I believe Thatch was a lightning rod for all those (good list, tim) that wanted to impose their will and could convince herself that it was all her idea. They weren't bothered about taking the credit for a successful implementation, just so long as it actually happened. (and with things like the Poll tax, they could point to the 'fall guy' and say it wasn't me it was her..
Whereas Brexit has so many wearing the "It was me wot wun it" badges..
― Mark G, Monday, 13 August 2018 11:16 (five years ago) link
gove is not and never will be a big beast this is canon
― mark s, Sunday, August 12, 2018 12:49 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2018 11:18 (five years ago) link
Being the son of a teacher; Kenneth Baker is high up is the beastiary. Some of my earliest (possibly misremembered) memories are being taken on baker day marches.
― American Fear of Pranksterism (Ed), Monday, 13 August 2018 11:18 (five years ago) link
*galaxy brain* Rather do one for the Labour Party - need to direct my hate at the people that will try and sabotage the road to socialism.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 13 August 2018 11:19 (five years ago) link
I haven't thought about Councillor Rhodes Boyson (Lab) in a long time. What a weird character.
― Tim, Monday, 13 August 2018 11:22 (five years ago) link
Do it! But bear in mind there are very, very few 'big beasts' in Labour right now
― imago, Monday, 13 August 2018 11:23 (five years ago) link
there was only ever one: https://conradbrunstrom.files.wordpress.com/2015/10/healey.jpg
― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2018 11:26 (five years ago) link
what about The Beast of Bolsover?
― Britain's Sexiest Cow (jed_), Monday, 13 August 2018 11:29 (five years ago) link
I don't think doing a Labour one is going to be very interesting really, just another opportunity to give people the opportunity to say the same things they always say. At least when you're polling the Tories you're polling people who have actually done things.
― Matt DC, Monday, 13 August 2018 11:31 (five years ago) link
I mean unless you're polling Blair, Prescott, Brown etc and no one needs to go over that again.
― Matt DC, Monday, 13 August 2018 11:32 (five years ago) link
Just imagine the vitriol we could pour on Yvette Cooper though
― imago, Monday, 13 August 2018 11:34 (five years ago) link
Yeah I wouldn't do it. We have covered much of that and there'll be lots of opportunity. xp
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 13 August 2018 11:35 (five years ago) link
One if those polls where whoever wins will be the right answer.
Dithering between Bojo, Cameron and Gideon however special mention for May who makes me embarrassed to be a Brit with the Trump hand holding, Grenfell evasiveness and kowtowing to the Royals in the most servile manner possible. That’s before we even get to her dismal handling of the Brexit negotiations.
― Dan Worsley, Monday, 13 August 2018 11:36 (five years ago) link
♬ all small beasts should have bows in their tails ♬
https://i.pinimg.com/236x/b1/0b/10/b10b105e6651bf8cedc96747a0d9baae--moomin-books-moomin-valley.jpg
― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2018 11:38 (five years ago) link
Wondrous discovery of the day is that the no-doubt bestselling book 'British Politics For Dummies' actually has a section on Big Beasts!
― Matt DC, Monday, 13 August 2018 12:16 (five years ago) link
how did you find this out?
― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2018 12:18 (five years ago) link
Here you go
― Matt DC, Monday, 13 August 2018 12:19 (five years ago) link
So it turns out no one is a big beast.
― Alba, Monday, 13 August 2018 12:22 (five years ago) link
Gove would also fail the BPfD big beasts test so we should consider the matter settled.
― Matt DC, Monday, 13 August 2018 12:23 (five years ago) link
as a tru 80s kid i definitely had plenty of hate left in reserve for individual cabinet members
― the Joao looked at Jonny (Noodle Vague), Monday, 13 August 2018 12:29 (five years ago) link
tho tbf i wd've probably used the phrase "Dickensian grotesques" rather than monsters
― the Joao looked at Jonny (Noodle Vague), Monday, 13 August 2018 12:31 (five years ago) link
That would surely have been more accurate but to me at the time they seemed more terrifying and unbeatable than that - particularly in the context of nukes obv.
― Tim, Monday, 13 August 2018 12:49 (five years ago) link
what is the etymology of 'big beasts' used in this particular context? most of the earliest references I can find are to Michael Heseltine and are riffing on the 'tarzan' nickname, but does it go further back?
― soref, Monday, 13 August 2018 12:53 (five years ago) link
I don't know but when I first became aware of the phrase (ISTR in relation to Heseltine but that's not a reliable memory) it always seemed to be prefixed with the word "lumbering".
― Tim, Monday, 13 August 2018 12:56 (five years ago) link
Rhodes-Boyson and Tebbit always reminded me of baddies out of Oliver Twist, these fuckers had their own phenotype
― the Joao looked at Jonny (Noodle Vague), Monday, 13 August 2018 12:56 (five years ago) link
as a tru 80s kid i (...) wd've probably used the phrase "Dickensian grotesques" rather than monsters
https://www.reactiongifs.us/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/nevermind_nathan_fillion.gif
― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2018 12:56 (five years ago) link
precocious 15 year-old literature boy? absolutely
― the Joao looked at Jonny (Noodle Vague), Monday, 13 August 2018 12:57 (five years ago) link
'the political jungle' is obv a metaphor that goes a long way back, but I feel like 'big beasts' is a more recent thing
the UK political jungle circa 1985:
https://i.imgur.com/RyApXH2.png
― soref, Monday, 13 August 2018 12:58 (five years ago) link
also wrote lists of bad puns of their names on the cover of my school rough book
― the Joao looked at Jonny (Noodle Vague), Monday, 13 August 2018 12:59 (five years ago) link
i remember looking this up the first time this discussion was had (discussion = "gove is NOT a big beast how can we nail this down", this = when "big beast" first used in this sense)
sadly i can't remember what i googled or what the conclusion was, and am having no luck now
― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2018 13:04 (five years ago) link
i'm p sure it was used in the 80s tho
― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2018 13:06 (five years ago) link
Partridge's dictionary of slang has the phrase first noted in the year 2000 but that seems to recent to me also.
― Tim, Monday, 13 August 2018 13:12 (five years ago) link
too recent obviously
ok lol i found a mid-60s political usage which involves healey but actually refers to a fighter airplane
― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2018 13:12 (five years ago) link
woot a.j.p.taylor called lloyd george the "big beast of the forest" in English History 1914-1945 pub.1964
― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2018 13:17 (five years ago) link
the forest?!
― ogmor, Monday, 13 August 2018 13:18 (five years ago) link
tho i think he's quoting someone from lloyd george's own day
― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2018 13:19 (five years ago) link
Wilson's cabinet in the 60s was stuffed full of big beasts - I think that put subsequent PMs off the idea for a while.
― Father Ted in Forkhandles (Tom D.), Monday, 13 August 2018 13:20 (five years ago) link
J. C. C. Davidson, former Parliamentary Secretary to Bonar Law until his retirement and serving Stanley Baldwin, President of the Board of Trade, in the same capacity, wrote to me:
10, Barton Street, Westminster, s.w.i My dear Max (e.g. Beaverbrook),
It is no news to you I suspect that Harold R. (Rothermere) spent an hour with the Big Beast (1) at the House on Monday. The enclosed (2) appeared on Tuesday in the Mirror. Funny isn't it?
Yours,
David 23/6/21
1: Lloyd George not a term of derision meaning Big Beast of the Forest. 2: Cutting from Daily Mirror
from: THE DECLINE AND FALL OF LLOYD GEORGE
― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2018 13:28 (five years ago) link
I recently read the Margaret MacMillan book on Paris 1919 and it is full of exquisite character sketches of neocolonialist great power baddies, and the biggest wanker of them all was Lloyd George imo. Not just because he seemed like an overrated big beast and keeps dropping the "n" bomb. Even though he was from a lowly middle class background he seems to have oodles of that insuppressible self belief in his own brilliance, which was something based on some people calling him a wizard!
― calzino, Monday, 13 August 2018 15:23 (five years ago) link
something something quidditch something something hufflepuff
― mark s, Monday, 13 August 2018 15:33 (five years ago) link
There's a continuum of zealotry at play here. I'd place Gove at one end, in that his zealotry appears genuine (though bankrupt), with Osborne not too far from him (zealotry being easier when you suffer no consequences), a gap before Cameron, then a big gap and then May, followed by Johnson. Johnson is obv not a zealot for anything other than his own progress and its transparency is (a) revolting and (b) is weakness. May's lack of zealotry (strong and stable) got her to where she is, but the lack of zealotry gave her (moral?) flexibility to try to make war on human rights simply because HRs made her job as Home Sec harder: she is capable of deliberately making the lives of others harder just to make her own life easier.
― calumerio, Monday, 13 August 2018 17:16 (five years ago) link
Apt from todays Graun
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/43c96c1008cfe3b8facd8a487f1dbff2c1eaefb8/29_76_4793_2877/master/4793.jpg
― lbi's life of limitless european glamour (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 14 August 2018 08:36 (five years ago) link
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/43c96c1008cfe3b8facd8a487f1dbff2c1eaefb8/29_76_4793_2877/master/4793.jpg?w=940&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&s=de89ef567575117d33992e556960b6e3
Rowson's nod to Raymond Biggs still belongs on the UK political cartoons that are bad thread!
― calzino, Tuesday, 14 August 2018 08:50 (five years ago) link
So bad
Can confirm this is true from my time working as a producer for BBC London - he’d always ruffle it right before the camera started rolling. All part of his carefully calculated “loveable rogue” persona which things like that viral tea video let him play up to so well. https://t.co/Xo7ch8IqBu— Jane Bradley (@jane__bradley) August 13, 2018
― Alba, Wednesday, 15 August 2018 14:51 (five years ago) link
i feel if you listed his faults in order of badness from vile evil to hmph this would come right at the "very least evil" end, plus the only reason it's bad at all is bcz that hair is attached to his head
― mark s, Wednesday, 15 August 2018 14:56 (five years ago) link
I once watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in the same Screen on the Green screening as him. I'd like to report that he was making racist jokes throughout but I was sitting too far away to hear.
― Alba, Wednesday, 15 August 2018 15:20 (five years ago) link
Whose wife was he with?
― Scottish Country Twerking (Tom D.), Wednesday, 15 August 2018 15:45 (five years ago) link
the crew of 'the last leg' said exactly the same thing on last Fridays show re boris and his hair before he went on.
― mark e, Wednesday, 15 August 2018 15:49 (five years ago) link