Westminstenders: Operation Shock and Awe

[RedToothBrush]

The government is launching its get ready for the end of transition campaign which has been dubbed a 'shock and awe' campaign.

In this campaign we will learn all about what Brexit means and what amazing opportunities lie for having increased customs and borders, beaucracy and increased costs. Bet you are all really excited and looking forward to this.

We will also get a 'Farage Garage' in Kent to cope with these wonderful opportunities in traffic jams. This will be something that businesses throughout the country will be super excited to plan for in their socially distanced Zoom meetings or across warehouses with their face masks on. And banks will be delighted to see an uptick in applications in CCJs and debt reconstruction plans.

It will be a super fun time for the under 30s who have zero hours contracts, worked in retail or hospitality. Or should I say 'worked'.

Meanwhile the right to a jury trial has been binned due to 'long covid delays' which are shorter than they were several years ago. The NHS isn't getting the funding it expected, and waiting lists are longer than ever with no way to clear them. The plan to build more hospitals seems to have disappeared with the Nightingales. Many councils are about to go into insolvency and be taken over by accountancy firms. The civil service is being dismantled and conservative loyalists with no experience being put in charge of important functions of state. Communications with the press are being 'streamlined' to make them incredible of holding power to account and only able to repeat government public announcements.

Anyone looking forward to Christmas? When you write a letter to Santa remember to add 'visa application form', 'a sleeping bag for use at Dover', 'tinned tomatoes' and 'packets of seeds to grow your own' to the list.

An Old Etonian is currently running the country so I wouldnt use academic attainment as some marker for good government.

There was never any intention to make Labour a broad church once JC was gone and as a result Labour will lose supporters
JC and broad church do not belong in the same sentence
he's a narrow factionalist
the sooner he and his clan retreat to the People's Front of Judea the better

Are you paying attention?

This government's priorities in order:

Delivering Brecit
Reviving the economy
Preparing for a covid-19 second wave
Improving the NHS
Delivering a New Immigration System
Keeping Unemployment down
Getting children back to school
Dealing with the issue of China
Reducing Crime

(Noting there is no question about Russia on the survey).

Yes, but would either the current old Etonian or the previous old Etonian PM have even got to university if they had come from a rough estate and been lumbered with the worst Sec Mod in the district? Yes, I know that Leavers and Johnson fans can jump in and say that Johnson was a King's Scholar at Eton, and King's scholars are clever. Maybe he was, but he's too bone idle to do anything with his brain.

Where is the evidence Starmer is embracing the left of the party? It was the centrists that clamoured for the broad church. Corbyn represented the soul of Labour. The centrists could never accept it and thus post 2016 lurched from every flavour of the month - lib dems, change UK, peoples vote. Rather than challenging the tories and austerity all efforts went into undermining Corbyn, doing the rights job for them. Bravo.

RTB
I'm trying hard to pay attention
while also worrying about my family in Portland Oregon
but its so sad that part of Her Majesty's opposition
are happier fighting each other
than the vicious narcissists on the benches facing them

The problem with sneering and opposing JC and blaming him for antisemitism is, he isn't the leader anymore. He should have gone off in a puff of smoke. His faults, his socialism, his denial of antisemitism.
It detracts from the current leader.
But of course, the ongoing JC beating just detracts from the current (very different) leader.

Looking at that survey, it seems that the Tory voters priority is still getting Brexit done. I do hope they enjoy it when Johnson delivers his No Deal.

I don't think Corbyn was especially antisemitic. It was definitely something the right wing press latched onto and milked for all it was worth, without bothering to mention the racism, and antisemitism which runs right through the Tory party.

Well centrists need to learn that british politics has been reduced to populist sloganeering. The Russia report wont change a thing because the people that need to read it arent paying attention. All the forensic PMQs in the world aren't going to change the narrative.

@GhostofFrankGrimes
I'm a fan of PR
and if it came in at Westminster
then the two big parties could shatter into pieces
and the corbynites could sing the red flag in peace while the middle ground ran the place

The centrists inadvertently did the rights/brexiteers bidding for them. Too self absorbed. As I said, you reap what you sow.

@GhostofFrankGrimes
So you are happy that Corbyn's racist actions are keeping the Tories in power with an 80 seat majority
is that something to be proud of ?
and where do you go from there

The party of go home vans and hostile environment are currently in government.

JC has spent his political career fighting injustice. I know which side I'd rather be on.

Technically the Tories no longer have an 80 seat majority, now that they have deprived Julian Lewis of the whip. Although I expect he will vote with the Tories 99% of the time. We just need another 40 to find that they do have spines after all.

I think all the ones with spines already left or were kicked out before the election.

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay

I think all the ones with spines already left or were kicked out before the election.

This ^

Sorry ghost - but the centrists that I know who refuses to vote for him are very well read and educated, read across the issues and his manifesto- tbh I think they really wanted to like him. But the didn't. So no he wasn't undermined by elements of his own party - that is a complete fallacy, an excuse for the fact that they rejected HIM.

The centrists inadvertently did the rights/brexiteers bidding for them.

Are you trying to claim that all brexiters are right wing? Think of those Labour voting places who voted Leave in the Referendum. Then think how at one time it was perfectly respectable for a Tory to have voted Remain e.g. Dominic Grieve, Ken Clarke, even Theresa May.

It's telling that I find I can no longer feel any engagement in the debates about Labour as I don't see them as relevant any more in Scotland Richard Who? I do however look forward to considering voting for them (in whatever form they reconstitute themselves) again in an independent Scotland.

I do think that Starmer is a more effective Leader of the Opposition. I used to get really irritated that Corbyn, who as LOO got a number of questions at PMQs (unlike most MPs) used to waste the opportunity to follow up a waffled non answer by pressing for a proper answer and instead continued to read out the list of pre-prepared questions. Starmer is much more effective (and yes, I realise that most people don't only political geeks watch PMQs )

A decent opposition is essential for good democracy. And that applies to Holyrood too. The SNP should have better opposition - and would be better for it with better scrutiny.

I think after the 2017 election the centrists in Parliament undermined him, which was inexcusable because at that time May having botched the election was completely on the ropes. But Corbyn sat on the fence about Brexit, and didn't offer a vision for those Labour voters who voted Tory this time, as to why Brexit would be bad for them. He couldn't because he was a Lexiter.

Cameron had the problem in reverse - he couldn't make the case for the EU, because it would have made it clear that austerity was 100% his and Osborne's choice. We will have to see what Johnson/Cummings and Sunak come up with to explain away the shit storm likely to engulf us.

Oh absolutely. As a centrist myself, I voted labour in spite of JC, because I could see the alternative was worse. Unfortunately, not enough people were either suitably impassioned by JC or pragmatic enough to do the same.

mrslaughan

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-leak-report-corbyn-election-whatsapp-antisemitism-tories-yougov-poll-a9462456.html

Peregina

I'm saying centrists spent more time on failed projects like Change UK and criticisng Corbyn than challenging the government as the years of austrity rolled on. And here we are sliding further into the abyss.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/eu_referendum_2016_/3977303-Westministenders-A-Year-of-Johnson?watched=1

New Thread

Change UK was a last gasp. I have agreed with you that earlier they wasted time trying to have a coup, which failed. I forget, that might have been earlier than the 2017 election. Corbyn did remarkably for that election, and that did shut the centrists up.

It's puzzled me how things like school cuts, cut through to votes against the Tories in 2017 but didn't in 2019.