This Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

[AustralianSwingVoter]

One other interesting tid-bit on the electoral front - a couple of journalists have poked around the news that marginal seat MPs are increasingly looking towards safe seats, and it appears that there's been a formal process set up for those who are looking to participate in the "chicken run". Initially, this seems to have been set up by CCHQ to assist MPs who have been "displaced" by boundary reviews, but there's a sense that some MPs are exploiting the system in an attempt to survive.

We already knew Nicola Richardson (West Bromwich East) and Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) were looking to take that route, but Keiran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) sounds like he'll flee to Chester South and Eddisbury. Scott Benton (Blackpool South) is being very cagey about whether he'll stay in Blackpool or try elsewhere (*insert joke about what a great loss to politics Benton will be here*). And Eddie Hughes looks likely to leave Walsall to try for Chris Pincher's seat of Tamworth - assuming there isn't a by-election in the next 18 months...

Some of those seats are quite marginal, but only Eddie Hughes can really claim to have been "displaced" by the boundary review.

The nomination in Sajid Javid's safe Bromsgrove seat seems like it'll be a brawl between several incumbents. And a three-way fight for a safe Hampshire seat between Suella Braverman, Paul Holmes and Flick Drummond seems inevitable.

I think there are two safe Hampshire seats between those three.  The obvious thing to do would be for Holmes to take the revised Eastleigh, Braverman to take Hamble Valley and Drummond to take Fareham & Waterlooville.  But Eastleigh will be a Lib Dem target again and Holmes apparently wants Hamble Valley, and the view seems to be that he's likely to get it, leaving the other two fighting over Fareham & Waterlooville.

Fareham & Waterlooville would be a peak Canadian riding name if you cut out the “&” and made it Fareham-Waterlooville.

Fareham—Waterlooville—Solent to South Downs Country.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

One other interesting tid-bit on the electoral front - a couple of journalists have poked around the news that marginal seat MPs are increasingly looking towards safe seats, and it appears that there's been a formal process set up for those who are looking to participate in the "chicken run". Initially, this seems to have been set up by CCHQ to assist MPs who have been "displaced" by boundary reviews, but there's a sense that some MPs are exploiting the system in an attempt to survive.

We already knew Nicola Richardson (West Bromwich East) and Stuart Anderson (Wolverhampton South West) were looking to take that route, but Keiran Mullan (Crewe and Nantwich) sounds like he'll flee to Chester South and Eddisbury. Scott Benton (Blackpool South) is being very cagey about whether he'll stay in Blackpool or try elsewhere (*insert joke about what a great loss to politics Benton will be here*). And Eddie Hughes looks likely to leave Walsall to try for Chris Pincher's seat of Tamworth - assuming there isn't a by-election in the next 18 months...

Some of those seats are quite marginal, but only Eddie Hughes can really claim to have been "displaced" by the boundary review.

The nomination in Sajid Javid's safe Bromsgrove seat seems like it'll be a brawl between several incumbents. And a three-way fight for a safe Hampshire seat between Suella Braverman, Paul Holmes and Flick Drummond seems inevitable.

I think there are two safe Hampshire seats between those three.  The obvious thing to do would be for Holmes to take the revised Eastleigh, Braverman to take Hamble Valley and Drummond to take Fareham & Waterlooville.  But Eastleigh will be a Lib Dem target again and Holmes apparently wants Hamble Valley, and the view seems to be that he's likely to get it, leaving the other two fighting over Fareham & Waterlooville.

Fareham & Waterlooville would be a peak Canadian riding name if you cut out the “&” and made it Fareham-Waterlooville.

Fareham—Waterlooville—Solent to South Downs Country.

Saint-Hamme-lès-Farré—Sainte-Ville-sur-l'Ouatèrre-de-Lou, if you're in Quebec.

Meanwhile in Australia federally it’d be named after some random dead woman from the other side of Hampshire who’s completely uncontroversial and has an unusual enough surname that it isn’t used already. Or a state electorate would be called Portchester because double barrelled electorates are anathema.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The nominative determinism of the name Bent(on) is a little on the nose.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Just when you think Jenrick can go no lower in unpleasantness, he somehow manages it.

Reads eerily like an old Scott Morrison presser, quite frankly. I half expected his rebuttal to be “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come”.
It’s almost poetic that the only cosmetic difference is using a repurposed prison barge instead of a remote tropical island. Invokes each of our primary 19th century prison systems!

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Yea, getting ambushed by a favourable lightweight on talkback radio (as we call it) particularly reminded me of early ScoMo. Would I be right in assuming LBC generally leans Tory?

[AustralianSwingVoter]

hey tories how’s it goin?

https://twitter.com/Conservatives/status/1709207218027934071
yea


“Long-term decisions for a brighter future” is such a satirical sounding slogan for a party conference.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

“Long term decisions for a brighter future”
https://twitter.com/C4Ciaran/status/1709558432133513641

Meanwhile Lee Anderson addressing the party faithful - “Is anybody from Bradford? Would you want to get there quicker?”

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Step 1: Inherit a majority built on northern seats.
Step 2: Go to Manchester
Step 3: Announce you’re cancelling the flagship transport link to Manchester, while saving the link to London Euston
Step 4: ??
Step 5: Profit

One of the few things mentioned in the "Network North" document which actually does involve Manchester is extending the Metrolink to Manchester Airport, which should be an easy commitment for even this government to achieve given that the line opened in 2014.  Did Sunak not notice those yellow things going in and out of the Airport station from his helicopter?

(And of course stuff like this reduces confidence in the rest of the document.)

Stuff like this further reduces confidence in the document…
https://twitter.com/christianwolmar/status/1709575467546587275

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The issues a party chooses to fight on are indicative of its priorities, and the Tories picking this one just shows how out of touch they are.

Or maybe their Australian strategists are too Australiabrained to realise British private schools aren’t anything as ubiquitous as they are in Sydney.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

The issues a party chooses to fight on are indicative of its priorities, and the Tories picking this one just shows how out of touch they are.

Or maybe their Australian strategists are too Australiabrained to realise British private schools aren’t anything as ubiquitous as they are in Sydney.

~40% of Australians go to private school (higher in metro areas), that's why no Australian politician can touch private schools without backlash, this is not the situation in the UK

Yea ik, the tories just keep hiring failed Liberal Party strategists who don't seem to understand British politics and just copy what works in Western Sydney. Rishi Sunak's immigration slogan is literally stop the boats.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

There was a time, well within living memory, when Labour was mostly pro-Israel and the Tories mostly pro-Arab (as it was generally put back then) Of course, the word "mostly" applied in both cases.

Blunt is in many ways a throwback to those times.

Brings to mind one of the most anachronistic Yes Minister episodes, where Jim plots with the Israeli ambassador while the Foreign Office takes a staunch pro-Arab line.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Yet another gay Tory MP turns out to be an absolute rotter and resigns.

Really delivering the LGBT representation lacking from the Back to Basics era.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Can’t be long till some backbencher tweets a rant about woke Richard Brandon denying the democratic will of the people.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

https://twitter.com/MichelleMone/status/1736348422460825821?t=ZX_dFBGW6Am6LKXxAH...
Things you say when you know an interview has gone well.

Also Miriam Cates MP (Penistone) is apparently being investigated for "significant damage to the house's reputation" whatever that means.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Can’t be long till some backbencher tweets a rant about woke Richard Brandon denying the democratic will of the people.

This is a reference to the executioner of Charles I?

Quite surprise the s autocorrected to a d given how much I’ve complained about Branson over the years!

[AustralianSwingVoter]

What would be more interesting imo would be a comparison between "spending more on public services even if it means not cutting taxes" and "spending more on public services if it means raising taxes"

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Increasing the threshold to 175 letters would be ironic when on current polling they won't win that many seats total! The next opposition leader's gonna struggle when it only takes ~25-30 letters to trigger confidence.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

WhatsApp and its consequences have been a disaster for the Conservative movement.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Spelthorne is one of a few constituencies that only once voted Labour, in 1945 on an unusually large majority. And like Uxbridge it's one of the few constituencies that has elected a Labour MP but never a Whig/Liberal. A distinction found only in pockets of outer London and basically all of Liverpool.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

Spelthorne is one of a few constituencies that only once voted Labour, in 1945 on an unusually large majority. And like Uxbridge it's one of the few constituencies that has elected a Labour MP but never a Whig/Liberal. A distinction found only in pockets of outer London and basically all of Liverpool.

The 1945 Spelthorne included Feltham, Yiewsley and West Drayton and on those lines would have voted Labour on a number of other occasions. I'm not sure if on the present lines it would have voted Labour in 1945 - that would depend upon the relative distribution of population within the constituency at the time.

Would also say that the distinction of never having elected a Liberal applies to most borough seats which didn't exist before 1918.

Should've been clearer, I meant the territory never elected a Liberal under previous seats too.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

I can’t think of a single Brandreth program that’s aired here in Oz, other than the occasional panel show appearance. Portillo on the other hand definitely has an international audience thanks to his rail travel shows on constant reruns.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

“I do not accept that we’re behind in the polls, or that these by-elections have national implications”

[AustralianSwingVoter]

From Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party to losing the whip in 5 weeks without a tabloid sex scandal would have been unthinkable, now it's somehow unsurprising.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

James Brokenshire's four ovens (I'm sorry, “two, normal, double ovens”) was another embarrassing kitchen faux pas.

[AustralianSwingVoter]

You never know, if Labour MPs giggle and laugh at him for defecting he might suddenly decide to keep supporting the government. It worked with the Rwanda vote!