Corbyn's constituency or if that's just their forecast for his constituency based on the numbers they've got generally. I still haven't seen any polling for Chingford.

Channel 4
We apologise about our previous post misleading people to click on a link to register to vote in the upcoming election. Our full apology can be found here: https://bit.ly/45r5wCd

I mean, it's a bit late now, but...

AVR would solve a lot of problems

https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/latest-news-and-research/parliamentary-briefings/automatic-voter-registration-avr-briefing/

just watched the Ash Sakar interview with the bald, pickled Labour-Brain aka Mick Lynch and am really starting to dislike this guy. Nobody should vote Labour if the party is likely to inflict harmful policies on them, the only leverage people have is their vote. He's more similar to Mandelson than he realises imo.

having a privatised NHS and thousands of disabled + sick people made destitute might not be so bad if Mick can win some weak as piss concessions for his union members

Saw this on TV last night, they have 122 candidates standing in the election! But this is still apparently the best they can do (check for a very special celeb appearance three minutes in)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcvd2AodoSg

voters canvassing the political parties on their doorsteps and being impolitely told to fuck off by them is a very odd concept

I will admit I laughed at the LibDems bit.

"just watched the Ash Sakar interview with the bald, pickled Labour-Brain aka Mick Lynch and am really starting to dislike this guy."

Guy has always been Labour. Solid entertainer in the way he deals with the press but there was a point ppl (or twitter posters) wanted him to try and lead some kind of breakaway movement.

Trade Unionism is more often than not like Labourism, an inability and lack of desire to look beyond the game as it is currently played, however rotten that game is

SDP have basically been cryptofash for ages i thought

Their candidate for the London Mayor was all anti-wokeism - but then so were most of the others.

yeah that's a standard shadow cabinet stance now

tbf Labour are not-at-all-crypto fash now

Saw this on TV last night, they have 122 candidates standing in the election! But this is still apparently the best they can do (check for a very special celeb appearance three minutes in)

📹

if we could find a way to harness melts handwringing about Just Stop Oil we'd be carbon neutral in a week

Between JSO and Fossil Free Books, the melts are en fuego this week.

Agreed the sdp video is the best thing I've ever seen. Best bit is "all over the country" when it so briefly cuts from Dulwich in summer bursting with greenery to somewhere *possibly Northern* in brutal clear focus.

Lol that the main parties are represented by louche gay retirees

???

there's a lot of Strasserite subtext in there tbf

I fear I am gonna be caught walking around repeating “we can’t just have open borders,, with, an,yone coming in??” to myself

they couldn't have the Labour one admitting they were just as fash as SDP. I'm too busy to talk rn, got to send some threatening legal letters to Martin Forde and block some Muslim candidates from standing. But tell Liddle he's welcome to come back.

Stonehenge is a load of shite anyway. I saw a program once where the presenter was marvelling at the neolithic ingenuity it took to lug some bigass rocks from Wales. Wow, big deal.

just a lonely girl, tryin ta stop immigration

I was thinking what familiar vibe I was getting from that vid. It was shit 80's horror movie Dream Demon (that has Jimmy Nail in it).

oh that one

it was a big hit in the video rental shops

Just watched about as much as I could bear of an interview with Rachel reeves and she is just really unbelievably stupid; without a basic grasp of simple causative concepts a small child could understand.

Just mad that everyone (who counts) can team up to put anyone in number 11 and they choose this blithering idiot

I cannot stand listening to her voice for more than a couple of seconds.

I hate her more than Kieth, mainly because I've been hating her much longer - ever since her hateful benefits scum rhetoric when she was in Ed's shadow cabinet. Also she is a fucking economically illiterate moron with a portrait of a nazi on the feature wall of her office. Hope she dies.

she's an extreme example of the "what the fuck led you to a job in politics when you've clearly got no interest in it?" Labour vibe

Yeah, I got a Facebook reminder a while ago that it'd been 11 years since I posted something on Thatcher's death, noting that some of her victory was the Shadow State for Work and Pensions vowing that Labour were going to be tougher on welfare than the Tories - and that Shadoe Secretary is going to be Chancellor in just over two weeks!

I cannot stand listening to her voice for more than a couple of seconds.

― Blood On Santa's Claw (Tom D.), Wednesday, 19 June 2024 21:18 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Yes this is a significant barrier also!

it was funny when it was revealed the book she *wrote* on female economists was just basically a load of c+ped wikipedia entries in series and it plagiarised Hilary fucking Benn. But yet she is considered some kind of paragon of steely eyed competence by grown ups. Her voice is just like Kieth's.

New: Understand Islington North Labour CLP chair Alison McGarry resigned today after being “caught red-handed” campaigning for Jeremy Corbyn. She apparently attempted to hide behind a hedge after being spotted by “multiple witnesses”

— Rachael Burford (@RachaelBurford) June 19, 2024

she's an extreme example of the "what the fuck led you to a job in politics when you've clearly got no interest in it?" Labour vibe

Remember when Reeves cried about being called a red Tory https://t.co/JUCJRpTc79 pic.twitter.com/Hnku26tx2q

— j (@jrc1921) July 14, 2023

Try calling her a Socialist and seeing how she reacts to that.

Reeves is like Truss, seemingly; only a spell in government will cure her of her credibility with the media and politics bods in general. Maybe after she's fucked our futures she can go back to her natural home profiting shareholders on a board somewhere

lol I got my dates wrong above - Reeves didn't become DWP Shadow Secretary until October 2013 (and then started making the existing line even tougher) - the Shadow Secretary I was bothered about at the time of Thatcher's death was..... Liam Fucking Byrne!

I saw a video of Praful Nargund doing a presentation on the "very important" matter of privatising healthcare. This would have required damage control if he had been a Tory candidate in 2019. But now its not even news and he could end up unseating Corbyn. He's got a head start with all the party apparatus and data and then some disengaged voters will vote Labour without even looking at the candidate name. The thing in Jez's favour is that he talks like a creepy cunt and most ppl meeting him might need a sick bag.

Which is precisely why they're keeping him away from any hustings and making sure he speaks to as few voters as possible. My abiding hope is that as more and more polls show Labour with some ridiculous Putin style 400+ seats and 200+ majority, people will say fuck it, they're going to win anyway I can vote for Corbyn (or whoever) after all. However the world is so shit right now that probably won't happen.

I'm not sure people vote that way. Corbyn and May were both supposedly unpopular in 2017, which should have given license for people in safe seats not to vote for them but both racked up the votes in safe seats regardless

I don't see the connection. Keeping the Tories out is the main reason lots of people vote Labour, if they're on their way to 420 seats that doesn't seem such a motivator, they can afford to lose the odd seat here and there.

Having looked at the Islington North result from 2019, if we assume a substantial squeezing of the tory and lib dem vote as right wingers in the constituency coalesce around Nargund, it looks like Corbyn will need to keep at minumum about 2/3 of his existing vote to win. It sounds achievable, if the word can be got out effectively enough that it's really a byelection with no real bearing on the national result. But who knows. It's a bit annoying that Corbyn didn't start campaigning until labour imposed a candidate- if he'd accepted the obvious a while back, that he was never going to be labour's candidate under Keith, and started work accordingly- he could have had it sewn up tight by now.

2/3rds that is- 2 or 3 voters isn't going to cut it

The YouGov poll for Sky suggests he's going to lose... not by much but it's not that close either. If that's what happens I'm never setting foot in Waitrose on Holloway Road again.

I don't see the connection. Keeping the Tories out is the main reason lots of people vote Labour, if they're on their way to 420 seats that doesn't seem such a motivator,

I think because in a safe seat your vote doesn't matter. So voting against the opposition isn't necessary, and if you don't like your own candidate there is no reason to vote. But people voted Tories and Labour in high volumes in 2017 in safe seats where their vote didn't matter and they had a chance to boycott their supposedly unpopular leaders

Its not clear to me that people voted any differently in places the result mattered than in those where it didn't (although the obvious counter to that is that neither May nor Corbyn were actually unpopular at all, which is probably also true)

The YouGov poll for Sky suggests he's going to lose... not by much but it's not that close either.

the yougov mrp is fundamentally going to struggle at predicting seats like corbyn's where there are distinctive local factors that don't map to the broader partisan trends, that's just not what that sort of model is good at predicting.

they know it as well, but Corbyn losing is the content they crave. Not to suggest he hasn't got a big task on.

It also appears @prafulnargund failed to register or declare this clear conflict of interest when serving as Labour councillor in Islington.

The US based company he was employed by have numerous private clinics throughout the UK, including one just a mile away from Islington! https://t.co/UITBB3Qpaf

— Red Collective (@RedCollectiveUK) June 19, 2024

this guy is so mired in Tory style sleaze you can see why Labour are hiding him from public debate and scrutiny.

Islington North’s Labour campaign, proud to have photos in front of a hedge

he's posted a petty dig at someone who has had to resign from Islington N CLP because she couldn't in good conscience, support the candidacy of this vile little creep.

The YouGov poll for Sky suggests he's going to lose... not by much but it's not that close either.

the yougov mrp is fundamentally going to struggle at predicting seats like corbyn's where there are distinctive local factors that don't map to the broader partisan trends, that's just not what that sort of model is good at predicting.

― ufo, Thursday, June 20, 2024 12:48 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I'm waiting to see the commissioned survation poll

Lotta Vote Corbyn posters in the shops and restaurants 'round Finsbury Park I gotta say.

I haven't been in a long time but will be around Monday probably so interested to see. Have been considering phone banking for the campaign

Looked up on the bus and the way home and what do I see ... a Vote Corbyn poster. No guarantee of anything and I suspect the Shy Tory phenomenon has been replaced by Shy Labour in this constituency.

For the first time in her life, my Daily Mail reading, 83 year old mother in law isn’t going to vote Tory (and she’s not defecting to Reform either, which is a relief as I do love her dearly).

did she make that Social Democrats ad then

Not sure poster count means much. I see about five Faiza Shaheen posters for every one Labour parachute candidate one round our way, but she's not going to win. Hope I'm wrong!

hilarious that SKS has ended up saying he would have preferred jeremy corbyn to boris johnson - a lot of people will now be questioning his judgement!

Imagine that, the cunt has finally admitted the guy he served under and said would be a "great Prime Minister" would have been better than one of the worst Prime Ministers in British history - hurrah!

And I bet he doesn't even believe that...

That’s the line he should have taken all along, but whoever’s running his show has STAY CLASSY tattoed in their arse.

Worry not, one of Murdoch's creatures will have a word with of McSweeney's and Starmer will be urged to repair the damage; he'll be denouncing Corbyn's antisemitism or pacifism in a day or two.

I've no real interest in The Real Kier Starmer, but the opening paragraphs do underline how amazingly bad he is at any of this.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/22/you-asked-me-questions-ive-never-asked-myself-keir-starmers-most-personal-interview-yet

But then he can’t really say if he’s strictly an optimist or a pessimist and, no, doesn’t know if he’s an extrovert or an introvert, either. “I’ve never really thought about it. I don’t know what that tells you.” He doesn’t know what he dreamed last night – or ever: “I don’t dream.” Just hits the pillow at 11 and – “bang” – is out till around 5. He doesn’t have a favourite novel or poem, wasn’t scared of anything as a child. “Nothing. No phobias.” Hmmm, this is harder than I thought. What about his lovely heather-coloured tie, where is it from and who chose it? He takes it between finger and thumb. “Would you say heather? I had it down as slightly darker.” Quick-fire is perhaps not his format.

(Content warning that the latter part of the article is largely about The Real Kier Starmer)

NEW Constituency Poll in Holborn and St Pancras for @38degrees

LAB 54% (-12)
GRE 14% (+11)
LD 9% (-3)
CON 9% (-6)
IND 6% (new)
REF 5% (+3 from Brexit Party)
OTH 4% (+4)

F/w 19th - 21st June. Changes vs. Notional 2019 result pic.twitter.com/W9LXTf3hFZ

— Survation. (@Survation) June 23, 2024

If this is happening in Starmer's backyard then maybe Lab won't win as many marginals

That London though, Sadiq Khan's multicultural ULEZ crime-ridden Islamist hellhole.

LAB 54% (-12)
GRE 14% (+11)

yeah he's going to piss it, but that is a big chunk of his vote that could go green and Feinstein isn't polling too badly, all things considered.

he actually spent a nuclear amount on campaign ads in Holborn, higher than anywhere else in the country apparently. The cunt is slightly rattled.

Sorry this is naive. I would not trust Lib Dems to deliver this in a coalition with Lab.

Not sure I've mentioned yet that the @LibDems manifesto on migration is really excellent.

The only one of 3 main parties to commit to scrapping the Hostile Environment & learn the lessons from Windrush, propose safe routes for refugees, or take steps to keep families together 🩷

— Zoe Gardner (@ZoeJardiniere) June 24, 2024

Sorry this is naive. I would not trust Lib Dems to deliver this in a coalition with Lab.

... obvious but always true.

still waiting for the Guardian to resurrect one of their "Lib/Lab will save Britain" headlines

Don't need to when Labour aren't threatening to do anything

Not to be mean but I'm pretty sure Zoe Gardner was very unenthusiastic about Labour in 2018, when they were offering everything she claims to want.

Latest CCHQ email sent in the name of Keir Starmer:

“Ignore this email and let me do to the country what you know I want to do.” pic.twitter.com/IBcOKEsBre

— James Heale (@JAHeale) June 24, 2024

Yours not sincerely,

Keir Starmer (not really but it is what he thinks)

might sign all of my posts like this from now on

a lot of that is ripe coming from the Tories. 'i want to change the system so i can stay in power for years'. you mean like boundary changes, and voter suppression? the discredited 2000 pounds thing is still there. and if pensioners are paying income tax now it's because of the threshold freezes.

The highest quality candidates

BREAK: Labour now facing their own betting scandal

Party has suspended parliamentary candidate Kevin Craig after being told the Gambling Commission has launched an investigation into him

— Shehab Khan ITV (@ShehabKhan) June 25, 2024

that's not the best bit

I understand Labour will return the £100,000 Kevin Craig has donated to the party under Keir Starmer's leadershiphttps://t.co/m2CNNvg7Wb

— Aubrey Allegretti (@breeallegretti) June 25, 2024

it's VERY surprising when Labour have brought in a load of ne'er-do-well corrupt councillors, millionaires and corporate lobbyists as parliamentary candidates and it turns out they've got some dodgy fuckers amongst this intake!

The best bit might be that he was betting on himself to lose, presumably as a hedge?

it would be a win-win (until your arse gets hauled in by the gambling commision, lool)

This is the dumbest possible scandal so I guess it was inevitable a labour guy would be found doing the exact same thing

like betting against the club you support and don't really want to lose, the highly corrupt and illegal version of that.

Yea i guess “the same thing but even dumber” is technically more accurate

it's easy to imagine young + dumb footballers getting into trouble like this out of a mix of youthful naivety, ignorance and also the nature of gambling addiction. These old politicians who've been caught out, well these bent impetuous fucks just think they are above the law imo.

this is a fantastic photo the guardian has gone with

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/dd5883f6fbc3ccf5d2e25c8c474638f8230c0692/0_60_754_452/master/754.jpg?width=1300&dpr=2&s=none

https://i.imgur.com/swGeiUt.png

also one for the Kieth looking very awkward and unsettled next to tall people archive

betting on the Tories winning his own seat!!!!! lololol11!!!!eleventy!!!11!!

https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1801967323181395970/nNpw9Peq?format=jpg&name=900x900

The Labour candidate suspended for betting against himself in the general election is chief executive of lobbyist PLMR

Kevin Craig's company was behind Responsible Gambling Week, 'a nationwide awareness campaign to promote safe gambling'

How you know your MP/PPC is of the Labour right: coming from or going to a sinecure with a gambling lobby or organisation. I loathe this ‘industry’.

OK.

Labour’s plan for your future: tax, tax, tax. pic.twitter.com/8OVNVp4hac

— Conservatives (@Conservatives) June 26, 2024

TV ratings last night:
Sunak v Starmer, BBC One: average 2.7m, peak 3m
Georgia v Portugal, ITV: average 4.2m, peak 6.4m

🗳️ MRP projection for Islington North:

⚪️ Corbyn 37% (+37)
🔴 LAB 33% (-31)
🔵 CON 12% (+2)
🟢 GRN 8% (-)

Via @ElectCalculus / @FindoutnowUK, 14-24 June pic.twitter.com/KlzVEBuCyo

— Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️‍⚧️ (@LeftieStats) June 27, 2024

Tory vote up?

Yeah, that looks well dodgy.

Poster who runs that account needs to die

Glad that Left discourse on Twitter is so firmly focused on one single bloke

there are a few candidates whose failure would make me happy - Praful Nargund, Akehurst, Debbonaire, Babs come to mind. But otherwise it's just going to be a dreadful GE night. These cunts winning a big majority is going to feel just as much an augur of bad shit to come as 2019 was to me. No harm in concentrating on the ones you want to fail most!

No Lib Dem column and I thought Greens had stood down in Islington North?

I think the person behind that account is a bit cracked!

"Hardly bad"

Across the country there is the most the most corrosive cynicism about politics. We can argue about why it’s there, and it’s justified sometimes, but it can also be reflexive and unfair. Not sure we should laud and amplify it without good reason- Sunak and Starmer have their…

— Lewis Goodall (@lewis_goodall) June 27, 2024

ppl need to be more civil and respectful towards subhuman scum

wtf pic.twitter.com/GIdJFYNNZY

— ©️Miss Gripper ™️ (@missgripper_) June 26, 2024

I can't stand Dylan, but this is good

What’s Ed Davey up to now? pic.twitter.com/AEoyTqYVxM

— Swed (@Swedleypops) June 26, 2024

I thought that must have been some AI generated filth at first, amazingly it is real

#upthearsecorner

OK so lots of people in Islington North think Corbyn is the Labour candidate.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/27/jeremy-corbyn-voter-confusion-islington-north

“We spoke to one person who said ‘I’ve already voted by post, and voted Labour – I love Jeremy,’”

This of course is largely Corbyn's own fault for clinging on to the Labour Party for so long.

There’s no knowing whether that person put their x next to the Labour logo or JC’s name, of course.

Do we know how he's listed on the ballot - "Independent" "Independent Labour" or "Labour (Independent)" or what? This could really be the thing that swings it.

“We spoke to one person who said ‘I’ve already voted by post, and voted Labour – I love Jeremy,’” one Labour source said. “But you’ll knock on other doors and people go ‘no, not Labour. Oh, hang on, it’s not Jeremy any more.’”

"Labour source" wouldn't lie about these things, of course

“The thing about Jeremy is that he always overestimates how popular he is,” one party source said.

Also, this may or may not be true, but they are only saying it because they regard it as gross impertinence that he should dare to challenge them at all. They've said nothing like this about Farage

There’s no knowing whether that person put their x next to the Labour logo or JC’s name, of course.

Of course! It works both ways. I'm trying to remember the relative prominence of the candidate's name or party on a ballot sheet.

i think currently the logo is more prominent than the name and it's right next to the tick box

it could work both ways but if they are sleep-voting it's more likely to be LABOUR that get's the x.

latest IPSOS poll has Starmer's favourability rating even lower than Corbyn's ever fell to. An amazing achievement with a compliant UK media giving him a free pass.

Looks like this

https://i.imgur.com/aAikgmo.gif

Corbyn relying on doddery old codgers not noticing anything other his name on the ballot paper.

^^

how the class struggle is advanced!

(Socialist fire)brand recognition

Corbyn is alphabetically ahead of nargund

What are the Reform grassroots like and lol.

One thing about Sunak that really hasn't been discussed is whether his Indian background goes into the list of reasons he is fucked.

EXCLUSIVE: We’ve gone undercover inside Nigel Farage’s Reform UK campaign in Clacton and found evidence of anti-migrant rhetoric, homophobia and one canvasser making racist and offensive remarks. As @DarshnaSoni reports. pic.twitter.com/VkhVLczjcw

— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) June 27, 2024

Its not necessarily on the UK media. It just hasn't been trotted out as an answer anywhere.

I remember people talking about racism as a factor in why he lost the leadership election to Truss the first time around

Lovely bunch of lads.

In the melted mind saying the word "racist" out loud is significantly worse than actual racism

I remember people talking about racism as a factor in why he lost the leadership election to Truss the first time around

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Friday, 28 June 2024 bookmarkflaglink

Guess so but that's 100k pensioners than the wider electorate.

A lot of Tories staying at home or being energised to vote Reform makes even more sense.

"But there is a second scenario in which Starmer’s Labour succeeds, as New Labour did not, in fully marginalising the Tories; Labour would, in effect, becomes a new, competent, small-C conservative party. This would be welcome – a Starmer-led conservatism is infinitely preferable to a Sunak-led one. It also opens up the possibility that the stultifying consensus of the past 40 years is broken not by the extreme right, by new political forces of the centre and left – who have fresh stories to tell about where we have been and where we might go."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jun/28/keir-starmer-labour-britain-conservative-party

another blinkered old history prof that needs to stick with history imo

Ugh. So much wishful thinking going on with these cunts.

you have to be on drugs or are just be utterly clueless to believe there is going to be any kind of centre-left policy direction from Labour in govt. He's wrote some good stuff in the past and was the only establishment liberal to call bullshit on the "worst election result since 1931" line from the Labour Right. He's got more integrity than most of those wankers, so I'd go with clueless in this case.

My charitable reading on that para is that the 5% left of Toryism could be welcome. Sadly I don't think crumbs from the ruling classes is the way to go.

Because a competent small c-conservatism still kills the poor, the vulnerable and ethnic minorities and I don't think moving the dial just a tiny bit is worth it in anyway.

Bizarre conclusion as I was mostly OK with what I was reading up to then.

i take it to be meaning that starmer's success knocking out the tories and setting out a new-conservative table may have the (good) effect of clearing space for and energising younger forces on the left. is it well written to that end? not especially! will this happen? it's up to us!*

*not me, i am not "younger forces"

there is a nutcase my stepdad occasionally plays chess with who he has nicknamed "forces". It came from an incident where nutcase was trying to ponce some money off him with some ridiculous scheme and stepdad said nah I'm skint m8. And in reply he went on a long ramble about "the forces" that have made his life one of intolerable failure and how he's going to fight back against these forces with deadly measures, then he menacingly added I'm starting to think you might be part of the forces, you could become part of the forces, you know!

https://images.indianexpress.com/2024/05/Praful.jpg?w=1024

at the moment, this is the face of "younger forces" within the PLP

"i take it to be meaning that starmer's success knocking out the tories and setting out a new-conservative table may have the (good) effect of clearing space for and energising younger forces on the left."

As you say not especially well argued if that is what he means.

I would like to see a take like this bcz I need that crumb!

after the vote changes Starmer enacted within NEC any chance of member led movements happening within Labour again are effectively dead and due to climate change, even in the short term, humanity might be fucked as well. To be naive enough to think that politicians within this rotten, anti-democratic to the core party are going to change this rotten game or even push the overton window a few mills to the left, are fucking deluded imo.

unless member driven movements are corporate lobbyists, landlords, IDF apologist lobby groups etc..

I don't think the logic in mark s's post necessitates the energising younger forces coming from within labour - in fact if anything labour taking the place of the tories means the opening up for new forces would happen outside it

we might see a glimpse of some of that next week

maybe it's a case of people on the left finally getting the message that Labour is not a vehicle for change and starting to face the realities of what needs to be done

actually never mind Labour, maybe recognising that electoral politics in the UK as now constituted is probably not a vehicle for change

Just as an aside I am glad this election has coincided with the Euros. The football has proved to be distracting.

yes i took edgerton's "new forces" to mean forces arising outside the labour party (tho i was writing no more clearly than him i guess)

those younger forces in full: https://i.imgur.com/3qu4Esw.jpg

Edgerton is good at writing about stuff like the electronic warfare equipment of ww2, but in the realm of contemporary politics (apart from when I rarely agree with him) he's an extremely wrong hack!

A really good essay by Huw Lemmey, mostly on class as it runs through a number of books and films but also released at certain points in the political cycle, where it tips from red to blue and back again.

https://huw.substack.com/p/everybody-hates-a-tourist

Latest odds:

Labour Majority 1/80

No Overall Majority 18/1

Reform UK Majority 100/1

Conservative Majority 150/1

Liberal Democrat majority 250/1

Turnout in Iranian election was 40%

Wonder what it will be like here. Below 50?

has everyone been getting this or is it a local concept?

https://i.imgur.com/gzGg9Mv.jpeg

You wouldn't know an election is on where I live... well apart from the four Vote Corbyn posters I just saw in the street parallel to mine.

Widget got papped by the Corbyn canvassers on Thursday afternoon :)

I don't care for Glasto or Coldplay but lol at looking at this through Lab party politics.

Especially this melt.

Coldplay is just rubbing it in the face of everyone with any lingering residual attachment to the idea of festival culture as remotely countercultural. It’s one thing to platform the pop princesses du jour, but this feels like the cultural equivalent of deselecting Faiza Shaheen. https://t.co/s43c2ZESgd

— Jeremy Gilbert (@jemgilbert) June 30, 2024

i also don't give a shit about Coldplay but they certainly bring out the hatred from people who think they're still edgy as fuck for liking some other guitar boy shite