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.

I still blame LBD for Dominic Cummings going unpunished during lockdown because they protested him in the street where he lived, and the centrists took umbrage (IIRC the neighbours were delighted).

pathetic groups like this should be proscribed for bringing the whole concept of protest into disrepute, and being pathetic posh melts.

these people are not activated by the UK govt being complicit in genocide or doing social murder policies, no let's just spend a fortune put JD Vance memes on vans and signs everywhere. Waste of space.

TBF to them, LBD are very visibly anti the genocide.

I don’t expect well to do people who live in the twee capital of ENGERLAND to have a response that isn’t twee NIMBYism.

I didn't realise that Lammy has history of grovelling to JD Vance. He's among a group of right-wing Labour blokes who found his book compelling and it resonated somewhat in comparison to their own bullshit humble-origin stories. A bunch of fucking idiots would find his book compelling, but more switched on people denounced it as rather dumb in places and highly inaccurate in others.

I forgot the podcast, but I think Mark S linked it and it featured some people who read that book so you don't have to and their observations on how dumb that book was were amusing.

My favourite led by donkeys fact is that one of them revealed he got into activism when the bbc were trying to cancel 6music

that was their October Revolution!

lmaooo

was it this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skTxKhd916Y

ah yes, thanks. That is worth another listen.

Tbf I got into activism when the BBC started 6 Music

know your enemy also has a j. d. vance episode: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/know-your-enemy/id1462703434?i=1000664905371

David Lammy never misses an opportunity to drop that he has an Ivy League JD degree (hence grovelling to Obama - his Harvard classmate - and Vance alike).

xp but doctor, JD Vance is my enemy

just remembered that JD Vance considered it noteworthy that when poor American folks are shopping they used food-stamps to acquire food, and paid for their booze with cash - like that was some kind of fraudulent transaction. Mindblowing. You can see why this booked chimed with all the worst people in UK politics.

btw when I Google his name its all about the fishing licence and not this👇 weird that isn't it? https://t.co/FtmyUwIEhN pic.twitter.com/3nBT5n7Wrp

— Terry Fuck (@terryfuck45) August 13, 2025

At least he's not the Fisheries Minister, that's the way things usually work with this government.

https://bsky.app/profile/flyingrodent.bsky.social/post/3lwdqvjictk2k

this thread about the background and mindset of a lot of Reform voters is interesting, reminds me of lots of ppl I used to know at my old job (a while ago now, early to mid-2010s), particularly this one woman who very much had the same worldview as the one described above (ppl like her were mugs for working hard and playing by the rules, the government was indulgent of immigrants/criminals/benefit claimants who were getting something for nothing) and would joke about she might vote for the BNP - the thing is, it WAS a joke afaict, she had a similar worldview to the BNP, but I don't think she'd have ever voted for them - they were beyond the pale, fascist thugs etc. I'd bet she does now vote for Reform though, because they've managed to become 'respectable' in a way the BNP never did.

this is the spot where the right is fracturing right now between the likes of Farage/Lowe/Robinson. Farage is trying to project himself as a more respectable politician. There is a posh Tory guy I speak to who said he spent a year trying to like Starmer, but absolutely loathes him. He's a vaguely socially liberal Tory who would never vote for Reform. I think these are the people Farage is trying to win over. Some of them he might.

He also needs to be seen as a safe pair of hands, not Trump 2.0, by the Tory press

a triumphant govt messaging blitz over 0.3% growth. Wow, I wonder by how much of a nought point something fraction did that defy the forecasts by (tbf nobody gives a fuck about GDP anyway). Happy shiny dogshit Friday!

it's funny seeing some economist describing it as a slowdown in comparison to Reeves chirpy bullshit

This article is hilarious and I want to pick apart why. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/FmOqIlv8ce

— Alexander Louis Sallons (@sallonsax) August 17, 2025

Polanski has really got under the skin of the eco-tory wing of the Greens who are hinting at a "hostile takeover", also it is very amusing how bad Ellie and the accidental landlord are at campaigning/doing factional smears, she even re-used that appalling Starmer jibe about them "not being a party of protest" lol, I only steal political disses from the best.

Christ, fuck off, The Guardian

it's reminding me of the 2015 Corbyn wave of entryism, and all the corrupt careerists start crying about what is happening to THEIR party.

One of his backers is Caroline Russell, the Green leader on the London assembly, where he also sits.

aka Lady Keating, wife of the former CEO of the organization I work for. A man who was able to walk away scot free in spite of presiding over the biggest disaster in the otganization's history and get knighted into the bargain. He joined us straight from the BBC where he was implicated in the Jimmy Saville cover-up and had to be shamed to give up a £375,000 pay off when he left the BBC. I know you shouldn't blame spouses for the misdeeds of their partners but I hate all of these corrupt cunts.

I can’t decide if this is funny or tragic.

A man got detained in Scotland just for wearing an anti-AL shirt that sounded like *Palestine Action* pic.twitter.com/6EfTsxaeWD

— Abier (@abierkhatib) August 18, 2025

these days, in Starmer's Britain, you get arrested and thrown in jail for *checks notes* wearing an anti-AI animation t-shirt with the words Plasticine Action on it and a pic of Morph.

All these years of Yvette Cooper being held up as an exemplary grown-up, a highly competent politician. Lol, that image of her is in tatters, she's going down in history as the most idiotic and incompetent joke home secretary ever.

She will certainly have to resign if PA win their court case.

She's been obsessed with allowing the police to release the ethnicity and nationality of SUSPECTS in criminal cases which I just.. how does she think this will end? Does she really think announcing that a suspect is Pakistani will "clear the air"?? Cause guess what if the suspect is white they're not going to announce anything

revolving pogroms for every time a non-white person commits a serious crime? What an absolute piece of shit (sorry shit for conflating you with Cooper).

xp
feel like this was the precedent set by making clear that the suspect in the lfc parade car thing was white and british in an attempt to stop a southport aftermath riot situation.

"Droughts in Spain, Italy and Portugal, where the UK sources much of its fresh fruit and vegetables, have pushed up prices this summer at a time when prices would usually fall."

Inflation will never get back to 2%.

On the plus that's the least of our issues

Asked about the issue on Tuesday, Keir Starmer’s official spokesperson said the prime minister was a “patriot” who believed people should “absolutely” fly the British and English flags, later clarifying that he was not familiar with events in Birmingham or Tower Hamlets.

From the Guardian article about these "lets raise the St George's Cross on every lamppost as a sign of inclusion and unity" cunts, but mostly just another opportunity to wonder at the way at which Starmer manages to row in beside evil and then also row back while making clear that it's not because he's got a conscience or anything, he's just incompetent. Another bold statement which makes no-one at all more likely to vote for him; in a way it's an artform.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8scSwaKbE64

Welcoming fascism with kinda folded arms

Much is explained here.

The UK is about to give Israeli arms giant Elbit a £2bn contract, per today's @PrivateEyeNews. Mid-genocide. Can we protest this? Or would that be "targeting Jewish-owned businesses"? pic.twitter.com/Ss060N17CX

— Dimi Reider | dimireider.substack.com (@reider) August 20, 2025

Lucie Connolly declares she is the UK's Nelson Mandela

this fucking moron is going to be everywhere for the foreseeable future, ugh fuck this country's terminally diseased right-wing media! The shit-brained poltroon wouldn't have lasted a week in Robben Island, never mind decades, and now she feels like declaring that she is Nelson Mandela.

Nice big supportive feature on the front page of The Sun

The idea that it was Kieth who personally signed off on her conviction doesn't seem to be getting much scrutiny in the right-wing press. But yet I feel nothing about this.

Who?

The Tory leader told the Sunday Times she had been surprised at the amount of racism she had faced since being elected, having previously insisted that Britain was “the best place in the world to be black”.

She told the paper: “There’s a certain cadre of people who clearly can’t cope with the fact that I won this and I’m doing it.

“The level of personal attacks from anonymous people, it’s hysterical. Not even just from MPs. I actually don’t think it’s that many MPs. I think it’s two to three people out of 120. That’s nothing. But online as well. People used to talk about Trump derangement syndrome. I think there’s a Kemi derangement syndrome: ‘How could she possibly have done this?’.”

She added that on social media, “there’s a lot of ethno-nationalism creeping up, lots of stuff about my race and my ethnicity and the tropes around, ‘well, she couldn’t possibly have done this all by herself’”.

...

Luckily she can shrug this off so there's no need to worry about the UK's institutional racism

One day I'll be asked for my papers. Looking forward to it.

I genuinely cannot imagine a worse response. This is a moral catastrophe pic.twitter.com/HXEu1NywGB

— Peter Mitchell (@_bezpilotnik) August 26, 2025

Hang on, "Nigel Farage" is protected under copyright control?

"The Record also revealed she had liked social media posts by the far right Homeland Party"

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/glasgow-race-row-councillor-becomes-35806280

Insane to go through it. Landlords will add to rents without controls.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2025/aug/28/uk-landlords-could-face-tax-from-rents

Now factor in that for almost everybody claiming housing costs through Universal Credit or Housing Benefit the cap on the amount they can receive is already hundreds of pounds below the average rental cost

there needs to be such a social stigma put on landlords, like on a par with nonces and the worst criminals or even worse than that - Labour MPs (specifically the 44 landlord ones).