UK General Election 2017 - 8 June

[Jimmy Floyd]

Can I ask what ‘the cultural establishment’ is?

All non-profit (and some for-profit) institutions populated by the educated. Media, broadcasting, TV (not just news but everything), radio, the BBC, the creative arts, teaching, schools in general, academia, the civil service, the NHS (but only the educated side of it - nothing for cleaners and cooks, unless they fall into an identity group, which fortunately they usually do). Basically anything that requires credentials, be they educationally or identity based. The modern Labour party exists for these people.

The big shift in 20th century and beyond has been that once, the Tories would have covered many areas of the above list whereas Labour represented the working class of any description. That has changed a lot and has left a lot of the poor unrepresented. It is no longer enough to be poor - you now also have to have the right opinions and ideally be 'diverse' before Labour are interested in you.

[Lofty]

We need Benders for Brexit.

[Spikey M]

Can I be pointed to these people in power that say such things loudly?

You focus on finding me all those Jewish Charlie Habdo attacks and I'll get right back to you.

We need Benders for Brexit.

Racists for Remain.

[phonics]

Pretty impressive that this group of lefty's haven't held power for nearly 2 decades despite having a stranglehold on... *checks Jimmy's notes* every institution in the country that isn't the Fire Service or the Police from the Banks to the Propaganda arm and yet still Conservative ideals emerge victorious. Rule Brittania.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Pretty impressive that this group of lefty's haven't held power for nearly 2 decades despite having a stranglehold on... *checks Jimmy's notes* every institution in the country that isn't the Fire Service or the Police from the Banks to the Propaganda arm and yet still Conservative ideals emerge victorious. Rule Brittania.

Why do you think the Tories have massively increased NHS spending, massively increased immigration, and so on and so forth? Because those institutions are incredibly powerful and simply having some MPs elected doesn't allow you to overcome that, particularly not when it comes to delivery. They have tried, too - their particular obsession is the BBC because the news is rude about them sometimes, but you can't just make an urban institution packed full of left-liberals magically turn into Tories because Bishop Auckland voted in a Tory MP.

And the reason Labour haven't held political power is that they are wrapped up in those institutions and have had nothing to say (arguably still don't) to everyone else.

[phonics]

Because this place would be an even bigger crumbling shithole than it already is if they didn't. Thank god for those Pinko Communist Bankers.

[Spikey M]

They've massively increased immigration because of the NHS? Come on Jimmy, lad.

[Jimmy Floyd]

They've massively increased immigration because of the NHS? Come on Jimmy, lad.

Er, yeah? Where do you think all the staff come from? I'm sure they would love to privatise it deep down (so would I) but that option isn't culturally available so immigration it is.

Around 265,000 out of 1.5 million staff reported a non-British nationality in June 2023, up from 220,000 a year earlier This amounts to nearly one in five of NHS staff with a known nationality.

[Spikey M]

Er, yeah? Where do you think all the staff come from? I'm sure they would love to privatise it deep down (so would I) but that option isn't culturally available so immigration it is.

Immigration is up fractionally more than 45k for the year though (672k in 2023).

[Jimmy Floyd]

Maybe, but to get those 45k you have to have rules in place that let all the others in - plus, as mentioned earlier, the Tories are currently the party of corporate interests and those interests want low-wage workers and plenty of them.

If they didn't need to staff the NHS with immigrants then it would be one less lever flicked up on the immigration control panel. Similarly, if either they or Labour wanted to deliver for Clacton and not Clapham then they would have to rethink everything. That is why there is a space for Reform.

[phonics]

But I thought all the educated people were lefty's so surely they're running the corporations too? Unless the great unwashed have managed to achieve total financial dominance with no higher education and no support from the Banking sector.

[Jimmy Floyd]

But I thought all the educated people were lefty's so surely they're running the corporations too? Unless the great unwashed have managed to achieve total financial dominance with no higher education and no support from the Banking sector.

I didn't say all educated people were lefties. I said that Labour as a party seeks to represent the interests of not-for-profit and some for-profit instutitions populated by educated people.

[Lewis]

The Royal Air Force (to use one example) was found to be deliberately not promoting white people, and here's phonics, who likes to think of himself as a weary cynic, thinking that their opponents have no institutional power because the Conservative Party have won a few elections whilst doing literally nothing about all of the Blair-era laws that mandate that sort of thinking.

Reform are useless.

[niko_cee]

30p suspended.

Just call the election already.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I'm not sure what their majority is now after all the miscreants are deducted. 30? I guess the opposition have lost a few to naughty corner as well.

[Jimmy Floyd]

Really not sure why the online left is going mental about Lee Anderson. He knows exactly what he is doing. I suppose they need him to be a basic thickie for their worldview to make any sense. Sunak also falling into the trap by suspending him. He'll stand for Reform in his own seat of Ashfield and may well have a puncher's chance at winning it - if not, he'll turn into a TV and online personality with a dedicated band of fans, which is all you need to make a decent living.

[niko_cee]

Didn't he start out not too long ago as a Corbynista? Man's just a rent-a-gob, in it for himself, with a willing local electorate behind him. Which seems to describe a lot of a gambling lobby / blue wall / NewCon Tories.

[niko_cee]

Sorry, I'm doing him a disservice, he was a member NUM, and cites Scargill, Skinner and Benn as important influences in his early political beliefs, but left the Labour Party after it was taken over by 'the hard left'.

[Jimmy Floyd]

He's an old-fashioned nationalist, which used to be encompassed by Labour in the good old days but certainly not anymore. He would have been out with the blackshirts in the thirties, but not with the National Front in the eighties. Now there's a distinction to write 10,000 words about.

[Spikey M]

Is the destinction that racism gets more nostalgic over time?

[niko_cee]

It's the extent to which you could describe them as jolly good fellows on an individual basis.

[Manc]

I quite enjoyed Emily Thornberry drowning in her own BS this morning on Politics Live (smug cunt). Change has to happen, but I can't escape the feeling this Labor lot are complete chancers.

[Spikey M]

They won't change much. It's still a very fractured party. I suspect the unity is only holding because they want to get into power. Once they're in power, the reality of having basically no policies is going to blow up in their faces.

Is that better than what we have? I don't know. Can't be much worse though, I guess.

[Don]

Spoiled ballot totals are gonna be eye-watering.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I did enjoy this. Gorgeous George Galloway's leaflet delivered to white houses in Rochdale:

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And the one he sends through Muslim letterboxes:

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Alas some chatter that he might well lose.

[Shindig]

I'd watch a series of George Galloway: Street Cop.

[niko_cee]

I don't like the things they are teaching them at school!



Just found out my old property law professor is standing as the lib dem candidate in Wimbledon. 600 majority to overturn so he's got to be a shoe-in. Will make an absolutely legendary interviewee but, that being the case, he probably won't ever be allowed near anything of the sort.

Make Rochdale great again? Again?

[Jimmy Floyd]

Everything in south west London, and a fair amount of Surrey is going Lib Dem. I live near the bridge (well, one of them) and as you walk over onto the London side you can physically feel yourself turning from blue to orange. Van engines and mumbled swears fade away under the mingled sounds of baristas at work, the thuds of hybrid SUV boots shutting, and mothers-at-lunch loudly urging Oscar not to run too far from daddy. The thing is, darling, I actually loved the lockdown. Gave the family a renewed sense of being together. Well, the thing is, and I do feel bad about this, Dad's gone private for his knee op. I know? The doctor was terribly nice. Indian chap, or Pakistani, I can't remember. I heard they're turning the old water wheel into flats. Terrible, what these developers do. Rapacious, all to make a quick buck.

[phonics]

Even the lefty weirdos biggest aims are to 'Bring Primark back to our high street'

Fucking abysmal.

[Lofty]

Gorgeous George with a 6000 majority

[Jimmy Floyd]

If that result (Azhar Ali 4th!) at all previews how feelings will be in an October GE then Labour will need to shore up their 10 or so Muslim seats. Obviously it's a by election, Galloway is an unusually big name and a lot of water to go under the bridge before then.

Great news for Primark shoppers though.

[Ben]

I just caught a bit of BBC Breakfast in the lobby at work and the reporter's first question posed to Galloway (if you can call it that) was that he's so divisive. George retorted that the result shows he's actually not divisive because it was such a huge majority (fair enough). I would bet at least five British pounds that if the Tory candidate had scraped a win by an ant's knacker (the definition of division) then such a question wouldn't have been posed.

Anyway, my point is the media are so shit. Galloway winning just shows where the country is at mentally and the media won't dare to acknowledge that. This isn't just Muslims for Gaza (well over 80% of the constituency is White). Labour are fucking lucky there aren't many George Galloway-types willing to barrel in and fuck shit up outside of a few Reform candidates.

[Kikó]

What an odious prick of a man. Can't believe people vote for him.

[Spikey M]

If we had the same Electoral system as the yanks we would be electing a worse populist than Trump this time round.

[Jimmy Floyd]

We'd be voting in our second term of President Johnson.

[SvN]

I haven't seen what George Galloway looks like in about 15 years, and just had a good lol at the state of him.

[Yevrah]

Hang on, isn't the US system essentially the same as ours? They just have a number of electoral college votes per state while we have a number of constituencies per county.

[Jimmy Floyd]

It's completely different. They have a directly elected President who exists outwith Congress. Our prime minister comes from within Parliament.

[Yevrah]

I just caught a bit of BBC Breakfast in the lobby at work and the reporter's first question posed to Galloway (if you can call it that) was that he's so divisive. George retorted that the result shows he's actually not divisive because it was such a huge majority (fair enough). I would bet at least five British pounds that if the Tory candidate had scraped a win by an ant's knacker (the definition of division) then such a question wouldn't have been posed.

Anyway, my point is the media are so shit. Galloway winning just shows where the country is at mentally and the media won't dare to acknowledge that. This isn't just Muslims for Gaza (well over 80% of the constituency is White). Labour are fucking lucky there aren't many George Galloway-types willing to barrel in and fuck shit up outside of a few Reform candidates.

You'd need to see the voter demographics and how many of the total population voted to know what impact Muslims had. Funny that we (the media) are even having this conversation though, aren't we all just British?

[Yevrah]

It's completely different. They have a directly elected President who exists outwith Congress. Our prime minister comes from within Parliament.

But ultimately, as much as people might want to claim otherwise, when it comes to where voters put their cross in a general election the vast majority are voting for the Prime Minister rather than their local candidate.

Substance over form and all that.

[Spikey M]

But ultimately, as much as people might want to claim otherwise, when it comes to where voters put their cross in a general election the vast majority are voting for the Prime Minister rather than their local candidate.

Substance over form and all that.

Donald Trump can run because Donald Trump wants to run. Then if he wins the vote, he's President.

Tommy Robbinson would have to put together an entire political party and win the most seats. Or, manage to become the leader of the Tories / Labour, then win the most seats.

[Jimmy Floyd]

They're voting for their local candidate. Why they vote for their local candidate is up to them, but if 649 constituencies vote enthusiastically Tory because they love Rishi Sunak, and Richmond (Yorks) votes Labour, then Rishi is gone.

You can say this would never happen but it could quite plausibly have happened to Boris in Uxbridge last time, and has happened in Australia at least once. Also, as does happen very regularly here, the parliamentary party can chuck out Rishi as their leader because he IS NOT directly elected by the public, no matter how much 'narrative' wants him to be.

[Yevrah]

I was focusing more on the voting system in my assertion above, rather than the candidate selection and retention (or otherwise) process, but fair points gents.

[Don]

Fucking go on, George. The media are busy smearing him as transphobic/homophobic/gammonphobic whilst Labour are explaining it away because they didn't have their own coconut up for election. The times they are a changing (they're not as mentioned above, there's not enough Galloways around). Supreme orator he is too, those speeches

[Yevrah]

He is exceptional at public speaking, that much is true.

[Jimmy Floyd]

He's a deeply terrible man, but he is good at exploiting the many gaps in mainstream politics. Much like 2005 his mob (and it is a mob) will be a factor in Muslim seats, this isn't however that many seats in the grand scheme of things so it won't be of huge importance.

[Don]

Keep downplaying the Islamists who rule your shores now, mate.

This is sensational too, fucking Putin has more shame

https://www.theguardian.com/environm...n-climate-gaza

[Spikey M]

The true embarrassment is them allowing him to use them as a photo opp. Look at him deliberately standing next to the shortest bloke, a short woman and a kid as well.

[Don]

Chris Williamson back on the airwaves and not giving a single fuck

[Jimmy Floyd]

PM doing a lectern at 5.40. What I'm hearing is that Lewis has been in there all day and he's going to announce the immediate expulsion of all Asians, including himself.

Funniest suggestion for the topic I've seen in the twitter replies is 'His heated pool is getting a slide'.