theresa may: is her project subtly machiavellian or merely cunning, baldrick-style?

https://mobile.twitter.com/1030/status/848953002706829314

^ Hysterical.

further subterranean evidence the snap election was more about panic than planning as two of the top figures in may's communications team (katie perrior and lizzie loudon) quit within three days of one another

She has been so smug and triumphalist in the past week, it is good to see some trouble at t'mill.

They're likely to run a shambolic campaign- May herself is a very awkward performer in the spotlight and won't enjoy the next few weeks at all. But it probly won't make much difference :-(

http://cdn2.theweek.co.uk/sites/theweek/files/2017/02/170216-may_0.jpg

what a natural, Obama crossed with Princess Di right there

She just repeatedly kept using the words leadership + stability mixed with platitude heavy waffle without explicit references to any policies - then that old chestnut "the coalition of chaos". Not very good at this game at all, even a Beeb correspondent admitted earlier that Corbyn has been "energetic" and had another good day.

coalition of chaos coalition of chaos coalition of chaos coalition of chaos coalition of chaos coalition of chaos

Didn't they use that last time as well?

yep.

theres a lovely photo going around of corbyn today reading to kids
he looks very comfy in it

They're likely to run a shambolic campaign- May herself is a very awkward performer in the spotlight and won't enjoy the next few weeks at all. But it probly won't make much difference :-(

Yeah, I don't want to get my hopes up but she's a car crash campigning-wise, this is obviously why they're trying to get this over as quickly as they can, before anyone realizes.

She is dreadful as a public performer.

It's like when Farage tries to 'smile charmingly and optimistically'.

I guess in fairness I would argue the same for May as I do for Corbyn: it's supposed to be about the policies, not congeniality.

of course I know which policies are still far ahead in the polls, or rather the nebulous belief in policies

it seems important to remember that the obvious awfulness we're laughing at is invisible to the Britain's Got Austerity massif

this is the thread for noting instances of that obvious awfulness and incompetence, if only for our own mental health

brexit/weimar -- WHICH NEEDS A NEW THREAD BTW -- is where we note how awful and incompetent everything else is, inc.seamus milne if/wjhen applicable

nah that's fair but it's the hope that kills

we need a Brelection thread but not starting one on this stupid phone

It's like when Farage tries to 'smile charmingly and optimistically'.

Whenever he does this he looks like he's leering at your wife's cleavage.

he is

Provided your wife isn't British.

Theresa May's charmless incompetence makes me despair even more tbh, just knowing how little the electorate holds it against her (compared to what they've held against Miliband, Corbyn, ABBOTT etc etc)

I mean, with Cameron at least there was that hammy Blairy PR sheen. May is delivering economic disaster with fascist overtones without even any charisma or whatever "likeability" is! The entire appeal of her persona is that headmistressy sternness - the "safe pair of hands" - but everything she actually does, whether pursuing hard Brexit or doing so with pig-headed, religious fervour - completely undermines that. And yet it doesn't!

:(

Compare and contrast May with Corbyn at Brentry children's centre, easy to see who's the more relatable. https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/ec2c46fd80364299bcf321ccab244d5536219fdf/0_136_3500_2100/master/3500.jpg?w=620&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=9c0cea3907162de5c8e0e24a1780a734

Headmistressy severity has an unfortunate history of popularity in this godless country

up until not that long ago, the GBP was largely willing -- sometimes thru gritted teeth -- to outsource their judgment of competence to the "establishment"*

i: mood of GBP is as angrily suspicious of the "establishment" as it's been in my lifetime and probably ever (original peasants' revolt notwithstanding)
ii: the "establishment" as a institutional generator of (and therefore judge of) competence is in fact now very highly corroded
iii: the best real-talk guide to competence is always going to come after the fact (hence is not really particualrly helpful)
iv: we are all -- inc everyone in this thread -- somewhat reduced either to kremlinological inspection of entrails (omigod s/he is bad at picking/running his/her staff) and/or big-brother-style snapshot shortcuts (omigod bacon sandwich, can't engage w/schoolchildren w/o lookin like an alien etc)

*i know this is a woolly stand-in for something more concrete but harder to pin down**: but change -- for example -- in nature of the times over the last two decades, the BBC in the last decade, the telegraph in the last two or three years, plus corrosion of civil service as an institution dense w/expertise all agreed more or less to respect despite grumbling, plus (less immediately but still relevantly i suspect) the mounting disenchantment with e.g. cap-S Science as a space in which politics held only minimal sway, plus the general neoliberal rot with higher ed, plus BANKERS… anyway you see where i'm going maybe, that a largeish if often semi-invisble bunch of ppl you might think are crusty old squares who nevertheless knew something abt how things best got done, are now simply not much acquiesced to, in re what should happen and what alarmingly may happen
**probably another name for it is the TECHNOCRACY -- anyway its day is largely done, its empire toppled, and we all scrabble in the horrible ruins (empires are a bad thing; largely bcz when they fall is often worse)

it's arse-backwards - and the consequences are more dire than good right now but my inner child can't bring itself to regret the passing of that establishment

This is occurring everywhere, so perhaps a Longstanding Global Technocratic Hegemon into the shitbin thread is due

There is the 'is the west experiencing a rightward drift one' but I am not sure that really captures it

feel the title s/b more like "desperately we looked to the grown-ups to step back in and take charge, but the grown-ups was just us, so that was no good"

i don't regret its passing either, but i do think things are going to bumpy before they settle (and i'm well aware they'll be a LOT more bumpy for others than me personally)

"we paged arnold toynbee, we got polly"

Ironically enough I think people having some idea of what "semi-invisible" looks like isn't helping things.

Yes as I approach the age of my management I am sickeningly familiar with that feeling - these people have little applicable experience, no vision or thoughtfulness, just ambition and the sense of entitlement engendered by "putting the time in" and it basically seems to be everywhere and everyone is gradually realizing it

Institutional failures without real consequences for the institutions themselves can only go on so long

actually another route into the wider idea -- put back into my head* by scanning the chapo trap vs west wing thread -- is that a lot of polities have passed from being high-trust to semi-low-trust societies within as little as a generation, and nearly nothing institutional is at work to reverse this

*i had a plan to start a thread about this a few months back, but then had actual stupid work to do and never got round to it

The narrative of 'the grown-ups taking charge' is central to May's message. It feels more like the birth of a different authoritarian technocracy than the death of technocracy itself - still tied to an underlying faith that the market will provide. The same is true of Trump to some extent - the solution to problems is to get 'the best people' to fix them, steamrollering dissent and legal niceties. The civil service (or what is left of it) will still negotiate Brexit, Goldman Sachs heads will still be deferred to on the US economic agenda.

There was a good point made recently that the vision of the UK as a lean, market-oriented Singapore without the humidity always overlooks how interventionist the model of Singaporean authoritarian capitalism (also adopted in part by Russia) actually is. You can have a low tax economy with limited worker's rights, etc, but you probably can't sustain it without the provision of high quality social housing, massive investment in education and public works, etc.

The narrative of 'the grown-ups taking charge' is central to May's message.

@MrHarryCole 6h6 hours ago
Had second old school Tory MP - in all seriousness - refer to the Prime Minister as "mummy" on the phone today. That's twice in a week.

well that's ruined my weekend

"we paged arnold toynbee, we got polly"

TOYNBEE IDEA
IN YEAR 2019
RESURRECT EUROPEAN UNION
ON PLANET JUPITER

Polly/Arnold was beautiful btw and I salute whoever posted that

It does sum up quite succinctly how shite experts are these days!

This thread has been a+ today, but it is also upping my anxiety levels, so I'm going get moderately inebriated and watch Get Out.

surely nothing could soothe jangled nerves more than a screening get out

I'm expecting nothing more than some US fluff pos type horror movie, with ...gasp!.. the revelation that deep within lay secret enclaves of racist white people.

tbh being in the pub reveals the not-very-well-hidden layer of white supremacy pretty well

it can be difficult to get a decent glass of red sometimes, true

if we don't trust "the establishment" anymore then how come theresa may is 20 points clear of everybody else?

Still too much trust in the establishment's press.

Former Sun hypeclown Dylan Sharpe just joined the DWP on 'maternity cover' (as in covering for Mummy May?).

I noticed earlier in the supermarket that the Murdoch tabloid had a Dis-May cover, bemoaning the squeezed white-van man facing tax hikes and no plans to cut overseas aid budget etc. But it seems to have been toned down on the digital edition [the dirty digger snapping his fingers at his minions?].

Mail on Sunday poll has them dropping 10 points after all three recent stories landed. Not sure if that's because the MoS is still sore about Brexit or if they're part of the new "Corbyn could really really win make sure you vote!!!" Lyndon strategy.

LDs have ruled out coalition with both May and Corbyn now

I usually only check this thread on Zing, but does this happen to anybody else

PRO: pseudo-big breasts toppled in the great cull

Other posters said the same up-thread. But this was the quoted old-ilx post which still haunts my thoughts:

I wouldn't mind Theresa May crushing me with her Russell & Bromley stilettos.
― Marcello Carlin, Thursday, November 6, 2003 2:59 PM

The latter, I guess. I fancy Teresa May.
― Alba (Alba), Wednesday, September 15, 2004 3:09 PM

:-(