The British Politics Thread - The Bear and Badger

MoesTavern

How many interviews and radio shows has that total cunt Laurence Fox done in the last couple of days?

mistercrayon

The guy has smashed it if, as my partner put it, he just wants to be new Katie Hopkins.

Fucking disgusting if he’s making good hay out of this.

AndCallMeCharlie

I have thus far managed to avoid hearing a word of what he has to say

Diluted Dante

Jess Phillips has an announcement to make this afternoon.

Either she's dropping out of the race or she's going to tell us she has a regional accent.

mistercrayon

I think dropping out because she didn’t go to one of the hustings.

It’s a bit of a shame really. A basically straight fight between bailey and Starmer is kind of boring.

AndCallMeCharlie

mistercrayon wrote:

A basically straight fight between bailey and Starmer is kind of boring.

my money is on boring

JonB

Diluted Dante wrote:

Jess Phillips has an announcement to make this afternoon. Either she's dropping out of the race or she's going to tell us she has a regional accent.

Haha.

Anyway, I'm sure her media fans will be gutted having spent all this time promoting her. She's easily had the biggest profile in this lineup in recent years, and it looks like few people have bought into it, which is refreshing.

monkey

She's clearly out of her depth and it's not like this contest is the deep end either.

acemuzzy

Room Next Door guy is back: https://twitter.com/MrMichaelSpicer/status/1219553367422169089he's deffo one of my comedy twitter faves atm

Funkstain

tbf I appreciated her candour in the guardian article she wrote the other day. The hustings are shit and boring and only present opportunities to fuck up rather than actually shine. And she was right to point out her chances of winning were non-existent. I wondered whether her actually writing that down made her realise that she was wasting a lot of people's time?

mistercrayon

Boris Johnson quit a leadership race once.

It was kind of odd to criticising hustings while being an MP. I thought it was a fundamental part of simply being an MP. The other problem I’ve seen is that outside of the hustings I’m still pretty blind as to what real things anyone stands for.

That is to say: everyone is well into abstract concepts

Starmer: togetherness and unity
Bailey: socialism!!
Nandy: listening to towns
Thornbury: ah...

LarryDavid

Jess: Jess

mistercrayon

She’s basically out now but if I characterised her it would be closer to
Shouting at power.

It brings the uncomfortable question about what do you do if you win power?!!

Funkstain

There's material out there if you can be arsed to sift through it.

Philips has published two books, buncha articles, and has a helluva media platform. There are numerous articles both pro- and against her in all sorts of press outlets. Her voting record is public. Local MP for quite some time and her constituents mostly seem to like her and her local work. Very strong image building but substance seems lacking - if she was trying to appear substantial in her books she has failed, they are awful.

Starmer was director of public prosecutions so you can look at his work there. Before that he was a litigator, you can check out the kind of cases he used to take on: humans rights stuff gave him the profile. Voting record available. Lots of articles again. Not so local, seems ambitious, wanted the big job for a while. Fucked up the Brexit position of labour according to some.

Long-Bailey not so much. Close association with Corbyn, unwilling to criticise him publicly which either betrays lack of ruthlessness / pragmatism needed in politics, or shows admirable loyalty, or both. Most articles negative due to association with Corbyn. Mostly seems to a) ride coat-tails of remaining "radical" progressivism b) not want to lose labour to centrists twats again.

Nandy is a bit of a non-entity as far as my research has shown, would welcome any input here.

LivDiv

I think Phillips is someone who the next leader needs to keep fairly close by, certainly in the shadow cabinet.
She has the ability to speak to and for a certain demographic but mainly because she is someone who will cause a lot of pain if she isn't kept on side.

LarryDavid

Shadow Minister for telling it like it is.

Shadow Minister for stopping all this blah, blah, blah and getting on with it.

Shadow Minister for plain speaking newspaper columns.

monkey

I've just read that article by Phillips and it's the same old self-centred I tell it like it is shite as usual.

The likelihood that anyone but Keir Starmer or Rebecca Long-Bailey is going to win is, well, pretty low. Shock horror! What I am meant to say is, “Anything is possible, the campaign is long.” I get it. I am not blind. The likelihood of someone like me, who speaks like I do and says the things I say, ever being elected to be a party leader is slim.

It's not her accent it's the absence of anything else. She's used the accent as a promotional tool. It's not holding her back. She's not really that outspoken either. I'm not sure what she's said that is supposed to be so hard for the Man to handle.

I believe that the only way to beat a compulsive liar, who thinks only of himself but has the gift of the gab, is to be brutally honest, give a real toss about the people in our country and also have the gift of the gab. I could be wrong, but I would rather give this way a go than ever deliver a line in 40 seconds again.

As leader of the opposition, you get about 10 seconds on the BBC News to make your point about the story of the day. And the PM can fit his poison into that timeframe with a memorable line. That's the landscape so she's better off out of it.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/19/hustings-labour-leader-jess-phillips

AndCallMeCharlie

acemuzzy wrote:

Room Next Door guy is back: https://twitter.com/MrMichaelSpicer/status/1219553367422169089he's deffo one of my comedy twitter faves atm

very much so.
that liz tuss speech would seem far fetched if it was on the thick of it.

Diluted Dante

Goodbye Jess Phillips.

You won't be missed.

RedDave2

Diluted Dante wrote:

Goodbye Jess Phillips.

You won't be missed.

And who, might I ask, is going to tell it like it is?

LarryDavid

Another depressing focus group of supposed Labour voters on Ch4 news. God help the person charged with winning these lot over.

Choosing a person to run the country by the same process you'd vote for a reality TV contestant.

Brooks

This lessens my dread tbh.

mistercrayon

I just got an email from momentum and they’ve announced that if Long Bailey becomes leader...labour will have open selections.

Feels like masturbation politics to me.

LivDiv

Forgive my ignorance but what is meant by open selections?

Diluted Dante

I dont know why they don't have open selections already.

Without open selections, the Democrats wouldnt have AOC.

mistercrayon

I believe it means that anyone can show up to a constituency and run to be an MP there if they win a vote. Currently I think the process allows people to be parachuted in.

LivDiv

Thanks

Diluted Dante

LivDiv wrote:

Forgive my ignorance but what is meant by open selections?

You cant squat in a seat forever. Every election anyone can decide they could do a better job and run against you. If anyone does then you face a vote against them before you are selected as candidate again. Its way less toxic than the trigger ballot system Labour has. Often people are not challenged, and if they are they win overwhelmingly.

LivDiv

So the idea would be that every GE the current MP would be on equal footing to anyone else who fancies a go at it?

mistercrayon

Ostensibly.

In practice it’ll just mean you’ll organise around a different set of people to ingratiate with.

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