The Westminster Arms

[DustyDiamond]

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Welcome to The Westminster Arms!

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A non-partisan politics pub thread for political chit chat....!!

Please stick within MN talk guidelines - any posts which you think may have crossed the line, please report rather than getting into scraps on thread 😠

Political punch-ups are soooo last decade - ain't nobody got time for that 🥊❌

Be nice! Be respectful!

S'ok to slag off politicians, but not other posters 🍻

Morning Lily
Been so busy irl having trouble keeping up. Feel like the dirty stop out who just surfaces for breakfast and to fill up the laundry basket.

Gonna go with my gut and say Becky and Burgon might well be a winning combination. Sir Keir and Angela would just be cross with everyone all the time. Whoever wins the Leadership needs to find a Cabinet post for Ian Murray imo and I'm coming round to the view that he would be too much in the shadows as Deputy.

and Unite not only swings its considerable might behind RLB but has formally endorsed their preferred candidate for Deputy Leader.

Richard Burgon.

😉😂

You know it makes sense Dusty
(Barry G for Shadow Chancellor obvs)

Morning, Dusty and Howabout.

It's hard to know whether RLB feels cheered by that kind of support or not. Fancy spending all your time worrying what your potential Dep will say next to boost your credibility

In times like this, I cannot improve on the sage advice offered by a political heavyweight respected on both sides of the House in his time, and since.

"The sillier end of the Labour Party has always been the best ally of the Conservatives. All my time in politics has shown me that when a party moves away from the concerns of ordinary people it fails.”

David Blunkett.

Stray thought...has anyone heard from @Hollycatberry or @Twattage13 lately? I always enjoyed their posts.

Morning all

Cannot agree with you on Dicky & Becky unfortunately howabout, but in agreement about Ian Murray being a huge asset

I watched his launch pitch the other week & despite never really having 'known' him before, he impressed me.
Genuine, down to earth & not trapped in a bubble

I'd like to see him take the deputy leader position - if not that, then definitely a high profile cabinet role

For whoever wins the leader/deputy, they've got some good backbenchers to choose from for shadow cabinet

Barry G for Shadow Chancellor obvs

😱😱😱😱😱😱😱

David Blunkett is ace Lily

Fancy spending all your time worrying what your potential Dep will say next to boost your credibility

Dicky Burgon is a political & social hand-grenade 😂😂😂

He's such a W⚓️

Genuine, down to earth & not trapped in a bubble

That rules him out then.

Please stop repeating "Barry G for Shadow Chancellor obvs". It's not making my headache any better.

In the meantime, here are Michael Deacon's words to cheer you up, from the Telegraph.

"Soon enough, Jeremy Corbyn will be Labour leader no more. But this doesn’t automatically mean the party’s prospects will improve. Because, for all his many faults, Labour’s biggest problem isn’t Mr Corbyn.

It’s his supporters.

The supporters who put him there, and kept him there, and will choose his replacement. They’re the problem. In Tim Shipman’s book All Out War, published in 2016, there’s a quote from a despairing Labour MP who wisely requested to remain anonymous. “There are always going to be 500,000 people in this country who are off-the-page nuts,” the MP sighed. “The problem we’ve got is that they have all joined the Labour party to vote for Jeremy Corbyn.”

Thanks to that mass pro-Corbyn influx in the summer of 2015, Labour has a bigger membership than any other party in Europe. But that isn’t a strength. It’s a weakness. Because those pro-Corbyn members have so little in common with the wider electorate. Which means it’s become near-impossible for Labour to appeal to both. Try to win over the one, and immediately alienate the other."

Caption competition!
(I couldn't think of one... 😳)

Our Becky, Dicky & Bazza
#DreamTeam

😂😂😂😂

✊🌹

Singing thanks for the reminder about Tim Shipmans book. Think I might give it a reread!

Poached eggs on sourdough, that will hit the spot.

Dusty I think that meme might give me nightmares!

Morning all and thank you yet again to Singing for the lovely brecky.

If KS gets in then I don't think he will regain those northern and midland votes.

Boris is rich and posh but he is personable, funny and can easily relate to people. And he comes across as passionate and human. And he is a leaver and is a flawed character just like everyone else.
I love his acceptance of the Spectator award.

KS is like a rich stuffed shirt. No personality. Millionaire London remainer.
I think he will be good for the Tories but that is not the point.

Morning all. Hope things are nice and calm. Less than a week to go, just the formality of the EP to sign off on the WAB. The chicken is almost cooked, oven timer ready to ping, Brexit is almost done. Their will be a feast on Friday night.

I was down the allotment talking to my friend Jeremy this morning & bumped into Becky and Burden, apparently theirs a lot of newbies joining the party to vote against them. So theyre feeling bit glum & needed cheering up. I directed them to the Westminster Arms for a good laugh.

Morning, Walking!

I think that meme is a stunning piece of art, Dusty. It's one of those visual things that can say so many things to so many different people .

Rather like today's Matt cartoon.

Hiya Walking 😍

Love the flowerpot men & Matt's Daily Delight 😂😂

I was clearing out the old recorded stuff on my sky box & came across the ITV election coverage that I'd recorded by accident (think it was the series link from election debates?)

Just watched the exit poll again, and the immediate aftermath, then a wee bit of the Friday morning wash up stuff - feels like it was a lifetime ago now....!

I'm pretty sure the UK can muster up 500,000 Off the page nuts for all the political parties - sadly the SNP can manage that from a population of 5m to march all over the joint in all weathers.

The problem for the Labour Party is that their ideology insists no-one's feelings are ever offended. Thus the loudest voices drown out all semblance of reason and are constantly pandered to.

You are all completely missing the point of Deputy Burgon. The Deputy's job is surely absolute loyalty to the Leader and Party and Membership in the style of Whitelaw or Prescott. The odd "faux pas" in this context is not only forgivable but sometimes essential.

Contrast with Watson who spent his time undermining the Leader, the Party and the Membership - total disaster.

Caption competition: Is it Wrong to dream Daily?

Yep Dusty It is really striking how quickly the landscape and the narrative has moved on. Media still struggling to catch up or would be if they could actually get their heads out their own rear ends long enough to try.

Love the memes and cartoons.
Just called in a strong coffee.
Interesting how things change. All the moderates joining labour to vote for Starmer.

And the BBC being so remain hasn't changed.
They need to be afraid of Dom

For anyone in search of a Podcast this is a fantastic 45 minutes with Gisela Stuart.

podcast.app/gisela-stuart-my-brexit-journey-e84429029/?utm_source=ios&utm_medium=share

Love Gisela - thank you. Will listen later when my cooking chores are done.

I emailed Gisela Stuart on the morning of 23 June 2016 to thank her for everything she had done for Leave and was thrilled to get a reply from her about ten minutes later. She must have been mad busy but she took the time and was so happy to be part of "this great day for democracy".

Now if there was a spare seat in the overcrowded Upper Chamber for a properly deserving person, Gisela would be my pick.

Afternoon all, just wanted to pop in to the new location.

Thanks lily for the nudge on the thread to remind me to post, I’ve gotten a bit behind since Christmas but it’s great to see the discussion still continuing.

The most interesting thing for me is that politics has got so much more quiet since the election. Things moving through Parliament, proper chairmanship by Sir Lindsay Hoyle. Can’t help but think it’s better for everyone’s mental health to see traction on brexit and now the ability to get stuck into solutions for other matters.
Although Friday might be interesting, I wonder if there will be any news specials etc?

I get the impression they are working like mad behind the scenes.

The next big events for me will be the reshuffle. Conservative Home are quoting the times that the 5 women Secretaries of State will go in the reshuffle but a lot of junior women will be promoted. We will see.

And then the budget. Which will give us an indication of whether Boris is serious about the North.

I hope we continue with HS2 but I suspect that I am in a minority of 1.

Another vote in favour of HS2 but DH is dead against it. But I thought they should have started in the North and worked south... it's not as if the London-Birmingham trip is sooo slow. Any rail upgrades are eye-wateringly expensive and slow, and always have been.

I've flip-flopped between being for/against

I'm against because of the eye-watering explosion of the estimated costs

But I'm for because it will create extra capacity in the existing network etc

Agree with Xing that starting in the North would be more attractive - less nimbyism to contend with (as people are crying out for creation of better transport links), will serve as a solid foundation for job creation/levelling up across the country & gives a good message that North aren't being merely paid lip service to.

Obvs I know they've already started it (last post read as though I thought it hadn't been 🙄)

What I mean is, if they're going to postpone parts of the project to defer costs, then they should prioritise the Northern aspect over the links to London aspect

I had not thought of starting in the north. Nothing to stop them starting in the north now and joking up in the middle like they did with the channel tunnel.