Westministenders: Oh No Not Another One. Thread that is.

[RedToothBrush]

In this edition of Westministers we play a game of ‘Where are they now?’

In June 2016 our screens were subjected to the sight of a number of particularly vocal MPs who participated in debates and stood on soap boxes to talk about the referendum.

The most noticeable of these for Leave were perhaps Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Andrea Leadsom, Gisela Stuart, Nigel Farage, Priti Patel and Kate Hoey. For Remain it was David Cameron, George Osborne, Jeremy Corbyn, Ruth Davidson, Sadiq Khan, Nicola Sturgeon, Nick Clegg and Tim Farron.

It is starting to seem that anyone involved in campaigning either for or against Brexit in June 2016 has faced an epic battle for survival. Just how long can they last before being defeated or conceding defeat.

David Cameron’s scalp was the first to go, as he swanned off leaving everyone to clear up his mess.

Boris Johnson, who was keen to stamp his mark and pitch for the leadership by stitching up Cameron, got stitched up by Michael Gove who also lost his own bid for leadership as a result.

Johnson, of course, still lives to fight another day by getting a nice job as Theresa’s whipping boy. He’s occasionally let out by himself, but its Michael Fallon who does the ‘Grown Up Business’. He was said to be one of the last to support an early election. I can’t think why that might be.

Poor old Gove is now confined to a straight-jacket, the back benches where he’s been told to think about what he’s done like a naughty school child and a column in the Times

Andrea Leadsom was sent to a field of cows never to be seen again except to pop up for the odd cameo line shouting about ‘Jam’.

Queen Theresa also dealt with the other Conservative Leader Leave Candidate Mr Liam Fox, by shipping him off to every dodgy corner of the global to get pampered by state hostility.

Stephen Crabb simply crawled back under his rock.

The announcement of the General Election seems to be like the major soap incident episode where half the cast get killed off by a totally unrealistic disaster because their acting contracts weren’t being renewed.

The quitters and abdicators who now have legged it at the sight of a General Election are Gisela ‘Champion of the Brexit Bus’ Stuart and Nigel ‘Too chicken to be defeated for an eighth time and risk losing my nice EU pension’ Farage. George Osborne took the advice of his school teachers and had another career to fall back on when he didn’t become successful in his first choice.

Its rather starting to look like the curse of being a leading Brexiteer is to be made to disappear off the face of the earth or fuck off when the going gets tough. Have you seen Priti Patel lately? Does she even still exist? And Chris Grayling? He was convinced he was going to get chancellor when he supported May in her bid for the leadership.
Instead he got packed off transport and disappeared off the face of the earth much to the annoyance of everyone caught up in the rail strikes.

The only one who is remotely visible seems to be David Davis and is like May’s pet poodle who just tries to please his owner.

It’s almost like the only one still standing or hasn’t been banished is Kate Hoey. And the Lib Dems are trying to work on that one and make her sink beneath the waves, on board her Alan Partridge Titanic once and for all.

Conversely the visible Remainers seem to be – on the face of it - fairing rather better at the moment.

Sadiq Khan is hugely popular and actually does his job rather than fannying about on zip wires. Ruth Davidson is also well respected and apparently has saved Priti Patel’s job from abolition. If the rumours are to be believed bored with scrapping with Nicola, she might be lining herself up for ‘Big Things’ in Westminister. Cameron’s one time love interest, Nick Clegg hasn’t shaken the tarnish of the coalition but he is enjoying a new reputation as the Brexit Soothsayer and some people actually know who Tim Farron is now, which is progress. Nicola Sturgeon is of course riding high and seems to be a permanent thorn in Theresa’s side.

Jeremy ‘I’m a Remainer, honest comrades’ Corbyn is the one who seems to be something of a walking disaster area yet is also thriving with it like a zombie who just keeps going regardless of what you throw at him.

And then of course there is Queen Theresa. The Remainer. Who has crushed everyone in her party. Not just the saboteurs. Even her supposed ally Hammond and BBF Rudd have been thrown under the bus at her wimb when its suited May personally.

The General Election now sets a new scene and opportunity for new characters to emerge. Now the rats have left the ship or been put in their place.

Will May set course to the left or to the right or simply plow on like a bull in a china shop?

Anyway I’m now looking forward to the shocking soap opera moment where your favourite hero or villain gets killed off in a twist you didn’t see coming. Role on June 8th. If only to get pass the upcoming horror of the next six weeks.

I think all one can do is make plans...
If dh would leave I'd be out of here 😞
But he won't so we will just try to save as much money as we can
Because hard times are on the way - and sadly they are on the way for a lot of Tory voters too

Oh, I hadn't realised she was WEP - I'd assumed she was the 2nd or 3rd party candidate.
Your're right: splitting the vote is just indulging an ego trip

you're

Badders I agree. Hard times coming. Looking at the US and UK, the real definition of populism seems to be 'persuading the majority of the populace to vote for something which will be against their best interests.'

Yep 😞

Not just Corbyn motherorfourdragons, the whole bloody labour party is complicit. If they had an even half decent and coherent alternative Corbyn would not have even stood a chance of winning the leadership. If they had listened to the strength of feeling that put Corbyn in place and put forward a candidate that even paid lip service to the discontent they would have got rid of him in the last leadership election. Most of the Corbyn voters i know would have voted for an alternative leader who showed some recognition of their views rather then just continuing to dig the same blairite hole.

Currently there are very few MPs in the labour party who are not doing the conservatives work for them right now. I am disgusted by the whole bickering pile of them.

I will excuse the 13 who voted against having the General Election. I don't remember who they were but Dennis Skinner was one.

FFS Jeremy.

With all that's going on in the uk you're worrying about pissing bank holidays?!

I'm not convinced he's even trying...

On face value, I can really see why someone would vote Tory - particularly someone who doesn't particulalry follow politics beyond what's in the papers.

And that's bloody depressing.

Just checked my emails and saw this from Tim Farron (ok, probably not him personally but you know )

The Liberal Democrats will not enter into any coalition deal with either Theresa May’s Conservatives or Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party.

I find the wording very telling. Not no coalition deals, not no coalition with Tories or no coalition with Labour. No coalition with May's Tories and Corbyn's Labour.

That is interesting wording isn't it Hashi. I have seen talk that the lib Dems may be open to a deal with labour if they got rid of Corbyn. I can't really see that happening though to be honest, but i guess it does no harm to keep the door ajar a crack.

VERY gloomy Labour member in the Times:
Whatever the election result, Labour loses

"A round a battered but beloved building an arsonist is sprinkling petrol.
Until the match is struck on June 8, all we can do is wait.

This is how it feels to be a centre-left Labour supporter: a powerless spectator at your party’s probable destruction.

Except it is worse than that.
We know the fire must come; we are resigned.
We try to believe something can be salvaged from the flames or even that a phoenix will rise.
But maybe it won’t.
Maybe it will just be ashes."

"Corbynism has contracted into a close-minded cabal, an irrational cult.
It is not the antisemitism he’s unleashed, his pro-Putin anti-West tilt, inertia on Syria, incoherence on Trident, Brexit, Scotland.
It is not his laziness in taking lieu days, his utter invisibility when children are gassed or Westminster attacked.

What wearies the soul is his stupidity.

I can’t think of a better word for employing a press office that can’t issue a prompt or accurate press release.
Or for getting halfwits like Dawn Butler, MP for Brent Central, to declare Theresa May has rigged democracy by calling an election — yes, the election she voted for.
Or for selecting a shadow cabinet you wouldn’t trust with your council bin collection"

"So what about a Lib Dem-Lab-SNP alliance?

My heartbroken Remainer friends cleave to this fantasy.

But how would it work?

Could Corbyn lead a coalition when he can’t lead his own MPs?
Would Nicola Sturgeon happily play second banana? Whither Brexit with Labour committed to Article 50, the others not.
Whither Britain when the SNP cares about nothing — certainly not English jobs or services — except getting another referendum"

".. Corbyn will do without shame or honour, his chief objective being to cling to party apparatus whatever the cost.
Squatting inside Labour’s blackened hulk he — or his designated hard-left successor — will wait until the next ravaging fire in 2022, which he will embrace as a purifying flame."

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/whatever-the-election-result-labour-loses-d88vqx3sn

The rest of the email goes on to talk about May's agenda or Corbyn's disastrous nature (I am massively paraphrasing here), but again not Tories and not Labour themselves.

I'm a giant pragmatist though, I think in order to run a country properly the parties all should be open to working with each other even if its just on an issue by issue basis. Otherwise it feels like the head of finance and head of sales refusing to work with each other, then wondering why the entire company is failing.

Placemarking. I thought it was a bit quiet after the Matthew Parris comments on the last thread - took me rather longer than it should have to realise the thread had topped out, rather than expressing Parris sympathy being a threadkiller remark.

To be fair to Corbyn (after just trashing him and the labour party) he has been out and about a lot over the past few days, he has held press conferences and taken questions, he has done the phones, he has knocked on doors and spoken to actual real people. May has got in a helicopter to go to carefully setup photo ops, she has refused to take questions and banned the press. Despite this the papers give May, not saying anything with a vetted group of supporters, more press attention then all of poor Jeremy's efforts get put together. He could get a megaphone and shout from the rooftops and all that would get reported is that he hadn't tucked his shirt in.

The sheer incompetence of JC as leader is what is killing Labour:
You can't run a major political party like this and expect anything but wipeout

Sunday Times: Corbyn’s office ‘ruled by chaos’

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/corbyns-office-ruled-by-chaos-gz7r3xns3

former Corbyn adviser Geoff Candice:
"No diary, no schedule . . . Nobody knew what their job was"

"Jeremy Corbyn “struggles to cope” with the demands of frontline politics and works in conditions of “chaos”,"

according to a key insider who spent a year at the heart of the opposition leader’s team.

Harry Fletcher, the Labour leader’s former communications and strategy adviser, detailed the

“fraught, tense and unhappy” atmosphere in Corbyn’s office and growing disorder....

“There was no diary, no schedule, few or no regular team meetings.

Nobody knew what their job was.

We discovered in passing one day that there were tens of thousands of unopened emails to Jeremy that no one had ever read.”

Fletcher reveals that
the work coming into Corbyn’s office overwhelmed the staff.

“They were almost terrified of it.
The team just come across as frightened to make decisions."

in contrast, Tory Central Office is a slick fighting machine (helped by exceeding allowed election expenses)

The short period until the election does not leave much time for examining flaws in their program - or the lack of it

Sigh

Today's lead article for mail is straight from Tory HQ. It says Tory lead in polls slashed in just 4 days with a graph saying 46% down to 40% for the Conservatives whilst Labour is up from 25% to 29%.

The problem?

The figures are from two different pollsters so the claim is utter nonsensical bullshit designed to try an counteract apathy amongst supporters.

The reaction to this?
Momentum @PeopledMomentum
Promising start.

We've got 7 weeks. Canvass, phonebank, volunteer, donate. Let's do this 👊

Meanwhile Farage has gone after Verhofstadt saying:
Nigel Farage @NigelFarage
EU Parliament negotiator @GuyVerhofstadt says we may not be able to holiday in the EU after Brexit. He is a raving lunatic.

What Verhofstadt said was that without a deal, UK citizens would have as much right to visit or study in the EU as a tourist from Moscow or a student from Mumbai.

Which is true because we'd be subject to non-EU visas. Not because the EU had done anything but because Brexit means Brexit especially if we cry no deal.

Farage of course knows that fact checking is so last decade.

He's also being sued by Hope not Hate after he said on LBC that they were violent and undemocratic.

The group have been in a Twitter spat all week with Banks and Andy Wigmore who was baiting them saying their CEO had send a mob to harass Farage. At one point both were saying 'we know where you live' to Nick Lowles and saying he better not do the same to Banks in his Clacton campaign 'or else'.

It's a ploy to get column inches now Carswell can't generate them for them. Nothing more. The strategy has always been be as outrageous and nasty as possible like Trump and Banks has admitted this.

Nick Cohen has an article about how Labour's left are not going to disappear:
www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/22/dissent-dealt-with-savagely-by-far-left
In it he talks about Gerard Coyne suspension.

I cannot say with certainty what the charges are. Like the worst-managed multinational corporations, Unite will use it against Coyne in his disciplinary hearing if he speaks to the press or public. But here is what I have been able to find out. In his election address to members, Coyne described how Unite had used the subs of poorly paid members to help buy a flat for McCluskey near London’s fashionable Borough Market. “Just last year, Unite put £417,000 of your money into a luxury apartment for his personal uses. None of this can be justified. It is a scandal that we pay our general secretary a big salary and then give him even more money to buy property.”

Unite tried to claim to its members that Coyne was not telling the truth. As he was telling the truth and nothing but the truth, Coyne threatened to call in the lawyers to stop McCluskey’s supporters interfering with his election address. Unite backed down. But the allegation that he brought the union into disrepute by discussing its sweetheart deals was not forgotten and is being used against him today.

(Guido Fawkes was having a dig at McCluskey photographed with Milne celebrating his victory drinking campaign at a bar where it's £90 for the cheapest bottle they serve on Friday.)

Cohen points to a general attitude in the UK where there is dying belief in the UK that politicians in a democracy should be held accountable to the press and public.

I can't help but agree with that.

Carole Cadwalladr again, on Farage, Assange, Trump, Mercer and Russia.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/23/when-nigel-farage-met-julian-assange?CMP=sharebtnn_tw

That re: Labour's central office is terrifying, BigChocFrenzy. It's hard to believe we'd be facing a GE now if Labour had its act together. Just to think what a competent Opposition could have done with this government since June...

If he said out loud - JC resigns and we will talk coalition with Labour then that for me would be a position I could listen to. But while it is an open question like this, he and his party will never get my vote.

Mother i said a couple of days ago that i thought Farron had ruled out a coalition with Corbyn rather with Labour as it was being reported. He has now put out a presser saying 'Corbyn's Labour's and 'May's Conservatives' which i do think goes someway to making the distinction you are after.

But you are right. It's subtly. Something that is only going to be picked up by a small percentage of the electorate and still leaves questions over Labour or the Conservatives under a different leader.

This is where he is caught between a rock and a hard place.

If he did come out right and say what you want he'd be hit by Labour and Conservative spinners. Labour would throw the last coalition at him and the Conservatives would omit Corbyn from the story and merely say Farron open to the 'coalition of chaos' with Labour they have been parroting.

For this reason i think this is why this is as far as Farron will go. Because it's as far as he can go without it being more of a vote loser than winner.

I think your criticism is perhaps more about the state of the British media and politics rather than one of Farron for this reason. I'd like Farron to do the same but I get why his hands are tied. (See Farage's comment re Verhofstadt above for another example)

Rumours are today that the Observer will come out endorsing the LDs this election. This would be helpful to Farron in helping him get his message by having one friendly outlet. But it's still a niche readership these days rather than having wide appeal to the public.

The public are thoroughly pissed off with politics - accountability is at the very heart of it - and things are going in exactly the opposite direction. Far from taking back control, the public are getting the opposite.

Also the talk about US wanting to extridite Assange is starting to look like a precursor to a crack down and prosecution of journalists rather than any serious attempt to look at espionage related activities.

Corbyn on Matt this morning. This sums it up:

Kevin Schofield @PolHomeEditor
How has the leader of the opposition gone on TV without clear answers to so many obvious questions? #marr

Tim Shipman @ shippersunbound
Habit?

Kevin Schofield @PolHomeEditor
Can't be a lack of advisers ...

Don't think it needs further comment.

Just to think what a competent Opposition could have done with this government since June...

Quite.
(Placemark. And thanks for the new thread, RTB)

The public are thoroughly pissed off with politics - accountability is at the very heart of it - and things are going in exactly the opposite direction. Far from taking back control, the public are getting the opposite.

Absolutely agree with this!

How has the leader of the opposition gone on TV without clear answers to so many obvious questions? #marr
Presumably in exactly the same way the leader of the conservatives has. This is not unique to Corbyn, and to be honest i didn't see his answers as all that unclear. Particularly compared to May's deafening silence and absence of any policy.