Westministenders: The bookends to a year of political chaos. Just how far have we come?

[RedToothBrush]

The 15th June 2016.

The Thames was filled with a flotilla of boats in a publicity stunt for the Leave campaign to draw attention to fisheries. Nigel Farage and Kate Hoey in their heads thought they were Leonardo and Kate, but the moment was rather more titanic in nature and could not have been more Alan Partridge if they had tried. Coming up behind was Bob Gedolf in a shameful and cringeworthy display of swearing and abuse that really didn’t help the Remain camp in anyway. Largely unnoticed was a small boat with a family following it all unfold…

The next day things went from fiasco to horror.

Farage unveiled the Dog Whistle Poster and Jo Cox was murdered. And the UK seemed set on its course for 7 days later when the world was turned upside down by the referendum itself.

14th June 2017.

Fast forward 365 days later and another tragedy unfolded. This time of a very different nature but with no less political significance.
Grenfell.

A moment of national shame. A symbol of so many things that had come to pass in the previous twelve months.

The election just the previous week had changed the direction of travel we seemed to be headed and left the Prime Minister exposed and looking wildly out of touch. The Maybot was given one more chance.

And the Maybot seems to be failing the test of her party who had the grace to grant her a second chance.

The Queen dressed in the same shade of blue, May delivered her ‘victory speech’ in, ignored the security threat and visited the ranks of the poor and the forgotten. A deliberate message to May not to forget who she serves? A Queen who feels aggrieved and angry by May’s behaviour? Who knows.

As for Brexit. The government looks lost. Adrift. The ‘Fight of the Summer’ over the EU’s plan for talks sounds out the window despite the denials from the Brexit Department. Hard Brexit is still on the cards. Apparently. But what does anyone believe now? May’s and the Brexiteers domination of the agenda is shattered, its power starting to be questioned.

What next?

This evening the anger is building.

Who knows, what will happen. Some of it might be predictable, but the future is far from certain and we have definitely entered a new era. We just don’t know who will lead it, or what its ambition or what the end goal now is.

What we do know, more acutely than ever is that we are all human and the wise words of Jo Cox about having ‘More in Common’ ring though ever more strongly.

Once again we feel ‘on the brink’.

In a world of identikit anodyne politcians, there is something refreshingly organic about Corbyn. It would be nice to think his popularity is a backlash against PR-spun nobodies ????

Is getting g ready to duck behind settee after following comment. I am beginning to feel sorry for May. There, I said it! To be fair when the election didn't go her way and her campaign which showed the Tories were still the nasty party I thought wayhay karma is great!

But during the election came Manchester and London bridge. Still she was unshakeable and perceived as a robot carrying on, strong and stable. Unfeeling I thought. Career first. A me me person. Then came Grenfell. She was attacked today, yes she had come to meet the people. Yes she should have come earlier, showed empathy but it really isn't her style to show emotion in anything really, though she did get a bit agitated after Manchester.
So I began to think that despite the fact I can't stand her and can't stand the things she stands for I have got to admire her for at least carrying on, releasing funds for the victims and organising an inquiry. Brexit and the DUP always looming and chasing her down, knowing she will not be PM after summer is over, people protesting out with May still she carries on.
Now that is either a really strong woman or indeed a robot. Who knows, but I still feel for her, even if its just a little bit.

The collapse of the Tory election campaign and the DUP shenanigans and whether Brexit will ever happen feels like pretend politics compared to what's happened at Grenfell.

woman I think the current Tory party rates people's importance by

1. wealth (capital, land etc)
2. income

High professional qualifications with low income & no capital or expected inheritance is just rated as another poor person, i.e. unimportant

The Conservative party of Harold McMillan was not like this. Or he wouldn't have pushed through building 300,000 homes annually for ordinary people.
Or Ted Heath, who did some things to which I object, but didn't regard the poor as Other

Just caught a clip of Whoopi Goldberg on the Daily Show.
She says 'I don't mind a president I disagree with. I mind a president who discounts us as people'.
That's what TM did with half the country. That is something that shouldn't be discounted.

Jim Waterson‏*@jimwaterson*
BBC interviewing man who lived in Grenfell Tower, lost wife in fire, was put in hotel, council moved him against will to old people's home.

Omg! What is it with politicians lying. That's shocking Red.

It's a good question.

sostenueto imo, May is just trying to hang on as PM for as long as possible
Nothing praiseworthy, just hanging onto her job to stop someone else getting it.
Still ignorantly trying to force her own Brexit through, regardless of the price the poor will pay

She's doing her job very incompetently - I can remember the last 50 years of PMs:
All made mistakes, but none remotely match the total incompetence and unfitness for office of May
She could hide this as Home Sec, but has been exposed as PM

Those with a bit more political sense, who could advise her, are too busy planning their own leadership bids

I thought the Kensington statement that everyone was in hotels who had asked for help looked highly dubious but it's not on their website any more.

Oh it is "All residents of Grenfell Tower who have requested help have been placed in hotels." Is that true?

PM Ted Heath was shy and socially awkward, but he knew his job.
He also didn't hide. He always showed up whenever he should, even though it was clearly difficult for him

Well, the BBc has proved that untrue in at least one case
So I wouldn't believe anyone else is in a suitable hotel unless there is genuine evidence

I don't think it's just May who's trying to hang onto her job, I think the Tories want(ed) to establish some stability and get the DUP deal sorted (it never will be) before a leadership contest.

Grenfell has put paid to that. I think the country might start baying for her to go.

I received my complete set of West Wing DVDs, which was my planned comfort watching during what I hope is just the May and Trump inter regnum before sanity and normal service are resumed.

I have just watched Epsiode 1, in which POTUS Jed Bartlett crashed his bike into a tree.
"The President, while riding his bike, came to a sudden arboreal stop !"

I am still firmly Remain, but in a constituency where we got the sitting Tory out for a LibDem.

I think that for many Brexit is still in the future, whereas cuts to health and education are happening now. I felt sick on the evening of 8th June, thinking that the Tories would get their 80 seat majority and that would be the end of the NHS. I deliberately didn't listen to the exit polls, and only heard of a hung Parliament at about midnight. I began to feel hopeful again, for the first time in almost a year. Even with Brexit, Labour wouldn't deliberately smash the NHS. The Tories would but rebrand it as a reorganisation.

Now, there is this appalling tragedy which shows up May and Johnson. Good luck to May with her alliance with the DUP - I hope that comes back to bite her. I would shed no tears if she also becomes responsible for the break up of the UK.

I think the Maybot et al have only just started to realise the importance of social media replacing news ouktlets and newspapers. So every such incident sends them into a mighty confusion. Imagine trying to deal with the realities of social media in the middle of such storm and try to reconcile that with the loss of traditional newspapers.
Enough to send any robot into reboot mode.

V interesting article in the Standard as riposte to Nick Timothy's claims in the Spectator.

Link

Clearly both sides blaming each other. This piece claims Crosby advised against election and was on holiday when she announced it. The surprise that the two policy advisors headed the campaign when they had no experience of campaigning. Also that it was Hill and Timothy's plan to have May as the focus. Interesting about the feedback from Tory MPs on the campaign trail.

Pokes head over settee to make sure coast is clear. Well I did say I was only an insy winsy tiny bit sorry for May. Avoids incoming missile of a large size......

Yes, the Tory party planned an annointment just before their party conference in October
They clearly need a clean transfer of power, in order to (feebly) deny calls for a GE

Cooler heads in Labour didn't really want one either - they wanted the Tories lumbered with the blame for the impossible Brexit.

However, public indignation at Grenfell may be the trigger to release a tide of discontent that scuppers all those devious political schemes

The Last Leg. Ed Balls. Gove. At a time like this.

To be fair though, if Labour cracked on with a hard Brexit, that would be the end of the NHS. That's why I didn't vote Labour. Nothing Labour promised is remotely deliverable on a hard Brexit ticket.

Thanks for posting this clip Gumpendorf. Emily Maitlis (I think that's her name) seems really emotional and angry, and the level of respect and deference for the Prime Minister is tangibly less than you'd normally see from an interviewer.

The beginning of the end? The point of no return? I can't see how May can retrieve it now.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=84KZJGz37-c&feature=youtu.be

If the election was supposed to be a second referendum then they should have made that explicit.
I voted for the party most likely to beat the tories around here
In some areas there may not have even been an anti brexit party standing
This is just a desperate attempt to spin the results into something different

Valentine2 totally agree. Inadequate in the campaign and even worse now. The way they respond (like Boris did to the fire cuts get stuffed film thing) is also as if they were stuck in another era altogether. Maybot is not going to get her party out of this.