The Westministenders Hunger Games continues. Hunting for the Opposition.

[RedToothBrush]

THE BREXIT FALLOUT OUT CONTINUES - THREAD EIGHT!

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Each of the parties seem to have a taken a very different style to their leadership contests.

The Tory party have been well documented as doing in the classic style of Hamlet. After the entire Conservative Party have spent two weeks stabbing each in the back and front, May steps forward to take the crown for herself.

But what about the others?

The UKIP leadership contest seems to be in comedy style of Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights. In a strange turn of events, that no one predicted and seem quite absurd, they seem to be changing their rules so their new leader must have been a member for 5 years. The punchline is this rules just about everyone out, apart from Neil Hamilton and Steven Woolfe. As BigChocFrenzy points out, we are expecting Arron Banks to hand out the brown envelopes. We are just waiting for the poorly thought out, and badly booked racist band to turn up and make everyone cringe in horror and distract everyone from UKIP's candidates and their manifestos in the process.

Meanwhile Labour Party decide to do what they thought was Star Wars Panto. After spending a week going “She’s Standing”, “Oh No She’s Not” Angela Eagle is declared the Empire Strikes Back candidate by Diane Abbot. Well if she’s the rebel leader, then who is Darth Vader and the Emperor?

Unfortunately, you’d be forgiven for thinking the performance is starting to look more and more like a re-enactment of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, by the minute:

A battle of wills between two forces locked together in a room with ultimately different and opposing self-interests. This is only resolved when the new leader to the dynamic who sought to upset the institution, and give the others their freedom, is lobotomised and subsequently killed in an act of mercy. His murderer manages to escape the prison to the cheers of those still stuck inside.

The Greens of course are a foreign language film, no one has heard of and no one is really that interested in watching.

The Lib Dems are merely sat in the audience. With Tim Farron heckling.

But where is Gandalf?

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At least some sanity has returned and we now have some leaders. May can now get stuck into the job of handing the nightmare that is Brexit whilst making herself at home at Number 10. Rumours are circulating that it’s been left a bit of a pigsty.

We will follow May, on her new adventures to foreign lands to persuade Merkel and Juncker to hand over a mythical unicorn to the UK. Meanwhile will we continue our own hunt for the opposition, whilst we all consult our dictionaries for the meaning of the word ‘Brexit’ in bafflement in the wake of ‘Brexit means Brexit’.

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Sense of humour compulsory. No experience necessary though

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/2682358-The-Westministenders-Media-Baron-Hunger-Games-continues-Is-it-about-to-all-implode?pg=1 Previous thread 7

ooh, on the ground reporting, I like! MrsLupo was gutted when the Brighton talks were called off at the weekend, she was going to be our ear on the ground!

^Heather Stewart @GuardianHeather
Am told the NEC's decision to hold secret ballot was swung by two female members particularly distressed about threat of intimidation.^

iain watson ‏@iainjwatson 3m3 minutes ago
Jeremy Corbyn said to be back in the nec

Sorry, Slough, looks like you've been dumped

From Peston's FB

So we will have the new occupants of the big cabinet posts in T May's government announced tomorrow, I am told.

And that is partly because the fastidious May will not want her own job of Home Secretary to be vacant even for a few hours.

And if she is filling Home, it makes sense for her to do Chancellor, Foreign and the all-new Brexit post at the same time.

I also expect the total reshuffle - which will go on for two or three days - to be substantial. May has been training and preparing to be PM for too long not to want to make a government in her own image.

And since in the first flush of office she will be more powerful than she will probably ever be again, this is her best chance of creating the team able to deliver her agenda.

So who is up, who down and who out?

Well George Osborne was in effect told yesterday, in May's Birmingham speech, that he is out of the Treasury. This was his dismissal notice:

"For a government that has overseen a lot of public service reforms in the last six years, it is striking that, by comparison, there has not been nearly as much deep economic reform".

And then she denigrated the Chancellor's cherished Northern Powerhouse in no uncertain terms - in that she called for a "plan to help not one or even two of our great regional cities but every single one of them".

Ouch.

After that lampooning, it is pretty hard to see May offering Osborne any job at all.

By contrast there is quite a lot of talk that Gove could stay on at Justice to complete his ambitious prison-reform programme.

But all change more-or-less everywhere else.

Who is on the up?

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I expect big jobs to go to Philip Hammond, Justine Greening, Chris Grayling and Amber Rudd.
As one of May's supporters said to me, the Cameron/Osborne "chumocracy" will be buried.

Laura Kuenssberg ‏@bbclaurak 2m2 minutes ago
Corbyn apparently back in room at NEC - does that mean there's been a decision? If you've followed Labour politics for a while..probably not

Thanks for the new thread - these threads have become my go-to for up to date analysis and reaction and I'm learning so much.

I'm so, so disappointed in the Labour party. They have totally wasted and frittered away the opportunity to stick the boot in to the Tories while they had the chance.

I like JC, but I feel that he has seriously let the party down

They do like a long meeting, they've been in there for almost 4 hours.

The suspense is killing me!

That's interesting, red, it's quite different from what other commentators are saying, even Laura K thinks Osborne will stay on.

Cameron/Osborne "chumocracy" will be buried that would be the one silver lining on this dark cloud

Jim Pickard ‏@PickardJE 7m7 minutes ago
Jim Pickard Retweeted Toby Perkins
I'm told by a Corbynista that they are now resigned to having to try and get the 51 signatures...

The problem for the PLP is that without the distractions of worrying about parliamentary business and agreeing on workable policies, JC's supporters can really throw all their efforts into the cause of supporting Jeremy.

That and fighting time itself.

www.peoplesmomentum.com/tyranny_of_the_clock_time_under_late_capitalism

Truth is no one has a clue, because secret ballots can yield surprising results...

Definitely not helping Corbyn though.

By contrast there is quite a lot of talk that Gove could stay on at Justice to complete his ambitious prison-reform programme.

David Allen Green likes him there - says he's doing a grand job of clearing up Grayling''s mess.

merrymouse, the best bit of that momentum press release about the tyranny of the clock:

WHEN
July 12, 2016 at 6:30am - 10am

They do like a long meeting, they've been in there for almost 4 hours.

Or is that just your western perception of time Chalalala? Maybe you could attend the anti clock event and find out about:

"alternative, non-Western ways of perceiving time and how they can be a starting point of resistance; and moving beyond the tyranny of the clock and reclaiming open ended, loose, ‘pointless’ time."

Oh I missed that Red. Hmm. Maybe there will be some attendees who are not tyrannised by clocks and haven't gone to bed?

I don't think Gove was a total disaster in justice. Unlike his stint at education or in the chief whips office...and unlike minister for Brexit Chris Grayling who was utterly terrible.

'Or is that just your western perception of time Chalalala? Maybe you could attend the anti clock event and find out about'

guilty... thank you Momentum for helping me see the errors of my way

That stuff about time sounds a lot like talking to a teenager trying to explain either why they aren't up yet, or dressed yet, or going to bed yet, or why they need more time on the Playstation.

I have a lot of these conversations. Do I now have to acknowledge that he has a philosophical point, or can I still just turn off the wifi?

Seamus Milne - it doesn't reassure me that he's always there

I think Southern Rail is being run by Momentum followers.

Michael Crick ‏@MichaelLCrick · 2m2 minutes ago
One source tells me they reckon Labour NEC meeting could last another 3-4 hours

Sleeping bag time.

This afternoon Stephen Kinnock was moaning about democracy in the Labour Party and how Jeremy Corbyn should respect the democracy of Labour MPs He was parachuted into a Labour safe seat in South Wales because of his family name. He makes my skin crawl.

WHAT?

How long does it take to stuff a bunch of papers into a hat??

In the same amount of time the Tories could run 5 leadership elections with time to spare for a couple leisurely backstabbings.