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

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, *that* is the actual issue - but the cynical view is that right wing politicians have little interest in tackling it given how much they have benefited from this stuff (not to mention "bots" of course)

[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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

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.

It seems like the logical thing to do. And, really, it's no more absurd than Wolverhampton being an official city is it?

[Conservatopia]

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.

It seems like the logical thing to do. And, really, it's no more absurd than Wolverhampton being an official city is it?

Bournemouth when?

[Geoffrey Howe]

Sir David's death is perhaps a good time to have a look back at the "Essex Man" phenomenon which he, as MP for Basildon, came to symbolise. This is an excellent article by the Grauniad, quite even handed too. Well worth a read:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jun/27/the-invention-of-essex-how-a-county-became-a-caricature

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

It seems like the logical thing to do. And, really, it's no more absurd than Wolverhampton being an official city is it?

Bournemouth when?

Northampton and Reading say hi, too.

[afleitch]

Sir David's death is perhaps a good time to have a look back at the "Essex Man" phenomenon which he, as MP for Basildon, came to symbolise. This is an excellent article by the Grauniad, quite even handed too. Well worth a read:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jun/27/the-invention-of-essex-how-a-county-became-a-caricature

Essex, being the puss of a lanced London boil shares it's 'centre of the f-cking universe' importance bestowed on it not by it's residents but by London politicians, journos and tv producers who can't be arsed driving more than an hour. So they hit Essex and decide it's 'raw, real and authentic.' We've had to follow the story of Essex, of it's Boomers moving to new towns, buying up their council houses and turning into wealth and self obsessed wankers with their preened and equally wankish social influencing offspring.

Though in true 'distracted boyfriend' meme style, it has since been surpassed by the obsession of finding 'Brexit voting towns' in the North, preferably part of the 'Red Wall'.

Because the working class can't be allowed to be anything other than the social reactionary strivers or shysters the establishment has decided they should be so they justify their never ending flogging of the welfare state and stoking of the 'culture wars.'

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Essex Myth is quite fascinating in its way: the reality is that more East Enders moved to Australia than to anywhere else and that postwar development in Essex was driven by private-sector building for middle and lower-middle class commuters much more than by New Town developments for the upwardly mobile working classes.* Billericay is more typical than Basildon.

_{*As originally designated, anyway. Over time they have changed a lot sociologically and this explains their extreme and often baffling electoral instability since the 1970s or so. Well, some of it.}

[EastAnglianLefty]

Much discussion of Essex is really about the bits of the county that moved into Greater London in 1965, not the county as it exists now. It's also a very large county (getting on for 2 million people) and as such pretty much every summary fails to cover a substantial proportion of its population.

[Silent Hunter]

Much discussion of Essex is really about the bits of the county that moved into Greater London in 1965, not the county as it exists now. It's also a very large county (getting on for 2 million people) and as such pretty much every summary fails to cover a substantial proportion of its population.

I live in that area. Havering to be exact. Very much a blend between city and countryside; you can find yourself in fairly deep countryside with just a short walk.

[H. Ross Peron]

Much discussion of Essex is really about the bits of the county that moved into Greater London in 1965, not the county as it exists now. It's also a very large county (getting on for 2 million people) and as such pretty much every summary fails to cover a substantial proportion of its population.

Reminiscent in a way of discourse about Orange County (CA) in the United States, where both supporters and detractors still see as the supermajority middle to upper middle class white county it supposedly was in the Reaganite 1980s but obviously is not now.

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

It seems like the logical thing to do. And, really, it's no more absurd than Wolverhampton being an official city is it?

The silliest thing is that a fair few towns call themselves "cities" and nobody seems to give a stuff.

[StateBoiler]

New proposed Parliament maps for 2023. England gains 12, Scotland loses 2, and Wales loses 10.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1450462845288783886

Conservatives up 8, Labour down 5 notionally. Liberal Democrats down 1, and Plaid Cymru sees their representation cut from 4 to 2.

[Conservatopia]

Liberal Democrats down 1

Still not enough.  Redraw the maps.

[afleitch]

Not as drastic a change as first thought when the Review was announced, mostly in part to the changing geography of electoral support.

[CumbrianLefty]

Not as drastic a change as first thought when the Review was announced, mostly in part to the changing geography of electoral support.

If the new seat estimates are accurate, most of Labour's losses are due to the cut in Welsh MPs.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Estimated partisan shifts (and I'd take notionals as even less useful than usual right now o/c) usually end up as quite small, though Labour having so few MPs right now does limit things further.

[Silent Hunter]

Ian Lavery (Lab, Wansbeck), for some reason, put down a motion for the Commons to sit in private yesterday - it was defeated 2-334. Not entirely sure why.

[beesley]

Ian Lavery (Lab, Wansbeck), for some reason, put down a motion for the Commons to sit in private yesterday - it was defeated 2-334. Not entirely sure why.

That motion is usually used to determine whether a quorum is present and is commonly used on Friday sittings. Though that doesn't really seem necessary in this case. Of course it is always defeated in such a lopsided way.

[EastAnglianLefty]

I think that is connected to the Conservatives talking out the bill to ban fire and rehire - allegedly beforehand they were trying to delay things by avoiding a quorum being assembled.

[CumbrianLefty]

So the government is going to tell us that working from home is good again, apparently.

Not sure where this leaves a certain newspaper's GET BACK TO THE OFFICE campaign.

[Blair]

Underrated tweet.

https://twitter.com/justinmadders/status/1451902665924005893

[Blair]

As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see 'the River Tiber foaming with much sewage.

[Blair]

Jokes aside it’s filled me with joy to see tory MPs panic and try and defend their vote on an amendment to the Environment bill that basically tried to stop sewage getting dumped into rivers and the sea. The amendment was a message amendment but it tapped into the very real hatred of water companies- who are the most hated in my experience, of the old state owned firms.

I can’t particularly be bothered to get into the discourse about it but I will steal the take from Twitter that the attacks on the government over this aren’t that different to when the government are equally happy to mislead people about what is and isn’t in a bill when Opposition parties vote about against it e.g. saying that Labour opposes higher sentences for criminals because they opposed a bill that included limits of the right to protest too.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What interests me is that the backlash over this is organic (ho, ho, ho) rather than media-driven. Very much welcome from the perspective of my 'serious environmentalist' hat, and fascinating from my 'jaded observer of politics' hat as well...