Rolling Brexit Links/UK politics in the neo-Weimar era

Definite Norwegian flag vibe to the Tory one.

Icelandic more than Norgie, but yeah.

Haha you're right, minus points for me on Nordic flag knowledge.

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/hillsborough-investigators-say-paul-nuttall-12635738

Nuttall apparently gave a witness statement to police investigating the Hillsborough disaster yesterday. Hypothetically, if it did come out that he wasn't present at the stadium on the day, and he'd lied to the police about it, he'd have committed a criminal offence, yes?

For the first time the UKIP leader publically criticised UKIP donor Mr Banks for tweets he wrote last week in which he said he was “sick to death” of hearing about the tragedy and accused campaigners of “milking it.”

Although the flustered Bootle native appeared to initially back the comments, before he was corrected by the radio host.

Mr Nuttall said: “I condone what he said,” before asked by Mr Campbell if he meant “condemn?”

Mr Nuttall added: “Yes, sorry, I condemn what he said.”

I support Paul Nuttall's campaign to run in every by-election until he's elected.

electrocuted?

In contrast, the Stoke market has been all over the place and it is easy to envisage plenty of volatility in the closing stages. Favouritism has switched three times between Labour and UKIP but, while they remain the market leaders at 1.64 and 3.50 respectively, we have just witnessed a massive move for the Tories, in from 130.00 to just 9.00.

There has been a bit of money for Tory-boy (50's to 8/1), unsurprisingly Nutall has drifted out and Labour are Odds on now. I wish I'd had a nibble at that 50/1 they were quoting last week now.

...or even 129/1 on Betfair.

Yeah, tories are dark horses in stoke I think, if Nuttall's clowning has harmed him at all (far from certain), it's going to result in would be kippers either staying home or voting tory, not switching votes to labour. Labour is just not going to win kippers back on a large scale, I would suggest it stops fantasizing along these lines.

we live in a world where stupidity equals authenticity - let the dice fall where they may

What is Tony trying to tell us in the photo accompanying this article?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/02/22/tony-blair-accuses-tories-agreeing-20million-payments-guantanamo/

1+1=3

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/22/tom-watson-given-500k-in-donations-by-max-mosley-in-past-year

This is all so grubby.

taking fat donations from the son of Oswald who wants to game the free press is pretty grubby, but I wouldn't expect any better from Watson or Labour.

It looks like I agree with The Sun on Mosley - I hate it when that happens.

It looks like there has been an astonishing drop in the number of international students according to the new ONS data. China has fallen as well, which had propped up all the other countries we've been alienating over the last few years.

presumably empty rooms in student castles and nidos will be made available to uk-born homeless people

I appreciate those John Harris clips where he talks to locals but the Stoke one is particularly depressing.

By-election too depressing to bump tbh. UKIP still can't get its leader elected though hurrah

What u all make of this:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/24/stoke-copeland-labour-remain-richmond-copeland-ukip

Specifically the bit about implications of Snell being a Remainer?

They didn't lose in Cumbria for being insufficiently Remainy but god bless the Graun and all who sail on her

It is John Curtice though, he's more reliable than most.

Jeremy Corbyn: Theresa May's attempt to divide the UK over Brexit shows she does not love her country

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/jeremy-corbyn/news/83604/jeremy-corbyn-theresa-mays-attempt

this "progressive patriotism" idea that the left should try to convince voters that Labour are the *real* patriots/that the Tories and UKIP are insufficiently patriotic - it just seems a self evidently terrible concept on every level? "questioning your opponents loyalty to the country" is not a battleground that Labour is ever going to win on, even without someone like Corbyn as leader.

Frank Field was just on the R4 money program talking about a yellow card system rather than instant benefits sanctions and targeting them at the "scallywags" rather than the more worthy [sic] "I, Daniel Bells".

When slimeballs like Field are using a Loach film character as an archetype of deserving poor to pit or compare against the undeserving poor it almost makes me glad Labour are completely fucked tbh

Might do well to replace 'country' with 'society' in a lot of this otherwise meaningless talk, if only to see how the jingoists react to it.

this "progressive patriotism" idea that the left should try to convince voters that Labour are the *real* patriots/that the Tories and UKIP are insufficiently patriotic - it just seems a self evidently terrible concept on every level? "questioning your opponents loyalty to the country" is not a battleground that Labour is ever going to win on, even without someone like Corbyn as leader

More on nationalism:

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/sadiq-khan-sparks-huge-row-by-likening-sottish-nationalism-to-racism-a3475926.html

Lots of very predictable "who does this London Muslim cunt think he is?" replies on Facebook.

Ellie on Corbyn is good https://medium.com/@MissEllieMae/how-do-you-solve-a-problem-like-corbyn-aafe32418dcf#.gcdd7zkhm

meanwhile this, casually tweeted out by someone on the 2005 Tory campaign, seems...important

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C5oS8zCWMAA609r.jpg

don't want a fire, don't play with matches, cunt.

That E-M blog post is excellent and pretty much mirrors my thoughts at this stage, especially the part about how lackadaisical Corbyn seems a lot of the time, but honestly I'm not sure there's any way forward that involves him being at the helm at this stage. I'm guessing he'll hang on until conference season and resign shortly after that, but who even knows any more.

even the fully automated luxury communo-corbynista mob clustered round novara are evidently teeth-grittedly frustrated at self-inflected obstacles now, cheery-optimism-of-the-will faces notwithstanding

Thus, the only way someone else could take the leadership is if Corbyn was to step down and endorse him or her. The people who have Corbyn’s ear don’t seem to want this to happen — in fact some of them seem to be living in an alternate reality where everything is going according to plan

this was the impression I had been getting from the outside, depressing to see someone who has some level of direct contact with these people concur.

I'm becoming more convinced that the most likely outcome of all this is a scenario where Corbyn limps on/ leads Labour into a 2020 general election/ the party suffers its worst result since the 1930s/ in the aftermath there is a split on the left between those who want Corbyn to step down and die-hards think he can remain as leader/ when he inevitably goes there is no clear successor from the left to unite behind, all the possible candidates will be tainted either by association with this crushing defeat, or by being seen as "traitors" if they have tried to get Corbyn to resign (or both)/ a rightwing candidate wins the leadership and it's back to Blairite business as usual (with the long term issues causing the parties decline continuing)

there is also part of me that thinks- if Corbyn did by some twist of fate actually end up becoming prime minister, can you imagine how bad he's be at it? all of the embarrassing incompetence of the last 18 months but x 100000

Embarrassing incompetence? The Prime Minister??!

3 of JC's erstwhile media / online supporters - O'Hagan, Jones, Mason - have all now indicated that they don't think he should lead Labour into 2020 GE.

That seems a relevant straw in the wind, though I can imagine it possible that an in-house team around JC also takes a different view.

The idea of JC stepping down before 2020 and letting new generation come through is not really a new one. I think for Jones and perhaps even Mason it was always part of the plan.

Out of all these scenarios how much worse or better would a split in labour be? Trying to paper over the cracks doesn't seem to be any good in short nor long term regardless.

https://twitter.com/OwenSmith_MP/status/836182026709577728

Meanwhile in Ukraine
http://ichef-1.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/10A11/production/_94831186_16807080_1779239122102186_3709589703657348040_n.jpg

xxp I don't see how it makes a difference, the country is miles off being prepared to elect a left of centre gov, this is all deckchairs on the titanic

“I do my best to reach out to people,” Corbyn said, before criticising reporting of his party and leadership: “Clearly persuading our wonderful media in Britain to report what we say on policy will be a big achievement and that we’re working on.”

Trumped up Jezza :/ sorta OTM but still

This is McDonnell's blog post:

http://labourbriefing.squarespace.com/home/2017/2/26/the-soft-coup-is-under-way

buried in that mcdonnell post is an implicit admission that hiring s.milne away from the guardian was a blunder (and would have been even if milne were actually any good at the job he's been hired to do, which he really isn''t) -- at the paper he had tenure and significant command of a platform

half-minded to argue that the guardian's seamless editorial hostility to JC is as much as anything enacted in revenge for how SM had been in meetings for the last however many years (not that i know anything about this: it's possible that he's a charming sweetheart that one and all love… but i somehow doubt it)

Going full-on apocalypse over Copeland: http://publicpolicypast.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/what-is-meaning-of-copeland-and-stoke.html

"thumping marmalisation" -- actually quite like this phrase, but i'm afraid it belongs in a children's book (possibly a very good one)

i: i don't think the plotters are in fact imaginary or even -- given blair's and mandelson's recent interventions -- particularly secret (though they have now realised they can't win the argument via the party's democratic procedures, hence, well, plotting…)
ii: "bargain basement tax haven" actually seems a pretty good four-word description of the "let's model ourselves on singapore" project (tho yes, more work maybe needs doing on explaining to C2DE why this will be so catastrophic for them)

a better class of gloom can be found here, maybe (from two labour members who both actually campaigned in stoke)
https://gapingsilence.wordpress.com/2017/02/26/trust-i-can-rely-on
http://averypublicsociologist.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/labour-and-insecurity.html

They had a phenomenally good night, not only taking Copeland for the first time since the 1930s (above), but blunting the United Kingdom Independence Party's challenge in Stoke too.

What a pathetic 'not only but also'.

All democrats - all citizens who believe in a viable multi-party system, and in good governance - should listen. Heed the warning, before it's too late.

helps when those multi-parties have actual policy differences to distinguish them i'd've thought

"good governance" reeks of lol centrism