UK General Election 2017 - 8 June

[phonics]

Surely this would just increase inflation further anyway? If people are getting paid more, employers will increase prices in line with it.

Inflation is a scare tactic. They’ve had 0% interest loans for a decade and a bit. They’re fine but don’t want it to go to 1-2%.

[phonics]

£15 an hour is a very high number to get past the electorate at large I think. If you think ten is low then go twelve or something. £15 an hour is, like, £28k salary on full time hours? 30k even? There would be utter chaos if that came in suddenly.

Our current minimum wage is already the world's 7th highest if the PPP-adjusted wikipedia table is at all credible. £15 an hour would be about $20.50, the highest globally at the moment is $16 and that country (Argentina, weirdly) is the only one above $13.

Considering the city I live in has passed a minimum wage of 35k a year I’m going to say your stats are wrong.

[phonics]

On moving it to 12, iirc that’s already been passed in the UK but it’s phased in so slowly that 12 will be the equivalent of 10 now.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Wikipedia list was by country, i.e. nationally.

The minimum wage here for adults is £8.91, so the reds want to almost double it.

[randomlegend]

Do you ever think about whether something is the right thing to do or not, or only about if it would win an election?

[Lewis]

Inflation as measured - as opposed to money simply being degraded - doesn't include main housing costs, which makes it a worthless measure for anything other than calculating pension increases and high street interest rates (another property scam that one). They might as well jack minimum wages up though. We're at the irreversibly finished point now so good luck to anyone cashing in.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Do you ever think about whether something is the right thing to do or not, or only about if it would win an election?

If we're talking about contested political questions, then assuming we're in a democracy then you need to get your morally right ideas through an election first and foremost.

The only two ways around that are being happy to spend your life as a self-declared saint-on-the-sidelines with none of your morally right ideas ever becoming reality (Corbyn), or rejecting democracy (Pot/Mao/Stalin/Boyd).

[Shindig]

You also want achievable goals on the board so you can meet them and then the public can be all, "Ah, they did the thing we remember." Put something daft down and the opposition won't shut up about it.

[randomlegend]

saint-on-the-sidelines with none of your morally right ideas ever becoming reality (Corbyn)

But you seem to be at the absolute opposite extreme of the spectrum, where you ONLY care how popular a policy will be.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Realpolitik is far more interesting than moral debates. I mean, you think the min wage should be fifteen quid, I think it should be £11.09, Dave over there thinks you should get a free Wispa with it, Grace thinks brie and grape rolls should be banned, Jenny thinks rabbits should be allowed to drive Saabs, Marcus thinks that mushrooms are fish, Darryl thinks the sky is made of human hair. Ultimately, who gives a shit about what anyone thinks. The interest is in what actually happens.

[phonics]

You also want achievable goals on the board so you can meet them and then the public can be all, "Ah, they did the thing we remember." Put something daft down and the opposition won't shut up about it.

No you don't you just want to stop paying up the wall for consultants to destroy every project.

Private Public partnerships was the death of society.

[randomlegend]

Realpolitik is far more interesting than moral debates. I mean, you think the min wage should be fifteen quid, I think it should be £11.09, Dave over there thinks you should get a free Wispa with it, Grace thinks brie and grape rolls should be banned, Jenny thinks rabbits should be allowed to drive Saabs, Marcus thinks that mushrooms are fish, Darryl thinks the sky is made of human hair. Ultimately, who gives a shit about what anyone thinks. The interest is in what actually happens.

What happens happens because of what people think.

Do you have beliefs and opinions and you just don't talk about them or do you actually just not care about anything (except how much you're taxed)?

[Spikey M]

Jimmy treats Politics as a spectator sport and he analyses it in the same way. Always has done and I doubt you're going to understand it any more this time than you did the last 3 times you HELD HIM TO ACCOUNT for it.

[randomlegend]

I'm just curious. If he wants me to drop it I will.

[Jimmy Floyd]

What happens happens because of what people think.

Do you have beliefs and opinions and you just don't talk about them or do you actually just not care about anything (except how much you're taxed)?

Whatever beliefs and opinions I may have are of no significance. How everyone else's beliefs and opinions fit together, conflict, and produce results (policy-wise and electorally), is far more interesting.

[randomlegend]

If they are of no signifiance then why do you vote?

[Jimmy Floyd]

At the last election there were 32,131,661 votes cast, of which I cast one. So the national significance of my beliefs and opinions was about 0.00000003125%.

I vote because I think democracy is a concept worth supporting. I vote in everything I am eligible to vote in, even crappy things like police & crime commissioner elections. Even if I had zero political opinions, I would still vote, maybe based on personality of the candidates, or spoiling the ballot with 'Unsure'.

[randomlegend]

Is one of the main concepts of democracy not the idea of debate and persuading others of your beliefs? If you discuss something you strongly believe with people and convince them to change their opinion/actions, you've already had a significantly bigger impact than your vote does.

We'd still own slaves and be putting gay people in prison if everyone thought as you do.

[niko_cee]

Probably need to see the working on that one.

[Pepe]

Caring about things like the minimum wage at the same time the media begins talking about it and in the same direction and magnitude that the popular narrative insists is the right one isn't really caring, is it?

[Spikey M]

People care about their own self interests and for that reason alone political debate is largely pointless.

[Lewis]

Floyd is a wet conservative nonce who has pretty much got everything he wants out of government, including them being shit enough for him to tut and roll his eyes over, but not shit enough for him to actually have to vote Liberal Democrat (or Green if he ever owns his own home). His remaining political posts are from the position of having declared.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Pretty much that. My dream cabinet is 16 John Majors ticking off the agenda ahead of time and then heading to the Oval.

[Lewis]

'You may even get tired of winning!'

[Jimmy Floyd]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FAuN0ZBWYAgyRrn?format=jpg&name=small

lol at the idea of people defecting to the right. I read something today that described Sir Keir Starmer as a 'centrist action figure with happening hair', you have to laugh.

[Shindig]

I'd argue Boris has the most happening with his haircut.

[Spikey M]

Just put me in charge of Labour ffs. I could dethrone BoJo with memes and "mIxEd CaPs QuOtEs" of the shit he says in about 6 weeks.

This isn't difficult. Be mildly likeable, oppose things, help BoJer make himself look silly. If Labour can't win an election following this shit show then they're dead in the water.

[phonics]

I thought Starmer was going to be a good choice because he’s a great speaker but I didn’t factor in that he has absolutely no beliefs and will just say whatever the polling consultants say is the message of the day.

[Shindig]

I think the lack of beliefs is more of a party-wide problem.

[phonics]

Quite. I genuinely don’t know how you fix it without krystalnachting all these absolute nobodies that think it’s still 1996.

[Shindig]

Turns out a good leader is hard to find. Did New Labour just have a Class of '92 moment with Tony, Brown, Prescott and Dark Lord Mandelson?

[phonics]

No. Just Anyone who had any power in the party had died.

The problem is that it’s too financially viable to be a middle manager in the party now so who cares if they win or not.

[Lewis]

New Labour weren't any good. They had a shit government that had lost its one remaining claim to credibility with Black Wednesday, all of the media and cultural/parasite sector on board, and a booming economy [built on sand and house prices]. There is a weird myth around these days that they were a competent, long-sighted government rather than a bunch of media-driven wanks who fucked up literally every big project they attempted. Which brings us to:


It will be New Labour with more lols and less banning things. Is that about as good as it gets these days? Who knows.

Good call mate. Fortunately for them, Keir 'Sir Keir Starmer' Starmer is shit, and the rest of his party is worse, so Rishi Sunak will win the next election unless the country literally goes bankrupt in the meantime.

[phonics]

Black Wednesday, if it’s what I think it is, is a good explainer of why they won back then.

Labour died for me the day Brown sold off our entire gold reserve because if we hadn’t Goldman Sachs would have been close to filing for bankruptcy and the guy caved. Pathetic. I would have signed up to him being made God emperor if he had done that.

Sachs had done a massive short on gold and if it hit the price it was supposed to they would have gone under.

[Lewis]

White Wednesday in retrospect. :cool:

[phonics]

For all the mockery they got at the time Occupy Wall Street and their ilk were bang on. Now we have a fake economy that doesn’t actually exist but people already at the top are 10x better off and everyone else is fucked.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Next election is Rishi Sunak vs Andy Burnham's 'traffic lights' coalition with candidates standing aside for each other, and still losing. What a time we shall soon live in.

[Lewis]

The Conservative Party launch their manifesto with a bold pledge to allow over-sixties to stop anyone under forty in the street and demand their cash. The Labour Party denounce this as 'falling woefully short', and promise free card readers and training as part of their plans.

[Yevrah]

Andy Burnham is the worst. He'd be the Prime Minister equivalent of David Moyes at Man Utd.

[Lewis]

David Moyes failed in part because he tried to shake the place up. Andy Burnham would be more like Ole Gunnar Binman, just going on about the North - by which he means Greater Manchester - and saying things like 'We need to listen to what the teachers and the nurses are telling us' whilst not coaching transitions.

[Yevrah]

That's an incredibly kind way to view Moyes' tenure. He clearly failed as he was massively out of his depth, which was apparent after about a week when he was moaning about the fixture computer screwing his poor little Manchester United.

[Lewis]

He was generally out of his depth, but Andy Burnham wouldn't ban chips.

[phonics]

Andy Burnham v Rishi Sunak for control of the country is the best argument I can think of for the fall of the British empire being a good thing.

What absolute mediocrities we’re ruled by.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Better than Johnson v Corbyn and probably better than May v Corbyn.

[phonics]

This is quite literally a tallest dwarf contest. And whoever won that would probably do better than all involved.

[Lewis]

Boris Johnson is more temperamentally unsuited to it than he is a mediocrity in the Andy Burnham/random nobody sense. Wor Jezza wasn't even mediocre. He was and is a certifiable cretin, which was where most of his problems with things like anti-Semitism came from. Theresa May I don't know. Definitely also unsuited to it at the other end of the spectrum(!), and, although she seems to have been reasonably successful before getting into politics, her prominence in the party was in large part down to being a woman who wasn't Ann Widdecombe during the opposition years.

[Spikey M]

1444575406133293062?s=19

[Queenslander]

:lol:

[SvN]

Reminds me of the time a few years ago when I had a league squash game after work. As I was getting changed, I realised I hadn't packed my shorts. Had to play the match in the trousers from my suit.

Still won :cool:

[Jimmy Floyd]

Former minister Jake Berry on the return to work: “We have to end the civil service ‘woke-ing’ from home - sorry I mean working from home, but let’s be honest, it often is woke-ing.”

Tories :cool:

'WFH' seems to have developed a large band of violently opinionated online advocates now, like it's Scottish Independence or Brexit.

[Spikey M]

Sorry Jake, that's the worst attempt at wit I've ever seen. Please hide that inside a spoiler where it belongs Jim.

[Don]

At the risk of outing myself as part of that online group, does that joke make any sense and does the cunt have shares in Pret? The revolution was televised, you're a special breed of nonce to wish for a return to the office.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I don't think you've noticed the clever play on words: 'work' sounds a little bit like 'woke', so he's substituted one for the other to make his point.

A little known fact is that the Jam's 'Town Called Malice' is actually about woke-ing.

[Ian]

I assume in a room full of gammons that would have gone down an absolute storm.

"More like WOKEing from home, am I right?"
*rapturous applause, Jake is carried on the shoulders of an adoring crowd*

[Raoul Duke]

Surely "wanking" from home is the more obvious joke?

[Spikey M]

Tory-fyingly bad - sorry, I meant Terrifyingly, but let's be honest, it's often Tory-fying.


https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/026/169/meme_kid.jpg

[Don]

:D

lll

[randomlegend]

:lol:

[Lofty]

:D

Punderful.

[phonics]

There’s a theory I’ve been working on with this usage of woke and it’s link to the long history of white people taking something from black culture, bastardising it and then using it as a cudgel to beat people they don’t like with a la rock n roll. I haven’t got much more to it than that but I think there’s something there.

[niko_cee]

Isn't wokenism (or the contempt thereof) just our generation's version of PC gone mad!

Not sure exactly who is the our in that statement, mind.

[Dave.]

The company I work for wants us to work from home for the foreseeable future. I think they realised they can save a fortune by having us all doing this. I'm saving nearly £1000 a year by not commuting to work so I'm not complaining. Would be nice to go into the office occasionally but looks like that won't be happening.

[Jimmy Floyd]

As a personal choice / flexibility option it's golden, but making people doing it is (certainly in team-based work environments) genuinely insane.

[Yevrah]

I can't speak for your industry Dave, but in the main I'd suggest most employers doing that are being incredibly short sighted.

[Dave.]

As a personal choice / flexibility option it's golden, but making people doing it is (certainly in team-based work environments) genuinely insane.

Spot on.

Some people in my work are furious about it. Basically (the odd paperwork-based task aside) they told us you can either work from home or it's redundancy. It suits me fine due to personal circumstances and the money saving but some people genuinely hate working from home. I imagine quite a lot of companies are doing the same as the one I work for. Working in an office could be a thing of the past in the not-so-distant future.

[Dave.]

I can't speak for your industry Dave, but in the main I'd suggest most employers doing that are being incredibly short sighted.

I agree. I think personal choice is the way forward or one week in the office then the next working from home.

Covid has seen employees and employers alike lose all common sense it would appear.

[phonics]

I’ve turned down multiple jobs now because they won’t work out of an office. Just doesn’t work for me.

[Boydy]

I'm going into the office again tomorrow. Not because I particularly enjoyed it last week but because I left my nice keyboard in there like an idiot and the old crap one I've been using Friday and today is pissing me off too much.

According to the booking system I'm the only one in tomorrow. Apart from the office manager, I assume.

[Dquincy]

Flexible working seems to be the way forward with a split between office and home working. But these people who have developed a self entitlement about home working need a reality check.

[Shindig]

Yeah, I enjoy home working but never seeing an office again would probably see me moving jobs.

[Jimmy Floyd]

The main way that the 'WFH is great' people annoy me is that they don't understand how much it favours people with big houses, lots of space and the money to buy comfortable/useful equipment, all of which normally describes them. If you're a twenty something in a London shithole rental with no space and non-co-operative flatmates (as some of my friends are) then having it forced upon you is a nightmare.

[Dquincy]

...and when staff react as if you're putting them out by asking them to come into the office, despite the fact they've been doing it for the last 15 years without issue.

I acknowledge it's a different world now and there are certain industries which can utilise WFH much more effectively than others.

[Giggles]

People need to have an eye kept on them long term or they’ll do fuck all. Companies will soon realise this.

[Dave.]

People need to have an eye kept on them long term or they’ll do fuck all. Companies will soon realise this.

Interestingly enough, the efficiency and quality in my workplace has increased since people began working from home at the start of the pandemic.

[phonics]

Whereas mine went down so badly that it got so bad I got into a fight with my boss that ended up with me quitting my job. People are different.

[Alex]

Flexible working seems to be the way forward with a split between office and home working. But these people who have developed a self entitlement about home working need a reality check.

That is definitely the approach I would prefer because the thought of working from home forever is just weird (and a little bit horrifying) to me, but it's not really happening in practice for me at the moment.

The official line at our place is "work anywhere". So I could go back to the office, it is still there. But the vast majority of people have decided not to. I'm talking to the extent where there's literally three people regularly in our "wing" of the office, which used to house a hundred or so. I think it's very much the same for other departments who take up the other spaces. So my current take is that if I'm going to basically sit on my own anyway I might as well stay in bed another half an hour in the morning and sit at home in my own house. :moop:

But I was always very lucky in that I live a ten minute drive from work. I can't expect people with a long commute to share my enthusiasm about the prospect of all going back a couple of days a week I suppose. There's absolutely no way they keep the building open long term if it doesn't pick up though.

Somebody told me recently that they had nipped in for some reason and had a chat with the two people who work in the canteen (I assume we pay a company to do this for us across all the sites in the country so they will be under a contract for a certain amount of time) and they have just been sat there making like one bacon sarnie and the odd cup of tea daily for the last eighteen months and burning through boxsets on Netflix. :D

[phonics]

BBC staffed by people ‘whose mum and dad worked there’, says Nadine Dorries

Also Nadine Dorries:
MP Nadine Dorries paid her daughters up to £80k from the public purse to work in her office... and gave one a £15k pay rise

[Ian]

The new non-woke BBC is gonna be great.

'Escape To The Country' will be retooled to be about forcing young people to go fruit picking so we don't have to let any nasty foreigns in to do it. They'll be taught hard lessons about the value of hard work and at the end of the day they're paid in cash but then instantly have to hand it over to the nearest octogenarian.

Doctor Who will be recast with The Doctor being played by Nigel Farage.

The news will just be half an hour of people saluting Union Flags as God Save The Queen plays on a loop.

[Shindig]

Vigil will now have a second series where they fight off Spanish fishing boat with a nuclear-equipped Trident.

[Spikey M]

Oh good, have we moved on from Team Office going full:

https://img.gifglobe.com/grabs/partridgecloud/S02E06/S02E06-netDqKzL-thumb.jpg

?

[Ian]

Team Office

Good point, The Office also gets a reboot. Rishi Sunak to play Dev Brent, a guy managing an office full of people who are delighted and happy and productive because they get to cram themselves onto a train every day and spend £18 on a Pret sarnie.

One character, who for the sake of inclusivity will have to be an obese, black, foreign woman, works from home and everybody hates her. She does none of the dogshit commute, pockets the extra and gets an extra lie in in the morning but she doesn't get to see corporate powerpoint presentations in the flesh or go on miserable team outings so is she REALLY happy?

The answer is no, or at least not by the time her house burns down with her in it in the uplifting finale.

[Spikey M]

:D

Yevrah, start the script.

[SvN]

I asked everyone what they wanted to do about working from home, and everyone said they wanted to come into the office on some days, but still wanted the flexibility of working from home some times too. So we have the office open 3 days per week, with everyone coming in at least twice.

It works okay, but I have to schedule it rather than allowing everyone to just come in when they want - we tried that for a few weeks, and there were some days where they was just one person on their own :D. Which was a bit shit for them.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Where it's useful is not, like I have to, using up your minimal amount of holidays on having the broadband man coming round or having a mattress delivered. There's no reason I can't do half a day or a day at my laptop while that happens. Not possible at my gaff.

The thing I don't understand is the level of aggression shown online towards people who say 'Well, some aspects of the physical workplace are actually quite good'.

[Ian]

Mark Noble.

[Jimmy Floyd]

If you want to go back to talking about Tory conference that can be arranged.

[Spikey M]

Jay-Jay Okocha.

[Ian]

As we've discussed before, there is aggression from or towards any side of an argument online about literally anything if you choose to allow it on your timeline.

For example, I'm about to call Spikey a massive cunt for suggesting that the excellent Jay-Jay Okocha's name be invoked in the same way that West 'Am's Mark Noble is to signify a dull conversation.


Jay-Jay Okocha.

Oi, you massive cunt, what you playing at?

[Spikey M]

*Contacts Brian Cox to have Ian removed from this timeline*

[Kikó]

If Mark Noble was called Marco Nobele, he'd be regarded a great midfielder.

[Ian]

Maybe he needs to up his social media game.

Get the lads giving him a yoof-y nickname.

M-Nobz.

Hm, maybe not M-Nobz.

[randomlegend]

My fiancée's sister's fiancé (my brother-in-law to be? I don't fucking know) is called M. Nobbs. True story.

[Spikey M]

You have to elongate that M, surely.

[Spikey M]

1445124474790105095?s=19

An update from the Conference.

[Ian]

Thought it'd be the Nobz you wanted elongated. #oioi

[Jimmy Floyd]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58800329

This new 'Be patient, children, we're reshaping the economy' approach to things is pretty lol. If it proves to be right then they are geniuses of the century. If not, well, yeah. The problem is I just can't see business giving up its addiction to cheap labour as easily as they would like. Business has been so trained towards efficiency (as opposed to resilience) for 50 years that they don't know any other way of doing things.

[Ian]

If Boris says it'll be fine then I for one trust him.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Watching the Blair & Brown docu on iplayer, it's very well made and really illuminates how dogshit recent Labour leaders have been.

Brown in some other decade would have been a great Labour PM. The 1930s, perhaps. But not in the 2000s. Blair is a simpering twat but he was there at the perfect moment.

[Shindig]

Brown's biggest problem was having to follow him.

[phonics]

Browns biggest problem is that the moment he got into power he abandoned everything that got him there in the first place because he was scared.

[Lofty]

That bigoted woman nobbled him.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Tony nobbled him. As the docu goes on and you move quickly from young Brown to 1980s Brown to 1990s Brown and on, you can see him gradually receding from this political whirlwind towards being the delusional mess that he was as PM.

[Lewis]

Gordon Brown was a more intelligent version of Theresa May. His political interventions are, in their own way, worse than the shite Blair regularly treats us to.

[niko_cee]

'More intelligent version of Theresa May' sounds like damning someone with faint praise if I ever heard it. Wasn't her career largely built off wearing a fancy pair of shoes one time?

[Ian]

Big fan of Raab trying to go all "All lives matter" on misogyny and having to have the definition of misogyny confirmed to him.

[Kikó]

Every response they give is tinged in "how would a gammon react if I answered this honestly". Horrible horrible party.

[Jimmy Floyd]

They've hit on the perfect formula for what England wants: 1. keep things how they are, 2. drown the poor, 3. insult the foreigners, and 4. have a laugh while doing it.

It's a very hard proposition for Labour to beat, as their dwindling band of supporters don't want any of those things.

[Ian]

Don't forget to completely blame everything that's wrong on the last government and rely on the mongos of the electorate to forget the Tories have been in charge forever.

[Spikey M]

This government is a disgrace. A lying, evil, psychopathic, inept disgrace.

But give me a 10% pay bump and we'll call it evens.

[Lofty]

Don't forget to completely blame everything that's wrong on the last government and rely on the mongos of the electorate to forget the Tories have been in charge forever.

It really is 1984 now thanks to facebook etc. Why would it be Boris's fault he is PM with a massive majority, as close as he can get to Kim Jong Un in a democracy, how could he possibly solve issues? It was that last lot, whoever they were.

[Don]

The fuel crisis was very third world. Will need a bit more of that and a bit less of Marcus PRashford tweeting about failed children to awaken the masses because let's be honest, life as it is is too comfortable to bother about politics.

[niko_cee]

The fuel crisis, such that it was, was more of an indictment of the populace than of the politicians, so it's a bit more root and branch to try and fix that sort of thing.

Dominic Raab appears to be little more than an actual moron, and only serves to emphasis quite how far you can get in life whilst being a complete idiot. Are there any politicians of any sort of intellectual capacity knocking about these days? Feels like there aren't many, if any.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Raab will be losing his seat next election, I can exclusively report from the ground.

Since Blair you've been able to do most things using 'advanced social skills', which I've been told he has. I've never met the man (though he did glare at me across the street once) so I can only presume it's the Peter Mannion 'Vital, vital work you do.'

[Disco]

We had the same sort of fuel shortage not very many years ago, different causes but it's not like it never happens.

[Raoul Duke]

Don't forget to completely blame everything that's wrong on the last government and rely on the mongos of the electorate to forget the Tories have been in charge forever.


Mr Johnson called his government a reforming, can-do government, which after "decades of drift and dither" would reform social care and opportunities across the UK.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-58817217

[Jimmy Floyd]

TBF, he's clearly pitching himself against all previous incumbents (same party and otherwise) with this 'reshaping the economy' stuff so it's a valid line and the twitter performative lolling is misplaced on this occasion.

[Spikey M]

There is nothing valid about the blustering cunt and all lolling is fair, performative or otherwise.

The idea that this bloke could reshape an economy - beyond shoving dynamite up its arse and putting a cigarette out on it, like he has so far - is genuinely laughable.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I'm saying it's valid (within his own framework) to say 'decades of dither' about the past, not that his framework necessarily has any merit.

A lot of people aren't able to get past THE TORIES as an evil bloc.

[Lewis]

Dominic Raab seems to be more in the tradition of actually clever but slightly awkward politicians. He clearly just mis-spoke today, and his clarification made a much better point than any of the idiots jumping all over the initial words are capable of making.

[Kikó]

The fuel crisis was very third world. Will need a bit more of that and a bit less of Marcus PRashford tweeting about failed children to awaken the masses because let's be honest, life as it is is too comfortable to bother about politics.

https://dazedimg-dazedgroup.netdna-ssl.com/786/azure/dazed-prod/1300/7/1307640.jpg

[Lewis]

He's wound it in since his people tweeted with the wrong account. Lucky Boris wins again.

[Don]

That's a sensational picture :rasta:

[Spikey M]

He's wound it in since his people tweeted with the wrong account. Lucky Boris wins again.

When did this happen? I missed that.

[Lewis]

https://www.caughtoffside.com/2021/09/27/marcus-rashford-man-united-star/

Not that we needed proof like, but it's still a bit embarrassing, as is the fact that nobody has addressed it.

[Spikey M]

He's just lucky it wasn't one of his wanky tweets.

[Ian]

https://metro.co.uk/2021/10/06/tory-mp-asks-for-payrise-as-living-on-81k-a-year-can-be-really-grim-15371935/

:(:(:(

[Jimmy Floyd]

I'm generally not one to slate MPs' pay (the more you pay them, the better quality of MPs you will get, as with everything in life) but the argument that they should earn the same as GPs is nonsensical.

[Ian]

If he'd just been a nakedly greedy twat saying he wants as much as GPs I think I'd actually have a hair less contempt for him than him describing it as 'grim' and 'desperate.'

Maybe he needs some of those benefits he loves to vote against to top it up.

[Lewis]

Even MPs offer a better service than GPs, so somebody needs paying less.

[Raoul Duke]

Maybe we can just clap for them instead?

[Boydy]

Don't they get their fucking houses paid for?

[Spikey M]

And their ducks houses.

[niko_cee]

I quite like the tone.

I mean, I'm fine, I've been in this game long enough to have rorted myself a great little set-up, it's just the n00bs I feel for, it's so much harder for them to sneak through the government funded second home in London when their constituency is a 30 minute commute from Parliament . . .

[Yevrah]

Reminds me of when Eric Pickles appeared on Question Time.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Eric Pickles and Nick 'Cleggers' Clegg appearing on the board within a few minutes of each other, I've got 2010 election fever.

[niko_cee]

If he'd been called Errico Sottaceti people would have judged him differently.

[Shindig]

Didn’t he punch someone in a parliamentary bar? Put that down to Roman passion.

[Jimmy Floyd]

That was Eric Joyce. Cracking wikipedia intro for him:


Eric Stuart Joyce (born 13 October 1960) is a former British politician, convicted child sex offender, former military officer and former Scottish judo champion.

[Spikey M]

A man of many talents.

I like the way it's listed in order of most to least offensive.

[Ian]

It's not there any more but I loved it when former failed NFL quarterback's Ryan Leaf Wikipedia page said he was "synonymous with failure" in the opening line.

[Jimmy Floyd]

It was “insensitive” for the Work and Pensions Secretary to sing (I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life during the Conservative Party conference as the Universal Credit cut came into force, London Mayor Sadiq Khan has said.

Honestly, I give up with this country.

[Ian]

Doubly insensitive when you consider how badly things are for poor old Bottomley.

[Pleb]

A tory MP is on Channel 4 right now internally screaming.

[Spikey M]

1447284578842988548?t=yb1Ktq89ePbQ4Du1j5AOLw&s=19

[niko_cee]

In the least surprising news story of all time I see they aren't collecting the bins in Brighton again.

[niko_cee]

Robert Winston sounds like he's about to go off the TRANS deep end on QT.

As a biologist . . .

[Don]

Man went in :rasta:

[Lewis]

Robert 'Professor Robert Winston' Winston. Who else was on? Tessa Jowell. John Redwood. Charles Kennedy. Some author being irreverent by wearing a jumper all informal like.

'I marched against the war, but I think you have to credit Tony Blair with...'

[Yevrah]

Watching it now and this COVID discussion is absolute dog shit.

[Spikey M]

https://news.sky.com/story/conservative-mp-david-amess-stabbed-multiple-times-in-incident-at-constituency-surgery-12434498

David Amess (The MP where I used to live) has been stabbed multiple times. Obviously not nice and I hope he pulls through, but it's somehow fitting, seeing as he's overseen the town degrading into a cesspit of drugs and violence over the last 24 years. Soz lad.

[niko_cee]

Was he the one Brass Eye duped into asking Parliamentary questions about C.A.K.E.?

[Spikey M]

The very same.

[Lewis]

If I was Boris Johnson I would be all over the news blaming 'Labour rhetoric' for this. What an opportunity.

[Spikey M]

He will as well.

[niko_cee]

Obviously there's a level of outcome contingency, but it'll be interesting to see how this plays against the way the Jo Cox one did.

But yeah, it's a pretty easy win to conflate this with 'TORY SCUM' as a generally accepted slogan.

[Lewis]

The response will be covering themselves with 'we shouldn't politicise this', and then blaming cuts to mental health services two paragraphs later.

[Lewis]

Dead. Nice one Idiotmouse.

[Lewis]

They should vote themselves a GP-beating payrise and call it danger money.

[Ian]

Obviously there's a level of outcome contingency, but it'll be interesting to see how this plays against the way the Jo Cox one did.

But yeah, it's a pretty easy win to conflate this with 'TORY SCUM' as a generally accepted slogan.

Yeah but she was murdered by a proud British patriot who was probably misunderstood or something. Not some filthy traitor who probably has woke ideas like not imprisoning foreigners on an island.

[Spikey M]

Well this is pretty fucked up.

[Baz]

Well this is pretty fucked up.

You said it served him right earlier.

[Lofty]

If Boris is really on the ball he will blame the NHS response time for this and hold up Virgin Healthcare as the solution.

[Spikey M]

You said it served him right earlier.

I said it's shit and I hope he survives, so not really. I'm just saying it's pretty representative of what the area has become on his watch.

Stabbings and violent crime have been on the rise for a long time, and those in charge (him aswell as the council) have done nothing about it. It's fucked up, but so are all the other stabbings. My only hope is that this might finally lead to knife crime actually being taken seriously in future.

It's one of the reasons we left. There were stabbings in both roads either side of our old road in the year before we left. Drug deals in broad daylight. County lines gangs praying on the vulnerable. It's an absolute shithole.

[Lewis]

Yeah but she was murdered by a proud British patriot who was probably misunderstood or something. Not some filthy traitor who probably has woke ideas like not imprisoning foreigners on an island.

:cab:

[Yevrah]

I wondered what the fuck that was all about too.

I think I start to see what Jim was on about with this culture war stuff.

[Boydy]

I wonder what the motive was.

[Spikey M]

I wonder what the motive was.

1449028387750744069?t=0uDX4y_xJbT6eSA7Iyyqmw&s=19

Hopefully this.

[niko_cee]

The response will be covering themselves with 'we shouldn't politicise this', and then blaming cuts to mental health services two paragraphs later.

David Amess was party of the Tory Government that introduced Care in the Community . . .

You may need to overlook the factual accuracy of that statement.

[Ian]

Does murder of MPs and the like get harder sentencing, etc? Because you'd think it should. Just going into a place to do that.

Is a 'constituency surgery' just an open forum sort of thing?

[Shindig]

Aye, basically a meet and moan.

[Lewis]

Thomas Mair got life-life, but that was because it was seen as a political murder/terrorism rather than just some mad cunt murdering a prominent person which this might have been.

[Lewis]

The BBC said it was somebody of 'African appearance', which sounds like code for Somalian.

[Bam]

The BBC said it was somebody of 'African appearance', which sounds like code for Somalian.

Time to roll out the WLM stuff.

[Lewis]

Wideboy Lives Matter.

[Offshore Toon]

Somalians are the one demographic you don't want to piss off.

[Dquincy]

Looks like it's terrorism behind the MP killing, according to police.

Going to be tricky pinning that one on Angela Rayner.

[phonics]

This whole thing is a bit odd. How has it not leaked within 24 hours how and why this bloke got killed?

Just seems like if it wasn’t completely random the government would have gone full tilt at blaming a African immigrant. My only thought is maybe it is terrorism shit but he was supposed to be monitored and mi5 fucked it. again.

[Spikey M]

Looks like it's terrorism behind the MP killing, according to police.

Going to be tricky pinning that one on Angela Rayner.

You mean Angela "Terrorist-T" Rayner?

[Lewis]

Seamlessly pivot to blaming it on immigration. :cool:

[Dquincy]

I can't help but think this is all Spikey's fault. It's his neck of the woods, his comments. All fingers are pointing to him....

[Lewis]

Seamlessly pivot to blaming it on immigration. :cool:

Or anonymity on social media. Close enough.

[Shindig]

Southend getting city status off the back of this would be fun. If I shank Paul Gascoigne can Gateshead have the same, cheers.

[Lofty]

Or anonymity on social media. Close enough.

Bit weird they have gone with that, didn't El Stabbo post online as himself?

[Kikó]

1448677001351553035?t=aQBba61HJV3xOOs8AXPaDA&s=19

Seems they've taken the prove you exist on the dugout approach to handing out benefits.

[Shindig]

Hi DWP.

[Luca]

Remember to use a banana for scale.

[Boydy]

1450706035237343234

They're taking the fucking piss now.

[Spikey M]

:D

[Ian]

They're absolutely shameless, but that's nothing new.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Have I missed something? The guy was an Islamist piece of shit, proper basic Somalian, he wasn't in Corbynista dark web circle jerks.

[Boydy]

Can't squander a good opportunity to shut the little people asking nasty questions up. Not like their good mate journalists who only ask nice questions.

[Lewis]

All the best Twitter accounts are anonymous ones. It won't be worth using. Meanwhile, cunty anonymous briefings will continue from every twat.

[Boydy]

I see the newspapers have negotiated themselves some clause to let them keep their comments sections anonymous too.

[Don]

Ed Miliband looks like he's lost his virginity.

[Jimmy Floyd]

1454867866734432257

I for one am bang up for this new France-Australia rivalry. Look at the seethe on the man.

[Queenslander]

Scummo is a parasite of course he lied to him. He is called Scotty from marketing for a reason he will say and do whatever is the best for him and his party in the short term every time.

[Lewis]

France blew the deal being French about it. 'Scummo' played a blinder, even if Australia will have burned down by the time you're meant to have built them.

[Queenslander]

The nuke deal isn't as popular down here as the media says.

He was getting hammered in the news this was a perfect chance to change the 24 news cycle for a brief moment now the world can finally see how much of a grifter he truly is.


https://i.ibb.co/99NM1P3/250727476-565806888045203-468384399457103509-n.png (https://imgbb.com/)



https://youtu.be/az4lkKjAsdI

He'll be remembered as Scummo.

[Kikó]

Very good speech - https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/be47898e-2937-495e-a050-1cb40148deeb?in=15:15:30

The Conservatives are a danger to the UK.

[Jimmy Floyd]

There's a serious problem with the system if they think they can (or actually can) get away with such blatant institutional corruption.

[Ian]

They well get away with it, and I suspect the a good chunk of their base wouldn't care even if they were bothering to follow the story.

[Jimmy Floyd]

It's not their base that matters though particularly, it's just the general setup of politics. If Thatcher had tried to pull such a stunt the party would have laughed at her.

[Boydy]

I blame the press. They won't even call it corruption ffs.

[Ian]

Oh I see. Well yes you're right there.

But I guess my point is there's no reason not to just keep filling the party with self-serving, corrupt shitbags as long as they keep getting voted in to do it at this point. And Boydy's point is right too.

Unless somebody of principle ends up in a position of influence in the party which, y'know, lol.

[Yevrah]

Presumably he knows where the bodies are buried.

[Ian]

With this lot I'm not even convinced it's that (though it might be.)

They just want them and their mates to be entirely unaccountable.

[Jimmy Floyd]

This is also why you need a vocal opposition that cuts through (a la 90s Blair or even 00s Cameron) rather than Keir Starmer responding today with a strongly-worded article in the Guardian comment pages.

[Ian]

Yeah Starmer is a waste of space.

"We're going to call the Tories cunts" isn't a position to run a campaign on but there's so much they should be holding them to account for that they just fucking don't so they're as culpable as the media for letting them away with it. More so really given this is one of the basic bits of their fucking role.

[Jimmy Floyd]

They need to choose one thing that will cut through (corruption is normally a good one, but it's not like there aren't a few to choose from) and hammer it relentlessly for months and years. Then they also need to have a positive vision (this is an area where Boris always wins out currently) and a solid top team who looks capable of delivering it. Finally, if Boris is still the opponent, plenty of high profile women would help, but no shrill ones (male voters can't stand those).

No more floppy shite, no more worrying about the loony left and definitely no more putting Ed Miliband on TV.

[Ian]

Then they also need to have a positive vision (this is an area where Boris always wins out currently)

I honestly don't know what Labour think the motivation for voting for them would be at the moment.

They'll have whatever's left of the "Well I've always voted Labour" mongs who treat political parties like football teams, the "Well I feel this is the best chance of the Tories not getting in" but what do they think is the appeal for anybody else? Not even what is the perception, I have no idea what they think they're telling people is a good thing about trying to put Labour in charge of the country.

They're beyond useless.

[Yevrah]

Starmer is such a disappointment. He should be really quite good, but just isn’t.

[Lewis]

The problem Labour have is that the popular side of their platform (pissing money up the wall) has been claimed by New Conservatives, which just leaves them with the mental activist-driven side of things like mandatory sex changes and forty million immigrants a year. Precisely who is at the front saying it doesn't matter all that much.

[phonics]

Honestly this whole thing has been more ballsy than I thought they were willing to go for.

Everyone knows there’s been a massive amount of corruption on the covid stuff and they keep pushing the envelope.

I thought Boris saying that ‘Paterson is a close personal friend’ is the sort of thing that would have been the death knell for anyone else.

[niko_cee]

IN AUGUST


Elliott's ok but he's no Fabio Carvalho, think Liverpool stole the wrong youngster from our academy.

TODAY


Liverpool are confident of beating a number of clubs to the signing of England youth international Fabio Carvalho, with the 19-year-old winger's contract at Fulham running out next summer. (Teamtalk)

:drool:

[Spikey M]

IN AUGUST



TODAY



:drool:

Just as Boris planned. :nono:

[Giggles]

What was the whole corruption thing about there, I’d not seen anything about it.

[Luke Emia]

Honestly this whole thing has been more ballsy than I thought they were willing to go for.

I think they are just so tone-deaf they never see it's going to create an issue. Hence the then massive U-turns constantly because they then realise what they are doing doesn't play well with the general public.

On the opposition stuff, there is no way I will vote Conservative whilst Boris Johnson is PM and it also doesn't help that my MP is Liz Truss so it's not even like I can hold my nose and do it because she's decent whilst there is more of a chance of me voting Labour than when Corbyn was about I still don't actually know what they really stand for and as others have said that's a massive issue. With the ineptitude that has been shown in the last two years by Boris Labour should be absolutely streets ahead in the polls but they just can't seem to seize on any of the mistakes being made.

[Luke Emia]

What was the whole corruption thing about there, I’d not seen anything about it.

MP did wrong. So to protect him Boris wanted to change the rules around what was classed as being wrong whilst an investigation is ongoing effectively.

[Ian]

Used his position to help some companies who were paying him, got investigated, his wife topped herself, he blamed the inquiry for it, Conservatives went "Good point let's make it impossible to investigate us for anything ever", country went 'u fkn wot m8s."

I'm paraphrasing slightly, and probably only getting half of it wrong.

[niko_cee]

Just as Boris planned. :nono:

:moop:

If I was going to get the wrong thread it could at least have been one where he was likely to see it.

[Boydy]

I bet he killed his wife.

[Kikó]

Used his position to help some companies who were paying him, got investigated, his wife topped herself, he blamed the inquiry for it, Conservatives went "Good point let's make it impossible to investigate us for anything ever", country went 'u fkn wot m8s."

I'm paraphrasing slightly, and probably only getting half of it wrong.

Wasn't it half a mil from Randox who also conveniently have the lateral flow day 2 cushty deals?

[Ian]

I can't remember what the numbers were but yeah, they paid him to consult and then they got an uncontested £100m+ testing deal, the tests were then made mandatory and the firm reported mega profits.

[Spikey M]

That consultancy fee was just resting in his bank account.

[Giggles]

Good to see GS and his identity keeping busy.


https://streamyard.com/wx8p3q2hgiv7

[phonics]

Peston just said that Boris Johnson saying ‘those who break the rules must be punished’ was an ‘I was there’ moment of history.

Genuinely the thickest man in politics.

[Don]

1462731561862844419

[phonics]

Is this the same speech when he said the public sector couldn’t have created peppa pig?

[Boydy]

Will there be an exit poll for North Shropshire?

[Jimmy Floyd]

No, only a lunatic would pay for that.

I'm thinking LD gain. The conditions are ripe.

[Waffdon]

LD smashed it. :cool:

[Spikey M]

Is it likely to actually mean anything? All he has to do is placate a load of Tory backbenchers by legalising Fox Hunting, noncing or racism. Job done. He's still got years left for Joey Public to forget about all this shit.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Doesn't matter what Joe Public think at this stage. If the rest of his MPs think him to be an electoral liability, he's had it. The Tory party tend to do clean kills.

[Luke Emia]

I think he will be gone relatively soon. Maybe if Omicron is a milder version of Covid & things hold up over the next few weeks that will be the point to get rid of him. If not then any enquiry would finish him off with the public even if the Tories hadn't gotten rid of him. He might have always seemed fairly teflon but a lot of people will know where the bodies are when the time comes to dish the dirt on him during an enquiry.

[Boydy]

Weren't the 1922 committee saying they'd accept letters of no confidence if they lost North Shropshire?

:drool:

[Lewis]

By-elections are meaningless, and he will go when they need a new leader, so probably early-2023.

[Spikey M]

1470495756314361868?t=xfGR4UQHafkH6UyQm4-xcA&s=19

How had I not seen this before? :lol:

[Yevrah]

:D That might be better than when he hid in a fridge.

[Manc]

In fairness to Bojo if the two options are speak to Piers Morgan or hide in a fridge, I'm in the fridge everytime.

[phonics]

https://i.imgur.com/9ksTPma.png

Are they having a laugh?

[Lofty]

Pork Markets.

[Luke Emia]

That useless twat is my MP.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Mine is Raab, let's have a twat-off.

[Luke Emia]

It’s so fucking annoying when they parachute these helmets into the area. Matt Hancock is the MP for the next constituency along as well. That’s the thing round here the seats are so safe they could rock up with a mannequin and they would still win.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Mine has been Tory for 150 years but will probably go at the next election. All things pass.

[Spikey M]

My old MP was Sir David Amess RIP before I moved.

I only dodged ending up with Mark Francois by a few miles after the move. Ooofff.

[randomlegend]

Anyone still voting Tory after all this shit has absolutely no self-respect.

[Don]

They're on about the garden parties again? The blonde prick and his judgement donned all the soft shites too hard for that to be forgotten so easily.

[Manc]

Don't worry lads, Sue is on the case.

[Luke Emia]

Boris could be in a lot of trouble here. I think the MPs are looking at it as if Covid is pretty much over so he can be the fall guy now.