This Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

[CumbrianLefty]

It is one year today since......well, you know.

[CumbrianLefty]

The fun thing is that other than a handful of IEA types

Who are, however, massively over-represented in our pundit class.

[CumbrianLefty]

I suppose the "Global Left" (including the international finance markets, well known for their Marxism) being the cause of all our ills makes a change from invoking the "Blob" at least.

[CumbrianLefty]

They funnily enough seem to be doing the 2010 labour approach of putting loads of ex staffers into safe seats.

It worked really well that time at least!

This does seem in part an attempt to avoid the fruitcakes a bit too evident in the 2019 intake. But as you say, it has possible pitfalls of its own.....

[CumbrianLefty]

Labour are the unpatriotic ones, though.

[CumbrianLefty]

I agree, and if it really *is* a notional LibDem seat now its even harder to see them not winning it.

(Tories actually in third may not be impossible though)

[CumbrianLefty]

I still recall the exultant triumphalism from the likes of Allister Heath the day after the mini-budget.

They genuinely believed that they had carried off "a Very British Coup".

In retrospect, one interesting thing is how calmly Reeves and Starmer responded to it - almost as if they knew it was going to blow up in the Tories faces within days.

[CumbrianLefty]

I didn't take it seriously, but the fact there was even a half-assed rumour about her crossing the floor a while back told its own story really. She really does sound like she will be happier out of it.

[CumbrianLefty]

The person in question was a Labour supporter until after the 2010 GE - never mind the involvement with Putin, how on earth did they miss that??

[CumbrianLefty]

Sharma at least seems to have spared them the by-election that did seem very possible at one point.

[CumbrianLefty]

Most of this stuff is going to be basically unenforceable for all sorts of reasons. Which gives away what it is *really* about - getting fawning coverage in the still captive press, of course.

[CumbrianLefty]

Her ratings are terrible, though.

She has to find a way of correcting that before being taken seriously.

[CumbrianLefty]

A year ago, Coutinho confided in a journalist at conference about how much of the party was going down the rabbit holes of online conspiracy theory - and this made her sad and worried.

Now.....

[CumbrianLefty]

Government minister Nus Ghani (herself the victim of religious discrimination), has been scathing about Susan Hall’s attacks on Sadiq Khan (and draws unfavourable comparisons with Zac Goldsmith’s campaign, which will raise some eyebrows). All with Steve Baker, of all MPs, nodding along in the background. I do wonder if we could be headed towards Hall being forced out, with someone like Paul Scully imposed instead at this point.

I doubt it, as long as polls continue to show her competitive at any rate.

One also shouldn't underestimate how many of them have now convinced themselves that going full fat Orbanist is going to prove to be that elusive election winner. All the polling that claims otherwise is itself just an ELITE WOKE ANTI-BRITISH CONSPIRACY, don't you know?

What this week has shown is how loads of Tories are totally high on their own fumes now.

[CumbrianLefty]

I mean......what on earth has the Allisterheathograph done to upset him?

[CumbrianLefty]

Some speculate whether the Tories think this is a winning strategy for the next general election. Others speculate whether they have accepted their fate and are turning up the gears whilst they remain in government. I would offer an alternative possibility. Under a Labour government and an uninspiring Conservative opposition there is potential for another rise of a Faragist outfit. In 2019, and to a lesser extent 2014, this represented something of an existential crisis for the Conservative Party. The cultural warrior stuff and the literal cosying up to Farage at the conference may be an attempt to reduce the possibility of this occuring. Of course all of this may open up the possibility of a threat from the Lib Dems, but I doubt that's part of their thinking at the moment.

I do think some in the party haven't forgotten getting only 9% in the last European elections.

Whether this is the appropriate response to secure their future is another matter, of course.

[CumbrianLefty]

She came mighty close to 4% approval ratings in a much shorter timescale tbf.

[CumbrianLefty]

Also did Liz Truss seriously sign a copy of the mini-budget at that conference (source)? That really takes the cake for shamelessness.

Imagining what Michael Foot's reaction would have been if you had handed him a copy of that election manifesto to sign.

I think he continued to defend it as a "broadly correct" document tbf.

[CumbrianLefty]

The willingness of Hands to humiliate himself on a daily basis is almost becoming admirable now.

[CumbrianLefty]

I absolutely did not know that so many Aussies are privately educated. Mind blown.

[CumbrianLefty]

Even by current government standards, Grant Shapps hit a real low on the airwaves yesterday.

[CumbrianLefty]

His slightly comic image has always obfuscated the fact that he is a nasty piece of work.

(even before he entered parliament, he gained notoriety in the 1990s for being notably ungenerous with workers in his business - and got featured in Labour pro-minimum wage propaganda)

[CumbrianLefty]

That does help explain why Gove hasn't achieved all he might have in politics, despite his undoubted intelligence and (certainly by current Tory standards) ability.

[CumbrianLefty]

Labour's numerical vote at the Dudley West byelection in 1994 - which remains the biggest Tory to Labour swing since WW2 - was famously down on what they had in the 1992 GE. Tories clutched at this straw with almost unseemly alacrity - "there is no actual enthusiasm for Labour, our voters all stayed at home and come the GE they will return and we will win a fifth successive victory".

Sound familiar?

[CumbrianLefty]

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.