Dark chocolate ones. None of your shite.

Wookienopants wrote:

Rev wrote:

Wookienopants wrote:

If this brings down the Tories I will dance naked in the street

Is it Wednesday already?

Indeed. You were missed at last week's meeting, will you be bringing cake again?

Gluten and Dairy Free. Banana bread with cinnamon

Anyone else watching PMQs with coffee and cake?

davyK wrote:

At the end of all this, Johnson's contribution to the country is a phrase then.  "Ambushed with a cake"
...

I’d prefer it if the phrase on the tombstone of his career is “Let The Bodies Pile High”.

The Tories’ downplaying of the endless, serial rule-breaking by focusing on trivialities such as the cake is deliberate and in line with his faked public persona of “bumbling, lovable rogue who’s a bit cheeky but overall a good egg” - giving the die-hards a “oh you’re blowing it out of proportion, this is a witch hunt” card to play.

The heart-breaking levels of death and dismay caused by the fucking shithead clown shoes ineptitude while they party and drink and drive to Barnard Castle for a day out to “test their eyesight” should be the focus of the nation’s fury.

GO GET HIM KIER

Just want to say that I have ambushed a manager with a small birthday cake at our weekly manager meetings before. Its a nice touch to be honest. We don't turn it into a party though, it's usually at the state so everyone can eat a bit of cake during the meeting.

Oh and now we have written email evidence Johnson lied about the animal evacuations from Afghanistan.

What was the joke?

Paul the sparky wrote:

What was the joke?

Some bollocks about Blackford being the one eating cake.

djchump wrote:

davyK wrote:

At the end of all this, Johnson's contribution to the country is a phrase then.  "Ambushed with a cake" ...

I’d prefer it if the phrase on the tombstone of his career is “Let The Bodies Pile High”. The Tories’ downplaying of the endless, serial rule-breaking by focusing on trivialities such as the cake is deliberate and in line with his faked public persona of “bumbling, lovable rogue who’s a bit cheeky but overall a good egg” - giving the die-hards a “oh you’re blowing it out of proportion, this is a witch hunt” card to play. The heart-breaking levels of death and dismay caused by the fucking shithead clown shoes ineptitude while they party and drink and drive to Barnard Castle for a day out to “test their eyesight” should be the focus of the nation’s fury.

Point.

davyK wrote:

In other news another fuck up over here. The DUP are rocking a bit. So this is an opportunity for the Ulster Unionist Party (the UUP) who are the moderates. Their ex-leader , David (now Lord) Trimble, won the joint Nobel peace prize with John Hume re the peace process et al. Since then the party has imploded with a series of gaffs, rows, dinosaurs coming out of hiding and comedy leaders. The latest leader, Doug Beattie, is now in the middle of a Twitter storm due to idiotic, last century style posts made approx 10 years ago about women, Muslims, disabled people, prostitutes, mental health - you name it this dick has made a "joke" about it. He is an ex-army Captain (Afghanistan, Somalia etc)so a robust and dark sense of humour is perhaps expected but to be posting this stuff in public is insane , especially with political aspirations. It kicked off on Saturday about a retweet of an off-taste joke with reference to a DUP member's wife. This has caused reporters to dig around his old tweets, and Hey Presto. So 4 months out from the local assembly elections the only possible moderate alternative to the DUP for anyone who won't vote Alliance has imploded. What a fucking bunch of cretins. Nolan shone the spotlight in his face this morning. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0013r8j

Mr Beattie lives to fight another day. Looks like the party are gambling on the electorate not being affected by his Tweets in May.

It has produced some top comedy work from Nolan again this morning after trawling around some other politicians' 10 year old tweets. Equally unedifying.   Even prompting the usual Sinn Fein lap dogs to call in and moan about their guys getting picked on for some fucking reason.

I feel like I've eaten all my popcorn during the trailers.

Gremill wrote:

Wookienopants wrote:

If this brings down the Tories I will dance naked in the street

I expect to see video evidence of this. We can sponsor you - donate the money to a foodbank to buy cake.

Deal

djchump wrote:

The Tories’ downplaying of the endless, serial rule-breaking by focusing on trivialities such as the cake is deliberate and in line with his faked public persona of “bumbling, lovable rogue who’s a bit cheeky but overall a good egg”

I still feel that Starmer's probably a touch to his right, though. A back-to-work dole-scum hater; a defender of murdering terrorism suspects. And whatever else I'm forgetting.

All I really know about Johnson is that he believes in his personal right to privilege and laziness, and will go to all heinous ends to maintain them. But he's never seemed interested in policy otherwise, or bothered about fulfilling his duties as an MP.

I'm sure his voting record stinks, but that's par. I believe he joined the Tories because they're such a good fit for him — and yeah, that says plenty — much more than vice versa. Gets his cake and he's happy. With the Blairites it's tactical, their views bitterly opposed to OG Labour values.

I'm familiar with Keith's dole-scumming because I remember a time when I advocated food vouchers. I've seen a lot of neglected kids on the councils and want to reach them.

But I see how my former thinking's contributed to the normalisation of acceptable hate towards our lower classes, where foodbanks have filled that vacancy as a politically unchallenged abrogation of responsibility (Lab '15-19 a highlight to the contrary).

I really dug this post, because it's more nuanced than my usual precariat drumming:

RLLMUKmatt0 wrote:

When I was in my 20s, in the 00s, I sometimes used to get in to arguments with friends over the "they're all the same", because I thought, patently, "no Labour are better". Even if they're bad, they're not as bad as the Tories. And it was true from a certain perspective, just as it will probably be true if Starmer's Labour get in to power.

The friends I used to argue with about this all grew up worse off than me.

What always caused the arguments was a breakdown in communication. When they said "they're all the same", it wasn't a literal "they are exactly the same" it was just shorthand. Shorthand for describing how their families circumstances and communities had continued to decline in the years after Labour got in to power. People who were expecting a reversal of what Thatcher did in the 80s that never came, and 5+ years down the line very obviously was never going to come.

It's easy at that point to fall in to the trap of going, "ah, but SureStart! ah, but increased NHS funding!" and point to things where, yes Labour were better - But if someone didn't benefit from those things, or benefitted from those things but still doesn't see an overall improvement in their material circumstances, what does that matter? At that point I was just patronising them and I wasn't listening to what was actually being said.

And my friends who had similar backgrounds to me, or who grew up better off than me, they were very much convinced that "no, Labour are better" too.

If you are secure, you get to make these judgements, because your life doesn't change either way. It may be very hard to understand, but if you're not secure then a fractional difference in how bad things might get is meaningless. It IS essentially the same. Something I understand now in a way I didn't when I was younger.

I think he explains the game of thresholds well, where appointing Starmer's sufficient for many to stop being affected by Tory policy, some of whom also agree with leftwing policies beyond his realm that they wouldn't directly benefit from. It's obviously very hard to convince those people to hold out for the rest of us when their boats are waiting, and today's rightwing Labour want to capitalise on that.

Those of us who recognise the need for a major leftwing shift should all get along in theory, but this requires a clutch of policies that meet both thresholds for noticeable change — trad centre-left ATM — instead of the current Overton centre that leaves millions adrift. Starmer wants the minimum number of votes needed to win, and that's the crux of my argument against him in a sentence.

As above, I/we understand your impetus for voting for the lesser evil (only natural), but just try and understand that a reset just below your threshold of decline (Blairism, essentially) does nothing for us. Worse, it pretends to, never wanting for snake-oilers to frame our decency-pedlars as Trots.

So as much as we share an appetite for Labour's 2019 manifesto, things like Sure Start are pissing in the wind below a certain income level, while acting as positive-acts PR for potential voters above. The minimum Billings Blair. I've always argued that the cooperation required to overthrow Blairism will come from recognising that, as Matt does, and that's how we'll form a progressive alliance in future.

That's not to say I'll criticise people for voting for Starmer, so long as they're open about voting for Cameron-tier policies at this point. Many here have families who'll benefit from an easing of the belt; I get that. But the depressing, frustrating aspect is the likes of JOB selling Starmer as someone who'd make a shit of difference to our worst-off, and then blaming us for disagreeing and costing him and his likewise comfortable sensibles their first-choice leader.

It's a good metric that anyone who completely satisfies that cohort is another pox on our growing poverty class. Jess Phillips their golden god. If you vote for Starmer and own what you're voting for, I can respect that. Voting for a centre-right MP's a democractic choice that I won't crawl up your ass about.

Just don't claim you're helping our worst-off in tandem, for whom he's on constant record as not looking out for. ('Cept for wanting to maintain sanctions for benefits claimants; telling poor immigrants they're not welcome...)

Escape wrote:

Gonna put this in a separate post for those who don't read my wall.

https://labourlist.org/2022/01/laura-pidcock-resigns-from-labour-nec-citing-hostile-territory-for-socialists/

There's a former Labour member on RLLMUK who's shared a lot of info about how lefties on his CLP have been attacked (he and most of them have quit). I had my doubts about Laura turning, but good on her.

She was my MP, briefly. Good on her, I don't blame her.