Westminstenders: Tory Natural Selection

[RedToothBrush]

Here we go again...

"We are leaving on 31st October come hell or high water otherwise the Tory party are finished"

And if we do Leave they could still be finished. Don't forget the million plus who marched (300,000 if you are Clavinova), 6 million plus who signed the petition (overseas, multiple accounts, getting your cat to sign etc. ), and the Tory wipe out in Local elections and the EU elections (real votes so can't be dismissed for whatever reasons). The only thing I could see electing Boris doing would be to kill off Farage and his Brexit party.

Well I suppose there’s the upside. Vote in Boris and first pop goes Farage and the Brexit mob, give it a few months (weeks?) and the Tory party finally implodes. Shame about the rest of us.
Yes, May went for an election because the polls were very favourable. I can’t remember any other Conservatives warning her off.
That NYT article is v v good and v v true. Thanks, chickens.

That Telegraph "poll" is just part of the "elect Boris" campaign that someone is paying a lot of money for.

It's intended to ensure that (a) wavering MPs see him as the only hope of saving their seats and (b) if he gets to the final two he's a shoe-in.

Not sure about the idea of hoping Boris gets it just to destroy the Tories. Kind of like wanting Brexit to punish those people foolish enough to vote Leave in the referendum. Or like supporting Lexit for some sort of ideological reason.
I'm old and boring. I want Not Chaos. Even if it's hard work and not very jolly.

I'm old and boring. I want Not Chaos. Even if it's hard work and not very jolly.

I'm not quite old (in my mind; the kids think otherwise!) but I'm equally 'boring' if wanting 'Not Chaos' is boring. Sometimes sensible is called boring though!

“But according to Lord Hayward's analysis of recent opinion polls, a staggering 23% of people who voted Tory in 2017 - around 3 million voters - think he would be a "very bad" Prime Minister, making it highly unlikely they would support the party next time round.”

My DM has voted Conservative for the past 45 years. She wouldn't vote for them if Boris was leader. She thought he was terrible as foreign secretary.

Rampant and often violent and fatal racism, sexism and poverty has been sparked/enabled since June 2016.

Most britons seem quite content about this racism, sexism and poverty ; otherwise they would have stood up to them, wouldn't they?

And they have not.

That awful little toff with dyed hair, would be a shoe-in in a GE.

He would, if fact, represent the country rather accurately. The poll may be slightly off, but I have no doubt it's in the right ball park.

Talk about it signalling the end of the tories is hopelessly naive.

Said dyed toff is indicating that he will enable the end of our legislature.

He is campaigning as he will govern; he's the silent candidate; undefined and populist but wielding power that is cowing any credible opposition. Just like the'brexit'.

When someone shows you what they are; believe them.

He knows the electorate, journalists and MPs will do nothing to prevent him getting the power at his fingertips right now.

And he is right.

Looking at that Torygraph poll, only 16% of respondents say they didn’t vote / wouldn’t say if they voted or not in the EU referendum, yet we know 29% of the electorate didn’t vote?

Also, looking at voting intention by age group, the Tories (and the BXP) have a real problem with the under 45s who are much more likely to vote Labour or Lib Dem.

Even under Boris (as the “best” candidate for the Tories) the under 45s voting intention is around:

15-18% Tory
3-6% BXP
15-19% Labour
10-13% Lib Dem

we know 29% of the electorate didn’t vote

Didn't or couldn't?

Factor in those who are being disenfranchised accidentally or for some other reason; often younger voters who have insecure rentals and therefore insecure places on electoral register.

Job done for the 'victors'.

Again, if people really cared to oppose, they would have paid attention to problems in all voters exercising their rights.

Anyone with half a brain would have seen the historical antecedents to this.

They didn't and haven't.

we know 29% of the electorate didn’t vote

Didn't or couldn't?

The electorate being those people registered to vote, so would include those such as people living overseas that didn’t receive ballot papers in time.

But does not include those not registered to vote, of which there is a large number (I think I worked out once that it could be in the order of 5 million) or those that have been disenfranchised such as those that have lived overseas >15 years.

Anyone noticed the thread about TV licenses ?

Seems there's not as much love for pensioners as there used to be.

I wonder if there's any significance in that ? Could we be seeing teh start of another political powerbase ? A generational alliance against the older folk ? Ultimately, when the Tory hate machine has chewed up all the immigrants, single mums, workshy kids, benefit scroungers and too-ill-to-works, it has to find fresh meat. Could it be turning to devour the wrinklies and crinklies ? Even if it risks killing itself ?

The Comres poll is very interesting. Support for Tory / BxtPty goes up if Boris is Leader. Implies quite a lot of non Tory voters trust him to deliver the sort of Brexit they want and quite a lot of non Brexit supporting Tories are prepared to swallow Brexit if they get his brand of Toryism.

Very much accords with the Remain Tories and the Brexit non-Tories I know.

Also interesting that LibDem share doesn't move much no matter who they choose and only candidate cutting into Labour is Boris. All the rest is just noise around Con / Bxt Party, but significant that total goes to 51% with Boris where it is around 45% for every other option.

Would say Parliamentary machinations from Labour plus this poll make chances of an early election increase exponentially.

Anyone noticed the thread about TV licenses? Seems there's not as much love for pensioners as there used to be

I’ve noticed that. I guess it’s to be expected. 20 years ago pensioners fought in World War II. You would need to be in your nineties for that to be true now.

I don’t know how the Tories will survive. They are strident capitalists. The problem is more and more of the population don’t own capital (not homeowners, few savings or investments).
People without capital or any means to accrue capital don’t vote for rampant capitalists.

Interesting move to "crack down" on fraudulent GPs today. Another fig leaf for decreased funding and worsening services. As ever, timing is all.

I don’t know how the Tories will survive. They are strident capitalists.

No they're not. True capitalism would be classless. Their brand of capitalism is for "people like us" , not at all the same thing.

Ben Elton (or Richard Curtis, but I'm going sparkly suits) nailed it in 2 sentences in Blackadder the Third. Here's English Tory capitalism:

Edmund: No, no, I won't. [propositioning] Now, listen, Frou Frou ... Would you like to earn some money?

Frou Frou: No, I wouldn't. I would like other people to earn it and then >give< it to me, just like in France in the good old days.

plus ça change ....

I have seen the thread about TV licences, and I am a pensioner, although not yet 75. Quite honestly, I can't see why there should be a blanket dishing out of free licences, for all. They are just playing into the idea that all pensioners are poor while helping subsidise those they think (hope) will vote Tory. £154.50 is not a lot of money for many pensioners. For those who are less less well off, like my MIL, she is on pension credit so she would still receive it.

Similarly, when we tell Brexiters of job losses - don't forget that a lot of Leave voters have already retired, so job losses don't affect them, their houses are paid for, and they are probably as well off now as they ever were.

Also interesting that LibDem share doesn't move much

It is interesting, because the LibDems have piled on members in the last month. I believe the same is also true for the Greens.

One of those articles that just catches your attention:

www.buzzfeed.com/hazelshearing/jihadist-brain-scans-radicalisation
The First Ever Brain Scans Of Jihadists Show How Radicalisation Alters The Mind

"We’re not finding anything bizarre going on with the brain... It’s just normal functions being directed in a particular way."

Scientists have looked for the first time at the brain patterns of Islamist radicals, showing that the part of the brain associated with deliberative reasoning deactivates when a person is willing to fight and die for a "sacred cause" — and that the opinions of their peers can change that way of thinking.

Researchers from the UK, Spain, and the US carried out brain scans on groups of men at various stages of radicalisation for Artis International, a research group that studies the role of "sacred values" in violent conflicts around the world.

The study, published in the Royal Society Open Science journal, found that when a subject was willing to fight and die for what they considered to be "sacred values", activity in the areas of the brain associated with deliberative reasoning decreased. Instead, they showed high activity in a different part of the brain: one associated with subjective perceptions of value, such as what a person finds beautiful.

Interesting that there has been research to "prove" that "radical thinking" is somehow a pathological condition.

Because once it is (let's not worry too much about proof anyway) we get back to anyone who doesn't vote Tory is a "defective" (and I use that word very deliberately). Obviously not to be trusted with a vote, and probably a candidate for mandatory "re-education" in how to be a productive member of society.

Interesting that there has been research to "prove" that "radical thinking" is somehow a pathological condition.

I was thinking that they ought to examine the extreme right wing of the Tory party to see if it holds for them.

Interesting summary of the tory candidates in the journal It's looking at them from an Irish perspective. It looks like they are , other than Stewart, totally ignorant of the border issues (most of them), don't care about the effect on the border (most of them) or want to deliberately sabotage the GFA (Gove). I suspect Stewart doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell, given his grasp of reality.

I was thinking that they ought to examine the extreme right wing of the Tory party to see if it holds for them.

By definition, the view in power is the "right" one. It's how Christianity worked for a millennia. Might is right etc.

Resources are limited, and thinning out - less per head of population than before on average. The evolutionary pressure is growing, and natural selection is doing it's thing. One way or another. Who knows, if we can move the stronger members around maybe we can establish some surviving colonies. Immigration is very much a natural process (also taking the strong from one colony must weaken that colony ....)

I never tire of the hypocrisy of evolution-deniers who then rely on the language of evolution to justify their actions.

Do the brain cells in 'Brexiteers' communicate with each other?
I would suggest that the activities of Mr A Hitler has an interesting resonance here but, presuming it is true, some of the 'thinking' behind his ideas was actually being explored in the USA, and much of Europe, and he just 'enabled' those working in these fields to do it more 'effectively' by removing some of the scruples and ploughing money into them.

Infuriating tweet from Laura K BBC..."whatever happens next his team has done quite some job getting all shades of tory party in the room - from Mogg and Francois to Brokenshire and rising ministers like Dowden and Frazer - it’s some coalition". Is that it? Seems to sum up the only thing worth reporting in UK politics for the last 3 years: how united (or not) the Tory Party is.

Laura K is a Tory.