Westministenders: Hustings and Humilation

[RedToothBrush]

Round 1 has passed.
Boris is winning. But these are the Tories. Surprises might yet happen.

But the chances are the lying buffon is full speed ahead to be the next PM. As long as he manages to keep his mouth shut.

Unfortunately being Prime Minister involves talking. This might prove to be something that bursts the BorisMania rather rapidly.

A GE is still very much on the cards.

And we might face the Constitutional and undemocratic shutting down of parliament to satisfy the Tory Faithless.

Meanwhile the EU couldn't give less shits. They just think we are wasting the time we were granted in good faith.

31st October beckons with No Deal.

Incontinent??? Erm... He posts some good stuff, some stuff I raise an eyebrow at and some stuff that's frankly shit. He's certainly profilic atm. Like verbal diaherra prolific. This is new. He was not regular twitter before. Just the odd thing about cows or sheep really. I've followed him for a number of years.

Katy Balls @katyballs
Hancock allies think half of his supporters will follow him to back Boris. A large chunk of rest likely to go to Rory Stewart.

Thats put him on mid to late twenties for numbers. Not enough, but certainly useful.

I completely missed the C4 debate (lucky me).

Does anyone know who the studio audience was? If they weren't all Conservative members I'm not sure we can glean much from their reactions. Can't imagine many watch channel 4 at all actually.

Are there any stats for how many Tory members use Twitter? Can't imagine many there either.

I completely missed the C4 debate (lucky me)

Well you didn't miss much. It was spectacularly mediocre. None of them looked or sounded remotely like a Prime Minister in waiting.

The most clued up person in the room was the guy at the back of the audience mouthing, "Bollocks to Brexit." Quite.

What I don't understand about Boris supporters is; even if they think he is a benign buffoon, as opposed to a self-promoting, self- interested sociopath, since WHEN has benign buffoonery been a desirable quality for a PM?

I can remember someone saying back in 2016 that if we voted for Brexit, Trump became POTUS, and Boris became PM, it would be hilarious to watch......if we were watching from Mars!

It truly feels like we are living in some kind of weird parallel universe, where 100,000 people will get to choose which disease they want the rest of us die from (whilst being immunised themselves), rather than positively choosing the next leader of our country.

Late to the party, PMK..

Margaret Goldwater, the Presidental candidate's wife, advocated for birth control and reproductive rights and founded what became Planned Parenthood, long demonised now by the GOP

No - that was Margaret Sanger.

The GOP deliberately swooped in to grab the white supremacist Southern Democrats after Kennedy / LBJ's civil rights laws

That would ne Richard Nixon's 'silent majority'..
Neither the Dems nor the GOP really supported civil rights, but the Democrats had a wing inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt that was much more favourable toward this position than anything in the GOP, and it was this wing that eventually found an unlikely voice in the LBJ.

The GOP got a lot of mileage out of being the party of Lincoln at one point in its incarnation, but as early as the 1870s African Americans had no friends in US politics.

Plan A has crashed - what's Boris's plan B ?

Almost all other legal opinion is also that withholding / linking the exit bill would be illegal.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/06/16/cox-legal-advice-could-thwart-boris-plan-withhold-brexit-bill/

several Whitehall sources have confirmed that on-record internal legal advice from Geoffrey Cox, the attorney-general,

has warned that linking Brexit bill payments to the progress of any trade talks would be illegal

Margaret Goldwater worked with Sanger to produce the forerunner of Planned Parenthood

math I know Sanger was the activist, but imo Goldwater's political clout was important to make it all happen
She remained involved and was on the board of PP in Arizona

She formally opened birth control & family planning clinics - difficult to imagine the wife of a leading GOP politician doing that now

My main point was that this illustrates how the GOP have changed from at least some mainstream figures being socially liberal and rational, to the current batshit norm.

Tricky Dicky even allocated federal funds to PP, so although he started the rightwing swing and deliberately stoked up racism,
afaik he hadn't realised the potential capital to be made from restricting womens choices

LBJ's civil rights laws made a significant difference to my US family members
and to millions of other People of Colour
However grudging the rest of his party was about this.

I've always respected him for doing something that he knew would lose the white Southern Democrat vote
(otoh, his Viet Nam policy deserves little respect)

Very rare for a politician to do the right thing, even when they know it will seriously damage their party for a generation - I'm not sure if he realised the white Southerners would be permanently lost

Thinking about hustings and humiliation. I wonder who is being humiliated here...

Last night's hustings can only tactically have been directed at:
• fellow Tory MPs
• the paid up Tory faithful who get to vote on their next leader.

Rory Stewart at least openly acknowledges the complexities of the mess we have created. He also understands the basic point that there is not (and never was) any negotiating leverage to be had from threatening self harm. It's absurd three years down the road to believe this gives any leverage on something that has already been agreed anyway.

The others ( perhaps not Raab) obviously understand the position too, but just pretend they can shift Ireland's position, pretend they can get the EU to redesign its fundamental principles, pretend no deal s great.

The leadership candidates indulge in grandstanding no deal talk. But they don't all believe this, they know we need to trade on the most advantageous terms possible with our nearest neighbours as we have done for over 800 years

So to pretend it's simple and no deal is viable of course shows fear of the Faragists but they must also have private contempt for their faithful and I think they must hold some of their less able supporting MPs in contempt too. I'm not explaining it very well. But it's their own supporters who are being humiliated. The leadership candidates must think their own voters are so bloody stupid, "we will say this as it's what the thickies want to hear".

It's a really worrying and distasteful dynamic.From the rank and file it's we are behind you we are loyal we support you, and from the masters, it's you are thick, we will shaft you.

{since WHEN has benign buffoonery been a desirable quality for a PM?}

More to the point, when we leave the EU the UK gov will be facing real tough negotiations. Getting into the EU was relatively simple, the basics were easy to cover and were added to over 40 years with the EU who in general had a common goal, and for a setup that was both financial and 'citizen' based, where citizens took a degree of 'superiority' over finance.
Dealings with all others are primarily financial and like a wounded and bleeding fish, the sharks are circling around the UK and their primary interest is finance.
It is going to require a VERY cool, highly researched and consistent approach to get any sort of deal with all 'new' deals.

Laura Kuenssberg@bbclaurak
Rory Stewart's team starts the day with another endorsement, from Paul Masterton MP, and claim they have at least 3 others who were backing Matt Hancock joining them

I think that leaves him 9 short atm.

It is going to require a VERY cool, highly researched and consistent approach to get any sort of deal with all 'new' deals

That shouldn't be a problem with Boris. It isn't like he is the sort of person who would make an ill thought out remark, that happens to add six months to an innocent women's jail time!

He could start a war in his lunch hour. We are screwed if he becomes PM.

If the contest was more drawn out, longer between rounds, then Stewart would have the time he needs to build up support and momentum among MPs

Currently, imo, he would struggle to proceed into the next round, let alone further

Just the odd thing about cows or sheep really. He's done a lot for his constituency. Especially people who were badly affected by the floods in Cumbria, the bad snow last year and he is heavily involved in the rural community. He knows that a no deal is a disaster for farmers. He's an old fashioned Tory like Lord Home of the Hirsel.

I think that leaves him 9 short atm.

Oh pants. It's going to really be Bozo then isn't it?

Time to hit the

What RS needs is some MPs to decide to keep him in as a foil to BJ.

Was there a lo of point in yesterday's debate? The only people making a decision right now are the Tory MPs. I suppose the party faithful could get in touch with their MP to say vote/don't vote, but that's about all.

The Tories also seem to have completely abandoned their Remain voters.

But Corbyn was elected by fluke - it can happen

Was there a lo of point in yesterday's debate? The only people making a decision right now are the Tory MPs. I suppose the party faithful could get in touch with their MP to say vote/don't vote, but that's about all.

I think any discussion of what to do next is good in the vacuum of the present situation where no one knows what to do next.

3.5 million Tory voters were Remainers in 2016 but I think that number has grown. They are totally ignored.

Coincidently 3.5 million Labour voters were Leavers, yet that minority seem to have huge influence on the LP.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7145499/amp/Theresa-threatens-block-Brexit-No-Deal-voting-Remainer-Rory-Stewart-Tory-contest.html?__twitter_impression=true
Theresa May threatens to block No Deal Brexit 'by joining forces with Rudd and Hammond' as friends say she voted for Remainer Rory Stewart in Tory contest

Snigger

Im not sure I believe this; it's a good way to smear Stewart. But it's funny anyway.

I like to think on the ballot paper for Tory leadership TM copied the voter in a recent election wrote ‘wank’ next to everyone apart from Rory Stewart where she wrote ‘not wank’.

Would really rather she threw her weight behind BJ might put a few off that way.

"could start a war in his lunch hour"

The only good thing about Johnson is that he is a known quantity to most countries now, thanks to his previous stints in Government. So most of them probably preface their thoughts with "that prat said..." and pause to wait for the damage limitation from more thoughtful colleagues before taking action. That certainly appears to be the case with Trump - and as a middle-weight diminished power, we certainly cause less sleepless nights than the USA.