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

Kinder gentler FBPE twitter going hard on Labour’s polling dropping. It’s not that polls are sacrosanct but I don’t understand how Tory support is still so high?

Granted, nothing but talking has actually happened yet, but still.

Gammonization. What is FPBE?

The Centrist Borg.

Check out the response to any Corbyn tweet and you’ll see them. Doesn’t matter what he’s talking about.

It’s not that polls are sacrosanct but I don’t understand how Tory support is still so high?

Not just still so high, but actually seems to have risen (albeit slightly) in almost all the recent polls. Even if the 'still so high' bit is due to people obstinately refusing to change their minds, what on earth has happened in the last couple of weeks or so to make their support actually go up?

Labour have revealed their true colours bullying that poor woman out of a job

The last aggregator I saw was from two days ago and had Labour about a point ahead in the polls on average. The only really significant event in the last few days has been the next stage in the UKIP implosion which I guess would benefit the Tories more than Labour at this stage, even if the numbers we're talking about are too small to make that much of a difference.

There are probably enough committed Brexiters, anti-Corbynites and die-hard Tory voters to keep their support around 40% whatever happens, at least until Britain actually leaves the EU.

it does Labour no harm to be away from centre stage at the moment while the Tories murder each other, I wouldn't worry until we get into another "election in the offing" situation

gammon, a knuckle-dragging Faragiste xenophobe, is definitely the slang of the year so far. Comes from the flesh-tone of pressured blood, but there's surely a link to the early 19C criminal sense, at least as the target of the transitive verb: pic.twitter.com/M7p2gVXzfU

— Jonathon Green (@MisterSlang) February 8, 2018

(JG is the great lexicographer of british slang ancient and modern: also a very sweet guy)

wow!

(Did ILXors coin ‘gammon’ or...)

i am currently staying in a mid-level hotel in fuerteventura with a bunch of other brits and the gammon levels are dangerously high

overheard a couple of cockney-sounding retired oil-business types talking at dinner last night about how well-travelled they were but they both agreed they’d never travel to ‘muslim countries’ nowadays

oh and one of them had never been to scotland

can't remember if deep fried everything is halal or not

there’s plenty of halal deep-friers round our way - scots and asians united in pursuit of heart disease, makes me feel all braveheart

all the more reason for gammonistas to stay away then

gammon is haram iirc

Another 'hilarious' definitely real person on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FleetwoodTerryO

"(Did ILXors coin ‘gammon’ or...)"

The search function reveals you referred to Cameron as "old shiny gammon face" in 2014!

Some classic gammon on QT tonight, also some insight into the question of how Tory support is still so high - the answer is Brexit.

I am also watching QT - the gammon with shoe polish in his hair and the one before with the characteristic war cry about cutting the foreign aid budget, smdh

Terry Christian is still breathing, it seems.

gammon is quality patter, even if it's currently being rinsed to fuck

Hard to avoid it when watching QT from Darlington.

Actually there wasn't too much of it until the foreign aid guy popped, there was one fellow who flirted with it, during the question on equal pay for women, but didn't quite pass mustard, sorry, muster.

popped up - tho popped will do as he was a bit like a boil.

it does Labour no harm to be away from centre stage at the moment while the Tories murder each other, I wouldn't worry until we get into another "election in the offing" situation

the YouGov numbers have been bobbing a few points either way since the election, it's pretty desperate that some people (and centrists) are seizing on it swinging towards towards them this time as a significant event. If the Spring local election wipe-out in London is going to be as bad for them as some are suggesting, that is what they should really be concerned about in the short term.

can't believe centrists are opportunist

The precise wording of the EU documentation on Northern Ireland is going to cause havoc in the Tory Party and probably the DUP as well. It's going to be difficult to imagine the Moggites standing for it.

Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right wing

"the Moggites" sounds like a name for some subterranean civilisation imagined by H. G. Wells, which is about right.

Is the rubber finally meeting the road?

JRM doesn't believe in using rubber I understand.

Has a backbencher ever been given so much (positive) attention as JRM in the last year?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42991304

Mr Fox pledged that the publications would retain their identities: "The Daily Express is not going to become left-wing and the Mirror is not going to become right-wing."

Great news for all their several thousand readers.

The owner of the Daily Mirror has agreed to buy the company behind titles including the Daily Express, the Daily Star and magazines such as OK!

Trinity Mirror is to pay £126.7m for the publishing assets of Northern & Shell, which is chaired by Richard Desmond.

They paid £126.7m for a business which turned over £157m last year, but that's half of what it was a decade ago and 10% lower than it was a year ago. There are probably digital economies-of-scale reasons for buying them but N&S isn't a business with healthy long-term prospects. OK! and the Health Lottery are probably the most valuable things involved. No porn either.

Bet Trinity Mirror execs are excited about the prospect of having Richard Desmond as one of their largest shareholders.

"the Health Lottery" is the most ineptly named charidee of all time

Has a backbencher ever been given so much (positive) attention as JRM in the last year?

Farage would've been worse if he ever got elected.

"the Health Lottery" is the most ineptly named charidee of all time

According to my sister my mum was outraged that they were encouraging children to gamble...

https://www.scottishchildrenslottery.com/export/system/modules/com.assense.gaming.stv.template/resources/images/logo.svg

easy mistake to make, but the scottish children’s lottery actually gives winning entrants unwanted kids from across scotland iirc

"the Health Lottery" is the most ineptly named charidee of all time

most Charities give a bad name to Charity, but this is just....

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/senior-oxfam-staff-paid-haiti-quake-survivors-take-part-orgies-some-may-have-been-underage-1660029

presumably thanks to all this gammon talk i've found myself with an inescapable earworm of "every girl crazy 'bout a ham-faced man"

Thanks for sharing that

Has there been a right wing hot take of saying 'gammon' is as offensive as the n word.

my own form of charitable contribution xp

I can always remember "Porkman" as the Afro-Caribbean slang for white people 30 odd to 40 years ago. But there weren't discussions on CB radio about it's inherent racism!

I've heard irl idiots complain about "honky" tho

They’ve tried racism but it’s been pointed out to them that it’s mostly other white people calling them gammon; they’re also trying on sizeism but the zipper broke.