The UK Politics Thread [Wot did Jez do now...]

[GS]

Letting Jezza get the better of her on grammar schools was shit - it's your policy, for fuck sake, slap him about.

The public agree with her as well - even if most MPs are too worried about looking like they hate poor people to vocally back it - so it shouldn't be a particularly difficult sell.

Maybe it's part of a longer-term strategy to keep him in place. If so, carry on.

[GS]

There's a properly shit panel on QT tonight. Alistair Campbell and John McDonnell reaching peak snark.

I can't understand the ideological hatred of grammar schools that some of these people have. They actually hate aspiration - they'd rather drag everybody down than let some people pull themselves up. Great effort, lads.

[Boydy]

'I'm incapable of empathy.'

Yeah, we get it.

[GS]

A show of hands on grammar schools showing 2:1 against despite polling showing 4:1 for parents who would get their children to sit it and nearly 7:1 who would send the kids there if they got a place.

Balanced audience indeed.

[GS]

'I'm incapable of empathy.'

Yeah, we get it.

Yeah, because that's it. "Tories are evil" is just the fallback position for everything, isn't it.

[GS]

John McDonnell really is a thoroughly unpleasant individual.

[Lewis]

Is this nuclear plant actually just a massive bung to get the Chinese banking with us? Because nobody seems to support it, and that might actually make sense.

[Kikó]

20℅ swing to liberal democrats in Newcastle. Lib dem gain in Tipton from labour.

[GS]

Yes. Ed Davey (wanker) agreed a set price per MWh which is much higher than the existing market rate, which is basically a way of compensating the French and Chinese for putting the money in. It'll probably end up being operationally pointless before it even starts working properly, but it's a way of getting the Chinese on board - although they see it as a part of a wider infrastructure investment with another initiative at Bradwell.

I'd have scrapped it, but then I suppose we can't go pissing the French and the Chinese off right now and the former have already sunk £2.5bn into it - so we'd probably have had to compensate them for it if we'd binned it off.

It's just another Osborne fetish for a MEGA infrastructure project, though. Like HS2, only an even bigger waste of money. The third runway at Heathrow is the only sensible infrastructure project we have on the go at the minute, but then you have a few wankers refusing to accept that it's going to have to happen eventually.

[GS]

20℅ swing to liberal democrats in Newcastle. Lib dem gain in Tipton from labour.

I'm not sure there's much point looking at (presumably) council by-elections in isolation. The local government elections are only ever solid evidence when they're a nationwide electoral test for the government or opposition. Even then, you have to be absolutely shit as an opposition not to make serious inroads.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I saw a dog on the way to work this morning, and he barked 'LIB DEM FIGHTBACK' at me. He'll be in the House of Lords by next week.

[phonics]

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

[GS]

Tim Farron is on Marr today and he is absolutely fucking hopeless.

[Lewis]

The MELTDOWN over that UKIP woman praising Vladimir Putin is a bit tragic. It's from all sides as well. Whether you love the IRA, support Venezuela, consider yourself a 'Citizen of Europe', or want Islamists to run Syria; you know what Labour-voting areas want to hear about world affairs.

[GS]

Everybody loves a good virtue signal.

Not that Diane James isn't a bit shit, mind you. Her interview with Brillo was hardly encouraging. There's a space for UKIP, particularly in the north, but not unless they're suggesting you summarily hang criminals and deport non-natives.

[Lewis]

Peter Hitchens (https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/10/the-cold-war-is-over) wrote a very good thing on Russia the other week, if you missed it.

[GS]

I had indeed missed it, but just had a chance to read it there.

Very good. I think his central point is right, as well. I think it also brings into the focus the key point that different peoples, from a governmental perspective, want / need different things.

[Lewis]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37400280

:harold:

[Jimmy Floyd]

Jezza is winning so hard. What a man. Seamus Milne to be running 10 Downing Street within the year.

[GS]

It's not really funny any more. It's a cult.

"The leader... The leader... The leader... Mandate... The leader...". Whatever, mate.

[GS]

777613255560744961

Mental.

[Boydy]

Helping out single parents with breakfast clubs and after-school clubs?

STALINIST BASTARDS! WE'LL ALL BE IN THE GULAGS SOON! ARRRRRGH!

[GS]

"...to increase the involvement of children, parents and carers in Momentum and the Labour Party."

"...they need to facilitate their political engagement."

"...aims to increase children's involvement in Momentum and the labour movement by promoting political activity that is fun, engaging and child friendly."

Alright. By promoting political activity - in children. It's a bit like Nazi exam questions (http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi-germany/nazi-education/) on how heavy an aircraft bombing the Jews in Warsaw is or hinting at how much you could pay to good, decent married Aryans if there were no mentally ill people.

[Boydy]

777628760283676672


777620375555477504


But yeah, sure, piss yourself.

[GS]

Which isn't what the press release says, but I suppose when you've been drinking the Kool-Aid to the extent you have a Twitter line from a Corbyn activist is considered prescient and insightful.

"Corbyn Youth" has a ring to it, I suppose. I wonder what the quiz questions will be like: "John organises a strike ballot amongst junior doctors. There are 30,000 junior doctors. Turnout is 93%, and the number of ballots in favour of strike action is 99%. What percentage of Conservative voters are evil?"

[John]

If it was just a childcare plan to let the mums pop along to some Momentum event without their kids it would be fine, but actively trying to politicise children isn't really on. Any child young enough to need a 'breakfast club' is too young to have some proselytising volunteer poking him towards a political cause he can't possibly understand.

[Boydy]

I'm sure you both wholeheartedly disagree with children being taken to/involved in Orange parades.

[GS]

Where's the sustained ideological indoctrination arising from watching a flute band?

[Lewis]

The quotes in this (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/momentum-kids-jeremy-corbyn-labour-party-political-education-creche_uk_57def98be4b05d79137004ab) make it sound a lot more sinister (not to mention self-important) than breakfast clubs.

[GS]

The quotes in this (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/momentum-kids-jeremy-corbyn-labour-party-political-education-creche_uk_57def98be4b05d79137004ab) make it sound a lot more sinister (not to mention self-important) than breakfast clubs.

That goes with the territory on the [far] left, really.

[Lewis]

Back to actual Russia, and the BBC sez that the Putin Party leads the polls (44%), followed by the nationalists and the communists (14-16%), and with the fuzzy liberals that we might actually like nowhere to be seen. Garry Kasparov must be livid.

[John]

I'm sure you both wholeheartedly disagree with children being taken to/involved in Orange parades.

The parades themselves are fine. It's just a load of bands marching along the road. If it's followed by a Powerpoint presentation on why Fenians are bad then there's a problem, but you can't really police what children are exposed to in their own homes.

I'm against religious schooling and all that shit though for the same reasons. It's teaching children a particular worldview that they're generally not equipped to reject.

[Bartholomert]

The parades themselves are fine. It's just a load of bands marching along the road. If it's followed by a Powerpoint presentation on why Fenians are bad then there's a problem, but you can't really police what children are exposed to in their own homes.

I'm against religious schooling and all that shit though for the same reasons. It's teaching children a particular worldview that they're generally not equipped to reject.

Couldn't you say that about secular schooling? I think some light religious education is very important in instilling a sense of morality and justice.

[John Arne]

I can't be a 100% sure, but I think you can teach/learn morality within an atheist upbringing.

[Spikey M]

Couldn't you say that about secular schooling? I think some light religious education is very important in instilling a sense of morality and justice.

I'm pretty sure that's exactly what John was saying. You don't get 'light religious education' in faith schools that tell you 'this is what we think about these issues'.

[Bartholomert]

I can't be a 100% sure, but I think you can teach/learn morality within an atheist upbringing.

Yeah maybe if you have a PHD and an IQ above 120; the dirty masses need direction and moral indoctrination for the greater good of society.

[niko_cee]

What you've described there sounds fairly utilitarian. You don't need religion for a sense of morality or justice.

I do think it is something worth teaching kids to an extent though (RE that is), if for nothing other than the historical/cultural interest angle. I always find people who know absolutely nothing about any of the major faiths (due to never having had any religious education) a bit disconcerting. It's a fairly big thing, even if you aren't a true believer.

[Raoul Duke]

Yeah, as long as there's a clear delineation between facts and made-up nonsense, then it's fine. We all know there's no such impartiality around any of these things though - let's not pretend otherwise.

[Byron]

I'm quite enjoying GS go mental at anything involving Labour. It's like if Harold found a thesaurus.

[GS]

I'm quite enjoying GS go mental at anything involving Labour. It's like if Harold found a thesaurus.

"New Labour" broke the country, but "Old Labour" has some mental ideas that shouldn't be allowed near the statute book. The logical conclusion is that Labour are likely to ruin the country, and thus must be kept out at all costs.

[Lewis]

This (http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/09/fall-labour-s-golden-generation) is interesting (but the site is almost unreadable) on the 'Golden Generation' who oversaw Labour killing itself, and the picture is seriously lol.

[Lewis]

That undercover Momentum thing was a bit tame. MI5 and the Jews are obviously slipping.

[GS]

It's not as if it uncovered anything that we don't already know. They're hard left, many are entryists leveraging on the Labour party as the only available bandwagon for some relevance, they want deselections of moderates, they want loyalty to the leader in a Soviet-esque manner and a lot of them aren't particularly pleasant people.

Great. The tagline is really "TV programme confirms obvious fact". We're briefed.

[Lewis]

Come to think of it, the crapness of the revelations will probably annoy them more than a proper hatchet job would have done, because it looks like they're desperate to attack them any way they can. So there is that to lol forward to.

[GS]

The self-pity has already been out in force. I don't really understand why the hated MAIN STREAM MEDIA give them consistent coverage. They're a pressure group. Just because they consider Wor Jez as the second coming of Christ doesn't mean they're not absolutely shit and full of nutters.

[Jimmy Floyd]

This (http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/09/fall-labour-s-golden-generation) is interesting (but the site is almost unreadable) on the 'Golden Generation' who oversaw Labour killing itself, and the picture is seriously lol.

Wee Dougie Alexander now being an adviser to Bono is almost too good to be true, as a metaphor for them lot.

[Lewis]

Tim Farron gave his big speech (http://www.libdems.org.uk/tim-farron-autumn-conference-16#) today (in that annoying six word sentence form), and it is absolutely terrible.


I kind of see Tony Blair the way I see The Stone Roses, I preferred the early work.

Mate.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Tony's best work was actually done quite late in the day, like, er, no major musician ever.

[GS]

Farron is genuinely hopeless. I don't think it's hyperbole to suggest that they're genuinely finished as a significant force in politics. Paddy Ashdown continued his nervous breakdown this week by suggesting that the "progressive majority" should run a unity candidate in Witney against the Tories.

Mate.

[Shindig]

Nigel Farage was treated like a king on Loose Women earlier. No mixed response from the crowd or anything. I mean, the dust has settled on the vote but I've now got a weird impression all 'women of a certain age' are dangerous fanatics who must be stopped at all costs.

[GS]

Farage is actually a reasonably personable chap once you get past the politics. It's one of the reasons he was successful as he was.

[niko_cee]

Farron is genuinely hopeless. I don't think it's hyperbole to suggest that they're genuinely finished as a significant force in politics. Paddy Ashdown continued his nervous breakdown this week by suggesting that the "progressive majority" should run a unity candidate in Witney against the Tories.

Mate.

They can finish themselves off by being the party of Europe. Was it one of their idiots I saw the other day going on about a second referendum because about 7% of people who voted leave had change their mind and "it couldn't have been closer unless it had been 51-49".

:cab:

[GS]

The idea that there's sufficient buyers' remorse that the referendum result would change if ran today is disproved by after-the-event polling. I can understand why they're taking the position they are, in the sense that they're pro-European and have espied a gap in the market, but there are never enough people sufficiently appalled at the result to vote for them solely based on that. They can't even agree internally (in terms of 'major' figures) on the merits of the second referendum policy.

They're on 8%, are widely discredited post-coalition, and have barely a recognisable national figure left in the party. Why even bother giving them and their eight MPs any national coverage? They're as important in the Commons as the DUP. That said, there's a certain irony that their pet policy of Lords reform would render them even more irrelevant as their 105-odd Lords are the only thing they can (illegitimately) leverage so as not to be completely devoid of influence.

[Shindig]

Farage is actually a reasonably personable chap once you get past the politics. It's one of the reasons he was successful as he was.

Kinda. He's got an air of a probable alcoholic about him, though. They did some crap segment about favourite biscuits and he just dodged it with, "I'm more of a BAR SNACK MAN, myself." Someone should tally up his 'man with pint' photo-ops. Without a political position, he'd be stuck in a dark corner of a pub somewhere going on about "How we used to be proud to be British."

[GS]

He's deliberately cultivated an image as a bloke that people can relate to, and it's worked very well for him.

He's the main reason we're leaving the EU, so I think he's fucking great.

[Jimmy Floyd]

There was a very good FT Lunch with him a while back which told you all you need to know about Farage.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/864c3a96-fbf1-11e5-b5f5-070dca6d0a0d.html

The chancer's chancer.

[Lewis]

I can't see how you even begin to approach a second referendum. If you campaign to remain in the thing as it is on that day then (logically, at least) you commit yourself to having to hold a referendum as soon as that changes, regardless of how trivial the change is. With that in mind, has it not occurred to any of these wankers that the European Union might present us with new terms for remaining?

[GS]

Cameron was pushing the line quite heavily that there was a legislative referendum lock on further transfers of power, but then look at the state of Lisbon getting rammed through by national parliaments particularly the Brown government. Fuck that.

The whole thing is just the Lib Dems SEETHING at the result. There's no way a second referendum works - what do you do if people reject the specific deal because, say, they want more control over immigration? Just stay in and pretend the whole thing never happened? It's just shit politicking, much like their demand for an election after they demanded the FTPA in the coalition agreement. They're wankers - annihilation in the next election is the least we can hope for.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Ed West on the Speccie saying the Blairites can't moan about an influx of newcomers ruining the status quo, as that's what they inflicted on the country through immigration. That should get a few luvvies seething.

[phonics]

Cameron was pushing the line quite heavily that there was a legislative referendum lock on further transfers of power, but then look at the state of Lisbon getting rammed through by national parliaments particularly the Brown government. Fuck that.

The whole thing is just the Lib Dems SEETHING at the result. There's no way a second referendum works - what do you do if people reject the specific deal because, say, they want more control over immigration? Just stay in and pretend the whole thing never happened? It's just shit politicking, much like their demand for an election after they demanded the FTPA in the coalition agreement. They're wankers - annihilation in the next election is the least we can hope for.

What happens if the immigration quotas aren't high enough for people who voted for Brexit? (Please don't keep on pretending this vote had nothing to do with immigration ty) Do we then have a referendum on that? What happens if the populace rejects that?

Just out of interest.

[Lewis]

Once you had TAKEN BACK CONTROL of immigration you could just vote for a government that wanted to reduce the numbers.

[phonics]

Once you had TAKEN BACK CONTROL of immigration you could just vote for a government that wanted to reduce the numbers.

But wouldn't they then have to go back to the EU and begin a new trade deal with new immigration numbers?

[Lewis]

Why would we have to agree anything with them?

[GS]

But wouldn't they then have to go back to the EU and begin a new trade deal with new immigration numbers?

Why would we have to do that? That would only be potentially relevant if we went into an EEA style arrangement with concessions from the EU on free movement, but the greater likelihood is a Canada style deal. Immigration is not an issue in the context of a bilateral trade deal, unless it involves being in - rather than having access to - the single market. They're very different things, and the distinction is being lost.

As Lewis says, the electorate can then vote for a party based on its policy on immigration numbers - obviously not there's no point in today's world because if 1m Romanians turn up at Stansted tomorrow then that's tough shit on us.

[Kikó]

The referendum on voting what we want from an exit is such a nonsense. "We will only leave if this happens!" - shut up. The country has voted, let the government do what the populace asked and next time don't hold important decisions on the general population if you can't stomach the outcome.

[GS]

What happens if the immigration quotas aren't high enough for people who voted for Brexit? (Please don't keep on pretending this vote had nothing to do with immigration ty) Do we then have a referendum on that? What happens if the populace rejects that?

Just out of interest.

Also on the point that the 'vote had nothing to do with immigration', I've never denied it was a factor. However, there is extensive exit polling which shows that the biggest single reason was sovereignty (49%). Only 33% voted leave on the basis of wanting to control borders.

So immigration was not the majority, nor even a plurality, of the reason for a leave vote.

Just something to bear in mind when people get worked up about the immigration issue in the context of the Brexit deal.

[Lewis]

I reckon we're going to end up blowing them out completely. :drool:

[phonics]

Also on the point that the 'vote had nothing to do with immigration', I've never denied it was a factor. However, there is extensive exit polling which shows that the biggest single reason was sovereignty (49%). Only 33% voted leave on the basis of wanting to control borders.

So immigration was not the majority, nor even a plurality, of the reason for a leave vote.

Just something to bear in mind when people get worked up about the immigration issue in the context of the Brexit deal.

Polls had Remain and Ed Miliband winning in landslides. I couldn't give less of a fuck what a poll says.

[GS]

Polls had Remain and Ed Miliband winning in landslides. I couldn't give less of a fuck what a poll says.

No, the polls suggested a hung parliament was likely (hence heavy coverage of a Labour / SNP coalition) and the vast majority of online polls, particularly by June, always had the race as a coin toss.

Regardless of your errors, which I assume are simply errors in recollection, you're making a fundamental error in confusing tracking polls and exit polls. The latter analysis, on Brexit, was weighted on the basis of the result itself, and canvassed views from over 12,000 people.

So, whilst immigration was A factor, it was not THE factor. You can't reject the evidence on this simply because it doesn't suit your prejudice.

[Jimmy Floyd]

People associate 'sovereignty' etc with immigration anyway. Most people voted Leave because of the foreigners that were sent their way. People don't like immigrants, anywhere in the world, never have, and never will.

Lefty London types claim to like them because they serve a mean caramel macchiato, but lefty London types don't live in the same universe as immigrants when it comes to the important things - jobs, housing etc - so they can afford to like them. Leave voters cannot.

[GS]

People associate 'sovreignty' etc with immigration anyway. Most people voted Leave because of the foreigners that were sent their way. People don't like immigrants, anywhere in the world, never have, and never will.

Sovereignty in this context was described as the principle that decisions about the UK should be taken in the UK.

That said, I'd agree that border control falls within the same bracket so you'd be looking at 82% of the combined leave vote doing so on some variation of sovereignty.

I wouldn't agree with your conclusion. People need to think twice before ascribing reasons to something so it suits the narrative.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I've thought twice, and they still don't like immigrants.

[GS]

It remains an inaccurate assumption - in the context of this specific vote, at least.

[phonics]

lol. My whole family is from Birmingham, they no doubt all voted leave if they did bother to vote at all. It's Muzzie that and Polish this, in every conversation. To say that peoples main issue is 'sovereignty' is just you wanting to be distanced from racists.

[GS]

You can see it from the statistics. Read them for yourself: http://lordashcroftpolls.com/2016/06/how-the-united-kingdom-voted-and-why/

I'm sorry it doesn't suit your narrative, and your inability to understand anything is becoming terrifyingly frequent, but you need to get a grip.

[Shindig]

Its elements of both, surely? Some want to limit EU intervention, some want to limit immigration. And its arguably a vote in which the majority of those who voted might not feel the benefits either way.

[GS]

I agree, but we really need to move away from the idea the referendum result came about solely because "immigration". It was a factor, yes, but not the key driving force. It's important to understand why people voted as they did, because if it was all down to immigration then we could go into the EEA with strong concessions on freedom of movement and most couldn't or wouldn't complain.

As it was mostly about sovereignty, this isn't an option which would sit well with most Leave supporters. That phonics' "whole family" are racists, apparently, is neither here nor there.

It's also interesting to note that a significant factor in the remain vote was the perceived risk of leaving. Risks such as the technical recession we were voting for.

[Lewis]

It's like when half of the Scottish independence voters said that they wanted to leave the United Kingdom to protect the wholly-devolved NHS.

[GS]

There was a rather scathing article in the Scottish Daily Mail the other week where some lad skewered Sturgeon. He basically accused her of being a politician who was prepared to run the country into the ground because she wasn't prepared to give up on 'a daydream conceived when she was a teenager of getting her face on a Scottish five pound note'. Shots fired.

Kezia Dugdale's managed to extract Scottish Labour from UK Labour, so it'll be acting as a fully autonomous party henceforward. So much for "a more left-leaning Corbyn-led Labour party will win back Scotland".

[Lewis]

Jacob Rees-Mogg. :cool:

[GS]

I'm 15 minutes behind, but Rees-Mogg is always great value.

Caroline Lucas is dreadfully overrated, mind you.

[Lewis]

779079158299262976

:gs:

[GS]

Fucking hell.

[Lewis]

That blue-shirted Jezza fan would have been confiscating grain in a previous life.

[GS]

The state of these remain politicians.

[GS]

The trusty "24% of the eligible vote" line from the left again.

[Lewis]

Why would 'The Donald' being called shit get a cheer? Who cares?

[GS]

Rees-Mogg the only one not engaging in populist shit to get a cheer. There's a surprise.

[Disco]

Electoral Wilderness Live on BBC News right now if anyone's interested.

[Byron]

Looks like Wor Jez has won with 62% of the vote.

Good job you fuckwits. I guess it's Green or Lib Dem for me at the best election.

[GS]

Increasing the MANDATE. :D

That "Saving Labour" campaign went well. The state of the left in this country.

[Lewis]

These Momentum people sound like the madder UKIP supporters in their insistence that the Leader can appeal to everybody if given the chance.

[GS]

Momentum are genuine nutters. It's fascinating to watch.

[Lewis]

This posh lad who leads it (or at least speaks for them) must be the biggest faggot in politics as well.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I just want to watch the new Smarmy Cunt Party formed out of Paddy Ashdown and disaffected Labour goons, and then watch it fail.

[Lewis]

I watched that Brexit documentary last night (it's alright, if a bit desperate to make out that Nigel Farage was the spiritual leader of Vote Leave), and the reaction he got in some town hall by blithering on about Vladimir Putin was so lol. 'You might not like it, but that doesn't mean it's wrong'. That might have worked on your wife, mate...

[GS]

I mentioned it above, but Paddy Ashdown is clearly in the middle of a long-term nervous breakdown. We should probably give him some space to hit rock bottom, which he'll presumably do himself when the "progressive majority" myth evaporates completely.

[Lewis]

Tony Blair started it when he mugged him right off on proportional representation.

[GS]

779750197563891713

They've no strategy whatsoever. Well done, lads.

[Yevrah]

Catching up with last week's Question Time. What the fuck was Caroline Lucas banging on about with her soft or hard Brexit second vote?

Jesus Christ.

[Yevrah]

With Liz Kendall wading in it's clear as day that these people don't actually respect or want the democratic result at all, but to admit so (even to themselves) would break their whole political ideology.

[GS]

There's a genuine line of thought on the centre left that even "allowing" the vote in the first place was a huge mistake, because obviously the people can't be trusted to take decisions.

Rees-Mogg is right on single market membership. Staying in would effectively reject the result of the referendum. Assuming 'hard Brexit' entails leaving the single market, then hard Brexit it must be. And that's just tough shit.

[niko_cee]

Well, that's not entirely daft is it? See old Gordon's 5 golden rules or whatever it was. You make it so you never have to actually follow through on your promise of a referendum, unless you want to. I can only assume the ease with which AV was dispatched made everyone a bit overconfident as regards the manifest dangers of 'giving the people their say'.

[GS]

Ultimately you have, in my view, three major decision points in the trajectory of the EU that fundamentally altered the landscape and where a referendum would at least have given the thing some legitimacy. 1992 and no referendum on Maastricht, 2004 and Blair not imposing the transitional controls on immigration from joining states, and 2007 and Brown ramming Lisbon through without the promised referendum (from the 2005 manifesto) on spurious grounds.

I'd have had much more sympathy with the idea of there being no need for a referendum if the electorate had signed off on any of the above, entailing as they did fundamental changes in the constitutional position and / or likely significant changes in the way that EU membership affected us. But we didn't, so whatever your views on the EU I do think it was entirely fair to have one and put the issue to bed either way. Suggesting we shouldn't have had the referendum, having never had an opportunity to directly sign off anything since 1975, is a bit lol. Still, it's the Lib Dems so it's not like they count.

I'd agree Cameron was over-confident - and he probably never expected to have to actually implement the manifesto pledge - but at least he actually went through and had one. Labour couldn't even do that.

[Lewis]

George Osborne reckons that people didn't vote for HARD BREXIT. Why don't you sit this one out, mate?

[GS]

Osborne must be seething at how things have turned out. I'm sure Vote Leave advocated single market withdrawal, but then THEY DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THEY WERE VOTING FOR so whatever.

[Lewis]

It's irrelevant who said what. They have to get rid of free movement, and if that means HARD BREXIT then HARD BREXIT is what we will get.

[GS]

Well, exactly. To refer again to the exit poll that phonics can't get his head around, 49% was on sovereignty and 33% was on immigration. Both require single market withdrawal, so that's what it'll need to be or you're basically rejecting the result.

Even staying in with some sort of emergency brake on immigration is pointless because it would still necessitate handing over powers to regulate us to the EU.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The reason we're in this position is because Cameron is a complacent twat who assumed he'd win, like he's won everything else in his life, and he ran out of luck. If he thought he'd lose, he wouldn't have let it happen.

[GS]

https://www.ft.com/content/dd666fb8-833c-11e6-a29c-6e7d9515ad15?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fworld_ uk_politics%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

Bang on time.

Fuck them.

[Lewis]

I seem to have used up my free articles, but, if it's about the passport business, Peter Lilley (of singing about gypos and single mothers fame) covered (http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/09/peter-lilley-brexit-should-be-swift-heres-how-to-do-it.html) all of this the other day.

[Yevrah]

Oh and just when you think nothing could top "Brexit" for its nauseating pointlessness, "Hard Brexit" comes along.

Still, I suppose it'll give Farage something to do again when we don't actually leave.

[phonics]

As long as it means Brexit, thats all that matters.

[Yevrah]

I'm now convinced more than ever that we won't actually be leaving.

[GS]

As long as it means Brexit, thats all that matters.

That phrase was coined to try and make people SEETHING at the result realise it's going to happen and they need to get over themselves.

That said, there is a certain irony in some people citing the complexity of leaving as a reason not to bother and then demanding to have detailed plans for it when parliament has been in recess. Chuka and his Vote Leave Watch is a right laugh too.


I'm now convinced more than ever that we won't actually be leaving.

We will. It would be politically impossible not to, although I did read a great story in the Telegraph last week that suggested Eurocrats were hoping to make the whole thing so fiendishly awful that we'd just give up on it. If that happens, we should have no compunction about unilaterally invading Belgium.

[GS]

I seem to have used up my free articles, but, if it's about the passport business, Peter Lilley (of singing about gypos and single mothers fame) covered (http://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2016/09/peter-lilley-brexit-should-be-swift-heres-how-to-do-it.html) all of this the other day.

I've just had a chance to read this. There's a lot of merit in the idea of simply repealing the European Communities Act of 1972, immediately writing over all existing EU law into UK law (and then binning it off periodically) and announcing that we're going to continue trading freely with the EU unless they unilaterally bung tariffs on.

[GS]

Meanwhile, in Liverpool:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CtOLlM2WAAEMV6p.jpg

There's several more days of this to go, too. :drool:

[Bartholomert]

Why is anti-semitism so hot in the streets these days? The alt-right can't stop raving about it either, I thought we were past all that since we need all the white-ish people we can get in the West?

[Jimmy Floyd]

Meet socialism, and I don't mean Bernie Sanders wanking on about bunnies socialism, I mean proper hard left danger men.

[Shindig]

Why is anti-semitism so hot in the streets these days?

I read that as white as you could imagine.

[GS]

780361445326331904

[Lewis]

780345524469714944

:(

[Disco]

'While I still can...'

Do fuck off.

[Lewis]

My theory (giving the daughter of a baronet the benefit of the doubt and discounting the most basic idiocy) is that these sort of people think that nation and state are the same thing. If so, that would explain quite a lot.

[mikem]

Why is anti-semitism so hot in the streets these days? The alt-right can't stop raving about it either, I thought we were past all that since we need all the white-ish people we can get in the West?

Visible anti-sensitism was much worse in the UK than it is in the US. At least it was fifteen years ago when I lived there. Among all classes. I was at JP Morgan and got to sit next to Etonians who loved a Jew joke. The day their million pound education taught them that Jew rhymed with new and we got a whole day of "the Jew York times." Which was odd at an American investment bank when you are sitting next to people with names like Goldsteinbergmanwitz. In the US you still got homosexual jokes like at the time but not Jewish ones.

Being visibly Jewish in public was fun too. I wear a kippah maybe three times a year but stopped in the UK because you always got a lot of shit on the street. I got everything from dirty yid to pig fucker and always multiple times. Once, in the Blackfriars tube station I had three kind young men toss coins at my feet since they were worried I would not have return fare before a good chorus of dirty fucking yid followed by getting spat on. That was fun. History has given us worse problems with race but less with anti-semitism. People just don't know because we mostly left or were kicked out.

I'd agree with the following study of Jewish perceptions. It is annoying but not bad in daily life in the UK, but being visibly Jewish would be unbearable. Better than most of the rest of Europe but significantly worse than anywhere in the new world.

http://www.jpr.org.uk/documents/Perceptions_and_experiences_of_antisemitism_among_ Jews_in_UK.pdf

[Jimmy Floyd]

Etonian bankers are probably the worst people in the whole country to be fair, including Anjem Choudary.

[Lewis]

That survey seems to conclude that perceptions and experiences of anti-semitism tend to relate to Muslims, and to being a bit precious about Israel. Well I am stunned.

[niko_cee]

It's rough down in that 'the Blackfriars'.

Should have gone back to within the aeroft (Eruv?) of intolerance they were building around that time.

[GS]

780465313095774208

:cool:

[Boydy]

Is that interviewer a man in drag?

[Spoonsky]

It's the lass from Portlandia.

[Lewis]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KW0l8wFLSM

The state of that. It's the walk-off that makes it.

[Byron]

To be fair, that's how I imagined you would look like in real life.

[Lewis]

Shouldn't have BOTTLED the Norwich Meet then.

[GS]

It fascinates me that they think MPs should be accountable to "the movement" rather than "their constituents", as if anyone who didn't vote for them can be safely ignored.

[Lewis]

Rachel Reeves stumbling into Powellism by merely thinking logically is seriously lol, as is her shitty explanation that we need to have an 'honest debate' on migration and free movement. We had it. We want less of it.

[Lewis]

lol at all the Labour 'moderates' (albeit not the well-known ones) pretending that Jezza gave some sort of transformative speech as a cover for them slunking back into the fold. Twats.

[GS]

There was a decent point in the Spectator that Wor Jez could have given that speech 20 years ago. The lad probably hasn't changed an opinion since he left university.

Fair play to him for advocating that we should keep open borders. The core vote in the north will fucking love that.

Also, Seamus "The Americans brought it on themselves" Milne is apparently returning to the Guardian as of Friday. Guardianistas everywhere will be blocking to the Morning Star.

[GS]

Tomorrow's QT panel:

Priti Patel, Rod Liddle, Bonnie Greer, Emily Thornberry and Steven Woolfe.

:sick:

[Jimmy Floyd]

That panel could have been hand picked by Rod Liddle.

[Jimmy Floyd]

http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/according-british-media-class-last-week-has-been-unmitigated-disaster-labour-lead-1488108898

Heroic scenes from Peter Oborne.

[Boydy]

Why's it heroic?

[Lewis]

Is Richard Burgon gay? He has to be.

[GS]

He looks permanently perplexed, as if he can't believe his new profile.

[GS]

The standard of this panel really is absolutely shit.

[Lewis]

That football bit was like the arse end of all political discourse.

[GS]

Burgon is probably the best here, which says something. I don't agree with much of what he's saying (obviously), but still. Bonnie Greer's hopelessness is only marginally bested by Priti Patel's apparently awful grasp of coherent sentence structure.

[GS]

https://www.ft.com/content/bb899c94-8715-11e6-a75a-0c4dce033ade?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fworld_ uk_politics%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct

:youpi:

[Lewis]

There is a big protest planned for the Conservative Party conference on Sunday. If that Nigel Farage poster killed Jo Cox, it's only right that any aggro gets blamed entirely on Owen Jones.

[Boydy]

Not available to non-subscribers, it seems. What is it?

[Lewis]

Ten years ago: lol (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5396358.stm)

[GS]

May setting out that the authority of the EU over this country is going to end.

What scenes these are.

:rave:

[Jimmy Floyd]

She is absolutely clueless.

[GS]

She may be, but providing we fuck off the single market then I give not a fuck.

[Lewis]

I bet she voted leave like Jezza did.

[GS]

It seems to be reasonably clear what the deal is going to be, anyway. Very much along the lines that you'd want, so fuck the whingers.

[Gray Fox]

Apparently the leader of UKIP has resigned already. It's been what? 3 weeks?

[GS]

Presumably they've realised their best hope lies in mobilising the disaffected Labour masses in the north and someone like Steven Woolfe is infinitely better placed to do that.

But it's UKIP, so it'll probably be something to do with an internal party lol-fest.

[phonics]

It's the latter

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ct9Be5sW8AQumBr.jpg:large

[niko_cee]

See, what she needed was a grass roots movement to harass, marginalise, and eventually oust the internal dissidents.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Theresa May is fucking awful.

[Lewis]

We'd better get HARD BREXIT for all of this communism she wants.

[phonics]

Theresa May is fucking awful.

I'm following it on Twitter which isn't the most balanced place obvs but it sounds mental.

I think Theresa May / Jeremy Corbyn / Tim Farron might be the weakest set of leaders this countries had since the Empire fell apart.

Anyone see the story about the way they plan to encourage youth to rent is to make the rooms smaller? Sounds fantastic.

[Byron]

Nigel is back. He's like Arnie considering the amount of times he comes back.

[GS]

Theresa May is fucking awful.

It's difficult to escape this immediate conclusion. Fuck off with your state interference, Theresa, mate.

[GS]

We'd better get HARD BREXIT for all of this communism she wants.

Providing we get hard Brexit, I'll quietly accept the other shit.

I had a good lol at the idea of making firms publish lists of foreign workers though. I assume Rudd was compensating for being a remain campaigner, but who the fuck knows.

[Kikó]

I might actually vote for WOR Theresa mate.

[Boydy]

I might actually vote for WOR Theresa mate.

Oh fuck off.

Look what you've become. :nono:

[GS]

I might actually vote for WOR Theresa mate.

I suspect that's her plan - to get about 40% in the next election.

That said, the idea of excessive state intervention in the economy is grim. It's all a bit populist, presumably to try and address the perceived reasons behind the Brexit vote.

Low taxes, low regulation, free markets. If you're after that, you're fucked seemingly.

Still, Corbyn (lol) and Farron are absolutely awful so it's not like she's in danger.

[Magic]

I might actually vote for WOR Theresa mate.

The alternatives are worse.

[Kikó]

Oh fuck off.

Look what you've become. :nono:

I'm all aboard the Farron train, don't worry. Wor Tim.

[GS]

I'm all aboard the Farron train, don't worry. Wor Tim.

I'd hope not. He's a comedy character.

[phonics]

Marine Le Pen gave May's speech a big thumbs up. Nice.

[Boydy]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/05/this-is-what-theresa-mays-tory-britain-will-look-like


New army cadet units launched in state schools

Fallon announced 150 new army cadet units for state schools, with the first launched on Tuesday at the Birmingham school at the centre of the “Trojan horse” row over alleged attempts to introduce a hardline Islamist ethos.

Rockwood Academy, Fallon said, was “a phoenix from the ashes of a Trojan horse school that is now instilling British values”.

:sick:

[Lewis]

That 'citizen of nowhere' remark really has wound the knobheads up. If they're not careful, you could see this mass failure to understand and acknowledge things like nation and historical consciousness blowing right up in their faces.

[niko_cee]

I only saw bits of that Fallon speech yesterday, but some of it seemed properly off.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I'd counter the citizen of nowhere stuff by saying that a 'country that works for everyone' is in fact a country that works for no one. In politics you have to take sides.

[Boydy]

What's this 'citizen of nowhere' stuff? Was it in May's speech? I've not actually listened to it or read it.

[Spoonsky]

“if you believe you are a citizen of the world, you are a citizen of nowhere”

She's meant it with reference to international banks, but naturally globe-trotting hippies (the sort of which I aspire to be) will have misintepreted it.

[Lewis]

But today, too many people in positions of power behave as though they have more in common with international elites than with the people down the road, the people they employ, the people they pass in the street. But if you believe you’re a citizen of the world, you’re a citizen of nowhere. You don’t understand what the very word ‘citizenship’ means.

In its actual context (it followed some guff about social contracts and tax avoidance and making a 'commitment to the men and women who live around you, who work for you, who buy the goods and services you sell') it strikes as exactly the sort of thing that the left ought to be basing its entire programme around. But then Marine Le Pen said it was a good soundbite on Twitter so lololol Adolf Hitler.

[GS]

The thing is that Wor Jez shifting Labour to just right of Lenin means that the Tories look like they're applying 'common sense' in comparison. She'd probably win about 40%+ in a general election on this platform, even though it's incoherent.

[Lewis]

That said, I would like to know what Tim Farron thinks makes him a 'citizen of the world'.

[7om]

It wasn't until recently that I realised Farron was universally disliked. Every time he gets his lol question in at the end of PMQs there seems to be a collective groan.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The thing is that Wor Jez shifting Labour to just right of Lenin means that the Tories look like they're applying 'common sense' in comparison. She'd probably win about 40%+ in a general election on this platform, even though it's incoherent.

It's not incoherent, it's trying to take this once in a lifetime opportunity to smash the Labour base open. She sounds like she's prepared to lose the parliamentary seat of Pret à Manger West in order to do so as well.

Still, the Lib Dem Fightback looks like it might hit 25% in that seat so it must be going well.

[Shindig]

Farage enjoyed his long break from politics, then.

[GS]

It wasn't until recently that I realised Farron was universally disliked. Every time he gets his lol question in at the end of PMQs there seems to be a collective groan.

Apparently the MPs in his region are hiding behind pillars etc. at the station to avoid having to sit beside him on the train. A bit like Floyd belting down the road from the station to avoid getting into conversation with his workmate. If it's retrievable, then Labour would be in bother if Woolfe wins the UKIP leadership. Proper old-fashioned pincer movement on their wets. You'd be left with the London MPs, with "Chuka" and "Jeremy" having an arm wrestle to decide immigration policy.


It's not incoherent, it's trying to take this once in a lifetime opportunity to smash the Labour base open. She sounds like she's prepared to lose the parliamentary seat of Pret à Manger West in order to do so as well.

Still, the Lib Dem Fightback looks like it might hit 25% in that seat so it must be going well.

Well, in respect of trying to steal votes from Labour and UKIP - it's fine. You wonder if the Tory brand is irreparably damaged in the north, conditioned as many of them are to voting Labour because "we always have, mate".

As part of an actual political philosophy, I'm not convinced "Mayism" is particularly coherent. Then again, it doesn't really matter at this stage. The alternatives are much worse.

[GS]

783598959222718464

Very good.

[Magic]

Presumably they've realised their best hope lies in mobilising the disaffected Labour masses in the north and someone like Steven Woolfe is infinitely better placed to do that.

But it's UKIP, so it'll probably be something to do with an internal party lol-fest.

Who is now in serious condition in hospital after an 'altercation'. This all smacks of liberal sabotage.

[Boydy]

Ukip leadership favourite Steven Woolfe collapses in European parliament

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/06/ukip-leadership-favourite-steven-woolfe-collapses-in-european-parliament?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

Farage has probably poisoned him.

[Lewis]

British political life would benefit from more regular punch-ups.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Apparently he was 'punched in the head several times'. Sounds more like an assault than an altercation.

[Magic]

One punch murders. :drool:

[Lewis]

It was the aptly-named Mike Hookem wot done it. York-shire! York-shire! York-shire!

[phonics]

It was the aptly-named Mike Hookem wot done it. York-shire! York-shire! York-shire!

He looks like Mike from Spaced who, if the series had carried on into this decade, probably would have had a storyline involving becoming a UKIP MEP.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Liberal twitter (so Twitter) shitting itself about 59% of people backing the listing foreign workers thing. I wonder when they will realise that Twitter is a right-on echo chamber.

[Lewis]

It's a stupid idea (like it was when Ed Miliband (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ed-miliband-promises-new-immigration-measures-to-protect-british-workers-7876158.html) floated it), but how does it differ from the government forcing companies to reveal what it pays men and women? Shit passive-aggressive social engineering is shit passive-aggressive social engineering, and it can fuck off in all of its forms.

[Raoul Duke]

I'm not even sure why they need this 'list of foreigners'. Surely the tax record already includes all this information?

[Jimmy Floyd]

It's so they can gang up on Uber / Starbucks / the Chinese down the road for not employing any Brits later on. An 'escape goat', as a foreign scumbag once said.

[Raoul Duke]

I thought this was a good read: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/09/magazine/why-are-politicians-so-obsessed-with-manufacturing.html - very relevant to Brexit as well.

Likewise:


In 1990 the top three carmakers in Detroit between them had nominal revenues of $250 billion, a market capitalisation of $36 billion and 1.2m employees. In 2014 the top three companies in Silicon Valley had revenues of $247 billion and a market capitalisation of over $1 trillion but just 137,000 employees.

http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21707048-small-group-giant-companiessome-old-some-neware-once-again-dominating-global

[Lewis]

The 'top three companies' is a bit misleading when it's basically Apple and two ice cream vans that work the area.

[GS]

It's a stupid idea (like it was when Ed Miliband (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ed-miliband-promises-new-immigration-measures-to-protect-british-workers-7876158.html) floated it), but how does it differ from the government forcing companies to reveal what it pays men and women? Shit passive-aggressive social engineering is shit passive-aggressive social engineering, and it can fuck off in all of its forms.

Yep - in principle, it's exactly the same. It's just populist pandering shite, and it'll never make the statute book so who cares.

[Jimmy Floyd]

A Korean explained to me the other day how Apple does business with us (i.e. buying chips for its iPhones). We are one of three players in the chip market, and one of the others is Samsung, which makes its own chips and also of course makes competitor phones to the iPhone, so Apple doesn't buy from them (it does, actually, but not very much). So Apple has two chip makers to choose from.

There used to be six or seven players in the market, but three or four have died. The reason they have died is that Apple does its business like this. They come along to the chip maker and say 'Make us a million chips. We might not buy them all, or any of them, but if they're not available in case we want them, we'll bill you cost of the entire iPhone.' So if Apple only take 200k of the million you had to make, you're left with 800k chips sitting there which you contractually had to make but which now can't be sold and the technology moves on so quickly that they will be obsolete within a year. It's known as a 'slave contract'.

Hence the chip makers had the choice of dying because Apple raped them dry with slave contracts, or dying because they rejected the slave contracts and so couldn't get any Apple business. You'd think this would work against Apple in that suppliers dying would make the remaining ones more able to resist, but it isn't, because the iPhone market share is so ginormous that there's no real competition for the actual phones either. So it's all a big anti-competitive fix.

If one assumes that most megacompanies act like this in their respective industries, then it's not hard to imagine a time when suppliers of everything just get eaten to bits, the supply chain becomes completely anti-competitive and prescribed, and the megacompanies become so powerful that they are effectively also the government.

[GS]

The level of smug sanctimony on Question Time right now. Fucking. Hell.

[GS]

A Korean explained to me the other day how Apple does business with us (i.e. buying chips for its iPhones). We are one of three players in the chip market, and one of the others is Samsung, which makes its own chips and also of course makes competitor phones to the iPhone, so Apple doesn't buy from them (it does, actually, but not very much). So Apple has two chip makers to choose from.

There used to be six or seven players in the market, but three or four have died. The reason they have died is that Apple does its business like this. They come along to the chip maker and say 'Make us a million chips. We might not buy them all, or any of them, but if they're not available in case we want them, we'll bill you cost of the entire iPhone.' So if Apple only take 200k of the million you had to make, you're left with 800k chips sitting there which you contractually had to make but which now can't be sold and the technology moves on so quickly that they will be obsolete within a year. It's known as a 'slave contract'.

Hence the chip makers had the choice of dying because Apple raped them dry with slave contracts, or dying because they rejected the slave contracts and so couldn't get any Apple business. You'd think this would work against Apple in that suppliers dying would make the remaining ones more able to resist, but it isn't, because the iPhone market share is so ginormous that there's no real competition for the actual phones either. So it's all a big anti-competitive fix.

If one assumes that most megacompanies act like this in their respective industries, then it's not hard to imagine a time when suppliers of everything just get eaten to bits, the supply chain becomes completely anti-competitive and prescribed, and the megacompanies become so powerful that they are effectively also the government.

I've seen the same in food manufacturing. A big company will buy a load of food from a smaller company. The smaller company will bill them with 90 days credit. After 89 and a half days, the big company will get in touch with the small company to dispute the invoice. This will be changed to the tune of about 4p. A new invoice will be issued. The big company will then take another 89 and a half days before returning again to dispute the changes.

The next thing you know, it's over a year after the initial sale and the smaller company has no cash because it's all sitting in the big company's bank account as they basically bully their suppliers to manage their own working capital.

It's shite, but there's not much the smaller company can do given that the loss of the big company's business would basically ruin them.

[GS]

I think I might give up Question Time if it doesn't turn the corner sharpish - it's absolutely fucking shite.

I don't know if it's the audience or the panels. Or both.

[Lewis]

My (now dead) great uncle used to scam the big regional food company on printing. And he was disabled. Have that, liberals.

[Boydy]

Question Time has been shite for years.

[GS]

Question Time has been shite for years.

It seems to have got even worse. I don't know if it's the whole BREXIT thing simply highlighting two distinct sides, and the horrible sanctimonious shite from the lefties on the panel.

The state of "Chuka" in his reaction to Neil Hamilton suggesting we probably shouldn't blunder into the Middle East.

Who are these mugs suggesting we put boots on the ground? Fucking hell, lads. Get a grip.

[phonics]

A Korean explained to me the other day how Apple does business with us (i.e. buying chips for its iPhones). We are one of three players in the chip market, and one of the others is Samsung, which makes its own chips and also of course makes competitor phones to the iPhone, so Apple doesn't buy from them (it does, actually, but not very much). So Apple has two chip makers to choose from.

There used to be six or seven players in the market, but three or four have died. The reason they have died is that Apple does its business like this. They come along to the chip maker and say 'Make us a million chips. We might not buy them all, or any of them, but if they're not available in case we want them, we'll bill you cost of the entire iPhone.' So if Apple only take 200k of the million you had to make, you're left with 800k chips sitting there which you contractually had to make but which now can't be sold and the technology moves on so quickly that they will be obsolete within a year. It's known as a 'slave contract'.

Hence the chip makers had the choice of dying because Apple raped them dry with slave contracts, or dying because they rejected the slave contracts and so couldn't get any Apple business. You'd think this would work against Apple in that suppliers dying would make the remaining ones more able to resist, but it isn't, because the iPhone market share is so ginormous that there's no real competition for the actual phones either. So it's all a big anti-competitive fix.

If one assumes that most megacompanies act like this in their respective industries, then it's not hard to imagine a time when suppliers of everything just get eaten to bits, the supply chain becomes completely anti-competitive and prescribed, and the megacompanies become so powerful that they are effectively also the government.

Doesn't Apple only make up something like 15% of the market though?

edit: http://blogs-images.forbes.com/chuckjones/files/2016/02/Apple-Gartner-dec-qtr-2015-smartphone-shares.jpg?width=960

Thought so, will the generics just not pay for proper chips?

[GS]

"Chuka" advocating the west engage in REGIME CHANGE because he doesn't like dictators.

Great. The Lord Blair will be delighted to know he still has disciples in the Labour party.

[Jimmy Floyd]

You can take Samsung out of that because they make their own parts (Samsung is like the Death Star), and then if you're looking at surviving in markets other than China then you're dead if you're not doing plenty of business with Apple. The Chinese mobile market has almost no resemblance to the rest of the world so fuck knows what goes on there.

I think in China there's this trend towards low-cost smartphones that don't really do anything compared to the phones we all use.

[Raoul Duke]

In China it's basically Apple stuff for the new money people and knock-off Android stuff with government spyware for everyone else

[Jimmy Floyd]

Tony Blair considering a return to politics. Batten down the hatches.

[Lewis]

New Labour people coming out of the woodwork to cry about a 'one party state' would be lol if they weren't so shameless.

[ItalAussie]

Tony Blair considering a return to politics. Batten down the hatches.

I realise that this is obvious, but that would be a terrible, terrible plan.

EDIT: Six years younger than Clinton and Trump. How bizarre.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I want the Paddy Ashdown / Blairite liberal coalition party to happen more than I want the sun to rise tomorrow. 24 seats and the moral high ground. Come at me.

[Disco]

It's hard to think of anyone with less political credibility than Lord Tony, someone must be making money out of suggesting this.

[Boydy]

He's probably actually that delusional.

[Disco]

What am I thinking, it'll be his awful grasping wife.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Given that the money tree bore great fruit during his time in office, it's some achievement on his part that there doesn't seem to be any nostalgia whatsoever for the Blair years.

[phonics]

That's what a catastrophically stupid war do to ya.

[Spikey M]

What party would have him? He'd have to be an independant. But then, what constituency would have him? You're dead in the political water Tone. Let it be.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The only way he could come back and have any effect would be going into the Lords (where he should be anyway, frankly) and whipping it into a Stop Brexit frenzy, but even doing that would make a mockery of his entire time as Prime Minister.

What else could he do, host a talk show on Sky News?

[Lewis]

'Dubya' seems to be the model for fucking off and slowly working to turn it around.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Dubya was always a beast, though, whereas Tony's a twat.

[Yevrah]

Not sure there should be quite this much lolling about Tony Blair. I struggle to see how he'd do any worse than Corbyn will at the next election for a kick off.

[Raoul Duke]

Gordon Brown would do better than Corbyn at this point.

[Yevrah]

Well quite and given there's seemingly no-one capable or with the balls to even try and dislodge Corbyn why is the idea of Blair giving it a crack so lol?

The most lol thing about the story is that it was from an article in Esquire, ffs.

[Shindig]

I don't know how you sell Tony to a 2016 Britain.

[Lewis]

Simon Heffer wrote this (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/10/07/theresa-may-is-following-enoch-powell--by-actually-listening-to/), and Twitter is livid. Who that knew Simon Heffer, official biographer and close friend of Enoch Powell, was so pro-Enoch Powell? Wow. Just wow. Not in my name. #citizenoftheworld

[Shindig]

Mike Hookem sounds like all of Hull at once. "Mano Eh Aye Mano"

[GS]

Not sure there should be quite this much lolling about Tony Blair. I struggle to see how he'd do any worse than Corbyn will at the next election for a kick off.

The Lord Blair is discredited across the spectrum. He'd have no chance. You could carry any debate against him with "but Iraq, mate" and set him off on a three hour lecture where he defends himself.

[ItalAussie]

Dubya was always a beast, though, whereas Tony's a twat.

Wait, what? The entire reason for Blair's present unpopularity is the association between the two. :cab:

[Jimmy Floyd]

That isn't the entire reason. He kind of comes as a shit-eating package of which Iraq is only one part.

[GS]

I've come to agree with Floyd's view that 1997 marks the end of Britain. We handed over Hong Kong, we started the whole public grief thing with Diana and then there's Blair breaking the country.

:moop:

[ItalAussie]

That isn't the entire reason. He kind of comes as a shit-eating package of which Iraq is only one part.

There's a reason GS went there straightaway in the post above mine.

Iraq is (for worse, I'd say) the dominant aspect of his political legacy, and certainly the reason why his popularity nose-dived.

[ItalAussie]

I've come to agree with Floyd's view that 1997 marks the end of Britain. We handed over Hong Kong, we started the whole public grief thing with Diana and then there's Blair breaking the country.

:moop:

Surely handing over Hong Kong had very little practical effect on Britain. I mean, it meant a lot to Hong Kong, but you guys?

[Boydy]

Surely handing over Hong Kong had very little practical effect on Britain. I mean, it meant a lot to Hong Kong, but you guys?

But it was the end of the Empire! :happycry:

[GS]

There's a reason GS went there straightaway in the post above mine.

Iraq is (for worse, I'd say) the dominant aspect of his political legacy, and certainly the reason why his popularity nose-dived.

He's responsible for far more shite, like banning new grammar schools, running deficits from 2002, immigration, multiculturalism etc. etc., but ultimately Iraq is the one thing which pierces the national 'debate' on him. Nothing else of his legacy, toxic as it is, would matter because you need only mention 'Iraq' and you'd set him off. Our subservience, such as it was, with Dubya isn't really relevant with regards to the wider perception of Iraq here - that being that Blair lied and it was the most significant foreign policy disaster since Suez.


Surely handing over Hong Kong had very little practical effect on Britain. I mean, it meant a lot to Hong Kong, but you guys?

Little practical effect, but I'd suggest that it helps add weight to the idea of the 'old Britain' - imperial, conservative etc. - finally ending as we were swept away in the rising tide of toxic scum that was, and is, Blairism.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I don't agree with half those reasons above but that's the beauty of Tonyism, he's managed to completely alienate every group. Left, right, centre, women, men, north, south, Scotland, they all hate him.

[GS]

What did he do to aggrieve you specifically?

[Jimmy Floyd]

They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so:

https://prsconsequences.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/blairguitar.jpg

Note that it isn't plugged in.

[Lewis]

Floyd has made important and influential contributions to the field, but 1997 as Year Zero was actually my idea.

[Lewis]

They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so:

https://prsconsequences.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/blairguitar.jpg

Note that it isn't plugged in.

The footage of him moving into Number 10, with his guitar case in one hand and his red briefcase in the other. I say footage because there are no pictures of it, and the Andrew Marr documentary I remember seeing it in is blocked by the BBC in Britain, so they obviously know how cretinous it was.

[The Merse]

I don't know how you sell Tony to a 2016 Britain.

Ellesse and stonewashed Levi's are in Urban Outfitters so I reckon he'll be alright. The kids are into their 20 year cycles innit.

Things Can Only Get Better is much missed too.

Tony basically invented the cult of celebrity in a political context too with his pre-election tour of everyone Cool Britannia in 96-97, which would look even more at home now. I can see him farting about on guitar with Ed Sheeran whilst schmoozing with Idris Elba and James Corden.

[Lewis]

http://i65.tinypic.com/2vwwm4o.jpg

Jack knew.

[The Merse]

I always liked how transparent is was that he was pictured with about 70% of t'North's upper tax bracket in the first couple of years in a desperate attempt to be legit Labour.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The first thing you need to understand about Tony is that he is driven by Cherie, and she is in turn driven by a chippy scouse obsession with money and status. Once you understand that, everything about Tony begins to make more sense.

[Lewis]

785053732497006593

It's an interesting philosophical defence that. Am I really a hypocrite if I embrace it? Well... Hmm. Floyd, does everyone (not least New Labour Twitter) realising what a shameless, over-promoted dickhead she is make you feel like one of those vindicated Jimmy Savile truthers?

[niko_cee]

I'm pretty sure Liberty almost exclusive functions on the unpaid work of students having to do the pro bono element of their professional qualitifactions as well. Fucking Liberty Letters. She's a monster.