Seizing back control: The ILX lol brexit is how we're all gonna die thread.

i think gove should be encouraged to experiment much more with electrical appliances and water.

That story was reported in an old Popbitch mailout but rather differently:

”Not my story, but impeccably sourced. Sarah Vine tells of returning home one evening to hear the noise of the hoover upstairs. Puzzled, she went up to discover the sound was coming from the bathroom, accompanied by grunts and moans.

Fearing deviancy, vaseline and amyl-soaked satsumas, she swung the door open to reveal the then Secretary of State for Education,
Michael Gove, forlornly trying to slurp up an enormous, unflushable turd with the crevice wand."

OK, I'd never heard of a crevice wand till right now.

”Michael Gove, forlornly trying to slurp up an enormous, unflushable turd...”

A dozen Tory MPs who voted remain are on deselection hitlist drawn up by hardline Brexiteers who have launched a campaign of “entryism” to make the Conservative Party more Eurosceptic.

A leaked document, seen by this newspaper, shows that the former universities minister Sam Gyimah, who dropped out of the Tory leadership race this month, is set to become the latest victim of the Blue Wave campaign led by Arron Banks, the businessman who helped fund the leave campaign.

According to the leaked document drawn up by Banks’s Leave.EU campaign group, the number of constituency party members who have signed a petition requesting a special general meeting is “very near” the 50 required to trigger a no-confidence motion in Gyimah. Some 44 members of the business secretary Greg Clark’s local Tory association have also signed a petition, according to the document.

Petitions are being circulated against the Tory chairman, Brandon Lewis, Amber Rudd, the work and pensions secretary, Claire Perry, the energy minister, Tobias Ellwood, the defence minister, and the former frontbenchers Oliver Letwin, Guto Bebb and Richard Harrington.

Since March last year, the number of Conservative party members has increased by 36,000 to more than 160,000. The party puts the rise down to a successful recruitment campaign.

Hunt might as well give up already.

keeping up this tiresome pretense of a competition that features scrutiny of the candidates is a complete waste of time.

I'm not sure where you're coming from there - Hunt's had a better weekend than he could have imagined and he hasn't had to lift a finger.

Maybe he can get his loss down to single figures through all this sure.

130000 new members, possibly a very large portion of which are UKIP/brexit party entryists - never mind the polls- a former 2nd ref stanner vs boris is going to massively lose.

His best hope is that he gets close enough to have a second bite of the cherry when Johnson's government collapses, which might happen soon.

Some tory member at the hustings yesterday " hunt is just simply may in trousers"

but but but

Hunt's had a better weekend than he could have imagined and he hasn't had to lift a finger.

― Andrew Farrell

I'll take a conspiracy theory that Boris staged it because he wants out and cba - but Hunt is going to need way more than this weekends drama to help him. I don't know its even helped him one iota

130k was the number of new Labour members barred 3 years ago - it would also double the size of the Tory party! The numbers I've seen are 36k up, to 160k.

I mean, I'm not disagreeing that the odds are against him - they were against everyone not called Boris - but since he's in this race, the only way he'd get any traction would be for Boris to fuck up, and for the fuck up to appear on the front page of all the newspapers, including the Telegraph - which is what's happened.

Has he fucked up though, in the eyes of the members? Even if that were true, enough to shift their vote to Hunt? Strong backers of A), shift their vote to previously underwhelming B), on the basis of one weekends headlines?

At a push, I can see "well I like Boris but if his eye isn't on the ball it might be best to have someone more stable" but other than that why would any of them change their mind?

I doubt this will make a serious dent in his odds. Besides, it can easily be spun as a case of 'PC culture gone haywire'.

when asked about the thursday night domestic, one female member at the hustings said something like "the whole incident is just a complete confection". Just one example but I feel like even he was caught committing GBH or his stash of bestial porn was found, a lot of his supporters would be dismissing it as an establishment fit up job. yeah i know he is establishment - but i don't make the new orthodoxy up!

I think it makes him more likely to win, not less

if only Gove could have got to the final 2. He wouldn't have beat him, but it would have been funny to see his shit filled vacuum cleaner story was on the front page of the telegraph.

I don’t think it affects his chances much either way as Hunt is so useless but I reckon there’ll be a fair proportion of the Tory membership it’ll sit ill with. Having a violent argument with your parter is no problem, having a violent argument the neighbours can hear is terribly vulgar. I get the sense that the Tories being perceived as undignified matters a lot more to the rank and file than being painted as cruel ever will.

Johnson's more a 'just reach in and grab the damn thing' man. In such game recognise unflushable game situations that's what they want at the negotiation table.

The tape exists. Not sure it would make enough difference if it came out but it would make more of a difference.

Would the Guardian have any reason to withhold it, other than timing?

they'll have to a meeting with their MI5 bosses before publishing it.

anything that might be an impediment to getting boris into no.10 is a national security issue tbf.

Things have deteriorated so far that Liam Fox is now one of the adults. https://t.co/0LAu3EV78m

— Ian Dunt (@IanDunt) June 23, 2019

lol this melt has taken the "adults in the room" meme to oblivion here!

The tape exists. Not sure it would make enough difference if it came out but it would make more of a difference.

It could make a major difference depending on how angry/aggressive Johnson sounds and how scared or distressed Symonds sounds. If it's really bad, and there's no reason to believe it isn't, then Johnson could become electoral Kryptonite overnight, assuming he isn't already.

More generally there is a significant anyone-but-Boris grouping among rank and file Tories, I suspect it's outnumbered several times over by the group who will vote for him regardless. But at some point a light is going to come on even among the dimmest Tory members, like one of those pilot fish that lives at the bottom of the sea. In terms of getting the Brexit they want, if Johnson is starting to look like a hindrance they might abandon him and opt to take their chances on Gove vs Hunt instead.

But at some point a light is going to come on even among the dimmest Tory members

citation needed :-/

I mean the alternative is that they all just double down and go "only snowflakes really care about this" but the release of the tape is going to make it harder to write apologist fanfic about it in their heads.

I am not, just in case it's really unclear, saying "that it's, Hunt's won" - but the scenarios where Hunt wins are ones in which this runs and runs, or there's another fuckup next week, and Boris continues to handle it badly (not taking any questions about it all yesterday was a small gift to Hunt, too)

https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/06/this-tape-will-always-threaten-boris-johnson/

no sleep till the party conference in manchester

https://i.imgur.com/igmHQz7.jpg

That's actually a good point that the person who made the recording could just put it on the internet regardless of what The Guardian does.

There's plenty of Tories who can't stand Boris and plenty of those are going to be holding their noses and voting for him because they think he's their best hope of winning them a General Election - and that's really what they care about most. They will drop him like the proverbial hot potato if his electability looks to be in doubt.

not sure why they think he’s electable (good clip on ridge today from edinburgh where they couldn’t find a single person with a good thing to say about him). but tory membership you do you suppose

by contrast:

Hunt also sipped from a can of Irn Bru which he described as ‘very pleasant’ pic.twitter.com/wh3FQDdDxc

— Lucy Christie (@LucyChristiePA) June 23, 2019

"Find me somewhere that sells deep fried Mars Bars"
"What, in Surbiton?"

What happens if Boris were to pull out? very unlikely yes, but does it just go to Hunt? or does Gove come back into the running?

Kezia Dugdale once took pity on me, thrust an Irn Bru into Jeremy Corbyn's hands, and sent me the photos. For that I'll always be thankful. pic.twitter.com/eYJNuxXwgS

— Jamie Ross (@JamieRoss7) August 29, 2017

Get him a tin of Tesco own brand baked beans, a tin opener and a fork and he's in heaven

I think when Andrea Leadsom pulled out then Gove was offered the chance to contest May and declined.

I’d imagine that the feelings of Symonds herself might factor into the Guardian not publishing it. If abuse took place that night, then what is likely to be something painful to her has been released to anyone in the world to listen to and comment on.

It doesn’t actually matter if the tape is her crying and not sounding angry at all, btw - Boris’s defenders will cast him as the victim somehow. I mean, the same people were out there sayinh the Greenpeace protestor deserved everything she got.

Former Tory MP Chris Davies will fight to regain seat
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-48736879

waht. death cult with a death wish is it

He will probably win. He has a comparatively large majority and the backing of both leadership contenders.

Recall him again, go on voters.

you can get 6/1 on that if you think he can win

make a convincing case for it and I'm in!

I'll stick a tenner on it, for sure.

He got nearly 50% of the vote last time with the Lib Dems in second place on 28% or something. In a slightly leave-leaning constituency, i am not sure that i see the Lib Dems winning unless Labour and the Greece decide not to contest the seat. The Brexit Party almost certainly can't win - all they can do is hand the Lib Dems another MP, so i am not sure whether that works in their favour.

More broadly, the senior leadership is fully behind him and his crime was so ridiculously petty, i'm not sure how many people will be that worked up about it, over and above the 10k who signed the petition and who weren't going to vote for him anyway, i'd imagine.

If Labour doesn't contest it and the Brexit Party does, i think he's toast but, otherwise, he'll probably be fine.

*Greens