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'm just looking for signs that there might be a U turn or *rebellion* on the chainsaw job on PIP. Of course this is way too hopeful and probably naive. The kind of "high quality" MPs that Kieth flooded the party with, don't do that kind of thing (but seemingly they do do high level corruption, paedophilia and physical street assaults on constituents)

It seems the runcorn byelection has come down to whether drawing a knob in the box is a valid vote or not.

It seems the runcorn byelection has come down to whether drawing a knob in the box is a valid vote or not.

if you've got time to draw a picture of the candidate you deserve your vote to count

labour loses by six knobs

how unfortunate, they might have been able to squeak it by one and a half knobs if Reeves and Starmer weren't so fucking vile

https://i.imgur.com/dJD34bG.jpeg

I’m sure he can count to 21 but beyond that, who knows?

That's how many votes they won by in the Runcorn by-election, turning over a 14,700 vote majority.

Increasing the Tory austerity program after running on "Change" - that has finished them off. They can keep matching the racist Reform rhetoric, but mainly it's all going to be losses from here to the next GE when they get dumped. The UK commentariat who hailed McSweeney's strategic genius after the last election have not got a fucking clue, same with McSweeney. There was any real masterstroke of strategic targeting, it was the CON vote completely collapsing and Labour doing underwhelmingly lower than usual being enough for a landslide.

I'm sort of wondering when and how the perennial Tory survival instinct kicks in

kemi will not take the easy way out of having policies people like and winning votes or elections.

pivoting to a more pro EU stance seems at odds with her usual style of basic culture war bullshit, that's where they are at now - doing Ed Davey policies to stave of the looming threat of the LibDems for 3rd place

well "pro EU" is probably pushing it, but she was calling for trade barriers with EU to be removed, which is basically the same thing as a customs union?

Runcorn is a warning we can’t ignore. Voters want change – and if we don’t offer it with bold, hopeful policies that rebuild trust, the far right will.

If we don’t step up now, the alternative won’t be more of the same – it’ll be an extreme right-wing government.

Lol

We are already here. Reform will up on that with a 'Ministry for Deportations' but its pretty much done. We are fucked.

thing is the descent into fascism is such a fucking expected and already widely discussed process that is playing out- there aren't going to be any surprises and it's all going to be incredibly predictable, but let the master strategist McSweeney keep on full steam ahead - no icebergs in sight he says

<million-year-long farting noise> pic.twitter.com/7I2EQW3Kiz

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) May 1, 2025

lol at this tedious cunt still holding the honour of being the most tedious melt to have ever existed, it reminds me of when other tedious melts claim they are being attacked by both the left and the right, so this proves that their fact-based unbiased super brane is undoubtedly aligned in the correct direction on everything.

I am not going to listen closely to the kneecap furore sito

yes absolutely, as much chance as me listening to their music as getting deep into this

the Labour MP for Hemel Hempstead thought it was important enough to call for an apology from Corbyn (who wasn't in parliament that day, lol), for being in a photo with Kneecap 3 years ago.

All the important issues.

Remember before the election when they went on about how they wouldn’t get mixed up in culture wars lol, now it’s all glasto and ladies’ shitters

Blimey, I've just received an email offering me a risible sum to take part in a trial for overseas voter registration. Is there some disgruntled Tory voter cohort they want to appeal to? Maybe the Marbella set are still skulking out there in the sun, post-Brexit.

An apology from the same Jeremy Corbyn whose image was used by paras serving in Afghanistan for target practice in 2019? That guy?

Kent will be flooded in the next four years. Wouldn't worry.

[In Kent] the Conservatives are defending a very large majority: in 2021 they elected 62 councillors against 7 Labour, 6 Lib Dems, 4 Greens, 1 Swale Independent and 1 councillor for the Swanscombe and Greenhithe Residents Association. The Conservative councillor for Hythe West resigned in late 2022 after his links to a neo-Nazi group were exposed, and the Green party won the resulting by-election in 2023; the Swanscombe and Greenhithe Residents Association councillor died in 2024, and Reform UK won the resulting by-election on a low vote share of just 29%.

local greens smashed it here
our councillor got five times the votes of second place
phew

some shit times ahead, but it's worth living through this just to see all the ppl I despise the most getting both electorally decimated and having to realise in real time that their legacy is that they were the absolute fucking idiots who proved to be the tipping point that finished off the wretched party.

This working class woman, after 40 years in the Labour Party, was disciplined & banned by them from standing for County Council.

Because she spoke out about the Winter Fuel Allowance.

She resigned.

Today she took the seat from the Labour Group Leader ✊ pic.twitter.com/1EJY6wluQN

— Broxtowe Alliance Councillors (@broxtoweindys) May 2, 2025

I wonder if there is any chance of a VONC against Starmer. Obviously everything will still be shit and there aren't any good people in the party anymore. But still would love to see him and Reeves getting fed into the mincer, just out of pure hatred.

apparently there is some disquiet about how complacent Starmer and his team were about Runcorn and he didn't show up. Although tbf he is so nationally hated now they would have lost by more than 6 if the cunt had turned up in person.

In a week of difficult local elections, there was a special guest in No 10 to give a pep talk to staff: Arsène Wenger, the former manager of Arsenal, beloved of the prime minister. Keir Starmer has sought his advice before, on the importance of building a team. And they have faced some common challenges, rebuilding their clubs and parties from low ebbs to extraordinary success.

might have disagreed when people said we were fucked upthread but now...

sometimes you just have seek advice from someone who is approaching the age of terminal senility and then get your press office to feed it out there. That shows that you are a very serious person.

Could never stand Wenger and his football professor shtick anyway.

horrible old man

Starmer is such a gimmicky, trivial cunt there wouldn't be any point him being good advice anyway even if it was there. I think he's incapable of listening and he's shallower than a puddle of piss.

Invincibles 4 evah.

Glad that we are all agreed that we're fucked.

Different dynamics and its a council election with low turnout but its funny how Farage is so confident with that DEI and wfh remark, even as Canada and Australia vote for weak centre left gruel he is pushing those lines.

Maybe he reckons since Musk disowned him he's sheltered from the backlash.

There's no backlash in the UK because our government has decided to become Trump's toadies.

Ah yes, our highly popular government.

Labour creates a TikTok showing Keir Stramer as having "aura" (2025) pic.twitter.com/LV3YaJ1Mro

— insane moments in british politics (@PoliticsMoments) May 3, 2025

a a a a a aura aura aura aura!

The aura of a middle manager who agrees with whatever the CEO says.

Starmer can chair a meeting. He can draft a minute. He can lead a team. He can hold a press conference. He can stay calm in an interview. He can rizz up Baby Gronk. He’s mindful, while also demure.

to quote mr Sayle's slam poem "I hate Kier Starmer"

he is aesthetically petty and dull, a piece of hotel art made man

cannot imagine a being with less aura than sir kier, he is an aura black hole.

even people who like Starmer* don't think he has aura.

*yes there are some!

whoever's doing Labour's social media now is after the Turner Prize for satire i'm guessing

🚨 NEW: The UK-India trade deal means Indian workers temporarily in the UK will be exempt from paying National Insurance for three years pic.twitter.com/m0g9Whp6Jj

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) May 6, 2025

You can just see what the right and reform will shout about next.

I thought workers from the Commonwealth were supposed to step into the breach post-Brexit... but only Canadians, Australians and Kiwis I suppose.