Westminstenders: From Uxbridge to...? Part deux GE 2019 special.

[placemats]

New thread.

General election 12th December 2019. Results out on Friday 13th. Unlucky day for some.

So this election is unusual in that it will focus primarily on Brexit and referendums with domestic issues tagged alongside, for some parties.

Lady Hermon is my MP and I'm absolutely gutted that she's standing down.

prettybird

Yes, of course you are correct, sorry:
NS wasn't elected First Minister until Nov of 2014, when AS had resigned and after the IndyRef.
But she stood as candidate for leadership in 2004, (then stood back for AS and they then ran on a joint ticket with her as Depute but she led the SNP from 2004-07 as AS was still an MP in Westminster)

So she has seemed 'presidential' for some time.
And it was a very big picture of her on the helicopter! Westminster)

not 'helicopter! Westminster' -
I don't suppose she gave the pilot that instruction!

anyways, you are correct and I am wrong but I think we are saying the same, certainly about the possessive format of the language on Jo's bus, which La Sturgeon did not do ;)

"Free childcare from 9 months? Be interested to see the bones of that proposal...."

Me, too!

More than 500 childcare providers closing each month

Source is the Early Years Alliance.

Free childcare from 9 months. That's nice. Where are they going to go? Into none existant nursery spaces?

Every party is failing on its numbers on this subject. The places are, are not adequately funded and there isn't enough nursery spaces for kids who already qualify for free childcare. The nurseries supplement free places with the more expensive paid ones. So if you remove the paid income of the nursery and replace it with state income the nurseries become insolvent.

This area of policy is a pet hate of mine because all the parties are so woefully out of touch with the reality of the situation as it already.

Idea is great in principle but so badly thought out it'll either never happen or be a total car crash which cause even more problems rather than solutions.

Anyway, time for a new thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/3737155-Westminstenders-Dissolved?watched=1

@DGRossetti OFSTeD doesn't do independent schools - there is an independent school inspectorate..... maybe more than one. OFSTeD - not sure how I feel about getting rid of them - but they really have little effect on bullying in schools - so it's just absolutely emotive bullshit.

I lived for many years on the 24th floor of a highrise in NYC - they take preventing fires and protecting life v seriously. The advice was the same - wet towel under the door and wait to be told to move. Our front door was a fire door. I actually queried why that was - it was two fold - so they could advise the safest route out of the building (so you didn't get trapped in a corridor without the protection of a fire door.) and also so you didn't hamper access of the firefighters who need to get up the stairs to put the fire out.

I have probably have already said this - but I find it incredibly negligent of the government that sprinklers are not compulsory - and that this is not discussed in the press.

Mistigri I agree wrt Sylvia Hermon.
Maybe the Alliance Party can mop up her votes. However, the constituency saw big gains (14%) by the DUP at the last election. Hermon only held her seat against the DUP by about 1000 votes. For the last two decades it has been a maverick Unionist constituency in which 52% voted Remain.

Ironically, the SF announcement that it would not context the seat possibly made Hermon vulnerable to the DUP extremist view that anyone who is supported by The Enemy is also The Enemy.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in NI,
www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/general-election-2019/general-election-independent-orange-order-in-plea-to-voters-38665410.html
'Unionists have been warned by a loyal order that the Westminster election is about "more than Brexit" and to think carefully when voting next month.'

The dog whistling is overt.

All over NI there are lots of electoral pacts taking shape, with strong candidates from Remain parties standing against Leavers.

The Greens have stood aside and endorsed the SDLP in (leafy) South Belfast.

Lord Mayor of Belfast John Finucane in particular (SF) in North Belfast vs Nigel Dodds (DUP) will be an interesting race. Finucane's father, Pat Finucane, was a human rights lawyer who was murdered by loyalist paramilitaries in 1989.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/08/pat-finucane-mi5-destroyed-investigation-files-into-alleged-collusion
The dirty war in Northern Ireland.

Lewis Goodall@lewis_goodall
Campaign impressions in Cumbria

1) people think Workington man is absolutely hilarious/ridiculous

2) for all the talk of fury people aren’t angry. Mainly weary. But even those who say they’re knackered by politics are fascinated.

3) It feels a lot like 2017

4) Fair amount of Tory vote sticking with Brexit Party

5) by contrast met quite a few remainers who voted green/LD in euros who are going back to Lab.

6) struck by number of those who voted Tory in 2017 just because Farage wasn’t leading UKIP. His brand still v strong.

7) Corbyn is unpopular here, huge concern about his views on nuclear industry.

8) nonetheless general consensus is, even among those not voting Lab and who aren’t fans of Corbyn, that Lab bloodlines still too strong, and that Workington at least will stay red.

9) Not least because Johnson is unpopular here too. Eton/Latin/kulak schtick not natural fit with many northern voters.

10) nor is the chaos associated with his premiership. One pensioner told me she’d always voted Tory but was uncertain this time: “he’s too much like Trump”'

Steven Swinford@steven_swinford
Boris Johnson compares Nigel Farage and the Brexit Party to candle-sellers at the dawn of the age of electricity

'They have a terrible sense they are about to lose their market'

He says his deal delivers 'everything I campaigned for' in the EU referendum

Did he just tell a bunch of potential voters they were in the dark ages if they were considering the Brexit Party instead of the Conservatives?

Steven Swinford@steven_swinford
BREAKING

Tom Watson announces he is stepping down as an MP and the party's deputy leader

Thats significant...

"They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours." –
Margaret Thatcher in an interview in Women's Own in 1987

@havingtochangeusernameagain

Just seen on Twitter Tom Watson’s not standing - no idea if it’s true.

Steven Swinford@steven_swinford
Watson says that his decision is 'personal, not political'

He says he will devote himself to gambling reform, music and the arts, public health, stopping press intrusion

He says he will take an active part in the campaign

Frances Ryan
@DrFrancesRyan
·
25m
“So Corbyn’s going to have them [the wealthy] shot?!” “I don’t know, you’ll have to ask him.”

Breaking news: the Tories have flipped on the BBC.

twitter.com/i/status/1192165700435152897

This is getting fucking ridiculous

Breaking news on BBC and Sky now, Tom Watson stepping down as Deputy Leader and MP

Tom Watsonn✔@tom*_watson

After 35 years in full-time politics, I've decided to step down and will be campaigning to overcome the Tory-fuelled public health crisis.

I'm as committed to Labour as ever. I will spend this election fighting for brilliant Labour candidates and a better future for our country.

Tom too? I am fast running out of anyone in the Tory or Labour parties I admire. It is like a particularly toxic girls' school class where two cliques are fighting for supremacy and will exclude anyone not totally conforming to their norms. The inbetweeners group gets bigger by the day, even if Jo is putting me off by playing the alpha girl a bit too hard....

What was all that stuff about the moderates reining in Corbyn? It’s now the full Momentum agenda if he gains power.

Lewis Goodall reporting rumours that more moderates are on the way out...

I go out for the day and come back to find I've been called 'learned'! ... Well I've been called many things in my time ...

Who is the man who told Andrew Marr he didn't know if Corbyn was going to shoot the wealthy?

I'm getting worried now they are doing so appallingly - like DGR pointed out, if they are planning to throw this electron then I do not trust they will succeed. They haven't succeeded at anything else. I'm starting to think it might be another 1992.

Answered my own question - Nadhim Zahawi believes it is sensible to assume Corbyn will shoot the wealthy.

And it was Neill not Marr - doh!

need to catch up, but the 'corbyn by default' AIBU thread has increased my blood pressure so much I need more wine and a cig (yes I know that's not right but ffs!)

"Lewis Goodall reporting rumours that more moderates are on the way out..."

No sign yet of the kind of mass defections and MPs standing down from the moderate wing of the Tory party

The next Tory parliamentary party will be much more rightwing and much less experienced