British Politics
Been on holiday for a few weeks, surprised to find no general discussion of British politics so though I'd kick one off.
Tory leadership contest is quickly turning into farce. Trump has backed Boris, which should be reason enough for anyone with half a brain to exclude him.
Of the other candidates Rory Stewart looks the best of the outsiders. Surprised to see Cleverly and Javid not further up the betting, but not sure the Tory membership are ready for a brown PM.
https://www.oddschecker.com/politics/bri...
Regarding the LD leadership contest, Jo Swinson is miles ahead of any other candidate (and indeed any of the Tory lot). Should be a shoe in.
Finally, it's Groundhog Day in Labour - the more serious the anti-Semitism claims get, the more Corbyn's cronies write their own obituary by blaming it on outlandish conspiracy theories - this week, it's apparently the Jewish Embassy's fault...
Simplest explanation is they were lent by one (or both) of the rwnj teams to try to oust the other.
Also, I'm guessing conservative MPs didn't coordinate properly and this is what happens. They are such a bag of dicks. It made me chuckle tho, so whatevs.
Not that it matters imo, they are done for 2 terms unless Labour majorly shits the bed. Which Starmer might well precipitate.
I think Labour have already done that. They only have a 1 point lead over the Conservatives at present, compared to 10 at the election and 4 last month, so they aren't exactly cruising to a second term, and the Budget does not look as if it's going to go down very well. In fact Labour now have only a 10 point lead over Reform UK in third place.
Badenoch is supposedly favoured by the Tory membership and may be the most difficult opponent for Starmer, whereas Jenrick has a high nonentity factor and is just another entitled white male.
As well as the obviously bad rwnj politics Badenoch has some embarrassing baggage wrt breaking the law and an unstoppable urge to say stupid things showing how out of touch she is that can be quoted back at her, such as how working part time at McDonalds for a brief period as a student turned her into a working class person.
I guess that cleverly wanted to face jenrick so lent him some votes. Lol a t lot if that's what happened.
Or maybe he didn't want to be leader now. That would be the cleverlyesrt hing he has ever done
People seem a little underwhelmed with the two candidates.
I guess that cleverly wanted to face jenrick so lent him some votes. Lol a t lot if that's what happened.
Or maybe he didn't want to be leader now. That would be the cleverlyesrt hing he has ever done
The other theory doing the rounds is Badenoch got some of her supporters to vote for Cleverly in the earlier rounds, anticipating this shenanigans from Cleverley.
Either way, Badenoch was always going to be the favourite when it went to the members, so it was probably worth the gamble from Cleverley so now he doesn't have to spend a month talking to Tory members when he was very likely to lose.
Badenoch will definitely be a wild ride, and if nothing else it will be fun watching The Left winging their hands over the Tories having a Black Woman as leader.
Lady Leaders (probably)
Cons: 4
Labour: 0
Yes that reflects poorly on Labour but also on mysogynists who disparaged potential female leaders for their looks and snobs who disparage them now for their class background.
Yvette Cooper has been such a shoo-in for so long now....
Badenoch will definitely be a wild ride, and if nothing else it will be fun watching The Left winging their hands over the Tories having a Black Woman as leader.
This is said to be why the left have such a hate-on for Badenoch. They don't like anyone but them 'speaking for minorities', which is a bit imperialist if you think about it, yet they've never permitted a woman leader, let alone a black woman leader. (And the Conservatives have had three female PMs by now -- admittedly with mixed, dubious or even disastrous results.) That is partly why Badenoch would be a difficult opponent for more-of-the-same Sir Keir, supposing she played her cards right. She has the advantage of being articulate and having a fairly clearly outlined personality, as against the blancmange in No.10, but she might wander off into Faragiste weirdness trying to outdo Reform, which probably wouldn't work.
What's actually happening is that the Tory Reform Group declines to back either candidate in case they go bonkers on the single issue of immigration, which is a matter of public concern but not the only one. Of the two, Jenrick appears worse since he advocates resiling from the European Convention on Human Rights (which we ourselves set up and wrote), whereas Badenoch doesn't at this point.
It's quite likely in sgnificant part about refom/farage.
The obvious thing for the new leader to seriously consider is a deal with reform or even some form of merger. The less extreme group have to try to make that difficult.
Jenrick will need Reform, Badenoch won't. She's too charismatic and gets cut through in a way Jenrick never will. For example, she went viral in the US this week off the back of her Kuenssberg appearance.
The stupid person's idea of an intelligent person produces things like this, as if it offers a profound insight into modern day UK:
Alex Salmond has died. Sturgeon will be breathing a sigh of relief.
Sad to hear that, though I wasn't a fan. I suppose Alba will wither away without him. It was in its day an interesting counter to the Sturgeon cult, but then Sturgeon's gone anyway and I hope most of her clique will follow (which may be a naive view).
Sad to hear that, though I wasn't a fan. I suppose Alba will wither away without him. It was in its day an interesting counter to the Sturgeon cult, but then Sturgeon's gone anyway and I hope most of her clique will follow (which may be a naive view).
I despise him for what he done to the country but I suppose he at least tried to govern the country in a decent way, even if I didn't agree with it.He knew that to achieve his goal he had to bring along people who weren't natural nationalists and would be conivinced by competent government. Thankfully his successor was useless and divisive and was only concerned with keeping her base onside. I suppose we should thank her for killing the nationalist project.
I despise him for what he done to the country but I suppose he at least tried to govern the country in a decent way, even if I didn't agree with it.He knew that to achieve his goal he had to bring along people who weren't natural nationalists and would be conivinced by competent government. Thankfully his successor was useless and divisive and was only concerned with keeping her base onside. I suppose we should thank her for killing the nationalist project.
He tried to govern the country in a decent way, you still dispise him?
And yet... it's his successor that was divisive???
I've lurked these threads for 10+ years and your unionism at any cost mindset is ludicrous. It's that bad that I still don't actually know what your politics are other than pro-union and SNP-bad.
He tried to govern the country in a decent way, you still dispise him?
And yet... it's his successor that was divisive???
I've lurked these threads for 10+ years and your unionism at any cost mindset is ludicrous. It's that bad that I still don't actually know what your politics are other than pro-union and SNP-bad.
Unionism at any cost? What does that even mean?
Yes, I despise Salmond for trying to break up the country and impoverish people because of his nationalist mindset. He governend the country with all the benefits that being within the UK brought.
I'm happy to discuss the advantages of remaining within the UK versus seperatsism? Are you up for it? I remember the last time I listed I posted many of the advantages on here you didn't dispute them but I'm happy to go over them again. And I will add, it will be incredibly rare to have a nationalist discuss and debate the issues rather than resorting to blood and soil nationalist so respect to you if you wish to go for it.
It means that you are actually thankful that the Scottish Government following Salmond were "useless". That has to be taken as you wanted them to fail, you wanted the quality of life of people living in Scotland to be lowered (it wasn't btw). Unionism at any cost.
There was a time where Scottish nationialism flirted with the violent path. Salmond get a lot of credit in my book for steering it down the peaceful political path and getting so close (irrespective of views on independence).
