The Westministenders / Media Baron Hunger Games continues. Who is trying to outmanoeuvre who?

[RedToothBrush]

Don't worry we've all lost track.

In the Blue Corner
It started out with Cameron and Osborne trying to win the battle of the Tories, but they got stung in a UK wide vote. Some of us thought it was about the 'EU'. Instead it has turned out it was an internal Tory Bitch fight between some old Oxford and Eton mates, whilst for others a protest vote at being disenfranchised.
Gove and Johnson stabbed Cameron & Osborne in the back to run for Team Leave. Then they won when they didn't expect to. And there was no Plan. Uh Oh. Then it all started to go really wrong.
Cameron quit in disgust. Johnson went all President Churchill, before he also got stabbed by Gove (possibly with the assistance of the dark influence of Osborne).
We now have a Tory Smackdown with the shadowy influence of the Media Barons in the background.

#Team Gove has been doing their best with the knives. This is a mission to stab as many Tory MPs in the back as possible in order to become PM. Sponsored and supported by Murdoch

#Team Leadsom has been selling more unicorns and trying to pretend her CV and tax return are completely transparent. Think positive and the economy will be just fine. She is the homeopathy of politics. Sponsored and supported by Arron Banks, Leave.eu, UKIP and Britain First.

#Team May has been threatening to deport everyone if the EU don't play nice. Sponsored and supported by The Daily Mail's Dacre

In The Purple Corner
Tragically, it appears that not only do UKIP have a Plan A, they also have outwitted everyone by having Plan B. Yes that’s right TWO plans.
Farage has swanned off –sacked—for a life on CBB so they are looking for a new leader.
The potential candidates are all equally loathsome. They include Arron Banks himself, a suspended member of the party and several other people with an uncanny ability to put their foot in their mouths.
If this wasn't horrible enough, Team Leadsom is increasingly starting to look like a UKIP take over bid of the Conservative Party, which might be a neat way of avoiding a leadership battle of their own considering the quality of the candidates on offer.

In short, its a bit like a Bad Dystopian Movie that invokes Godwin, set in 2016 Westminster. Except its real.
In the Red Corner
Meanwhile the WMD has finally gone off in the Labour Camp, as Chilcot has been published. However the Chicken Coup rattles on regardless.

Corbyn is STILL clinging on, putting in a good claim for the Westminster 'Charlie off Casualty' Award. He has however had his Big Moment in the Commons. Which was a bit of a let down really. ...

The Unions have been trying to talk some sense into everyone. Meanwhile everyone else is has given up and are now just praying for a ruddy miracle to end this torture and give the country an opposition party.

Angela Eagle is still outside for the 5th day in a row, going "I will stand. Soon. If he doesn't quit" The BBC now qualify for a discount deal at the local Travel Lodge.

We FINALLY know who the fuck Owen Smith is! He's a Welsh MP and sounds like he's not completely away with the political fairies.

George Galloway appears to be trying to make a late bid to be included on the ballot paper for any leadership election.
Bliar's cried. We didn't. Chilcot took over 2 million words to tell us everything we already knew. As well as the fact that Mi6 like Nicholas Cage a lot.

The Cult of Momentum are still worshiping their Dear Leader by sending death threats to PR companies they suspect of disloyalty. Somehow they still manage not to get the title of the most vile pressure group in the UK.

And I suppose I should ask, when will a50 be triggered....? And by whom?


All these questions and more.
Tin foil hats now available upon request

Sense of humour compulsory. No experience necessary though

//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2670552-Has-Boris-been-outmanoeuvred?pg=1 Previous thread 1

//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2672388-Has-Boris-been-outmanoevered-Will-someone-please-tell-me-who-is-in-charge Previous thread 2

//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/a2673982-Have-Boris-and-Jeremy-been-stabbed-in-the-back-Please-can-we-have-some-leaders Previous thread 3

//www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2675432-Boris-outmaneovered-Et-tu-Gove-Corbyn-The-Westministenders-Hunger-Games-Continues? Previous thread 4

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2678198-The-Westministenders-Hunger-Games-continues-Boris-still-trying-not-to-be-outmanoeuvred Previous thread 5

[GingerIvy]

AL is 53

[SwedishEdith]

Farage is 52 - these people are within my age range yet feel like a completely different generation

[ChardonnayKnickertonSmythe]

Blimey.
They do look older.

Just as well I'm not in politics.

[TheBathroomSink]

is this a mum unicorn

This is not just a mum unicorn, this is an M&S unicorn!

Loathsome knows her core demographic

[TheBathroomSink]

poshme It wouldn't take much to distance herself from banks and Britain First, surely? I expect we'll get a statement saying she doesn't want their support about the same time she publishes her tax return.

[BoreOfWhabylon]

Just saw this on another thread

[GingerIvy]

um... she's clearly strayed into "cringeworthy" with that.

[BoreOfWhabylon]

Well, "cringeworthy" is one word for it...

[Hamishandthefoxes]

Does that recipe make vomit? Cos that's what it triggers in me.

[BeMorePanda]

Marina Hyde's farewell to Gove made me laugh:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/07/farewell-michael-gove-traitor-prime-minister?CMP=ShareiOSAppp_Other

[SwedishEdith]

That "poem"

Just noticed there's still a Credit Crunch board on here - that'll be very active again soon

[BlueEyeshadow]

Just placemarking...

[merrymouse]

I just can't see Leadsom at the G8.

She looks as though she should be staring out of the pages of a private junior school brochure, the kind that is full of children in boaters and playing cricket.

'Mrs Leadsom had a message for the children at the end of term assembly "Take one cup of anglo-saxon determination..."'

At least she seems to be realistic about her prospects of getting any celtic support.

[enochroot]

I'm guessing Morgan has decided she's going to lose her job in a reshuffle if she doesn't back the winner. She's pig-headedly insisting on the duff candidate she put forward for the OFSTED role so she hasn't shown much ability at picking winners lately.
Jeremy Hunt is another I would like to see dropped in a reshuffle if anything good is going to come out of this debacle. Thanks to his stupid new contract DD was looking to move abroad even before the referendum result.

I was musing about the Lords because Labour has some outstanding people in there. I have no one in particular in mind but I know of no one in the PLP at the moment who could unite the party and woo back those disenchanted voters. Maybe time to think outside the box?
I've voted Labour all my life and I despair that there is no concerted effort from Labour MPs to expose the coup d'etat which is taking place before our eyes.

[SwedishEdith]

"Whisk with two tablespoonfuls of military respect for authority " WTF does that mean. I know it's just a stupid trite poem but that line is really a bit chilling

This is good but still depressing
www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/07/the-perfect-champion-for-the-new-nasty-party-andrea-leadsom

[squoosh]

So that recipe isn't a spoof??

Well Andrea you forgot the shovel of lies and the bucket of bigotry.

[BeMorePanda]

Is it too late to join the Conservative party to have a vote and resign straight afterwards.?

[squoosh]

'Fraid so.

[MissHooliesCardigan]

I've just calculated that, if there are 150,000 Tory members and they all vote, that equates to 0.23% of the U.K. population who get to choose the next PM. How the hell is that ok?

[TheNorthRemembers]

I will miss Gove. Marina Hyde thought his slogan should be "Welcome to politics, bitch." That would have been so apt.

RedToothBrush Thank for your OPs. Whenever I am sad and a bit down about this all, they your OPs cheer me up.

Where have you all seen the Owen guy? Who is he?! Why do I always miss him?

I saw this in Mark Steel's column about the important constitutional role of Michael Gove’s Wife and thought of this thread:
Because, with what’s left, nothing surprises you. Soon it will seem normal to say, “Oh, Bruce Forsyth has become leader of the Liberal Democrats”, and to see Jay-Z is standing for Labour leader with an announcement, “Hey, ya ready for a press statement? I said, ya need a leader that looks regal, done stuff illegal, drives faster than a hunting beagle, so vote for me, not this bitch Eagle.”

[RedToothBrush]

After today's events is Gove now the Poetic Justice Secretary?

gets coat

[Alisvolatpropiis]

Politics is clearly a very aging profession.

[TheNorthRemembers]

Farage is 52? When the hell did he have a proper job then? He has been leeching on the European Parliament for 17 years, and must have been campaigning full time for a few years to get elected beforehand. And didn't they say something like he followed his father to the City? Man of the people, indeed.

[squoosh]

There was a snippet on Newsnight that showed Cameron winning the Tory leadership.

He looked like a freshfaced school prefect.

[MrsLupo]

MrsLupo is there evidence the country, rather than the CLP, wants a more left wing government?

Well, it seems to me that even those who nominated Corbyn for the leadership last year only did it in the interests of broadening debate and had no expectation whatsoever that he would win. The massive upsurge in interest in him by ordinary people who for the most part had never heard of him before then, points to a popular desire for either a truly left wing labour party or, perhaps more simply, for a spin-free, informed, unflashy kind of politics. For me, and for most of the people I know who have expressed enthusiasm for Corbyn, it was definitely the former. People who are naturally left-wing felt very betrayed by New Labour, and the collapse of the Labour vote in two successive general elections suggests I'm not the only one who felt that.

The CLPs, in my experience, are much more ambivalent. In my own, and it may or may not be representative, the numbers stack up to a vote of confidence in Corbyn, but there is a clear and rather bad-tempered divide between old (by which I mean New!) Labour members and new (pro-Corbyn) ones. The pro-Corbyn members are more numerous, which you would think would be exciting after the dismal, uninspiring leaders we've endured in recent years, but it's causing massive disharmony because, whereas New Labour members thought they were joining the Labour party, in fact they were joining the Blair party and now think that they have been infiltrated. It seems to be beyond them to consider that perhaps they were the infiltrators themselves. Or just to grab the votes with both hands and give thanks!

So, yes, I do think there is an appetite for left-leaning politics, but it's also true of course that UKIP have a strong grip on what were once staunch Labour communities. I think the churn of opinion is slower among people who are not politically active themselves, and many of those Labour heartlands still harbour resentments at the betrayals of the Blair years, and this week won't have helped. The bad has come very much to overshadow the good.

What does help is that Corbyn, whatever you may be told, is very, very active at grassroots level, travelling from place to place talking to people and, crucially, listening. People like him. No 'bigoted sort of woman' comments for him. UKIP is well funded and well versed in the sort of rabble-rousing talk that Jeremy Kyle viewers are programmed to respond to, but with a party that is more loyal and, crucially, more on-message, I think Labour could do well under Corbyn. Which is why I think deselections may have to be the way forward. Much has been made of Corbyn's own defiance of the whip, but he never participated in anything like the kind of orchestrated disloyalty we've seen this week and last. Like it or not, he is popular. 500,000 members fgs! Anyone who doesn't want to serve under a popular leader may not be cut out for government, imo.

But it's JMHO and deeply anecdotal, of course.