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

feat.pundit accountability now: EAT THE BOOK

actually let's start with this thread, on the fact that powersharing has collapsed in NI

It's important not to let the DUP's general grossness overshadow just what a colossally irresponsible move this is from TM. It's INSANE.

— Jack Bernhardt (@jackbern23) June 9, 2017

Bookmarked, stoked for the madness to come.

Owen Patterson apparently suggested there would be a vote on restricting abortion time limits in return for DUP support on R4 this morning.

Though he isn't a minister iirc and might just be talking out of his hat.

I was going to go with 'Lame duck a l'orange - UK politics in the comedy clown car era' but this works as well.

Nick Timothy, the prime minister’s joint chief of staff, used to love reminding people what a hierarchy was and how it worked. If No 10 was run like a business, he would do well to remember that the customer is always right.

And the customer has spoken — a hierarchy bigger than Nick, bigger than the prime minister. At the top of the chain sit the people who put you there in the first place — the electorate. I have written before about a whiff of arrogance emanating from No 10. It turns out the public couldn’t just detect a whiff, the place bloody well stank.

If you run a presidential style campaign with a woman who doesn’t like media interviews, then you have to accept that it’s better to do them and run the risk that they go badly than look like you are running scared.

suspect murdoch may be a bit cross with his creature-as-was

The Times can generally say what it wants (it backed Remain after all) but The Sun has do his bidding. There are reports of Murdoch having stormed out of the room when he saw the exit poll though.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQz573JCZwzL2DPiHp-nVif5DjzD5caFC1psntEaiIvWZvcyViP
Murdoch since he saw the exit poll.

shame he wasn't the priest that gets the drain geyser up his cassock

There's an article in the Telegraph talking about who will and won't be axed in the Cabinet reshuffle but she surely isn't strong enough to risk making any troublesome enemies at this stage? Will there be DUP representatives in the Cabinet? How does that even work.

i believe troublesome enemy no.1 the disgraced dr liam fox has himself refused to be part of her continued shitshower

Would be lolz if the DUP insisted on Arlene Foster being made Deputy Prime Minister. In fact, the DUP could have so much fun with this, if they believed in fun.

the DUP's idea of fun? erm.. kneeling on broken glass or something.

pic.twitter.com/nJhqsHalY3

— 346 days till OrbDay (@WildBilbo) June 9, 2017

Oliver Duggan suspects the abortion quote is nonsense - which would match my understanding that the DUP dgaf about anything much outside NI.

Fact check: Owen Paterson (not a minister) said "You might get a debate on further reduction of abortion times as medical science advances." https://t.co/7lYdFWp9Pf

— Oliver Duggan (@OliDuggan) June 10, 2017

It's incredible how quickly Prime Ministerial authority seems to evaporate - literally overnight in the case of Thatcher, Major, Brown, Cameron and now May. Cameron at least had the good sense to know when his time was up and shoot himself in the head quickly, but I'm guessing May has taken a long look and decided she'd rather be John Major instead.

I think May's authority was very illusionary for the last few weeks, but before election night it was just about still there .. and then it's gone in a flash!

Tory breakdown with Lab figures in brackets.

18-24 2% (9%)
25-34 7% (19%)
35-44 11% (20%)
45-54 18% (18%)
55-64 24% (18%)
65+ 38% (16%)

— Anthony Painter (@anthonypainter) June 10, 2017

Judging by this, you'd have to assume that a) Tory support in modern Britain probably peaked in 2015, and b) they're about to crash headlong into a demographic ravine without a major change in direction.

xp

yeah, it's the difference between obviously playing a shocker but getting a tiny win anyway and playing a shocker and being held to a no goals draw by non-league opposition

"a tidy win"

still in two competitions, lets just focus on the big european match coming up

Squeaking back into government humiliated with the backing of a far-right fringe group is like a trophy really.

I noticed that some of the historical Blasphemy acts were only abolished in '08, there might be some "fun" times ahead.

I'm sure there's a millwall joke in there somewhere xp

Judging by this, you'd have to assume that a) Tory support in modern Britain probably peaked in 2015, and b) they're about to crash headlong into a demographic ravine without a major change in direction.

Thatcherkids don't seem very fond of the Conservative Party.

We're living through strange times.

Brought my kids to football practice in Islington this morning and I have to confess I wasn't expecting this... pic.twitter.com/Fc5BhgPGot

— Giles Coren (@gilescoren) June 10, 2017

"For the first time, more than half of MPs elected to the House of Commons were educated in state comprehensive schools" (sutton trust via the guardian)

Chris Leslie on #r4today making the salient point that Labour still ended up with nearly 60 seats less than the Conservatives. #GE2017

This is astonishing - this cunt should be grateful!

this belongs in the old -- soon to closed? thread really, but

i call this painting "MONEY WELL SPENT"
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DB4Q80gXsAA8jIR.jpg:large

keep thinking back to the interview the second biggest boy gave after the brexit vote where he all but said labour were now on an election footing. you could see it from the easter flurry of policy announcements, which were v well handled. while our credulous media were blindsided by the snap election call, team jez seemed very well prepared and up for the fight. striking that the other day when asked about the election, he said we're going to win... now, we can quibble abt the meaning of win all you like but when he said it I believed he believed it.

"very next generation realized the stakes and spoke up"

the absolute non-boy flubs doge-speak and anyway it's all abt melt-speak these days

Wow. So good Labour stronger. So good Brutal Brexit rejected. So good next generation realized the stakes and spoke up.

— David Miliband (@DMiliband) June 9, 2017

Chris Leslie share went from 50 - 70%. Sorry you won't have a career in the shadow cabinet, now will you kindly fuck off.

There you go:

Low Value Person‏ @Mc_Heckin_Duff 2h

Even now it's fragile. We still don't know that the 13M voters who turned up this time will show up next time.
1 reply . 2 retweets 11 likes
Low Value Person‏ @Mc_Heckin_Duff 2h

But you work on trying to make it 16M, don't just say 13M wasn't bloody good enough ffs.

I'm still going to need a translation for 'second biggest boy'.

Ok. You win. I will be eating my book on Sky News at 4.30pm.

— Matthew Goodwin (@GoodwinMJ) June 10, 2017

^^^smallest boy

reading on FB that may in fact tried to resign yesterday and the tory grandees said "no, you go in the autumn, you're not scuttling away like yr predecessor"

so are the grandees still genuinely a thing? it was good nasty internal party-politicking that did for thatcher, not grandees

story is in the sun, i won't link it -- i suspect it these days just means "ppl in the party you've heard of", rather than an inner cabal of men in grey suits with direct links to bilderburg and/or the illuminati

more searching that me that iain duncan smith is considered a grandee by some -- this reminds me of tom ewing's pinned tweet of a while back "michael gove is not a big beast"

Nick Timothy (co-chief of staff) has resigned..

I would wait and see if she is still leader by Tuesday. The big all-MP meeting to deal with recriminations is Monday morning and polling suggests she has already lost most of the grass roots members.

She's lost the dressing room.

Fiona Hill has gone too

reading on FB that may in fact tried to resign yesterday and the tory grandees said "no, you go in the autumn, you're not scuttling away like yr predecessor"

these grandees sound scary. makes me think of the republican party meeting in the simpsons, with sideshow bob.

always a worry if they replace her they'll get a dead-eyed cat bounce in the polls

What are the chances of any sort of a dcam return after say a three, four year period

only in the guise of george i'd have thought

No way, he was never interested in politics in the first place.

i think he's quit for good

i have also (reluctantly) given up on my michael portillo long game theory

I think we've seen over the last few years that even if you're struggling things can always get worse. A lot hinges who gets the blame when they do.

By 2049 Britain will grow its own bananas, picked by robots and yours for just £38 a bunch.

Yeah, NFU was pro-remain, but most farmers for leave. Read that Meek piece at the time- this exchange sticks in the mind:

As I was leaving he told me I’d forgotten to ask a question.

‘What?’

‘Which way I’m going to vote in the referendum.’

‘Which way are you going to vote?’ He’d already told me that post-Brexit the fight to control the countryside would intensify.

‘Out.’

‘Why?’

‘It’d be bad for farming, but there are some things more important than farming.’

‘What things?’ He wouldn’t say.

not to get too mark fisher abt this (since apparently actual real ilxors readily confuse me with him as it is) but modern capitalism has been tremendously effective at persuading people to internalise the blame for the bad life situations they find themselves in (which emerges ether as depression or or other mental health issues, or else as barely controllable displaced rage)

been re-reading Capitalist Realism lately because v true but horrible when you know how it ends

also telling other people that depression is systemic gets you a lot of blank looks

yes that's a colossal hill for people to climb -- our individual responsibility for health and for success in life is the lesson we've had hammered home all our lives

i mean, any systemic explanation is a colossal hill: i've been thinking all morning how a wide programme of education could -- over many years -- have given people a better sense of the interconnectedness of the global economy, and how small britain is and how dependent on the good will of others, its neighbours especially… and that if this had been attempted, then the often understandable impulse behind "we voted for brexit and brexit means brexit" would (could) have been channeled elsewhere

but imagine the political will and focus required to establish such a programme, and all the things working against it (including rival and well funded economic worldviews that would also demand equal time in the class room)

my dad grew up in the era of pink maps and whatever socialist impulses he had where always at odds with his sense of the English as a chosen people. the educational system worked in the exact opposite direction to what you're describing for a lot of the twentieth century and any hope of a realignment got squished by Gove when he was trolling the NUT for fun

someone -- i think one actually of the novara mob -- said that if the #resistance #remainers actually want to win the second referendum they are so busily calling for, they very much need to get boots on the ground the way momentum has, except many of them despise momentum and want to win the argument by media shortcuts (bcz they are media ppl) or just a kind of trust in the vagaries of polls ("50.001% are now anti-brexit! hold the second referendum right now and all will be normal again!")

(reversion-to-the-mean yes, things do tend to swing back from extreme -- except but are you sure you know where the mean actually is now? it may actually be somewhere really dislikeable, in which case we have a LOT of political work on our hands and our models shd be those who undertook such kong-haul work in very dismal circs)

brb setting up a small company that offers "kong-haul work in dismal circs"

We can see that "May has to go". What replaces her?

I reckon (I know centrist me) that May can threaten the backbenchers with her resignation and a call for a general election. The only option is to hang on and hope things will change.

The only real option is to let the whole balance of the government shatter and the pieces fall where they will. Something needs to happen to break all this Tory false unity.

want to win the argument by media shortcuts (bcz they are media ppl) or just a kind of trust in the vagaries of polls ("50.001% are now anti-brexit! hold the second referendum right now and all will be normal again!")

This shit drives me mad, also the Clegg interview in the Guardian last weekened where he was calling for Tory rebels to rise up. There's a real sense of 'stop Brexit, job done' about it all that is completely at odds with reality. I'd guess that actual Momentum is Remain by a comfortable majority in any case.

slugger o'toole on the problems the DUP are creating for themselves:
https://sluggerotoole.com/2017/12/04/can-the-dup-square-all-its-circles-before-time-runs-out/

ps my own rushed-to-the-presses book on this entire story is going to be called the time of the fractal zugzwang, kickstarter to follow

what seems to have eluded all the Remoanist Dads is the sheer political difficulty of getting a second referendum - if they seriously think that Article 50 can be averted they'd be much better off trying to create a groundswell demand for that rather than relying on technicalities and a naive belief that the numbers will pan out differently - nobody's selling much of a case to the non-believers

can't sell much of a case to the turkey that votes for christmas

Had enough of Centrist Dads and similar insisting Corbyn secretly voted Leave when he’s said why he chose Remain, especially when GFA hinges on borderless travel and trade between NI and RoI.

may going and the tories shattering are the same, i think: this is what she holds over them and it works until it stops working (i've been using the word "brittle" to describe her position for over a year -- at some point you have to acknowledge that she's also located an implausible seam of resilience, but i do think that *any* decision publicly made that can't be cloaked in absolute ambiguity of interpretation is a step away from this seam)

can't sell much of a case to the turkey that votes for christmas

ok, but this is nonetheless the selling that is necessary, there isn't a magic route round the xmas-bloc turkey

gradually i am working towards the most mixed metaphor in history, maybe that will be our salvation

if they seriously think that Article 50 can be averted they'd be much better off trying to create a groundswell demand for that rather than relying on technicalities and a naive belief that the numbers will pan out differently

This is true, although I suspect the main point of difference the second time would be a higher turnout among the young, which could make a non-negligible difference. But nothing lasting can be done without an intensive and co-ordinated attempt to change public opinion at ground level. The last election showed that can be done, and that it's dangerous to rely on what you *think* people thought last time round.

It certainly won't be done by waving a copy of the New European and banging on about how stupid people are on Twitter.

yeah i think they probably could win it on a second referendum but without turning some hearts and minds a 52-48 in the other direction would be a trainwreck

Just talked to a load of 17yos about media/politics. The future is: None of them ever bought a paper, only half on Facebook which is "for parents", Twitter is "boring", all love Snapchat (especially the Economist's page!), largely care about tuition fees & Tories hating animals.

— Jim Waterson (@jimwaterson) December 5, 2017

ok, but this is nonetheless the selling that is necessary, there isn't a magic route round the xmas-bloc turkey

agree, but it doesn't seem like something that can be done briefly or for the purpose of a referendum, even if you carried a new referendum. when people start talking about how to address this issue it reminds me of the post-mortems when england get knocked out of the world cup.

(especially the Economist's page!)

This is a trap street, yes?

agree to this yes (except i have no idea what the world cup is obv) -- i think we're in for the long hard haul either way

xp jim w = political editor at buzzfeed, in itself a "jetpack made of alien cheese" kind of a concept

Agree with that xps. It's everything and nothing in terms of reasons why.

There are too many different camps (all increasingly at odds with each other) within Leave to have to tailor an argument just for the purposes of winning a second referendum by a larger margin than 52%.

xps probably underrated how much of a driver for anti-tory votes animal rights stuff is.

it does seem like electoral reform could go a long way to provoking some meaningful change - the two parties contain multitudes of views that go too far along the political spectrum - a system which reduced their power and increased the chances of coalition, and led to more parties cropping up, would probably be good. but we've prob seen in recent years the strange suspicion of coalitions that exists in the uk and the perception that they are weak or a sign of a decadent state or whatever.

True, but also closet Tories/blueish-greens are big fans of OMG look what they’ve done to the elephants shares on social media (most of the women I know like this post little else).

I can handle the idea of a Buzzfeed political editor, it's Jim W who's the alien cheese

A political writer I follow was noting during the animal sentience nonsense that, despite being nonsense, it turned up all over their twitter feed, from people who have no other noticeable political opinions.

LocalGarda completely otm up and down that post.

this thread is quite long: wondering if a new one ("the day after the deadline" usw) makes sense?

during the election campaign, when May came out with her pro-foxhunting stance, the strength of the reaction- and more importantly the people doing the reacting, first made me suspect that something was happening here and I didn't know what it was, do I, Mr Jones

we wouldn't be in this shitheap if cameron didn't have to straddle positions so wildly opposed to each other that it caused the trousers of the country, entrusted to him as pm, to split.

xpost

who do ppl think is going to bring about this electoral reform, and how?

Labour could have done it after 2005, from a position of strength, having won a majority off 35% of the vote. But lol @ Blair or Brown giving a fuck

well yeah - another case of turkeys voting for christmas - however these turkeys are wilier.

xpost

xp I realise that is not exactly answering ur question

i'd like to add a "having gorged themselves on the organic feed of power" to my last metaphor pls

A few DUP ppl rt-ing Ruth Davidson's statement on the negotiations.

nu-thread iftyou want, inc."provocative: opening question to ignore:
the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

We had a referendum on it! Reversing two referenda would be a neat trick.

britons care about animals. only need to see the reaction to the tories don’t think animals are sentient meme to appreciate this. there was a tory media blitz the day after that all kicked off online

They care about animals, it's disabled people they hate.

A lot of leavers I know/have read online, seem to have reduced their argument to 'the fishermen!' and a vague notion of sovereignty.

so davis thinks that a non-customs-union, non-single-market "regulatory alignment" with the EU is going to let ireland swerve around the border issue? hmm

A NEW THREAD EXISTS PEOPLE

lol soz

here: the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

non-www link: the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions