UK General Discussion:The Rt. Hon Alex Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Populist Hero

[YL]

So, we have this ridiculous situation where there are 90 or so hereditary peers who are still allowed to be members of the House of Lords, and every so often, when one of them dies or resigns, there's a by-election to replace them.  There have been a few of these recently, but one which has drawn some attention was one for one of the tiny group of Labour hereditary peers.  There was one candidate, Viscount Stansgate.  That, of course, is the title disclaimed by Tony Benn in 1963, the current holder and new member of the House being his son Stephen (brother of Hilary).

[YL]

Objectively, her PMship remains as unimpressive as it almost always appeared at the time.

Its just that her successor - at his absolute slapdash, shambolic worst today by all accounts - often makes her look better than she actually was.

She is quite good at being an ex-PM.

[YL]

Some of us have speculated before that the relatively better result for Remain in Merseyside compared with other working class areas may have had something to do with not reading a certain poisonous tabloid.  Now someone has written a paper on the idea:

https://twitter.com/FlorianFoos/status/1430859163614203904

[YL]

From that video you can tell he is not a true aristocrat. Far too materialistic. I must say that I find Rees-Mogg quite vacuous, though sometimes rather amusing.

You can also hear it in his accent. Certain syllables have a more humble twang.

He actually sounds posher now, which makes me think that his current accent is to a certain extent affected to keep in the character that he has created for himself.

That's an impression I've had for some time.  His accent as a 12 year old sounds a bit weird in a way that suggests he was beginning to develop the affected accent but hadn't quite got it at that point.

[YL]

This thing I saw in another thread made me wonder:

Blue Labour is a mixture of red-brown cranks and Cambridge theology students (but I repeat myself).

Nobody in the UK has referred to Red Tories since about 2014.

How does C of E clergy typically vote? And how about Catholics or other Protestant denominations?

A ComRes poll published in January asked how clergy voted in 2019.  Sample sizes were tiny, so I'll give absolute numbers rather than percentages, and many pinches of salt are required.  For Anglicans the sample size was 50 and the results were:
Lab 20, LD 13, Green 6, Con 3, SNP 2, Other 1, "prefer not to say" 5

The second largest sample size is for "Pentecostal (AOG, Elim, RCCG, Hillsong, Other)" at 49:
Con 24, Lab 6, SNP 4, LD 3, Green 2, Other 2, "prefer not to say" 8

Other sample sizes are even smaller, e.g. 11 for Catholics (and of those 11 five preferred not to say).

(Tables are linked from this page.)

[YL]

Gavin Williamson out from Education as expected.  It's not clear whether he's going anywhere else yet, but maybe he isn't.  There was a rumour earlier that he might get Northern Ireland <shudders>

[YL]

Will admit to always finding local byelections interesting tbh, despite the (usual) turnouts.

Still miss the summaries that used to be posted on here until the last GE.

And FWIW the trend regarding them is pretty clear too - Tories strong in July, average in August, poor in September. Labour still only getting the sporadic *good* result, but seem to be off their floor - they even managed to (just) hold a seat in Sunderland last week

Both Labour and the Tories are vulnerable to Lib Dem or Green surges caused by effective campaigning in not obviously promising wards.  Of course this has often been the case to some extent, especially with the Lib Dems, but it seems to be happening a lot at the moment.

[YL]

Horrible, and horribly reminiscent of previous incidents.

As well as those already mentioned, there was the attack on Nigel Jones in Cheltenham when an aide was killed.

[YL]

In any event, I hope MPs consider granting city status to Southend in his honor. His bringing it up at every PMQ's which he was called may have been a long-running joke, but he truly worked tirelessly for it.

This is happening.

[YL]

Given that the Tories whipped the vote, it was surprisingly close: majority of only 18.

Anyway, it reinforces the impression that for a lot of these people rules are for other people.

[YL]

Well, the Paterson affair has turned rather amusing today.

(Unlike the Yorkshire CCC racism affair, which, speaking as someone from Yorkshire who likes cricket, is about as depressing as imaginable.  There's clearly more to come out, too.)

[YL]

The usual 5 November fun in Lewes last night:

https://twitter.com/breeallegretti/status/1456724514763591686

[YL]

Funny to see that Cox is front page news for his outside earning as a barrister overseas, as this has been known for a number of years!

He defended the former speaker of the Cayman Assembly in 2014.

The real issue in my view isn’t that Cox is getting paid (he’s a talented QC) but rather how many other MPs are getting consulting jobs that they clearly wouldn’t get without the magic letters behind their name.

One attack line here is the usual "part time MP" one, but the other thing is the tax haven aspect.

[YL]

Can I ask why UK parties find it hard to recruit canidates local to the areas they're contesting, all 3 major parties seem to commonly pick random activists often from very far counstieunces are located to contest them.

Is there any particular reason for this ?

To the extent that it is true, the answer will be that voters in general don't care enough for them not to, and ambitious politicians will want a safe seat, which may not be so easy to find locally.

[YL]

Politicians right now are all feining shock at this government's corruption - and they're not wrong because it is a real problem.  But as someone who works with local government every day and in an industry adjacent to *construction* no less - the UK is not the nation of upstanding hard workers we like to think it is.  It's corrupt from the bottom to the top and frankly the rot is what helps the wheels go round.  Not fun for those of us in the industry however that try not to be corrupt.

The evangelical says that but the evangelical will still put a cross next to his godless, hooker-hiring, shyster Tory MP because its better to "own the left" and "be a winner" than it is to have a satanic Labour government.

Its why the evangelical will burn in hell.

This seems a bit personal.

FWIW American style political Evangelicalism isn't really a thing in the UK.  I think the two Evangelicals I know best both voted Lib Dem in the last election.  (One told me he did, and the other very much hinted at it.  And they don't know each other and live in different constituencies, in neither of which were the Lib Dems competitive.)

[YL]

Politicians right now are all feining shock at this government's corruption - and they're not wrong because it is a real problem.  But as someone who works with local government every day and in an industry adjacent to *construction* no less - the UK is not the nation of upstanding hard workers we like to think it is.  It's corrupt from the bottom to the top and frankly the rot is what helps the wheels go round.  Not fun for those of us in the industry however that try not to be corrupt.

The evangelical says that but the evangelical will still put a cross next to his godless, hooker-hiring, shyster Tory MP because its better to "own the left" and "be a winner" than it is to have a satanic Labour government.

Its why the evangelical will burn in hell.

This seems a bit personal.

FWIW American style political Evangelicalism isn't really a thing in the UK.  I think the two Evangelicals I know best both voted Lib Dem in the last election.  (One told me he did, and the other very much hinted at it.  And they don't know each other and live in different constituencies, in neither of which were the Lib Dems competitive.)

Is it at all a thing outside of the US?

Brazil?

I'd definitely got the impression that something similar was part of Bolsonaro's support base, yes.

[YL]

A broken record but the hysteria over council by elections is getting to the stage where I’d ban them from Twitter.

It’s insane. People are reading more into them than a sane person would gleam from a parliamentary one!

Most of those takes are either bad faith cherry picking or so stupid that they might as well be.

"Labour lost to the Greens in Whitstable!  STARMER OUT NOW!"
"Labour nearly won a seat in rural Devon!  1997 LANDSLIDE INCOMING!"

[YL]

It really is embarrassing having that man as PM.

[YL]

The idea that someone with a buffoon act and an irritatingly affected upper class accent is "quintessentially English" is part of what is so embarrassing.

[YL]

It's worth pointing out that the wedge issues like abortion and LGBT+ rights often important to Evangelical support for Republicans in the US are traditionally outside of party politics in the UK, regarded as matters of conscience which are free votes in the Commons (as is capital punishment).

Of course there is also the traditional link between Anglicanism, especially High Church Anglicanism, and the Conservative Party, Nonconformists being more likely to be Liberal (and later Labour).

[YL]

Not only have the Tories lost their majority there but Labour have drawn level with them for "largest party" and could take control if they choose to ask for Lib Dem support to do so, and they will actually take overall control if they repeat May 2021's results next May.  Red Worthing may be a thing.

It used to have the reputation of being the sort of "Costa Geriatrica" type place which would never vote Labour in a million years, but this has clearly changed.  I assume the demographic change has been ongoing for a bit and now Labour have got organised the politics are catching up.

[YL]

It's interesting, particularly because the urban strip west of Brighton has not had the sort of labour market statistics usually associated with reliably Conservative constituencies for quite a while now, but an important caveat to be aware of: when a ruling group is not used to a challenge, particularly from a new direction, it can often be very easy to push over in local elections but this does not always translate so well in higher-turnout environments. And in general momentum is a much bigger thing in local politics than national.

Yes, though in the more winnable of the two current Worthing seats (East & Shoreham) the swing happened in 2017 and it already looks like a winnable marginal.  Worthing West contains some Arun wards and still only looks like it would fall in a landslide.

The proposed new boundaries have a single "Worthing" seat though it wouldn't contain all of the borough and would contain the west side of Lancing (in Adur district).  It would contain all the wards which have been voting Labour so should be a reasonable Labour target if it comes to pass in that form.  (Indeed Electoral Calculus -- yes I know -- currently gives a predicted Tory majority of 527 in the proposed revised Worthing, making it only Tory leaning compared with the country by less than a percentage point.)

[YL]

Is it out of question for Sir Peter Bottomley to face electoral difficulties in the foreseeable future?

It looked vaguely plausible after his 2017 result, not so much now.

Given his age I doubt he will be a candidate, but if the currently proposed boundary changes go through he would have problems.  His seat is abolished in name, but the most obvious successor is the new Worthing, which looks marginal, while Tim Loughton is shored up in Shoreham.  Other bits go into Arundel & Littlehampton, but the incumbent in Arundel & South Downs would be a more obvious candidate for that.

[YL]

Yes, the present mooted boundary changes aren't good for him and he is trying to get then altered.

What the process by which that is done?

You propose alternatives to the Commission, try to persuade them that your alternatives are better than their initial proposals according to the statutory criteria, and try to get people in the area to make submissions to the Commission supporting you.  (In this case, if arguing against the initial proposals, I would point out that they split Lancing and leave areas of Worthing in an Arundel & Littlehampton constituency, so though they reunify the town in name they don't really, not that I submitted anything about Sussex.)  If you are an MP you probably do this through your party, though in this instance I think it is swings and roundabouts for the Tories so the central party may not have been that bothered.

We'll get to see the submissions, including those from the parties, sometime in January IIRC.

[YL]

Well, it'll be off the front pages tomorrow now anyway.

Nope.

The Sun: "Do as I say, not as I Christmas Do"
Daily Mail: "One rule for them, new rules for the rest of us"
Daily Telegraph: "Don't go to work, but do go to parties"

Yes, that's the Sun, the Mail and the Telegraph.

https://twitter.com/TmorrowsPapers/status/1468724571876597764