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

False flag operation theories just strike me as moronic tbh. Incompetent freelancer theories less so, although it doesn't sound like novichok is exactly easy to get hold of.

TBH I try not to read this stuff because it's basically opting to stick your head in the sewer.

Just because the official story doesn't seem to add up - it doesn't mean you then need to sign up to any alternative theories which are also full of holes, unless that theory is 'fuck knows', which is looking pretty solid right now

I can't really fathom any explanation that makes much sense for all the Novichok business. Some kind of lower level non-governmental Russian-linked hit on Skripal perhaps, that was ham-fistedly done? The "UK (or other country) did it to make it look like Russia did it" conspiracy theory seems a bit too much.... but yeah at this stage (and maybe always) "fuck knows"!

I think you'd need to wait decades (maybe even quite a lot of them) and have some Poirot have unfettered access to UK and Russian secret service archives, before even getting close to wtf is really going on now!

Was there ever a fully fleshed out 'official story'? The reason for the diplomatic crisis was the novichok is supposedly only from Russia, meaning it somehow, someway was linked to Russia. Was it ever more detailed?

our official response was initially a comedy hardman offering Russia out!

I think the Russians took it as a Mr Bean pastiche.

The lack of a fully fleshed-out story is part of the problem. The government line on some of the details hasn’t been consistent but the gist of the case is “well, who else is it going to have been?”.

The (inevitable) degree of secrecy around a wide range of things including whether Porton Down also makes Novichok (which it legally can iirc), whether Skripal was still actively involved in espionage, etc, whether there is a degree of certainty around Russia having a bio-weapons programme, etc will always encourage odd theories but the shifty way in which the government has managed the bits of information it can, or wants to, get out there hasn’t helped.

None of which means Russia didn’t do it, but the degree of hamfistedness around the public handling of the investigation, combined with a widespread distrust of the security services and government, has probably led to a higher degree of scepticism than you’d get otherwise.

a trustworthy spook is probably not doing their job tbf

It was all a setup to make Corbyn look weak /jezbot

Must say even for the Mail that 'protest shames Britain' line feels like new depths. "rent a lefty"! If people got paid to show up I need a slice of that action. Just algorithm words collage front pages as their death throes climax.

never forget that parallel Dacre-verse where May won a huge majority and some saboteurs grapes got crushed...

I think it's a misjudgement tbh, even a lot of Daily Mail readers don't want Trump welcomed with open arms. Not to the extent of joining a protest or voting for Corbyn, but still.

they don't really object to his/our own worst right wing excesses in recent history, he's just a bit crass and loud for them.

Tbh the stench of spoiled senescence that comes off the mail these days is a discredit to Elizabeth who I imagine to be a quite fragrant old lady all else aside

she looks very lively and full of vitality for her age... oh no hang on sec that was the other one.. have they already started with the embalming fluid ffs!

Incredible Pro Trump rally in Sheffield. One Free Tommy protestor has latched on. pic.twitter.com/milgmaHAdC

— Otto English (@Otto_English) July 14, 2018

"THERE IS NO FAR RIGHT"

meta commentary on their own comedic failure is surprising!

My interaction with a Tommy Robinson supporter today... pic.twitter.com/7QU5j5Uagx

— Sonia Gallego (@SoniaGallegoAJE) July 14, 2018

Funny, I was thinking looks like Rod Liddle's made more of an effort than usual. Either that or what happened to Anarchy in the UK, Steve?

sometimes I think these Tommy Robinson supporters might be a bit on the unpleasant side, perhaps they need a hug?

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/files/img/music/morrissey/wellmont/33.jpg

From the Guardian's "Conservatives" section...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/14/minister-steps-down-after-sending-explicit-messages-to-constituents

He was the guy heckling Corbyn when he was speaking about social care for the elderly...reported to have said (he denied it) “you should be in social care”.

Beef in the Commons as Conservative takes issue with Jeremy Corbyn on social care pic.twitter.com/S27207iMSd

— Esther Webber (@estwebber) November 22, 2017

Charming fellow.

This is bizarre:

Lol you must be joking. Blairite red Tories intentionally tanked social media advertising intended *to remind people to register to vote* https://t.co/sgZZk3M9Lu pic.twitter.com/xB3B9mVbvg

— libertarianism in 4 words: pothead who is racist (@inthesedeserts) July 14, 2018

It comes as no surprise

Incredible story in the Sunday Times - no friends of the left, by any stretch - it now seems certain that Labour Party HQ cost the party the 2017 election. Through incompetence, crap strategy and contempt for their own leadership. Madness https://t.co/1IqX673iNk

— dan hancox (@danhancox) July 14, 2018

so Labour HQ deceived Corbyn during the '17 election campaign by running fake ads only him and his team could see whilst running their own off-manifesto parallel campaign. Heads should roll.

oops!

the jump from "party machinery clearly ignoring instructions from corb central" to "therefore clearly losing labour the election" is currently quite a lot bigger than the evidence yet justifies

(also i don't really trust this source -- = tim shipman -- to have nailed down the story accurately, esp.as regards the facts and the potential of a facebook ad buy)

Not social media, but I think it's pretty clear that hq, because of their pessimism about Corbz, misallocated campaigners to seats Lab won comfortably and away from seats they v narrowly lost?

I think it's a misjudgement tbh, even a lot of Daily Mail readers don't want Trump welcomed with open arms. Not to the extent of joining a protest or voting for Corbyn, but still.

Watching Rees-Mogg struggling to defend Trump the other day was quite something.

May has revealed Trump’s advice was to sue the EU and not to negotiate, which was the UKIP fantasy iirc.

Has Greig taken over at the Mail yet?

xxxp
It's paywalled and I'm only reading other people's responses. But there have been other accounts of incompetence, which isn't always caused by some centrist 5th column!

dozens of activists being told not to go to Southamption Itchen, which they thought Labour could win but to Southampton Test - which Labour 'might' lose

Labour's majority in Southampton Test was 9500, they lost Itchen by 40 votes.

misallocated campaigners: true but this wasn't because they were knowingly allocating them away from where corb central for sure knew they should be -- the tension there was between volunteers on the ground realising the situation was much better than expected and the HQ's idea of the campaign (=refighting the last war, more or less)

i'm not ruling out ineptitude or spite or even that there were consequences of two key elements in the party being at loggerheads -- there surely were -- but i'm quite sceptical of the instant expertise flooding into responses to this info, re abt good vs bad social media technique

reply to calz re itchen: this element isn't a new story though, i remember reading versions of it by the weekend after the election

Sounds like they spent too much time watching those daily reports on the BBC and Sky on working class voters deserting Labour for UKIP, every time you turned on your telly there was some liar standing in a High Street somewhere in England being interviewed saying they'd voted Labour all their lives but never again.

May has revealed Trump’s advice was to sue the EU and not to negotiate, which was the UKIP fantasy

as relevantly -- if i'm remembering this correctly -- they were working from very thin and outdated canvassing info (and the snap election didn't help here)

I was scrolling down some thread and the CLP Chair of Itchen said there was some backstory to this and it was regional + HQ that threw it away, but he wouldn't expand on it.

Has Greig taken over at the Mail yet?

not yet I don't think. Dacre appears to be getting the bed all nice and shitty for his arrival.

Not social media, but I think it's pretty clear that hq, because of their pessimism about Corbz, misallocated campaigners to seats Lab won comfortably and away from seats they v narrowly lost?

This is basically it; everyone was predicting a Tory rout (if I saw one smug piece about how the Tories would take Bolsover, I read them all). HQ were doing damage limitation; it was Momentum and the nearest marginal campaign who were targeting seats offensively.

The story here is 'Labour HQ tried to deceive their own leader' not 'Labour HQ incompetence cost Labour the election' - virtually everyone, including Team Corbyn, thought they were going to be annihilated when the election was called and everything needs to be understood in the context that they were in damage limitation mode. Last election is as much a story of the limitations of data as anything else.

(xpost)

More to the point I think the emerging story of the last few years is that Labour - and maybe the political establishment in general - don't understand how to interpret data properly. What people are saying is less important than why they're saying it, and MPs and journalists tend to stop at the former. Nowhere is this more important than around immigration - but also welfare. I get the sense that if Labour MPs, and Harriet Harman in particular, had been able to interpret polling data at anything more than face value then Andy Burnham would probably have been leader by now.

What people are saying is less important than why they're saying it

succinctly put and very otm. working that out is pretty tough though and v hard to prove

a few years back alex harrowell proposed that, alongside sub-editors (for grammer and spelling and some fact-checking), newspapers shd routinely introduce numeracy-checking editors who would be tasked with reading what people say against what what the poll (or economic data or whatever) is actually saying, and correcting it

with the caveat that this would introduce intense political friction into the subbing process, and thus be quite hard to do, i actually think it's a good idea -- politicians will only get good at this is there's an *immediate* counter-incentive (as opposed to the medium- or long-term counter-incentives of "losing the next few elections")

agree with all this, but i'm sure a key factor in misinterpreting data is wishful thinking - for whatever ideological hobby horse the analyst rides - alongside incompetence

FWIW I think Mark's suggestion would make things worse not better - the last thing we need is more pseudo-objectivity - there are enough people wanting to use economics (and data in general) as a way of 'proving' their own political point of view as it is.

the last thing we need is more pseudo-objectivity

... and not just in politics (personal grumble there).

Also lol no media organisation is going to voluntarily invest in that and the people who could do it properly and at speed would be expensive and in very short supply.