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  • Alistair Campbell (can’t stand him but there you go) made the very valid point that he has surrounded himself with the most appalling advisors and the results show. There is appalling and appalling. Who are these advisors? Interns acting incompetently or evil doers? I am mystified as to how the last year has unfurled in politics where week after week our government has made a new fcuk up.

    The media and social media globally does have only one setting now - hysteria. Which doesn’t help for sure. I hope whoever the next government is can govern without the bullsh1t as by Christ we need it.

  • I'm not at all a politics investee, but your post tickled even me.

    Surely you're not counting any of the below as trivial?

    Constant lying.

    Refusal to admit how many kids he has

    The constant parties when people couldn't see their own ill relatives etc

    Seeming to have given a massive grant to someone who he'd conducted an affair with

  • edited July 2022

    Christ, I've just seen an awful piece of news with regards to everything that has gone on. Did you know that Ministers who resign are entitled to severance pay AND 25% of their full ministerial salary?!? That means that with the total so far equals £420,000. Michelle Donelan who was Education Secretary for only 36hrs is entitled to claim £16,876 as a one-off payment?!?!

    THAT IS CRAZY

  • in fairness she said that if this were the case, she would immediately donate any such fee to charity.

  • Gareth is linked with Westminster job, odds now shortening 7/2 but still good value at 12/1 to be the next Pope.

    Both with Betfair.

  • But just think of the others who haven't come out and said this?! Cost of living, HA! I'll speak with Boris, get a Ministerial position and resign within a few days and will have a lovely holiday aboard and laugh at everyone struggling.

  • Boris has always been an incompetent charlatan. Bluff and bluster whilst chasing pleasure, trying to get his mistresses jobs and important access despite advice not to. Disloyal to wives AND mistresses, lied to one Prime Minister, knifed two others, really cannot be arsed to do a proper job, had to be nannied around at the Foreign Office (when Carrie wasn't 'having a meeting' with him by all accounts) in case he made international clangers -one of which cost a British National her freedom in Iran. As Amber Rudd said in some debate or other...Boris is great to have at a party for a short time...but you would not want him driving you home. He refused to go before the media, beyond carefully controlled statements for one camera, because he knew he could not handle any close examination of his policies or behaviour and then people moaned that the media were always interviewing Labour or Lib Dems and never gave both sides of the story. I can understand people who vote for someone to 'shake things up'...but like with the Trumpers...to then refuse to see the evidence before their very eyes and disbelieve anything that does not fit their opinion is bizarre to me.

    I cannot see them letting him limp on until Autumn though...so there'll be parties at Chequers from now on until they decide which one of the leading shower is least covered in effluent and can take over.

  • So big question. And I ask myself this question too. Why did he click with the the voters in 2019 and Corbyn didn’t. Is it purely that we are now a superficial voting nation / world? Did Corbyn present something that was unpalatable to the voter? Did the media demonise Corbyn? I don’t think Boris has changed, he’s just been found out more publicly. On a side note I had dealing with him when he was a local MP and he was great. Charming. Attentive to our cause. Delivered. But that’s maybe what Amber Rudd meant.

  • edited July 2022

    In my mind, Corbyn had ideas of trying to make the government in control of everything and I think that scared away voters. He wanted to nationalise the railways, the internet etc etc. Also, he was very anti-NATO and the armed forces which he wanted to scale us back and remove our defences which could have left us open to an attack.

    His also real weakness is that very few in Labour actually liked him. After winning the leadership, people realised that he didn't like the royal family and wouldn't sing the national anthem when he was in the presents of royalty. The lack of being liked meant the party was never 100% behind him and backing him up with his policies that he thought would win the election and surrounded himself with weak MP's who didn't come out well in a discussion. (Dianne Abbott prime example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxjkvjHn6Qg )


    These are just my views and why I couldn't consider voting for Labour

  • It's an excellent question, with many, many answers. But here's the two that I think are the most important...

    1. Johnson's entire life had been geared towards becoming prime minister. All those appearances on Have I Got News For You etc were not for nothing, they were there to make the public think of him as a loveable rogue who cares little for rules and says what he wants. This is populist leader step 1 (cf: Trump / The Apprentice) - being famous is the absolute most important thing. Then think of all those (what I find grotesque) quotes that he's come out with over the years: "picaninnies with watermelon smiles", "bumboys in tanktops", "letterboxes" and so on - appeal to the basest instincts of the right, get in the news, be more famous. And finally, make friends with billionaires, because that's actually who decides who is going to run the country. So we see him hobnobbing with Murdoch, the Barclay brothers, Rothermere and any Russian oligarch he can get near, including helping the son of a KGB agent take over a major newspaper. Once you're in the pocket of that lot, they do all the work for you - so you're on the front page of every newspaper multiple times a week with your racist dog-whistle slogans and the xenophobic populous laps it up thinking "he's one of us". Except he isn't, he's a rich Etonian who has total contempt for us and is incapable of believing in anything at all.
    2. Corbyn was the exact opposite of that. He actually is one of us, he has deeply held beliefs, genuine compassion and an actual desire to better the lives of millions of people. All of which means he's a threat to the way of life of Murdoch, the Barclay brothers, Rothermere and every Russian oligarch. So of course he's on the front page of every newspaper multiple times a week with provably false headlines about anti-semitism and hanging out with terrorists.

    There's a stat that I can't find right now of the number of people who read the headlines on the front of newspapers on petrol station forecourts / cornershop counters, compared to the number of people who actually buy / read newspapers. So we end up with the public being subconsciously told on an almost daily basis that that funny fat bloke off the telly is just like you and cares about the same things you do, and hates foreigners just like so many of the British public, while that other bloke that you've never heard of hangs out with brown terrorists.

    We could have had a properly funded NHS, with doctors and nurses not having to also work as Deliveroo drivers to be able to pay their rent. The fact that we ended up with Boris Johnson and the absolute shower of shit that follows him everywhere was, is, and will remain the greatest sadness of my lifetime.

  • And don't get me started on Keir Starmer. A man who spent a 3m30s interview on BBC News today saying the words "we need a change of government and a fresh start for Britain" eight times. In one Interview. In under four minutes. He's basically a soundbite Pez dispenser.

  • I'll stop ranting in a sec, but a small point of order on @micra's post...

    I hope a large proportion of Johnson’s claimed 14 million voters have similarly long since had their eyes opened to the truth about this corrupt morally bankrupt narcissistic bumbling buffoon.

    Only 160 people voted for him to be prime minister as the leader is chosen by members of the Parliamentary Conservative Party and, as we now know, Russian donors had quite a hand in that. We'd need to live in a presidential system for 14m to vote for him to be prime minister.

  • It's a massive myth that Boris Johnson's popularity won the 2019 election. His net approval rating at the time of the election was -11% (Theresa May's was +5% at the 2017 election). He won for two principal reasons:

    1) He was up against an opponent even more unpopular with the general public (for some of the reasons @drcongo lists above)

    2) Boris Johnson had a very appealing policy on Brexit (basically a massive lie) which was most appealing to the voters where Corbyn was most unpopular (ie the Red Wall). Either by great strategy or pure luck those factors fell in his favour and he had a route to the large majority he won.

  • Valid points @Last_Quarter - I think Cummings had a lot to do with the strategy, another man I despise but one does have to respect his ability to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

  • We are a very silly little country

  • edited July 2022

    My view is Jeremy Corbyn was a great local MP, with deep, honestly held views, probably very good at organising campaigns, etc etc and spent years like Stephen Bone or Dennis Skinner being a pain in the arse for leaders. I did not think he was a credible national leader. And to be honest, as long as he had great support in the Party he loved, I am not even sure he wanted to be PM...increasing the Labour vote share would have made him just as happy. Lots of young idealistic people voted him into the Labour leadership and he lived on that for a while, but he also needed to work with people with a wide range of opinions within his own party. Being popular with the membership means **** all if you cannot unite your party in the face of all the brown stuff the print media was inevitably going to dump on him. If they sense any kind of discord (as we have seen with Boz) they are on it like a rash with glee. Sadly, he seemed (not unlike Boris) to dismiss and belittle internal concerns as he was dealing with the 'real issues' rather than sort them out which created problems...and his attack dogs within the party were far less skilled and their methods much. much blunter than the ones Brown and Blair utilised.

    As for the Blonde bombshell and his Benny Hill thumbs up, he promised Brexit,,,and kept promising it...and is now telling people 'he got it done' and they are repeating it. In the same way people keep repeating Trump's election lie. The Brexit that was promised was and is undeliverable by anyone. The dolt Cameron and Osborne knew. May knew. It was a political myth, created by people who wanted to make a name for themselves safe in the knowledge no-one would vote for it...but OOOPS!...which is why Farage turns up at any Nazi rally that will have him and sells video messages probably until he can work out how to stop his wife and kids getting their hands on his EU pension. Half the pro-Brexit 'industrialist' experts have have now all legged it abroad! Johnson himself had no strong views either way, but he saw a way into government (if not as PM at that point). As various Brexit Ministers (Davis, Raab, Frost) have found...there is no way it is not going to be economically disastrous and will possibly lead to a schism in the Union and no-one wants their name on that. NI and Scotland voted to stay. The British government can hardly tell them it would be mad to split from their biggest trading partner. So, ironically the Great Britons have done more to damage the Union and reduce our standing in the World than perhaps other governments would have done.

    Even the Welsh are starting to think it was a mistake...

    Now...what no new players???? What is going on???

  • Some excellent and eloquent points made by all. Which leads me Mr Joe Public in a quandary. Starmer is not for me. The Tories are damaged goods.

    As a side note I hate pigeon holes and tribalism. I voted to remain in the EU. I am not a remoaner, I am not a Europhile. I just preferred that option. But when the vote was over it was over and I’ll move on. I voted Tory (once). I’m not a racist right winger. I’m not a died in the wool capitalist who looks down at those less fortunate. I chose at that time the view I thought was best. It seems that people want you to be one thing and having broader views is alien now. Whinge over

    Just witnessed a woman take a shit on a bench just off Trafalgar Square. There’s realism for you.

  • @drcongo do you still believe Jeremy Corbyn moved British politics to the left during his time as leader of the opposition?

  • No, I believe he stopped it getting dragged further right, which I think has been borne out for all to see since he was removed.

    Agree with this. I'll probably vote Green at the next election as they're the only left of centre party left. Ed Davey was on the news last night begging for disaffected tory votes, and Starmer doesn't have a single social equality policy (not entirely sure he has any policies at all beyond repeating the phrase "fresh start" and refusing to challenge government policies). We're in a (far) right mess and no mistake.

  • I'd vote Green if we had PR - but we don't, which makes Labour the only choice. I'm neutral on Starmer (appropriate, right), but voting any other way in Wycombe is a vote for the Tories as far as I'm concerned.

  • More to do with the massive majority the Tories were left with I'd say

  • Correlation != causation

  • edited July 2022

    It's a bit of a tricky ask for Labour at the moment, you can see they are meekly trying to not to fall into traps every time they speak.

    Rail strikes were a classic example where they were being fairly dishonesty blamed for a dispute between the government and private companies and being demanded to decry the strikes and discipline anyone getting involved. If they didn't they were to blame, clueless red commies coming for everyone's money, if they did they were weak and divided, when in reality it's fk all to do with them.

    The answer should be having bold policies and addressing them head on but very little in the history of the last 40 or so years bares that as successful.

    It's alright decrying everything they do as being watered down versions of them in charge but those in charge need a good hosing down, and while windows might move people with fingers in the till need watching and removing. Rwanda is hardly a policy born out of increasing left leaning influence and decent policies such as the living wage and bills of rights are delivered in name only pissing all over the original intent.

  • @eric_plant I know I'm not going to change your opinion on Corbyn so I'm not after a fight about it, but you're literally the only person I've come across with any enthusiasm for Starmer, so I'd love to know which of his policies makes you think he's worth voting for? Does he have any?

  • I will hold my nose and vote Labour in my constituency as they are the best placed to defeat the incumbent Tory, but if either the greens or Libtards were better placed I would vote for them.

    Sir Keith Starmer is another tawdry, corrupt establishment figure who along with other centrists in the PLP colluded with the media to make Corbyn look like an extremist and unelectable. Starmer & his fellow travellers need to shoulder their share of the blame for the debacle of the last 3 years.

    We need some proper opposition to the centre & right in parliament, it has to start at local level and build from there (look at the progress Salmond has made in Scotland with his Alba Party), using non main stream media to spread its message etc. as the main media channels are owned by billionaire non-doms or are shit scared of the state and as we have seen will smear or suppress stuff that they perceive to threaten them (see Chomskey's Manufacturing Consent).

    As long as Johnson hangs on to some role democracy is under threat, we should by now know that nothing he says is believable and if he denies something he either has or is about to do it.

  • Testify brother.

    Apart from the Alex Salmond bit, can't stand with a handsy sex pest.

  • I can see the attraction of a 'safe pair of hands' but I cannot say I am a Starmer fan...for a lawyer he lacks any sort of attack in debates for me. I think he just expected Boz to show himself up so acted like a responsible adult and did not bother trying very hard. Bland though he was I think they missed a trick not electing the older Milliband at the time, he was a far more persuasive character. As for the strikes, I was disappointed that some Labour politicians could not bring themselves to say...every worker has a right to withdraw their labour....it's sort of part of the point of the movement. They fall into the trap of being frightened of the electorate, rather than informing them about what they stand for. Allowing the media to start trying to push them to discipline the MPs who joined the picket lines was falling right into a trap you would have thought they would see coming. People have more respect for those who actually make a stand, It's pointless saying strikes are inconveniencing people...that's the point...as one union leader pointed out in interviews. Everyone seems to forget that every right and benefit we have was fought for over the years...businesses and governments did not give us reasonable working hours, sick pay, pensions, benefits and so out of the goodness of their hearts...and as we have seen they will already push the envelope as far as they can and they'd take them away in a flash. Salmond is a bit smug and Gallowayish for me...wasn't he doing a show on Russia Tonight up until the latest 'unpleasantness'?

  • I cannot stand Salmond either but what Alba has done from nothing shows what can be done with organisation and using non MSM

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