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

[afleitch]

Bell's evangelical lawyer is of course wanting to go back to court to target the Gillick Competency precedent (that allows for those under the age of majority to make medical decisions on for example, contraception without parental consent, because that was always the plan

[afleitch]

Are British Conservatives pro-police, pro-fire department as their American counterparts, or do they look down on those occupations because they are state-run jobs, government jobs?

Is there a Blue Lives Matter UK there?

They are 'pro-police' in rhetoric, but don't adequately fund them. They probably struggle to remember there is a fire service either.

British police and the police system has also been subject to much more historic, and well reported criticism over the decades as well as legal consequences. They are treated with healthy suspicion as they should be in any functional democracy.

I've seen a few 'Thin Blue Line' patches, but if you're a copper you're more likely to be angry at the government for not paying you well enough.

[afleitch]

The culture thing is very true. One of the legitimate criticisms of Police Scotland is that's nothing more than an expanded Strathclyde Police in culture, and one of the criticisms of Strathclyde Police is that it was an expanded Glasgow City police. Which explains it's very 'corporate' attitude regardless of who is in power, and also some of the perceived tribalism within.

[afleitch]

Can we not have this thread littered with illiterate US "hot takes" please.

Sure. But always remember that white privilege is global and American and British culture is fairly similar.....period...

(Laughs in American husband)

[afleitch]

https://mobile.twitter.com/ConnorGillies/status/1444351098438000651

[afleitch]

Mod note:

Bronz; sh-tty takes don't violate forum rules, but they still suck. If you want an answer to something painfully obvious, Google is your friend.

[afleitch]

It’s v interesting how much the coverage differs between Tory and Labour conference.

Indeed, but that is partly down to the differing nature of the two events.

Johnson's speech today though - strikingly empty?

Certainly no big "rabbit out of the hat", despite that being widely trailed.

The difference being Boris is happy to bang on about 'redistributing wealth' despite it being a con, but such words would never leave Starmer's month even if he intends to do it.

Labour has a wonk when it needs bluster.

[afleitch]

An interesting piece on a party's internal culture that isn't THIGMOO or the Tories; ignoring the part about the German Greens it's quite good at showing why the party is quite hard to lead.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk-politics/2021/10/why-the-greens-are-missing-their-moment

It's amazing how many protracted articles the New Statesman will publish that are excuses to be anti-trans puff pieces

https://mobile.twitter.com/hughster/status/1443541782218805255

It also references/dismisses the Scottish Greens who have had enormous success because of 'culture war' issues.

[afleitch]

I know this is a stale take, but my God what is in the water in the UK that their center-left is so vitriolic in its transphobia? Or is it that the rest of the Anglophone world is so influenced by the US on that issue?

It's a very sinister middle class obsession by the same journalists, usually white, usually middle class, predominantly middle aged, almost exclusively cis who all attend the same functions and know each other and don't want to be disinvited to the big social gatherings (and I'm really not being flippant about this.) For those who are otherwise on the 'liberal-left' there is a combination of their own views being frozen in place some 10 or 20 years ago, coupled with the need to find something (which has become 'someone') to scapegoat for why Labour are a shambles and why they can't win like they did 10 or 20 years ago.

It's made the Guardian, the Observer and the Staggers pretty much unreadable now.

There are almost daily articles on this issue in nearly every newspaper. Sometimes multiple pieces a day.

[afleitch]

On the above the latest target is a rather tame John Lewis advert that seems to have got a lot of people very angry.

British Twitter really is like a sh**t version of the old Mass Observation Survey.

It's terrible. On twitter and Prosecco Storefront people are legitimately saying 'if that was me I'd smack him up and down.'

A very misandrist feminism is bring given a platform and it's utterly sickening.

[afleitch]

I mean look at the state of this.

https://mobile.twitter.com/demarionunn/status/1448656978830495750

[afleitch]

Utterly horrific.

[afleitch]

Yes, Sir David Amess is not someone with remotely similar views to mine but he wasn't a carpetbagger, a careerist, or media talking head but instead was an exemplary local MP.

[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.'

[afleitch]

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

[afleitch]

Never understood cricket.

[afleitch]

Yes, but leading indicators in polling show this has been building for a while and just needed a spark.

Too many are transfixed by VI in opinion surveys, to the exclusion of all else.

Sleaze, or accusations of are the only thing that really shifts polling, from Major to the expenses scandal of 2010. The key is trying to maintain it. There isn't quite a stench of death around the government yet, but when the PM is not only involved, but already known for being shady when he became PM, that's still historically untested.

[afleitch]

We're getting close to what could potentially be the mid-point of the Parliament.

The story I think is this; the Tories get a very historic boost with COVID but as 2020 dragged on they ended up neck and neck with Labour by the end of the year. As 2021 begun there was a bit of 'rally round the government' with the second lockdown and then the rollout of the vaccine and the opening up of the country.

But since June, the Tories have been been dropping and Labour rising, even as at the moment, the UK is perhaps not quite looking like it will have a bad winter this year. So I don't think there's much hay to be made out from 'the COVID response' being linked to government fortunes.

There are a variety of different possibilities going forward in the two or three years left. It's entirely possible that the arse completely falls out of the government as the p r o b l e m s start to be associated with a sh-tty Brexit outcome rather than COVID.

[afleitch]

Terrorist was a Christian convert. Which turns things on it's head somewhat if correct.

[afleitch]

Oh it's quite possible that a replacement would be a complete disaster.

The cabinet lacks suitable PM material in a way the shadcab doesn't. And that's starting to get some traction outside the Westminster bubble.

[afleitch]

https://mobile.twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1463565418145226752

Or 'Mayor and panto stars switch on Christmas lights.'

What makes this so funny is twenty minutes later he tweeted as if he knew that already.

[afleitch]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Samfr/status/1468302190154588176

Yes the press sat on it.

[afleitch]

Two possibilities.

The most likely is that nothing happens. There's a fresh scandal every other week and the government is bled by a thousand cuts  for the next few years.

The least likely is that Boris goes, someone less...Boris wins. Someone Orbanesque enough for the Murdoch press and the government still bleeds.

Same outcome different route.

Tory re-election is not inevitable even with their majority. But their defeat will not be certain (or not) for a long while.

[afleitch]

I don't know if I want him to go; I'm concerned aboutwhat ghoul will follow him.

[afleitch]

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