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

[Blair]

The BTEC disaster is magnitudes worse than what happened with A-levels but I doubt the government will take it as seriously because it's working class kids getting f-ed. Makes me so angry.

I seem to remember Gavin Williamson, who I understand is still (somehow) the Secretary of State for Education, make a Big Public Statement the other month about the Importance of Vocational Education, that it was as valid as the academic route and so on. And yet now... silence, inaction. What a surprise.

Yes this is actually one of the most frustrating things that happens in education & wider politics.

The Government (and various outriders) often hit out at Universities, the humanities, the civil service or some other target of choice by saying they're all useless & unworthy, and what Britain really needs is to 'go back the days of focusing on proper vocational training'... to which they then get presented with the sweeping cuts to FE colleges, the poorer pay & conditions for staff and general gutting of the sector etc... all of which they ignore & blame on some previous government.

I mean does anyone even know what's happening with the much heralded T-Levels? I just read now they're being offered from this September but in only three subjects...

[Blair]

I wonder how many people know that Rule Britannia was in a way a protest song against defence cuts... a rather fitting & modern song in a sense.

[Blair]

fwiw a very good tick to spot in politicians/spokespeople is when someone says something is nonense it isn't actually a denial!

[Blair]

10 PMs in 10 years?

Not *quite*, though at times it has seemed a bit like that I will admit

I seem to remember that way back when (ie two years ago), there were mutterings on the Tory benches about levering our May and replacing her with either David Davis or David Lidington as a caretaker for a couple of years until the party could fix upon a suitable long term leader. One ex-cabinet minister apparently dismissed this possibility by saying something along the lines of ‘we’re not Italy for God’s sake!’.

I know Stephen Bush made quite a convincing case that William Hague would have ended up as Prime Minister if he'd remained an MP after 2015.

[Blair]

What was the case? Wouldn't he have been too Remainy?

More so just as a caretaker Prime Minister for that weird period when May was Prime Minister but had power; he was seen as a safe pair of hands, relatively unfactional & had no desire to do the job forever. He was pretty much a more talented & dynamic version of David Liddington; and certainly never drifted to the remain cause in the same sense that some senior Tories did (Hammond, Gauke etc)

The shocking thing is that I just read that Hague is only two years older than Starmer...

[Blair]

Only 8 months after one of the most impressive wins for a generation... it's not as if the Tories weren't
warned that Bojo is a lazy & laregly useless leader.

What's more remarkable is that there's a rather senior tory going on record to the Observer!

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/aug/29/boris-johnson-faces-tory-wrath-as-party-slumps-in-shock-poll

[Blair]

The three major challenges that are going to come over the next 3 months are....

1.) Do the Government extend or revise the furlough to save parts of the economy?

2.) Do the Government safely handle the return for schools?

3.) Will the Prime Minister get a cabinet who knows how to handle a brief?

If the answer to all three is no & we have the vicious winter predicted (floods, flu, spike & no-deal) we're heading into somewhere a lot worse than a tied poll.

[Blair]

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1299781777163255814

[Blair]

My first thought was shock that Beckenham could be described as being full of Yuppies!

It's full of golf bores, UKIP voters & OAPs.

[Blair]

Actually, whilst poll internals are always *always* somewhat suspect there *is* some evidence that Labour under Starmer have retaken the most ground in the "red wall" seats they famously lost last year. To win an election their vote distribution will have to become better "balanced", so grounds for cautious optimism there.

Well, the question is, why is Starmer appealing to that kind of Labour voter who voted for Boris Johnson in 2019? Why is Starmer succeeding where Corbyn failed?

It's not like Starmer is any closer to that kind of voter than Corbyn?

Well I'd say he's closer to them; there's been a clear effort to appeal to these traditional Labour voters; the piece on D-Day about care homes, the active silence over the Channel crossings, attacking the appointment of Clare Fox over her past IRA support etc etc.

This is on top of the fact that any Labour leader, including RLB & even someone like Lavery) would start at a higher base than Corbyn was at in 2019.

By then he had the fatal combination of being seen as out of touch (on brexit), incompetent (on anti-semitism) & in some cases hated over various issues in his past.

If you want an explanation of the specific issues facing 2019 (which I define as Labour seats held under Thatcher being lost) then this article from Phil Wilson, who lost his seat, sums it up very well.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/labour-leadership-race/2020/03/labours-mess-predictable-result-leader-and-philosophy-hated

[Blair]

My first thought was shock that Beckenham could be described as being full of Yuppies!

It's full of golf bores, UKIP voters & OAPs.

Yeah, “yuppies” (are there even any in this day and age?) wasn’t the best name for this category, which is essentially the fabled social liberal, conservative demographic (or Remainer Tories). Should have called them liberal conservatives.

But even Beckenham isn't an example of this! It's a seat that in my mind is very right wing- it still voted Tory in a '97 by-election after the then MP was caught in a sex scandal!

Of course my own brain gets annoyed at the idea of giving seats a description like this; some seats, especially in London have different wards which are worlds apart in terms of ethnicity, child poverty, education, income etc

[Blair]

Actually, whilst poll internals are always *always* somewhat suspect there *is* some evidence that Labour under Starmer have retaken the most ground in the "red wall" seats they famously lost last year. To win an election their vote distribution will have to become better "balanced", so grounds for cautious optimism there.

Well, the question is, why is Starmer appealing to that kind of Labour voter who voted for Boris Johnson in 2019? Why is Starmer succeeding where Corbyn failed?

It's not like Starmer is any closer to that kind of voter than Corbyn?

Well I'd say he's closer to them; there's been a clear effort to appeal to these traditional Labour voters; the piece on D-Day about care homes, the active silence over the Channel crossings, attacking the appointment of Clare Fox over her past IRA support etc etc.

This is on top of the fact that any Labour leader, including RLB & even someone like Lavery) would start at a higher base than Corbyn was at in 2019.

By then he had the fatal combination of being seen as out of touch (on brexit), incompetent (on anti-semitism) & in some cases hated over various issues in his past.

If you want an explanation of the specific issues facing 2019 (which I define as Labour seats held under Thatcher being lost) then this article from Phil Wilson, who lost his seat, sums it up very well.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/labour-leadership-race/2020/03/labours-mess-predictable-result-leader-and-philosophy-hated

Alternatively, if you want an analysis of the 2019 election that's not 5000 words of whiny self-pitying Blairite nonsense, this is an excellent take

Written by someone who no doubt knocked on hundreds of doors during the election!

Deleted half my post because frankly I don't want to argue about the 2019 election. Read both pieces and work out which one is more accurate!

[Blair]

I'm very sorry for posting my opinion on the Labour Party on the internet!

[Blair]

I would honestly welcome & read a long piece from someone like Laura Pidcock or Dennis Skinner on why they thought they lost their seats in 2019!

I'd of course disagree with large parts of it but I think for these seats if you've not reguarly followled Labour or UK politics you need an on the grounds demonstration of what happened in these seats; I think 2019 was such a flash in the pan election that the much slower trends that have of course dominated these regions can't be seen as the sole reason- especially when these seats were returning relatively stable majorities even during the historic lows of 2010 & 2015.

EDIT: There is one from Pidcock! But she didn't mention the T-Shirts that had been allegedly printed for her deputy leadership campaign!

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2020/02/letter-to-the-movement

[Blair]

The one thing that does not get covered a lot about Keir (and which he reminded everyone at PMQs) is that he is the first Labour leader for a very long time who had a job outside of politics and one which he can actually use to sell himself to voters.

[Blair]

Something that was commonly forgotten was that Alan Johnson did pretty much have the dagger given  to him in 2014 to get rid of Ed M; That is really for me the only situation in which I can see Labour doing better than they would have in 2015.

[Blair]

It might be a sign of the times but wasn't this moonsh**t test already discussed?

Every month this Government (well specifically Matt Hancock & his love for publicity) seem to come out with some great hope; first the app, then that test that would give you anti-gen results, then the test that would deliver results in 20 minutes, then Dido Hardings new cold-calling hotline & now back to another test.

It's remarkable how when the Government find some hairbrain scheme it's briefed & praised- yet when a non-government backed scheme appears (such as Heathrows offer of airport testing) the Government ignore it & say the science doesn't back it up.

Indeed the remarkable success story of the pandemic has been Local Government; who in many cases have done remarkable well. They've housed rough sleepers, given out brand new business grants, put in major road changes & now have had to pick up test & trace.

It was a disgrace that successive Governments (including my namesake) have spent so long cutting, sidelining & weakening local Government who are the very people who know how to run these sort of things.

BoJo now promising to beat the virus with something that has not been invented yet, apparently.

Don’t forget the COVID Freikorps Marshals!

God, just imagine if they actually go through with that. There's a certain number of people in every town in the country who just long to be given a badge, a tin hat, and a right to shoult PUT THAT LIGHT OUT every thirty seconds.

A lot of british society can be summed up by the Dads Army episode where the town loses power and Captain Mainwaring enforces martial law & threatens to measure the amount of bath water being used.

[Blair]

The app is already out in NI and Scotland, with England and Wales getting theirs on 24 September.

Also, with all the airport testing out there, it's not exactly stopped rises in other parts of Europe.

However, local government has been under-resourced for decades and that is something that needs fixing.

Well the argument was never that it would stop cases rising alone; but rather it would allow for a much greater tracking of the coronavirus & while also giving more certainity for people returning from travel.

Besides with the challenges in getting a test it's unclear whether those arriving back who do get symptons will actually be able to get tested- so any increase alone should be welcomed.

[Blair]

FWIW I thought Rayner did very well & it was always going to be a more Labour response rather than a leader of the opposition one. The remarkable thing is that the Tories had the chance to put Raab up; it would have taken the heat out (he's always remarkably deferential at the dispatch box & has gone a bit soft at the FCO) & would have made it a sideshow.

On the subject of Rayner she contrasts with Starmer extremely well & frankly as all the skills you want as deputy. There's been a bit of well briefed 'concern' about the lack of a team around Starmer; it would be very good for her to appear more. Although it was worth noting she was sent out rather than Kate Green (the shadow education sec) after the A-Levels fiasco to really the put the boot in.

She is extremely talented politically & should not be under estimated; she cleared the deputy leadership field of anyone serious, she did very well at having her own fiefdom during the Corbyn years & for the joy of parlour games she's the odds on favourite to be the next leader.

Rayner certainly has a "style" of her own. Not everybody is a fan, but I am and happily admit it

Plus even her detractors will struggle not to admit she was one of the more effective front benchers for Labour throughout the Corbyn years.

The thing I would note is that while she has been in politics for a while via her union activism, she is really very new to public life: she has only been an MP for five years and had no public facing role before then. It will be interesting to see how she develops, as she's a fast learner: she is already a very different politician to the one she was a year ago.

On this note I just realised that the three most well positioned corbynite MPs from the 2015 & 2017 intake are Rayner, Sam Tarry and Dan Carden who were all officials in trade unions. They know how to play the game & do the graft.

YouGov (on balance one of the more pro-Tory pollsters) now have them on a 40-40 tie with Labour.

Wonder when we'll finally get the first Labour lead in the polls which will cause the natural panic in the Tory Party.

[Blair]

I would go into some sort of rant about how unsuitable these two are & the threat it poses to the BBC (at a time when we're getting SS-GB news) but frankly the political coverage provided by the BBC at the last election was so laughable & Ofcom are so useless I doubt this will have a big impact on our wider politics.

[Blair]

Not a surprise as successive polls have had a tie but this will cause a great deal of relief for Starmers project & will make Tory MPs who've had an awful summer even more likely to start chatting about when to push Bojo out.

[Blair]

I wouldn't put much thought into election dates; they tend to generally be driven by much larger events that will play a bigger role than the timing of the election.

[Blair]

It's interesting as this is used as a takeway by some (including myself) as something to point to when people ask what Starmer is doing right but really the fact that the Government managed to squander a what 25+ lead in the polls that they had in March?

[Blair]

It's interesting as this is used as a takeway by some (including myself) as something to point to when people ask what Starmer is doing right but really the fact that the Government managed to squander a what 25+ lead in the polls that they had in March?

That was obviously in large part an unsustainable sympathy bump for Boris in hospital.

Wasn't it pre-hospital as well?

[Blair]

Slightly off topic but finally watched the first episode of Spitting Image

As someone old enough (cough) to have seen at least the last series before it went off the air, and who's watched them all since it has the same pace as the original series (long gaga, short gag, long gag, song) and was about fifty/fifty hit and miss.

What was a bit jarring was seeing Mike Pence as coloured grey (been done with John Major) and Priti Patel as a vampire (they did it with his former squeeze, Edwina Currie) though that sketch was probably the funniest for me. They also had Dominic Cummings as The Mekon from Dan Dare which isn't a point of reference for anyone younger than 65.

It's clear they've also used some really old moulds as I'm pretty sure saw Cilla Black

NBC, who they partnered with for a few specials in the 80's have backed out of showing it, which means the series will thankfully stay UK orientated.

As you say there's a funny amount of revionism around Spitting Image.

People seem to view it as the high point of political satire but a lot of it did fall quite flat- it was only after watching a few full episodes (after seeing most of the famous bits & songs) that I realised that it didn't always hit perfectly.

Indeed I read that by the 1990s it was seen as quite tired & was on its last legs.

The most tiring thing about the new series has been watching various right wingers get wound up spitting that 'it's not the same now the woke brigade are in charge' 'I bet they won't slag off Dianne Abbott'. Talk about imagined enemies...

I haven't watched it yet but the Dominic Cummings character looked hilarous in the sketch I saw.