UK General Election 2017 - 8 June

[Lofty]

https://i.ibb.co/zFg1fxX/Di-Pn-Si-DWs-AAF99-C.jpg

The defence rests.

[Lewis]

I never got that one. Following its argument, how can some loser cartoonist judge the performance of a government minister?

[Lofty]

I never got that one. Following its argument, how can some loser cartoonist judge the performance of a government minister?

What qualifications do government ministers have to make the policy decisions they do? Grant Shapps is making the decisions for the entire of British transport and his CV is just a load of fraudulent business ventures in a totally unrelated field.

This is how we end up with the likes of Chris Grayling continually running departments into the ground and Sir Eric Pickles getting a knighthood for spunking £60k on biscuits.

[Lewis]

Nobody is ever qualified for any government job if you think about it like that (civil service included beyond specialist technical roles). What qualifies somebody to be Prime Minister?

[Spikey M]

Eating a sandwich without looking silly.

[Lewis]

In hindsight he got stitched up by undercooked bacon didn't he? He had to eat it carefully to keep it intact.

[Spikey M]

The nasal voice would have done him in anyway. Imagine that voice reeling off the death tolls. You'd have 100% compliance just to make it stop.

[Spikey M]

Now Then.

130321215813464064?s=19

[Kikó]

Unfortunate.

[Giggles]

I love that the huns are actually buying this tunnel thing. So easy.

“Britain DOES care about us!”

[Spikey M]

Tunnel thing? As in a tunnel from Britain to NI?

[Giggles]

Tunnel thing? As in a tunnel from Britain to NI?


1360705440804462597

[Spikey M]

Sounds like a great idea. It's not as if we're in a global recession with record debt levels or anything.

[Lewis]

I would say that makes it the ideal time to do it insofar as what's another twenty billion? Normally lol no thanks, although I would take it over high-speed rail.

[Spikey M]

And more to the point, it's not like Brexit magic'd a giant wall into place and digging under it is the only option. Any problem blocking trade is bureaucratic and you can't tunnel under bureaucracy.

[Ian]

Sounds like a great idea. It's not as if we're in a global recession with record debt levels or anything.

Yeah but Matt Hancock's got a mate who makes horse saddles who's well up for an undersea tunnel contract.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I'd build it for sure, just so we can then blow it up in the next war against them.

[Giggles]

But risky building it from Scotland anyway.

[Lewis]

They manage bureaucracy at the Channel Tunnel. The Ian Paisley Tunnel, with the Edward Carson Terminal at Carlisle, and all the special trains named after various paramilitaries and the like. :cool:

[Spikey M]

But risky building it from Scotland anyway.

Almost worth it for the inevitable cluster-fuck alone.

Finish building in 2028, Scottish independence and rejoining the EU in 2029. :drool:

[Disco]

It would be less lol than the Norwegian one that nobody will use.

[Shindig]

One thing I'd like to do is drive a golf cart down the channel tunnel. This could be that but with more drinking.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Ultimately we need to build one from Bristol to America, which goes directly underneath Ireland.

[Giggles]

Ultimately we need to build one from Bristol to America, which goes directly underneath Ireland.

Probably be worth investing in a map.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Have you heard about corners?

[Giggles]

Limp wristed attempt at a save. DeGea-esque.

[Spikey M]

It would have to go from around Liverpool if you want it in a straight line via Ireland and there is nobody that wants that.

[Giggles]

It would have to go from around Liverpool if you want it in a straight line via Ireland and there is nobody that wants that.

If he was really thinking he’d be starting somewhere in the north east and going under Liverpool too.

[Lewis]

Halifax to Halifax.

[Spikey M]

Sponsored by Halifax. With Howard on the front of every train.

[Shindig]

And the tunnel is made of people. Moon River plays throughout. You get £100 when you switch rails.

[Raoul Duke]

Sponsored by Halifax. With Howard on the front of every train.

Howard's Gigantic Fudge Tunnel

WHO GIVES YOU EXTRA

[Lofty]

I would say that makes it the ideal time to do it insofar as what's another twenty billion? Normally lol no thanks, although I would take it over high-speed rail.

A never ending mess of multi-billion pound rail projects is my busy work until retirement, thank you very much.

[Lewis]

The Keir 'Sir Keir Starmer' Starmer set-piece RELAUNCH sounds like a bust. A national savings scheme that would cost the country money for no benefit, and some purple vibes behind his holding a fart in face. It can't be a coincidence that it was done on the two year anniversary of The Independent Group/Change UK being founded. They won't break thirty-five per cent at the next election.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Why is he doing it? No one gives a shit about economic policy or ideas now. It's covid covid covid until it's gone, then he can start flag shagging and coming up with ideas.

[Kikó]

Did he not just think to kite fly it in the telegraph first rather than embarrassingly make a video?

[niko_cee]

Probably tried the Independent but found they were too busy doing 24 hour coverage of that Trump casino being blown up yesterday

[Lewis]

The government will get to set the terms of reference after its ill-gotten vaccine bounce, so it makes sense in theory to make a noise; but he's probably the least credible person in the world to advocate for any new way of doing things, so we just get to watch the Labour Party do 2011-15 again.

[Giggles]

Should be able to fit more M&S and Little Chefs on this one.


1363447724285263874

[Spikey M]

:D

This is just the latest version of when he wanted to float an airport on the Thames Estuary.

[Giggles]

I can confidently say he’s never driven out to the reaches of the Ards peninsula.

[Lewis]

That makes no sense whatsoever. Heysham to Liverpool is about forty miles, so why would you dig another megabillion quid tunnel as an option? It's either made up, or something the civil service have come up with to make the other ideas look better.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I wonder if any of them have ever tried to drive to Stranraer (as I have). It's about a billion miles from the English border and similar from Glasgow. I had to turn back halfway due to a storm.

[Boydy]

I think it's cool and they should do it.

[Spikey M]

Labour calling for an increase in Corporation Tax is interesting (and expected). It would do no harm, apparently.

Errr, it might to the ones that haven't been able to trade for a year, love. And it might sting a bit if they start setting up in Switzerland instead.

[Kikó]

I'm sure they'd still prefer the lower corporation tax available in the UK than other countries.

[Spikey M]

Depends how much it gets put up. The Labour bod seemed to want it on par with the EU.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Hang on, I thought Keir had said he opposed corporation tax rises the other day.

[Spikey M]

Just checked, it was Labour MP Laura Farris. It was on Politics live at 12.

[Jimmy Floyd]

She's Tory. The world is now officially upside down.

[Spikey M]

No, I just can't read:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000stjf

Angela Eagle.

[Lewis]

Why is she on the telly like it's 2011?

[Boydy]

The tories have been talking about putting it up and Starmer is against it.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Genius strategy from the genius strategist Starmer. What are the Tories not expecting him to do? Attack from the right!

[Spikey M]

It actually might be, to be fair. We've spent the last year fucking small business owners. Perfect time for Labour to scoop them.

[Lofty]

Isn't corporation tax only on profits over a certain amount? Yeah a lot of businesses have taken a beating during this shit but a lot of others have creamed it off, even overperformed due to it. Supermarkets, Amazon etc.

[Don]

Isn't corporation tax only on profits over a certain amount? Yeah a lot of businesses have taken a beating during this shit but a lot of others have creamed it off, even overperformed due to it. Supermarkets, Amazon etc.

Ya, same as Income Tax. Anyone against higher taxes needs a slap.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Small business (profits under 300k) has a lower rate. I wouldn't mind them starting an over 1 million super rate at 40% or something to fuck the big boys. Would be a perfectly Tory thing to do too, in a classical sense, even if the backbench MPs would cry salt tears.

[SvN]

Isn't corporation tax only on profits over a certain amount? Yeah a lot of businesses have taken a beating during this shit but a lot of others have creamed it off, even overperformed due to it. Supermarkets, Amazon etc.

No, corporation tax is payable on any profits.

[Spikey M]

The Supermarkets should be getting the biggest kicking.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Supermarkets should be forced to give a certain % profits as bonuses evenly distributed among their staff. Christ I'm turning into Corbyn aren't I.

What am I if I'm broadly leave-it-alone-ffs but also want to twat cynical corporate 'business leaders' over the head with a shovel? A Lib Dem? Say it ain't so.

[Lewis]

I keep reading more about the headline tax rate being somewhat irrelevant compared to what you can and can't deduct/expense, which was what, for all of their 'rebalancing the economy' wibble, the coalition never seemed to grasp (or probably just avoided lest it create any 'losers'). That said, putting it up now is pretty dense, and not because of the pandemic. We should be aiming to undercut the Irish rate (as a package), since the European Union has been gunning for that for years and will make them raise it eventually.

[Jimmy Floyd]

How would you pay for whatever it is we have to pay for? Sell the NHS, obviously, but something will have to give unless we want to be in a borrowing nightmare forever.

[Don]

Wealth tax. Thank you and goodnight.

[Lewis]

None of this is ever going to be 'paid for', and I'm ten years past the point of expecting them to, so it's more a case of not choking off what there is/what Brexit Britain needs to be competitive, after which point they would be better off looking into productivity gains through planning reform and so on than fiddling around.

[Lofty]

I keep reading more about the headline tax rate being somewhat irrelevant compared to what you can and can't deduct/expense, which was what, for all of their 'rebalancing the economy' wibble, the coalition never seemed to grasp (or probably just avoided lest it create any 'losers'). That said, putting it up now is pretty dense, and not because of the pandemic. We should be aiming to undercut the Irish rate (as a package), since the European Union has been gunning for that for years and will make them raise it eventually.

Didn't Osborne slash it to a historically low rate during his tenure as Chancellor in an effort to seduce mega corporations into relocating to London only for there to be a collective 'meh' reaction that saw very little uptake?

[Lewis]

I suspect it had some effect, but it seems like an obvious thing to do to keep the rate slightly higher in order to offset breaks on specifically-defined manufacturing items and energy costs, especially since you could then spin it as the BANKERS paying for it (assuming people are stupid enough to fall for the opposite of cutting the rate being spun as a tax cut for BANKERS).

[phonics]

I find your 'suspect' suspect.

[Lewis]

Meanwhile, Alex Salmond. :cool:

[Alan Shearer The 2nd]

Sounds like pressure is mounting on Wee Jimmy Krankie. :drool:

[mo]

Imagine Magic is an empty husk of a man, having wanked himself into a coma over the calls for Sturgeon to resign.

[Alan Shearer The 2nd]

I'm still sceptical she'll get 'proper fucked' so I'm holding off the champers, but I'd be following suit.

Not sure who the SNP would turn to for a new leader either, they're utterly devoid of talent, like everyone else. I can't stand the twat but she's a good political operator.

[Shindig]

Who's snapping at her heels from a leadership perspective?

[Lewis]

They will torch literally everybody involved in it other than her, and she will just front it out.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Agreed with Lewis, they can't afford to lose her. They'll change the flag, renounce their rights to those pancake things, and cancel William Wallace if it means saving her.

[Don]

1366789903644848129?s=20

That is wild.

[Jimmy Floyd]

His aides must be fucking idiots.

[Yevrah]

Is there a tldr of the Salmond/Sturgeon thing?

[Lewis]

The BBC round-up (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-56258226) is pretty good. Unless he's got the best poker face in the business, Salmond must be able to back his bullshit up (the BBC must think so too since they tried to ignore it for long enough), and if/when he does then lol.

[Jimmy Floyd]

New - Rishi Sunak will announce that contactless payments will rise to £100, more than double the current limit

OK, Chancellor, your bollocks video is forgiven.

[Lofty]

Keith signing off on torture being alright is sure to play well.

[Spikey M]

1366817880436854785?s=09

:lol:

[Yevrah]

Is that the best deep fake to date? Surely that didn't actually happen.

[Spikey M]

It's legit.

[Spikey M]

https://i.ibb.co/DQvzMDC/Screenshot-20210303-112722-Brave.jpg

1 step between each of them, but 3 between Rishi and his mate. :rosebud:

[Kikó]

OK, Chancellor, your bollocks video is forgiven.

Not a chance I'm ever remembering my pin again.

[Don]

Watching PMQs for first time in a while and Starmer is again making him squirm and lash out massively with succinct arguments. It's a shame his party can't capitalise on it.

[Boydy]

I don't really get why they extended the stamp duty holiday again. If they really want to turn "generation rent into generation buy" surely that combined with the new 95% mortgage scheme is just gonna push prices up further? First time buyers weren't paying much stamp duty (if any) anyway so why not just bring it back?

[Lewis]

Because they want house prices to rise.

[Jimmy Floyd]

If house prices start falling and the developers start crying that's a bigger problem than a load of 30 year olds whingeing about having to rent. Will also apply with a Labour government or any conceivable government until someone chokeslams the fuckers.

[Lewis]

It's not developers, who, despite what idiots think about 'land banking', would like nothing more than to cover everywhere in their shitbox houses. It's existing homeowners who would lose out as values fall, and they all vote.

[Lewis]

Government interference has succeeded in one thing: in organising a never-ending, self-perpetuating shortage of housing. Yet it wasn't really as difficult to do this as it may sound. Give me a year or two and I guarantee to organise you an equally squalid shortage of anything else you care to name by applying the same methods as have been so successful with houses: control the price, subsidise the product, and wait for the scarcity to come along. Players can then exercise their ingenuity by inventing systems of rationing and allocation.

I refer people to that speech if they ever ask about my 'Enoch Was Right' badge/t-shirt/tattoo.

[Luke Emia]

All this stuff about people not being able to buy their own home pisses me off. There are plenty of people who I see and they are on low incomes and they will probably struggle to own their own homes. Those people need help. But, there are plenty of 2 people households who earn average wages wherever they live and if they saved hard for a year to eighteen months they would have the deposit to buy somewhere. A lot of them don't want to do that though. They don't want to buy a starter home, they want to buy a 3/4 bed home first off, they aren't willing to drive round in a shit-heap they want a Range Rover Evoque and are happy to pay £600 a month for it(about a standard mortgage payment round here for a first time buyer house). It is hard to save for a house but there are plenty of people who as with everything else in life are too lazy and want something for nothing.

Oh and with these 95% mortgages it will be like it was before they got withdrawn last year you will need impeccable credit which will pretty much mean most people who would actually need it to give them a leg up won't be able to get them anyway.

[Don]

Listen, Imma let you finish but...is this shit gonna be applicable to my plans to get a second home or not?

[Lofty]

Without reading the small print I will guess... no.

[Luke Emia]

Listen, Imma let you finish but...is this shit gonna be applicable to my plans to get a second home or not?

Won't make a jot of difference to you.

[Don]

You piece of shit, Rishi. Brown on brown crime.

PS. Why? Is it limited to being your only property?

[Spikey M]

Because landlord scum should be hung in the street /boydy

[Boydy]

Because they want house prices to rise.
Well, yeah, that's the problem.

It all feels like a fucking pyramid scheme and I'm sure it'll probably all fall apart when I buy into it.

[Shindig]

Just get really, really famous and then every house you move into will balloon in value.

[Lofty]

You piece of shit, Rishi. Brown on brown crime.

PS. Why? Is it limited to being your only property?

What possible reason would a policy dubbed as being a helping hand for renters to get on the property market be open for second homes? It is open to existing home owners who want to move house, presumably to stimulate movement and free up houses lower on the ladder. But letting people just buy additional homes would defeat the point, wouldn't it?

[Lewis]

He's on about housing benefit fraud. They're all at it.

[Don]

What possible reason would a policy dubbed as being a helping hand for renters to get on the property market be open for second homes? It is open to existing home owners who want to move house, presumably to stimulate movement and free up houses lower on the ladder. But letting people just buy additional homes would defeat the point, wouldn't it?

It's obviously not targeted at my rare circumstances but it's all about the restrictions they stick in place. I'd be taking out a residential mortgage rather than a B2L on it so it's not like I'm saying the scheme might be opened up to all investors.

[Jimmy Floyd]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EvuGY1XXEAE_CxW?format=jpg&name=medium

This picture really is the best of the best, and even more so when you realise that it was commissioned by Sunak in order not to make him seem quite as short as he really is.

[Spikey M]

I posted that on the last page you bastard. :mad:

[Spikey M]

https://i.ibb.co/DQvzMDC/Screenshot-20210303-112722-Brave.jpg

1 step between each of them, but 3 between Rishi and his mate. :rosebud:

Now laugh.

[Disco]

That's a normal size lunchbox he's holding, the matching drink flask is just out of shot.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I posted that on the last page you bastard. :mad:

My browser filters out all photos from Essex IPs for reasons of taste.

[Ian]

Nice one, Jimmy. :thbup:

This is why you're better than wasters like Spikey.

[Spikey M]

When I can think of a witty retort you'll all be for it. Just you wait.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

That is brilliant, thanks Jimmy.

[mo]

Guy nearest the Coke addict and third from bottom are surely the same person?

[Spikey M]

:D

Glitch in the matrix.

[niko_cee]

Secure. Protect. Rebuild.

They openly attack him at every opportunity, but have the Labour Party actually gone and hired Deadly Dom on the sly?

[Kikó]

I'm surprised there's no fuss on here about the latest Tory bill which is effectively banning protest and criminalising travellers if there is a "suspicion" of wrong doing. This is a dangerous government drunk on power.

[Lofty]

Yeah going to sleepwalk through no doubt, just the start of the shit storm I fear when they get going on post covid stuff like TUPE etc.

[Lewis]

It seems to me that all it really does is roll a bunch of existing laws that either aren't or are selectively enforced into slightly easier to quote ones, so the idea that they're suddenly going to start clobbering Extinction Rebellion knobheads seems a bit far fetched. Similarly, they already prevent individual protests on all sorts of wanky grounds if the person involved is sufficiently low-status, so people suddenly realising that we're not particularly serious about freedom of expression... Meanwhile, longer sentences for nonces. It's a tough one.

[Lofty]

Yeah I'm sure they won't use this to their advantage against any legitimate protest. Part of this is because the Brexit protests upset the MPs.

They don't send nonces to prison anyway if you hadn't noticed, still think that is part of the push to lower prison violence under Rory the Tory's stint. So longer sentences doesn't mean much when they are just sent home with no internet capable devices.

Meanwhile jealous teenage boyfriends who murder their ex girlfriends get sentenced to less than the proposed sentence for banging a drum outside parliament calling politicians cunts.

[Ian]

Yeah but what's the point worrying about a few dead women when there are people out there saying mean things about the government?

[Lewis]

Yeah I'm sure they won't use this to their advantage against any legitimate protest. Part of this is because the Brexit protests upset the MPs.

They don't send nonces to prison anyway if you hadn't noticed, still think that is part of the push to lower prison violence under Rory the Tory's stint. So longer sentences doesn't mean much when they are just sent home with no internet capable devices.

Meanwhile jealous teenage boyfriends who murder their ex girlfriends get sentenced to less than the proposed sentence for banging a drum outside parliament calling politicians cunts.

In other words then, protest/speech laws are already shit (and selectively applied) and sentences should be longer. Yeah.

[Kikó]

I always tagged you as a liberal.

[Lewis]

I'm not saying our laws around any sort of expression are good. I just don't see how the provisions in this bill make them worse. When Tommy Robinson was a thing he couldn't go anywhere without being shuffled on under spurious public order laws, so the powers were always there for unfashionable stuff. As for crime generally, I think we criminalise too many things (or at least put people away for too much shit), but I can't see a downside to locking [habitually] violent people up for longer.

[Lofty]

I agree on sentences for 'proper' criminals being beefed up but let's be honest, the sentence isn't a deterrent and they never serve the full term if any because the prisons are rammed.

The solution to preventing these types of crime is probably complex, expensive and time consuming so just get a think tank to recommend making a 10 year tariff up to 15.

[Lewis]

I don't think anything is liable to deter or prevent the worst of them, so sentencing them is merely a case of keeping them away from decent people for as long as possible (preferably forever in many cases).

[Shindig]

And longer sentences up the odds on a real piece of work filling them in.

[phonics]

I'm not saying our laws around any sort of expression are good. I just don't see how the provisions in this bill make them worse. When Tommy Robinson was a thing he couldn't go anywhere without being shuffled on under spurious public order laws, so the powers were always there for unfashionable stuff. As for crime generally, I think we criminalise too many things (or at least put people away for too much shit), but I can't see a downside to locking [habitually] violent people up for longer.

Because he had a criminal record. He was on parole for assault. Yet in the next sentence you advocate for locking up the man who’s free speech you champion. I don’t mean to pick you up on it after my last post but your positions diametrically oppose one another.

[Lewis]

How is one of those things relevant to the other?

[phonics]

How is one of those things relevant to the other?

Unless you think that the people who committed violent crimes should be locked up for longer and then upon release, be completely unsupervised. It makes no sense?

[Lewis]

I would need to be convinced that licence conditions should be able to prevent people protesting on the basis that if somebody was that much of a threat then they shouldn't be out on licence in the first place. I'm not talking about a specific incident anyway. English Defence League beanos (rather than him personally) were regularly banned because the police requested it and the government could justify it, and then there were these (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24554284) ridiculous examples. Note the 'insufficient evidence' verdict there, not that they didn't have the power to put all sorts of restrictions on protests to begin with. I think he got away with that one by claiming not to have been aware of the conditions, which is something the new bill has an answer for by saying people can be held responsible if they should have known something, and that strikes me as a bit suspect.

[Lofty]

To be fair the EDL stuff was banned not even because of the politics (though that was a nice easy win) but because it was basically a football hooliganism revival movement where they took over an area getting pissed up and making a racket, which was a headache for the local police.

[Spikey M]

Salmond creating a new party to split the SNP's vote is properly lol. Might give Labour a fighting chance at the next election too.

[Lofty]

Not with Keir at the wheel, the Blairite plebs banged the drum about Corbyn's election defeat, I think the current policy of alienating the socially progressive Labour supporters in order to attract the people who are already voting Tory and getting what they wanted is going to be looked back at in a few years time as going full Swinson.

[Kikó]

Salmond creating a new party to split the SNP's vote is properly lol. Might give Labour a fighting chance at the next election too.

It's unsure if it will split or allow for more SNP via the regional MP method. The below has an attempt to explain it better than me:

https://twitter.com/Mike_Blackley/status/1375730299313778692?s=19

Big ego trip for Salmond though.

[Lewis]

I think Keir 'Sir Keir Starmer' Starmer is an absolute sub-Miliband loser but he is also the least of their problems. The entire movement has a whiff (rightly or wrongly) of not liking the country very much, and if the Conservative Party are just as happy as them to piss money up the wall then they might as well just rename themselves the Soft on Crime Party and save themselves the embarrassment.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Labour have been long term borked ever since Tony Blair smarmed away the base. They still haven't even come close to resolving the tension between the traditional provincial base (who instead of working down mines, now work in call centres / warehouses etc) and the London left intelligentsia / ethnic minorities city alliance. Until they do, they're not getting in.

The main problem with Starmer is that the public will never warm to him. He quite evidently doesn't have a sense of humour, that will be as fatal a flaw for him as it was for Brown. Boris might be a twat but for all the posh blathering, people ultimately see him as being a bit like them - bit snide, likes a drink, likes a shag, gwan my son. They'll always take that over a technocrat bore. The last Labour leader with a sense of humour was Tony (E.Miliband only pretends to have one now the pressure is off).

[Ian]

Starmer seems to be totally hopeless.

[Shindig]

To be fair, I've barely seen him outside the context of a global pandemic. Probably not the best time to crack wise. Although that never stopped Boris. You may have a point.

[Spikey M]

Starmer seems to be totally hopeless.

Annoyingly he's quite good when I see him on PMQ's. He routinely makes BoJo look like a mong. Which, isn't the toughest task, granted.

But have they actually opposed anything that's been voted on in Parliament yet? They're meant to be the opposition but I'm yet to see them oppose anything. They abstained from the vote to extend the CoronaVirus Act through to September the other day FFS. That should be bread and butter opposition work.

"Oh you want to extend your newly acquired powers? We can't support that!"

So do we vote it down Sir?

"Woah, whoa, whoa, let's not go crazy"

....

[Manc]

Starmer is a whiny bitch. Get rid.

[Spikey M]

Who for though? They're all shit.

[Ian]

Annoyingly he's quite good when I see him on PMQ's. He routinely makes BoJo look like a mong. Which, isn't the toughest task, granted.

But have they actually opposed anything that's been voted on in Parliament yet? They're meant to be the opposition but I'm yet to see them oppose anything. They abstained from the vote to extend the CoronaVirus Act through to September the other day FFS. That should be bread and butter opposition work.

"Oh you want to extend your newly acquired powers? We can't support that!"

So do we vote it down Sir?

"Woah, whoa, whoa, let's not go crazy"

....

Yeah this is my point, he sometimes makes a show of HOLDING THE GOVERNMENT TO ACCOUNT but he's not actually doing it in any meaningful way and then not infrequently just backs what they're doing.

It really wouldn't be hard to give this government a proper shoeing over legitimate concerns but he just doesn't do it.

[Yevrah]

Starmer looks alright to me and far better than that absolute fraud before.

Problem he has is that there isn't much to criticise the government about at the moment. The only real thing on the agenda of any importance is getting COVID sorted and they're nailing that now. 6 months ago was a different story, but now...

[Jimmy Floyd]

He's playing the long game because he knows that appeasing Twitter/the online left/north London is not an election winning strategy.

However I'm not sure he knows how to get the base back, other than hoping for Tory fatigue (which may be as good a play as any, tbh).

What he does need to do is cultivate some bigger names alongside him - I don't know who the fuck any of his main spokespeople are, so the average voters hasn't a hope.

[Lewis]

Their only hope in the medium-term is people turning to them out of desperation following some sort of economic collapse, because, even if they won the 'Red Wall' back, without Scotland they need to win half (most?) of small town England and they simply can't.

[Lewis]

The details of these Boris Johnson affair 'revelations' are so on-brand as to make you wonder whether he released them himself to remind people what he's all about after a difficult year.

Population VACCINATED
Football COMING HOME
Boris SHAGGING

[Ian]

Surely £126k isn't worth spending four years pretending to find Johnson attractive.

[Lewis]

Especially when she seems to have been badly aged by the ordeal. I always thought she was well into her forties.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I have asked women - all of them - what it is that (some) women see in Boris, and the answers are split 50/50 between 'Nothing. ugh' and 'I dunno, man, it's the power, the presence...'

Guessing this one fell in the latter camp.

[Spikey M]

Nobody would take £31,500 per year for that. Poor cow.

[Spikey M]

I have asked women - all of them - what it is that (some) women see in Boris, and the answers are split 50/50 between 'Nothing. ugh' and 'I dunno, man, it's the power, the presence...'

Guessing this one fell in the latter camp.

It's pointless trying to understand them Jim. Pointless.

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/03/survey-dubs-prince-william-as-sexiest-bald-man/amp

[Lewis]

Prince William has about as good a shaped head as you could want for baldness, and he can grow a solid beard, but he chooses to bowl around looking like he does. Maybe nobody has ever walked him through it properly.

[Spikey M]

I don't know who the best looking bald man really is, but it will be a black man. White people can't get close to them when it comes to rocking baldness.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Women like men in a different way to how men like men (I observe), which makes me think that the purest way for a straight man to understand women would be to look at what lesbians are looking for in a partner, something that is way outside my bounds of understanding.

[Lewis]

The constant threat of domestic violence.

[Raoul Duke]

It's pointless trying to understand them Jim. Pointless.

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2021/03/survey-dubs-prince-william-as-sexiest-bald-man/amp

That story is bollocks, paid for by a hair transplant company (Big Hair?): https://twitter.com/danbarker/status/1375869120806289411?s=20

[Lewis]

1379207704112156677

:harold:

[Don]

The Starmer vids are decent. From what I can tell, he slips into a pub after being confronted by an Anti-Lockdown don only to then realise the geezer is the landlord :D

[Lofty]

1384132583059906563

Like something out of The Thick of It :D

[Spikey M]

I properly lol'd at that yesterday.

The landlord is a bellend, but Starmer doesn't come out of that looking too good by having his minder fight the mean shouty man so he could retreat.

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b5/db/42/b5db422bb4d91eb1b1f10f50fa7a204f.jpg

[randomlegend]

Lolled at "bring David Cameron back I say"

[Lewis]

In the end he actually handled it quite well insofar as he spoke to him and told him he disagreed with him, but the Labour Party have made themselves look stupid trying to say the landlord was spouting the dreaded 'misinformation' (that awful doctor woman they have said he was a 'denier'). Bring John Prescott back I say(!).

[Lofty]

Ironically if Starmer had just lamped laddo his poll ratings likely would have rocketed, so 2 Jags knew his audience.

[Lewis]

Johnny Mercer trailing his resignation all day, like the shithead self-publicist he is, and then just getting sacked is seriously lol-worthy. Alright he's right in what he's moaning about, but what can you do.

[Ian]

Laurence Fox's London mayor campaign going well as he is currently polling at 1% along with Count Binface.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Brian Rose is the fascinating one among the minor candidates. I drove past his battle bus yesterday, and there are huge billboards of him (wearing a very wide tie) all over London. Why? You're on 2%, mate.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Laurence Fox's London mayor campaign going well as he is currently polling at 1% along with Count Binface.

£5m to be as popular as a man wearing a bin on his head.

[phonics]

Brian Rose is the fascinating one among the minor candidates. I drove past his battle bus yesterday, and there are huge billboards of him (wearing a very wide tie) all over London. Why? You're on 2%, mate.

a mate of mine: 1384807923923173376

[Jimmy Floyd]

Also, he's, like, American. Not just a bit American. Completely American.

[Lewis]

lol out loud at absolutely everyone who thought Lawrence Fox was a viable anything. He is clearly an idiot (in the actual sense of not knowing anything at all, rather than just being a social idiot like many politicians), and I can still see him renouncing it all as a mental health wobble within a couple of years when the reality hits him.

[Boydy]

1384175931632152585

[Lewis]

Having just seen the polling I would vote Brian Rose for a laugh. Sadiq Khan has been a shit mayor by any objective measure (this is a job remember that Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson managed not to fuck up for a full sixteen years), but Shaun Bailey is one of the most useless people in the country, so he must be lolling his head off. Non-alcoholic drinks round Babar Ahmad's gaff.

[Kikó]

Why is Khan shit?

[Jimmy Floyd]

Old Sadiq is one of the rare cases where the dog whistlers are correct. Horrible little shit.

[Lewis]

The two main things that the Mayor of London actually has the power to influence are transport, which was pissing money even before the kung flu blew it to pieces, and crime, which... Short of just abolishing all of these wanky little ego positions I think there is a case for giving the mayor a lot more power just to see how big a fucking mess Labour could make of it, like how Los Angeles is deliberately run as a hellhole.

[Lewis]

1384861554173165568

igor_balis you that mate winning the internet

[Ian]

I got a flyer through earlier from the "Scottish Family Party" which on the name alone got lolnoped into the bin.

My friend sent me a related thing so I've looked up their polices (https://scottishfamily.org/policies) and they sound a top bunch of lads.

[igor_balis]

I got a flyer through earlier from the "Scottish Family Party" which on the name alone got lolnoped into the bin.

My friend sent me a related thing so I've looked up their polices (https://scottishfamily.org/policies) and they sound a top bunch of lads.


https://youtu.be/ZNe4BrfIFB0

[Ian]

:D

How am I only just hearing about these people?

[Jimmy Floyd]

Pity about the lyrics really, as his bass runs are A+.

[Spikey M]

I got a flyer through earlier from the "Scottish Family Party" which on the name alone got lolnoped into the bin.

My friend sent me a related thing so I've looked up their polices (https://scottishfamily.org/policies) and they sound a top bunch of lads.

What in the name of Alabama is that doing over here?

[Lewis]

I saw a brief clip of Question Time yesterday, and what are we doing allowing a Canadian to come here and co-lead a party trying to break the country up? She should be given a day to produce her Scottish passport or be deported.

[Lewis]

1385548182596300805

That is up there with the stupidest things any politician has ever said. 'This is only being talked about because the UK government has decided to leave the EU'. Yeah. And because of that...

[Disco]

At this point I think we should cut them loose just so that awful woman can shut up about it.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Deadly Dom cruising around dropping bodies tonight, he really is the GOAT.

[Shindig]

I mean, the border can create jobs by sheer security alone. And they need a Greggs, a Costa and a WH Smiths for the waiting room. And someone to clean said waiting room. PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS NEED ROOMS.

[niko_cee]

:D

Dom's blog posts are always good value.

[Lewis]

Henry Newman seems like a right little nonce.

[Bernanke]

1386406516949807106

Well then...

[Spikey M]

:D

[phonics]

1386723023550652428

This whole story is hilarious. How do you get elected in the wake of the Expenses scandal and think this won't get out.

[niko_cee]

He's an actual idiot and/or just thinks he's above the hoi polloi.

Deadly Dom torpedoing this government would be hilarious.

[Spikey M]

Dom is massively winning me over. Absolute masterclass in trolling.

The "pile the bodies high" stuff is quality.

[Lewis]

The Conservative Party will shuffle him and his brass and her gay little crew into retirement next year. Let him [and Matt Hancock] take the fall for any shite that emerges once we start shaking all of the wank off, and then put your savings into Cuban heels and forced perspective futures.

[Lofty]

To paraphrase Malcolm Tucker, Boris is unfuckable. His image of buffonery and the general political malaise in the wake of the never ending culture wars mean I reckon he could get away with some seriously heinous shit on camera and still get away with it.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The Conservative Party will shuffle him and his brass and her gay little crew into retirement next year. Let him [and Matt Hancock] take the fall for any shite that emerges once we start shaking all of the wank off, and then put your savings into Cuban heels and forced perspective futures.

Michael Gove scraping a 10 majority at the next election on a 'Make Dom Emperor' ticket will be a fitting end to this whole era.

[Lewis]

Keir 'Sir Keir Starmer' Starmer going on the telly and saying 'It's not about who is and isn't emperor, it's about...' and finishing third.

[Lofty]

Starmer looking utterly crestfallen as his New New Labour crumble to a more humiliating defeat than Corbyn without Brexit to fall back on as excuse will be a silver lining.

[Lewis]

'We're not New Labour. We're not Old Labour. We're just Labour.'
*wins ten marginals and calls it a success*

[phonics]

Genuinely thickest bloke in media.

1387001190295146498

[Don]

It's one of the most foul words in the dictionary but having seen John Lewis furniture be described as 'aspirational' by whatever foul cunt on twitter has truly marked a nadir for humanity.

[Lewis]

I'm not sure what's more smalltime out of our Prime Minister having to fork out to renovate the shit flat he has to live in or it being a scandal. He should get ten million quid to turn it into a shag pad fit for buccaneering Global Britain.

[Shindig]

£200k for a renovation sounds ... problematic for a flat.

[Lewis]

Doesn't grade one listing turn moving a plug into a five grand ordeal?

[Shindig]

Aye, you might have a point on that. He probably just wanted to put in a stair lift.

[niko_cee]

200k is probably 3 walls worth of [Derry Irvine's] wallpaper.

[phonics]

I'm not sure I've posted it here but I think it's such a good take that anyone who steals it would win every election for the next 20 years.

There's a massive shortage of semiconductor chips and it's brought the world to a standstill. We should reindustrialise the North by replacing steel/cars/other shit with microchip manufacturing as a core part of the country and turn it into the Taiwan of Europe.

[Lewis]

1387317267709546503

Large numbers of what to where?

[Shindig]

I'm not sure I've posted it here but I think it's such a good take that anyone who steals it would win every election for the next 20 years.

There's a massive shortage of semiconductor chips and it's brought the world to a standstill. We should reindustrialise the North by replacing steel/cars/other shit with microchip manufacturing as a core part of the country and turn it into the Taiwan of Europe.

Sounds like a job for Teesside.

[CJay]

1387317267709546503

Large numbers of what to where?

The cross section of people who have voted for both DUP and Sinn Fein in previous elections must be absolutely minuscule. More likely that voters will be driven to Alliance or SDLP.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I'm not sure I've posted it here but I think it's such a good take that anyone who steals it would win every election for the next 20 years.

There's a massive shortage of semiconductor chips and it's brought the world to a standstill. We should reindustrialise the North by replacing steel/cars/other shit with microchip manufacturing as a core part of the country and turn it into the Taiwan of Europe.

Speaking from experience, I believe there used to be a fair bit in Scotland, but it crashed in the early 2000s for reasons I can't remember (presumably cheaper labour becoming available in Asia).

[phonics]

Speaking from experience, I believe there used to be a fair bit in Scotland, but it crashed in the early 2000s for reasons I can't remember (presumably cheaper labour becoming available in Asia).

Give Mini/Landrover/Rolls Royce/BAE etc. tax breaks for using Northern microchips instead of Asian ones to offset the price. Now you have two industries.

[Lewis]

Keir 'Sir Keir Starmer' Starmer has killed the story with this wallpaper whatever it was meant to be. At best you've turned it into a joke, which you're not beating Wor Boris at, and at worst you look like Ed Miliband that time Ed Balls took him to Greggs and he referred to 'pasty-sausage rolls'.

[Spikey M]

https://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/national/19270820.going-wear-pmqs-jokes-sir-keir-tries-boxing-gloves/

That video is worse than any sandwich eating failure. :happycry:

[Jimmy Floyd]

Oh my word.

[Lewis]

Wor Boris would have sparred with a ten year old and 'accidentally' flattened him.

[Spikey M]

I honestly don't know if I can vote for that. It's worse than any amount expense fiddling.

[Disco]

Voting on corruption is a bit pointless anyway, you're basically choosing what colour tie it's going to wear.

[Shindig]

I might just go Green this time around. I'll be in another postcode soon enough.

[Lofty]

This Matt Hancock Guinness thing is tragic, if it was on The Thick of It people would have claimed they'd jumped the shark.

[Shindig]

https://www.ladbible.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=720,quality=70,format=webp,fit=pad,dpr=1/https%3A%2F%2Fs3-images.ladbible.com%2Fs3%2Fcontent%2F0f8d3797608de d76f1e83cacef2c9f28.png

Bloody hell. Someone's had a nightmare at the pump and they don't want a second take. Or they really, really fucking hate him.

https://www.ladbible.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=648,quality=70,format=webp,fit=pad,dpr=1/https%3A%2F%2Fs3-images.ladbible.com%2Fs3%2Fcontent%2F8ba91922608d8 43bc9e48702007187f5.jpg

We've been hoodwinked.

[phonics]

‘We’?

[Kikó]

1388485501892583424?s=19

The real picture.

[Spikey M]

In the real picture it's a pitcher of Cocaine.

[Manc]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/01/tory-poll-lead-slashed-as-key-elections-loom-across-britain

Turns out telling people they don't care about your misdeeds makes them care about your misdeeds.

[Spikey M]

How has this come as any sort of surprise to anyone? I would have thought anyone voting for him would have been doing so because they didn't care about him being a dodgy cunt, but apparently not. I don't understand.

[Lewis]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-57006280

This is actually the best possible policy, and all of them seething about it for different reasons proves it beyond doubt.

[Spikey M]

Why is this needed? Are ex-soldiers often arrested for shit they did in the 80's?

[Lewis]

It only takes a couple of cases for it to look a bit bullshit when all of the IRA cunts were given immunity. I work with someone who served in Northern Ireland and now assists these historical enquiries, and the consensus of the people doing all the work is apparently that the only solution would be some sort of 'Truth and Reconciliation' movement. Unfortunately, the various political interests all have their own narratives to stand by, so you would just end up with the government releasing everything and then the 'communities' insisting that nobody was ever a member of anything.

[Shindig]

"Look, I wasn't in the 'RA, I was in an IRA tribute band."

[Disco]

Provo adjacent.

[phonics]

I think the trials should go ahead but there’s no actual punishment for a guilty sentence for the individuals. It acknowledges the actions happened. Families get closure and the possibility of compensation from Government. We move on.

[Lewis]

1390369944240525315

[Lofty]

:D

He is probably just a regular size lard arse, appearing giant compared to Rishi.

[Shindig]

It always amazes me how long some old people take to vote. The woman before me took forever. I can only assume she was taking shots of hand sanitizer every time she touched the air around her.

[Ian]

I don't think I've ever had to even wait at our polling station, but then half the folk round here probably can't read so maybe it's just always a low turnout.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I had three different votes today using incredibly similar paper colours and terribly marked boxes, so really had to strain my eyes to check which box to put them into. If my police & crime commissioner vote went into the Elmbridge Council box it could change the course of political history.

For police & crime commissioner I had the choice of the main parties plus an independent and also the local ZERO TOLERANCE legend who has run his campaign entirely from Kabul, so obviously I went for him first preference and the indie second.

[Shindig]

Nah, it wasn't busy. Just the covid regs slowing things down a touch. 1 booth, get your yards, DON'T YOU DARE GIVE THIS PENCIL BACK, etc.

[Kikó]

Green all round here. Sadiq second choice just narrowly edging out crazy Corbz.

[Spikey M]

I couldn't vote, but it doesn't matter. It will be David Amess for the 112th year running regardless.

[Manc]

Green all round here.

Likewise.

Keen for the West Yorkshire Mayor result. Mon Cooper.

[Waffdon]

Labour are about to get shit on in England. -30% on Sunderland with Lib Dem’s gaining from them. Sheeesh

[Lewis]

And a cracking month of 'Labour shouldn't have distanced themselves from Jeremy Corbyn' vs 'Labour haven't distanced themselves from Jeremy Corbyn enough' to look forward to.

[Lofty]

Labour wont be winning a general election anytime soon, using facebook as a thermometer it seems the people who share the obvious free holiday/free car scam posts are the same people who share dubious facts about unpopular political decisions and comment 'LABOUR SCUM' under them, which is an alarming amount. Couple that with a lot of holier than thou armchair activists irritating even the non tory leaning voters and the culture war has been thoroughly won for a while.

The same people who when my cousin went public with her abuse at the hands of a grooming gang, accused her mother of being complicit in the abuse because she was a Labour councillor.

[niko_cee]

I would have thought losing Hartlepool would be alarming, but then I realised they lost Sedgefield at the last election.

[Jimmy Floyd]

They have lost their old base permanently, they are fucked, as most European social democratic parties are tbh.

You might see a Green surge as there is in Germany, except that our greens are a load of communists, so it's probably all over red rover for the British left.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Jesus Christ, 16% swing to Con. Boris is king-emperor, Starmer hanged at dawn.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Jesus Christ II: looked at the early council results and Labour are getting slaughtered everywhere, mostly by Cons but also by Greens. Total bloodbath.

[Kikó]

Mon the Greens :cool:

[Spikey M]

Genuinely impressive that Labour have managed to fuck things up this badly in this climate.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Mon the Greens :cool:

3rd in London, imo. Maybe a very good 3rd.

Tories will find it much harder down here in the renting regions.