UK General Discussion: 2017 and onwards, Mayhem

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"May I order an Orange Order?"

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How will relying on a 2 seat majority based on working with The Orange Order/DUP  affect policy?

328 isn't a 2 seat majority, it's a 6 seat one. It'll probably make Brexit a bit softer.

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May did visit a church today... and there was an angry crowd outside. If she'd turned up outside the police cordon yesterday, there probably would have been a riot. Khan himself got heckled when he visited; Corbyn and Her Majesty have no connection with any of the events surrounding this.

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The Grenfell fire is increasingly looking like housing and London's own Aberfan. Completely horrific. If some of the things that have been suggested - and by responsible people please note - are true then there's a decent chance of criminal prosecutions.

The source appears to be an exploding fridge; quite how that fire got through the wall and onto the external cladding remains to be determined.

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Queen's Birthday Honours announced

Biggest one is the George Medal going posthumously to the PC killed by the Westminster terrorist.

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Question for the Brits:

When and how did the practice of standing as a sacrificial lamb candidate before getting one's own safe seat develop in the UK? Also, are these candidacies mere paper candidacies, or does some future Tory/Labour cabinet minister actually trek out to Liverpool/Surrey to knock on doors and take abuse?

Don't know when it started, but every PM since Thatcher ran and lost in a no-hoper before getting in for the constituency they held throughout their parliamentary career.

Some of these candidacies generally are most certainly paper candidates; especially in no-hoper seats. Thus it can be very amusing when someone who doesn't think they've got a chance actually wins a seat - the guy who unseated Nick Clegg last week had to buy a suit at a 24-hour Tescos...

However, if you do well enough in a no-hoper, you stand a good chance of getting selected for a marginal or a safe seat later. So, basically, future Cabinet ministers will have to do that sort of thing.

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The attack was specifically on the Muslim Welfare Centre on the other side of the railway bridge to the Finsbury Park Mosque; the latter is of course the former stomping ground of Abu Hamza.

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I voted in that poll! You would have to change the law though to do it.

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He did get heckled when he visited Grenfell Tower.

I see some of the tabloids are leading on the fridge that caused the fire as well. I would like to know how that fire actually managed to get through to the cladding in the first place.

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Not currently believed to be terrorism though. Still, might well be other cases.

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Were the nationalised utilities really that good?

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By the way, Labour have suspended 'pairing' (the practice where MPs on either side mutually agree to skip a non-critical vote), so there are going to be a lot more of these late votes for a while.

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In the never ending combination of Brexit wars it looks like Phillip Hammond (nicknamed spreadsheet Phil, later revised to spreadsh**t Phil) is going to face another difficult budget.

It's worth noting the tories haven't had a successful budget since summer 2015; autumn 2015 had the tax credit fiasco, summer 2016 was the 'project fear' budget that angered the right, and the spring budget this year had the chaos of the National Insurance tax rise on small businesses.

I expect this current one will lead to some crisis; the government has such a small majority that 1 or 2 MPs can just cough some objection, and it virtually leads to a climbdown.

And well this would be hard in normal times, but Hammond has to deal with the black hole of Brexit and the mouth breathers on the right, whilst also trying to show that he understands that the Tories need some sort of electoral offer to both the young and the old.


However he could easily get sacked after the Budget, as a fair amount of tories are calling for him to be sacked; and replaced with Gove.

I thought Tory-DUP actually gives realistically a 6 seat cushion as the 7 Sinn Fein MPs have an abstentionist policy so they are never in the House to vote the government down.  If the Sinn Fein MPs actually showed up the government would be in much greater danger of falling as they only need to lose two by-elections which is probably likely prior to 2022 whereas losing 7 seems like a lot.  Do you know how many they lost between 1992-1997 and if they do lose 7, how long did it take as that would be good basis to go on.

The SNP, considering how they did in the last election, are not likely to vote for another one.

In other news, new Labour MP accused of sexist comments

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Apparently O'Mara was not interviewed by a panel before the election; the selection was done solely on CVs.

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Kelvin Hopkins (MP for Luton North) suspended by Labour

Apparently sexual harassment allegations.

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IDS did lose the no-confidence vote by 90 votes to 75.

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Looks like he's been sacked. I never get why they have this stupid facade where they say 'they asked for his resignation.''

'Asking for one's resignation' is a politer way of sacking someone. It allows them to leave with a degree of dignity... if it's not made public that it's happened. It also speeds up the departure process rather than go through a full disciplinary process.

However, it's legally edgy as it can be deemed as "constructive dismissal".

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It would be nice if they removed Chris Grayling from Transport though.

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Which puts you safely out of the country a lot of the time.

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It's not 2014; Boris Johnson isn't the Messiah.

He's a very naughty boy.

And speaking of very naughty boys, UKIP leader Henry Bolton has left his Russian-born wife for a topless model just over half his age... One with some interesting views.

Anyway, there may be a vote of confidence on the matter...

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Some of us are just remembering the concerns raised during Ed Miliband's leadership, which were borne out in 2015.

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In the department of "perhaps this particular mud will stick", Corbyn has been accused of being a Communist spy

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Most of the MPs who genuinely were on the books of foreign intelligence agencies mostly just gave them useless information - often publicly available - in exchange for cash. Will Owen (Labour MP for Morpeth 1954-70) built a lavish lifestyle for himself off selling useless information to the Czechs; his handlers nicknamed him the greedy pig. The only one who has been named and confirmed and who gave valuable information (e.g. a detailed floorplan of the inside of No. 10) was Ray Mawby, a Conservative MP for a seat in Devon. He would have been easily exposed at the time if ever investigated, but he wasn't because MI5 assumed that only Labour MPs could be spies!

The Stasi foreign intelligence wing destroyed 90% of its particular archive and the stuff we have from the KGB (whose books are still closed) via Mitrokhin only goes up to his retirement in 1984, so some other people might still be out there.

Not suggesting Corbyn is one of them - I think he should sue for libel.

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That's like comparing measles with smallpox.

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Wouldn't be surprised if he ran for Mayor at some point.