"n'er cast a clout til May be out aka NO BREXIT: hell is other voters -- UK election 2017

no you're a mugwump

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tnA4hVf2WA

Blair sez Labour should take defeat as a certainty + concentrate on retaining enough seats to "hold them to account". Hmm .. remind me of how many of the PLP abstained against The Welfare Act etc etc..

Jesus stfu Blair.

there's enough on him now to throw him out of the party after the election, I think they should do it whatever happens

Maybe better on that Corbyn thread but Search seems broked again so

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/04/jeremy-corbyn-theresa-may-media-general-election-labour/

When we held events, rather than just covering the event and scrutinizing the policy, as they would with others, the press would seek out a trivial issue in an attempt to mock the whole thing. It felt like this was constant, desperate even. It was a campaign to undermine Jeremy. Sometimes I thought people did it because they were lazy and couldn’t be bothered to read up on the policy. A lot of them really couldn’t be bothered to engage with what we were trying to put forward.

Runciman article good enough to put in this thread too, esp the Benn prophecy

The turmoil inside the Conservative Party brought about by Maastricht – culminating in Major’s futile attempt to see off the ‘bastards’ in his cabinet – helped confirm the view that the issue of Europe was potentially fatal for the Tories. Benn’s diaries suggest a different story. The party most at risk of being destroyed by Europe was Labour. The Tories could always refract their differences through the cut and thrust of high politics, whereas for Labour there was the real risk that any divisions would prove insurmountable. Benn was never reconciled to the idea that social democracy in Britain could be achieved if decision-making power was franchised out to the bureaucrats in Brussels. Yet from the late 1980s on almost the entire parliamentary party took the opposite view, coming to believe that the EU represented the best bet for enshrining workers’ rights. In Benn’s eyes, this amounted to giving up before you’d even started. He also thought it risked stoking nationalism around Europe when the workers came to realise how they’d been betrayed.

Suspect that the next (and far bigger) battle within the Labour Party won't be between pro- and anti-Corbynite factions at all, it'll be between the pro- and anti-immigration wings of the Labour Party. Cameron's biggest 'achievement' as Tory leader may turn out to have been transferring the Conservatives' toxic divisions over Europe onto Labour.

However I feel about the various wings of the Labour Party I trust the Blue Labour faction less than any of them.

"The Tories could always refract their differences through the cut and thrust of high politics" -- what does this actually mean?

(Have to say I'm not yet ready to cede the counterfactual that all would have been well on the left, if only Benn had beaten Healey and etc -- I remember the 70s and where fall-of-empire emotions were threatening to take us, partly because i've been writing about them over the last few days. Europe allowed us a space -- 40 odd years in fact -- to, er , refract that change though other routes, mostly cultural, mostly benificial, while protecting us from the collapse in presence in the world that actually confronted us. Of course those 40 years, like the largesse from north sea oil, were almost entirely wasted…)

another looming battle within labour -- and within wider politics at large -- may well be between the old and the young, the sense of so many long-standing institutions (not just media but parliament) being not remotely fit for purpose; the sense that the old are getting their demands met at the expense of all manner of things for the young, from freedom of movement to actual jobs, housing, further, education, an accessible health system, a survivable climate…

(writing this as a tail-end boomer acutely aware that as a generation we never -- to coin a phrase -- had it so good)

"The Tories could always refract their differences through the cut and thrust of high politics" -- what does this actually mean?

I don't actually know but it's exactly what's happened post-Brexit to the Tories - a party you'd think would be even more split than Labour but none of the divisions ever became as toxic

I think he broadly means that the Tories, when push comes to shove, have always managed to rally behind their own best interests

and their best interests are far more coherent and homogenous than the ideological and cultural divides within Labour

]This is why democratizing the Labour Party is so important, because it is the first step to democratizing the British state and the economy. You have to provide a conduit through which people’s opinions and concerns can be relayed directly into the day-to-day running of government; a really dynamic government that has its ear to the ground, not one that is beholden to what lobby journalists or commentators are saying.

To achieve that, the Labour Party has to become much more than an electoral outfit. It has to have a purpose beyond electing a parliamentary elite to run the country while leaving the people on the outside. Constituency Labour Parties must become the centers of community life, running social programs, building the public’s capacity to understand the world around them. If we are to have a government of the people, for the people, and by the people then we must first raise people’s abilities to govern themselves.

999 times Yes btw as long as he remembers most people are not really interested in the mechanics of politics and that's a v healthy thing

that would make sense in terms of what's happened, except your way of saying it is clear and factual and runciman's is weird and jargony and i don't get the jargon -- why describe any of what you just said as "the cut and thrust of high politics"

(sorry, i'm being sub editor-y)

("you" there being an amalgam of lex and NV now i read more carefully)

Head v heart seems important. A lot of Tories (including most MPs) were intellectually convinced that Europe was good for Britain without being very happy about it. All the passion was on the Eurosceptic side (apart from Clarke and Heseltine). The remainers have been on the whole happy to accommodate to a changed reality. If the referendum had gone the other way I think the Tories would have been much more deeply split.

I don't think the turmoil in the Labour party is much about Europe. The referendum was a bolt of lightning revealing to two sides in a coalition how starkly different their values and priorities were. But it's been coming a long time - ever since Blair concluded the old working class had nowhere else to go and economically secure metropolitan liberals were the constituency that needed to be won over to win elections. There's only so long you can take people for granted before they say fuck you.

I read "the cut and thrust of high politics" as a nod to the idea of politics as just a game, an extension of Oxford Union debates, where insults to political opponents are basically for the bantz, which is precisely what enables Tories to inexplicably set aside what look like deep ideological divisions. Centrist Labour aspires to this I think but never transcends Sensible Middle Management territory.

What's interesting about May is that by all accounts she purports to loathe the idea of politics as just a game, but it seems like this is only the case when other people are playing it given the arc of her career.

ie it's not possible to really have deep ideological divisions if ultimately your only ideology is yourself - a political philosophy you might gravitate towards is only ever clothes you think look nice

Can't accuse Theresa May of gravitating towards nice clothes

ah yes, that makes better sense, thank you -- tho "high politics" seems a funny term for this (what's "high" about it, except it's mostly posh people doing it, and isn't it actually a kind of evasion of politics?)

also unclear if it's runciman's own analysis there, or he's channelling benn: either way i actually think it's a pretty bad description of *how* the tories have managed these divisions except for quite a brief etonian interlude (there was real venom during the major era and after, and it's really not what may is about either) (basically remainer tories are largely shutting up and falling in line, i suspect, bcz business and the city are simply switching to the assumption that brexit is on, and they must retool and adapt to the new situation)

(i was going to say, same as capitalism did under hitler, then thought better of it, then unthought unbetter of it) (angry dubdobdee now, as my twitter voters demand)

A new YouGov poll conducted for The Times has shaved 7 pts off the Con lead.

Labour increased its support by four points to 29 per cent, while the Liberal Democrats were down two points to 10 per cent and Ukip rose two points to seven per cent.

fuck polls but at this point i'd probably take a 10% gap the day before the GE

WHY DO UKIP STILL EXIST FFS

(although i guess they're still useful from soaking up votes from the foamier-mouthed end of previous conservative voters)

I'd be surprised if the UKIP vote wasn't at least halved with at least a third going Tory. A lower turnout overall might at least prevent the Tories getting more votes than two years ago and keep the UKIP vote under 1.5M. The bulk of the remaining UKIP vote will be just another direct fuck you to Labour.

to non-white people via Labour I think you mean

Sure. I mean I hope the UKIP vote shatters by that much or more but it really depends on how many of them go blue and where.

In the meantime UGH LOL Esther McVey still being a thing.

I bet the good Tory voters of Tatton are thrilled to have the scouse gobshite!

Headline figures are one thing, but this is a scary snippet on (lack of) class effect on voting in Times/YouGov poll

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-bEzZIWAAIamr9.jpg

now do the same for age alba -- that's where the divide is

I know. Let's let down the tyres on the minibuses.

Logan's Run the MFers tbh

what's the cutoff age

the point where you think voting Tory is socially acceptable

i seriously think if a momentum party does split off -- or less plausibly forces o/g labour to split off -- then it's likely to coalesce round rhetoric with an age-based resent-the-boomers it's-our-world now component

i was just watching an argument unspool on twitter abt pensions, which was beginning to touch on this -- it began with the triple-lock (linking pensions to inflation etc, which the tories are apparently considering tinkering with?), and someone joking that one thing tories and labour share is hatred of young people… bcz angela rayner is committed to keeping the triple-lock in place

anyway the meat of the quarrel was that (for the young) the double-whammy of "our taxes pay your pensions" (which is of course built into the concept of pensions) and "pensions in the future may be very different, to our disadvantage" is likely to generate quite a lot of friction if weaponised politically

Throw in 'pensioners keeping the other-demonising newspapers alive' perhaps.

the sooner ver kids are out setting things alight in the streets the better tbh

what's keeping the other-demonising newspapers alive is (i) print advertising of a particular kind and (ii) the continued (elsewhere exploded) belief that print advertising works anything like as well as it's thought to

Some top notch posts in the old brexit thread this morning. Matt DC and noodle vague blazing a trail.

Rachel Johnson, sister of Boris, has defected to the LibDems.

How could someone who is pals with the likes of Littlejohn and Hopkins (and Boris!) possibly vote for the cuddly and compassionate LibDems?

Oh, she is hinting at standing as a candidate as well.

I bet that shambling BJ performance on Today was the last straw.

some of her best friends are mugwumps

maybe she likes the smell of spaniels

Maybot stuck again https://twitter.com/rosschawkins/status/857633537671008256

Radio Derby to PM: Do you know what a mugwump is?
PM: ...what I recognise is that what we need in this country is strong and stable leadership

see she's too statesmanlike and leaderly to listen to questions or respond to them appropriately. conversation is for weaks

Kensington goes red!

Possibly not declared yet...

20 votes!

Ah right no that makes sense nickb.

I don't know if there's a law against calling elections in the summer. May be related to scheduling of parliament terms. All the speculation about the next one seems to be around September/October.

fucking hell, get in! (Kensington)

who's this blonde woman on QT? (switched on halfway through). Guessed tabloid journo.

Marxists take harrods! Let's do last night all over again

xp
orrible Mail columnist I think

Isabel Oakeshott, she of the Cameron-is-pig-fucker "scoop" and living personification of the Mail

Her being so fucking bust is one of today's joys

She of 'nobody will ever trust May again if she calls election' and 'MASTERFUL LEADERSHIP IN CALLING ELECTION ' tweets ten minutes apart fame too.

ah, sees about right.
she's contributing nothing of value.

can someone explain the kensington result pls

canterbury too while they're at it

Kensington is new: it's not the old K&Chelsea seat, and without Chelsea it's a lot more mixed. Add to that a lot of furious Remainers (it's packed with rich Euro-immigrants) and possibly a lot of empty mansion streets and you get the result I think.

Canterbury: term-time election brings out the students

Though caek has debunked that one nicely i see

i guess it makes sense that the term time effect would be bigger for corbyn. it just seems like a misnomer given that every election is in term time.

Tories are mooting closing Canterbury hospital iirc.

the absolute state of scotland
http://i.imgur.com/hKKBM4W.jpg

DOBs

just home fae the pub is jeremy cunt hunt prime minister yet

ok lol:

Ruth Davidson planning Scottish Tory breakaway as she challenges Theresa May's Brexit plan' https://t.co/ssHhpvbCsE

— Sara Maioli (@sara_maioli) June 9, 2017

Ruth Davidson plotting a Scottish Tory breakaway, both over DUP and Single Market: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/06/09/ruth-davidson-planning-scottish-tory-breakaway-challenges-theresa/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Xp lol

this day just keeps getting weirder

and funnier

“Before Easter, I spent a few days walking in Wales with my husband, thought about this long and hard and came to the decision that to provide that stability and certainty for the future, this was the way to do it – to have an election."

I'd forgotten about this, at the time it seemed like sinister fake modesty with a distastefully hitleresque sense of "schicksal". Thinking of this hubris and looking at those fucking DUP headbangers that will be holding them to ransom (even tho it probably shouldn't be) is actually pretty fucking funny atm!

But this RD situation adds another amusing clusterfuck to the situation.

also reading on twitter that sinn fein say the dup-tory coalition contravenes the good friday agreement

(but haven't tracked down a link to an actual story, so pinch of salt)

i suspect bringing the dup in this way does actually bring a LOT of um difficult irish politics onto the english front pages, including exactly the kinds of ppl nigel dodds has spent time hanging around in the past

If DUP Is only a party in Northern Ireland doesn't that effect the ability to make a coalition anyway?
If you're supposed to be doing that using legitimacy as a buzzword or whatever.
Just would have thought you'd need a party that was present throughout the UK, like.

It isn't really a coalition.

Also only gives them a 2 seat majority which looks a bit dodgy.

past is probably a more precise word but ppl are going to say coalition bcz it rams the problems (and the hypocrisy) home

anyway i haven't found a link to the story and don't know enough abt the GFA to say if it's plausible

xp: one is all they need to form a government (which may well not last long, i'm old enough to remember the late 70s, they were lots of fun for this kind of stuff)

past s/b PACT, sorry

Thinking about May out on Downing Street behind her podium, railing at the EU for meddling in the UK election feels like a lifetime ago.

Did anyone see Anna Soubry on channel 4 news. Clearly pissed, in the British and North American senses.

I was thisclose to Patsy/vodka/cigarette meme post.

Haha!

Meme From ILX Of Yore Reappears

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39027000/jpg/_39027407_abfab-bbc-203index.jpg

B****cks. Folk might remember I fought a leadership election on the other side of that particular argument.... https://t.co/IQev2xSnUp

— Ruth Davidson (@RuthDavidsonMSP) June 9, 2017

davidson pours water on the idea that she's going to go her own way

http://i.imgur.com/9BcpRXK.jpg

has matthew goodwin ate that book already

She's pretty straight talking but I think she's protesting too much there, probably using the fact they'll keep the whip to mean they're not "going their own way".

I think her constituency is going to force this of her. If she wants to keep those 12 at the next election, especially with Labour and LDs suddenly seeming plausible in Scotland again, she needs to court the huge Remain base, and also acknowledge that not only is Scotland more open to immigration, it'll be in recession without it. Add to that the gay rights angle and she has makings of a party-within-party

Here's a video of Jonathan Powell talking about how this DUP coalition contravenes the Good Friday agreement because because it relies on the impartiality of Westminster.

https://www.facebook.com/JeremyCorbyn4PM/videos/1708919496068789/

sorry, I couldn't find the video outside of Facebook.

I cannot wait for Ruth Davidson to crash and burn. She lucked out because of Sturgeon's stupidity and imcompetence.

poll
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DB6TUQDXoAArfxn.jpg

i found the trevi fountain and the colosseum somewhat deflating when visiting them on a family holiday so i think i'll have to go for ecumenism

Soubry's BBC interview with dimbleby around 5am election night was wild. Worth seeking out.

as ever i must choose 'antichrist'

This tweet is EVERYTHING and its brutality is to be admired:

https://mobile.twitter.com/PolComForum/status/873186390539988993

savage

this article excerpt doing the rounds is great 1 because of the utter stupidity of the suggestion by Fiona Hill, 2 bcos of the impression it gives of May standing back behind the aggression and rudeness of her spads, as the layer between her and the cabinet, and the world really.

Blimey. pic.twitter.com/X9lYAWFa5h

— Theo Bertram (@theobertram) June 10, 2017

also yes that was a hell of a Police Community burn.

call: new circs new thread:
brexit negging when yr mandate is is trash: or further chronicles of a garbage-fire