Conservative leadership election

[parochial boy]

Has anyone ever noticed that Sajid Javid is basically a dead ringer for the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz?

Something, something about not having a brain. Or was it a heart?

[parochial boy]

Well at least this means and end to the sad spectacle of "liberal" pundits fellating an otherwise bog standard Tory.

[parochial boy]

I'm not really seeing the Democrats pushing through something like Brexit tbh. Or the massive spending and tax cuts and privatisations of the Cameron era.

It's a nice myth that Europeans, especially those of us on the left, like to tell ourselves that our right isn't as right wing as the American right. But it isn't really true, especially in the UK right now.

[parochial boy]

So there's some news that has just broken. May develop in a big way, may not. Sort of story that one wishes to be careful of until the facts are clear. Anyway.

Is this about the fuzz coming round chez Boris?

[parochial boy]

Who on earth gets the cops called on them literally days before a vote to make them prime minister? I would never break plates and laptops in my home when my wife makes me angry. But I would REALLY not do it when I am a week away from being PM.

Someone who has had a lifetime of never having to face any real consequences for his actions?

[parochial boy]

There's a lot of magical thinking going on in this thread (and the British right more broadly). The EU has been pretty consistent on what it is willing to accept for the last three years, it's hard to see why the election of a man with a proven track record of being bad at his job is going to make them suddenly magically yield.

And any predictions on what it will mean for polling is speculatiion at best - maybe a couple of point bounce for the Tories post-election and then it really depends on how "the situation" evolves.

[parochial boy]

I don't think it's fear of foreigners so much as an absolute, unshakeable belief that they have the natural born right to tell everybody else what to do - and as an extension of that, the UK has the same unshakeable right to tell other countries what they should do; and Johnny Foreigner having is own ideas is an inherent threat to that.