UK Politics: the moment of truth, or possibly untruth

[mormont]

There is a fairly credible scenario where Sunak doesn't make the final two, IMO.

ETA - footnote, Jeremy Hunt got fewer votes than he did nominations, suggesting that at least three MPs who nominated him actually voted for someone else. Ouch.

[mormont]

A little out of date now because it includes all eight candidates, but this has to be the biggest waste of space article on the leadership contest in existence:

Tory leadership: Where do candidates stand on indyref2?

You'll be astonished to learn they're all against it. You could not get a Rizla between their positions on the matter. So we'd better write a thousand words explaining that, one candidate at a time.

[DaveSumm]

Not sure if anyone watches TLDR videos, I find them quite handy for primers on stuff. They have a run down of the candidates here (8 hours old so still includes Zahawi and Hunt):

 

[DMC]

Gotta say, been looking into the final six candidates, and - while controlling for them all pretty much being crazy Tory/conservative fucks - the diversity and youth is very refreshing for this American.  Four women, only one white male, and what I like the most:  all six are in their forties.

[Werthead]

 

[RaymondD]

7 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Yeah, he needs to resign. Disgraceful way to behave. 

Whom did you mean? Are you referring to the Speaker's behavior?

[ants]

On 7/13/2022 at 4:07 AM, DaveSumm said:

I don’t mind if the content is readable without clicking, just embedded here. But clicking takes me to a browser window that tries to get me to download the app, then briefly lets me read the thread, then just forces you to log in or sign up.

Click on sign-up, then the cross in the top left, and it’s all good. I can read the full threads and I’m not on twitter. 

[Spockydog]

Woke up to an extra £326 in my bank account. Now all my troubles are over.

 

[Derfel Cadarn]

6 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Woke up to an extra £326 in my bank account. Now all my troubles are over.

 

You’re welcome. You can pay me back next month. 10% interest.

[Spockydog]

Attn: Tory MPs on the radio.

No, Boris did not 'get Brexit done'.

No, Boris did not 'save the people of Ukraine from the Russians'. 

No, Boris did not 'end Covid'. 

This is what he actually achieved:

Boris Johnson's Only Legacy Will be Failed Vanity Projects & a Large Bill

Quote

 

When’s all said and done, what did he really achieve?

Boris Johnson has been a major presence in British politics for almost two decades and yet when you actually sit down and consider what he will leave behind him, then it’s incredibly hard to actually think of anything.

For a man so obsessed with his own image and legacy, few physical relics will remain. In London, which he led for eight years, he will perhaps be best remembered for the things he doesn’t leave behind him, than the things he does.

The Garden Bridge, which would have been a sort of private park, stroke transport link, stroke corporate venue, which he championed with tens of millions of pounds of public money in dubious circumstances, was ultimately never actually built.

Nor were his plans to build a multi-billion pound airport in the Thames Estuary, which would have been located in the middle of a bird strike zone and adjacent to a sunken ship filled with 1,400 tonnes of unexploded munitions. 

Similar plans to build a bridge across the Irish sea, through an even larger munitions dump, were also jettisoned after officials realised that it had the potential to be the most expensive sea crossing in the entire world.

The Boris Bus, named by Johnson fans who spotted his propensity to back any project he could stick his own name on, was later renamed by users as the “Roastmaster” due to its malfunctioning air conditioning system and windows that didn’t open. Even after an expensive retrofit, the buses can still be seen slowly roasting passengers who dare to use them on hot summer days.

The Olympic Village in East London did get built under Johnson, but only after he agreed with David Cameron’s Conservative Government to dramatically shrink the proportion of affordable housing to be built on it.

He did also build a cross-river Cable Car in East London, which was so useless as a commuter link that at one point it was recorded as having no regular users.

 

 

[Spockydog]

Ooof, this wasn't a good outing for Rishi.

Tories, this is the guy to choose. Please, please, please, pick this rich, out of touch twat. Every time he opens his over-privileged mouth, he betrays the fact that he hasn't got a fucking clue about the challenges faced by people who aren't billionaires.

And considering the way the Tory press has been demonizing brown people for the past twenty years, I expect he will be thoroughly rejected by the Sun-reading, immigrant hating, working class British Tories.

 

[A wilding]

Personally I am scared about how much irreversible economic damage Sunak would do before he lost the next election, in his quest to make the UK a paradise for billionaire hedge fund owners. Look at his pet "free ports" project for example.

[Spockydog]

Don't worry. Sunak will not win a general election in Daily Mail land.

It's never gonna happen.

 

[DaveSumm]

I’m not sure I can get on board with the logic of picking the worst person so as to maximum the chances of losing an election. I don’t see a Sunak - Starmer choice as remotely a given, and we’ll probably be stuck with Sunak for years and years then.

It wasn’t a great interview though, he didn’t need to duck questions in quite the way he did. Everyone knows he’s rich, so you might as well acknowledge your privilege (maybe point out that he’s hardly the only candidate that’s never been poor) and then move to what you’ve done for these people (furlough, etc).

[Heartofice]

2 hours ago, Spockydog said:

And considering the way the Tory press has been demonizing brown people for the past twenty years, I expect he will be thoroughly rejected by the Sun-reading, immigrant hating, working class British Tories.

I just wanna address this because its just a real lot of crap. Of course it is very difficult for some people to get their head around the idea that anyone who is against unlimited immigration might not be a racist.. that they just believe in rule of law etc. 

Here is a recent thread on that very topic when asked if there would be an issue with voting for someone from an ethnic minority:
 

Quote

Mainly it's not a big deal. The overwhelming response is that they would happily vote for such a person. You still get a few people whose conversation around "race" is, well, a bit racist. Bu they tend to be much, much older. Anti-racism is now largely hegemonic among the public.

But it's anti-racism of a particular sort. People talk a lot about being "colour blind". Now that is not an entirely unproblematic way of framing race and racism, of course. But it's probably a very significant step forward from what things were like before.

As to what they think about politicians from visible ethnic minorities, the pushback actually comes when they see or hear those politicians talk about "race" or their background. You get comments like
"I don't want to hear about that stuff. It's not important to me. I take people on what they do rather than where they're from."
 

https://twitter.com/gabrielmilland/status/1545700462896218113?s=20&t=YxR2w8d7hEmH68GXK0WMRg

 

[Poobah]

13 hours ago, DMC said:

Gotta say, been looking into the final six candidates, and - while controlling for them all pretty much being crazy Tory/conservative fucks - the diversity and youth is very refreshing for this American.  Four women, only one white male, and what I like the most:  all six are in their forties.

In the UK today the key factor you need to look for is not race or gender but socioeconomic class. And all of these people are decidedly (to the Tories) the Right Sort ie. wealthy elites, if not outright aristocrats. And age? You don't rise up the ranks of the Tory party without demonstrating that you have the attitudes of an old bastard and most of these people worship Thatcher. A young vigorous politician with terrifyingly damaging policies is scarier than an old bastard who might keel over from all the cigars and heart disease any time now.

[Heartofice]

 

Of course an incredibly diverse selection of candidates doesn't really count as diversity if they have the wrong ideas.

 

[DMC]

29 minutes ago, Poobah said:

In the UK today the key factor you need to look for is not race or gender but socioeconomic class. And all of these people are decidedly (to the Tories) the Right Sort ie. wealthy elites, if not outright aristocrats.

Again, I was just talking about the demographic diversity in comparison to the US.  I'm sure the SES disparity isn't any more glaring than here.

[SeanF]

2 hours ago, Spockydog said:

Ooof, this wasn't a good outing for Rishi.

Tories, this is the guy to choose. Please, please, please, pick this rich, out of touch twat. Every time he opens his over-privileged mouth, he betrays the fact that he hasn't got a fucking clue about the challenges faced by people who aren't billionaires.

And considering the way the Tory press has been demonizing brown people for the past twenty years, I expect he will be thoroughly rejected by the Sun-reading, immigrant hating, working class British Tories.

 

Hitherto, overwhelmingly white Conservative constituencies have shown no inclination to reject Black or Asian Conservative candidates.  

[SeanF]

11 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

 

Of course an incredibly diverse selection of candidates doesn't really count as diversity if they have the wrong ideas.

 

I'm sure Marina can explain to them what racism actually entails.