This Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

[MaxQue]

How long is a letter valid ? and what is the proccese of withdrawing a letter ?

Since Sir Graham Brady became chairman of the 1922 Committee, letters remain active indefinitely, unless a member actively withdraws it, or said member leaves the Parliamentary Party (through suspension, resignation, death or defection). Previously a letter was valid for one year, and then lapsed, according to this report from the New Statesman, from around the time May’s leadership troubles.

It’s unclear whether a letter can be verbally withdrawn, or if a second letter stating an updated position must be sent. If I come across a better answer to that question, I’ll update this post.

Hmm. given that physical letters are accepted with the only authentication being a signature i'm suprised some pranksters hasn't tried to forge MP letters to trigger it.

He now accepts emailed letters. It’s a bizarre system. Really bizarre.

It’s only marginally better than the old system.

Doesn't he only accept emailled letters if the Parliament is in recess?

[MaxQue]

The revenge of the membership on the wets who installed Rishi over our voted choices of Boris and Liz continues.

Damian Green fails to be selected as a candidate for Weald of Kent. Good riddance.

Regardless of the overall result of the 2024 election (I predict a 2005-sized Labour majority), it will continue the trend from 2019 where wet moderates (like Claire Perry) are replaced by populist right-wingers (like Danny Kruger).

The Cameron days are long gone

Again, this is based on spin, not a reality, as Green was certainly not victim of a revenge from the membership, as he wasn't yet at that step.

The only thing that happened is the Weald of Kent executive deciding to do a full selection instead of anointing Green as their candidate. Green is still totally free to run for it in front of the members.

[MaxQue]

This has David Cameron's fingerprints all over it

It doesn't. Cameron totally disappeared after leaving office and tried to attract the least attention possible since then.

[MaxQue]

I’m pretty sure if a newly elected Christian leader of SNP had started his career with inviting his extended family into the official residence the first evening in to for a joint prayer, there would have been some reactions.

The difference there was that unlike the Christian, the Muslim didn’t come from a fundamentalist sect and didn’t spend half the campaign talking about how he wants to impose his religious values on the country.

The difference here is that we define White Britons who are as public about their religion as part of fundamentalist sects and we don’t do the same with members of immigrant groups. But the real question is whether this is just Chattering Class who define it this way or whether it also extend to general public.

Humza Yousaf degree of religiosity is honestly not really that relevant, the important part is Scottish voters perception of his actions. A party like SNP likely get a lot of votes, whose views of immigration, minority issues, gender issues, EU etc. are far more in line with UKIP than with SNP.

Except this is not the case. Blair was public about his Catholic faith, yet was not considered fundamentalist.

However, the Wee Frees are definitively not mainstream.

[MaxQue]

James Cleverly has fessed up to being the heckler.

His version is that he called Alex Cunningham a "sh*t MP", but would never call Stockon North 'a sh*thole'. Not sure those words really sound alike, even in the audio clip.

Ben Houchen has published a statement, with a huge headshot of him looking sad, criticising the Home Secretary for denigrating Stockton:



Feels very plebgate at this point.

Baron Houchen (I wonder why he's not using that name here...) is under a lot of pressure in the Mayoral election next year: while I think he's still individually popular the Tory brand is toxic across the country but especially up here; and he's going to stand as a Conservative candidate for Mayor either in a General Election where they'll probably get a hiding and lose all of the marginals in this bit of the world; or as the last locals before a General Election which would be even worse. It is an easy attack line for Labour to use both in the Mayoral elections but also across the marginals in Teeside (including, awkwardly, Conservative held Stockton South) especially since a Tory party led by Sunak with Lord Cameron in a featured role isn't the sort of Conservative Party that did well in the North East last time.

And he also has his own issues.

[MaxQue]

How on earth was this approved?
https://twitter.com/AndrewRosindell/status/1728786892861136942

Well, that's the MPS for you. Just look how they kept Sarah Everard "safe".

[MaxQue]

Won't Clarke be out of a seat come next election? I don't see Cleveland being a Conservative hold.

[MaxQue]

Of course the “election winner Priti Patel”, and “Lord Farage, Home Secretary” fan-fiction is by Dan Hodges. *Of course*. Magnificent content.

Kinda wild that Starmer can brush off 10 ministerial resignations without a bother, but Sunak loses one minister, and suddenly the papers are full of stories like “the pasta plotters have met in Liz Truss’ favourite restaurant, a new PM is coming!”

Thankfully for her, Glenda Jackson already died, so she won't die of the embarassment caused by her son.

[MaxQue]

Ah, my apologies. I should have double-checked those marginals on a site like Electoral Calculus before jumping…

Vis-a-vis the chicken-runners: Andy Carter’s seat still seems to be open, as is Nicola Richards. Both seem to be having recruitment problems. The others seem to be locked out of their old seats.

Electoral Calculus (yeah, I know) has a Conservative majority of 27 votes in 2019 in the new Warrington South (losing Lymm hurts them a lot), so, it's totally uninteresting.

[MaxQue]

Keiran Mullan is standing down at the next election. First elected in 2019 - never a particularly engaging Commons performer, very much in the stilted, populist style of a Jonathan Gullis or Lee Anderson.

Must be noted that he returned to his day-job, volunteering as an NHS doctor during the first COVID wave, which is worth celebrating, even if his Commons tenure was a bit less laudable.

He left his Crewe and Nantwich constituency (and an 8.5k majority) early last year to go on the chicken run, and was mooted in a couple of seats. Was shortlisted for Chester South, and got the final decision delayed for weeks after he complained about the behaviour of another candidate, but was nevertheless beaten by Aphra Brandreth (daughter of one-time local MP, Gyles).

I assume this is the same Gyles Brandreth busy trying to flog his books about the royal family these days?

[MaxQue]

I would assume that Brandreth is the only one to have some audience in foreign countries, too.

[MaxQue]

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.

Oh, he never appeared on TV, here, some newspaper keeps talking to him as a "royal family expert".

[MaxQue]

would reform even want truss?

WE HAVE THE SUPPORT OF A FORMER PRIME MINISTER.

The leaflet may not say which one, through.

[MaxQue]

I'm not sure Humza Yousaf overruling official advice, is a story about Stephen Kerr. Deciding to send far more than suggested, and to UNRWA (at at time when it was under heavy scrutiny for alleged ties to Oct 7th perpetrators), rather than Unicef (the suggested recipient), isn't a great look.

Seems like well-intentioned carelessness more than anything else, but not ideal. A political row over this would be unedifying, (and I'm not looking for a fight) but a brief review by Audit Scotland might not be amiss.

As proven by Canada and Sweden resuming their donations to UNRWA, the whole episode about UNRWA is just yet another plot by the Israeli government to starve Gaza.

[MaxQue]

If Labour end up winning the 400+ seat landslide everyone expects right now then they are winning Great Grimsby. The margin there also probably isn't that close if seats like Tamworth are the marginal ones.

However, this is now a place that you would expect the Tories to win before they win a majority. The council results here are particularly relevant I think, especially since now we supposedly will have the local elections independent of the GE. In 2023, Labour won the summed vote in the wards within the constituency by a expected and respectable margin. But in 2022 when Labour still was ahead, but not by as much, the Tories won the combined vote - even while not contesting one ward. the wards also started flipping Blue here before Johnson (unlike other 'leave' areas) and the Tories are still holding their vote share even in 2023 defeats. Like this year 11 of the 12 councilors up for the overall council are Tories from the 2021 wave, but unlike many similar places Labour and the other parties would have to outperform 2023 to actually break the majority - which will be something to watch in May.

The saving grace for Labour is that what's locking up the council for the Tories are wards mostly outside the Great Grimsby constituency. So while the electoral patterns of Lincolnshire are creeping in, the city is still trying to do it's own thing electorally.

We're talking about Great YARMOUTH, not Great Grimsby.

[MaxQue]

Tim Loughton is standing down at the next election. Colourful career - including as chair of Leadsom’s abortive 2016 leadership campaign, and stepping in as acting Chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee a couple of times after Vaz and Cooper stood down. Also one of those who bragged about paying £3 so he could vote for Corbyn as Labour Leader in 2015.

His seat of East Worthing and Shoreham was won by 7.7k votes in 2019, and 5.1k in 2017, and remains untouched by the boundary review. It’s been held by Loughton since its 1997 creation.

It is, as obviously stated in the name, in Worthing, which has seen a spectacular Conservative collapse and Labour rise in local elections recently (it had a safe Conservative majority since more than a decade and no Labour councillor since the 70's until Labour won a by-election in a safe Conservative ward in 2017, which snowballed into them winning multiple seats when the next tier was up in 2018, culminating in the council going NOC in 2021 and then Labour taking the majority in 2022 and now holding almost 2/3 of the seats).

[MaxQue]

Tim Loughton is standing down at the next election. Colourful career - including as chair of Leadsom’s abortive 2016 leadership campaign, and stepping in as acting Chair of the Commons Home Affairs Committee a couple of times after Vaz and Cooper stood down. Also one of those who bragged about paying £3 so he could vote for Corbyn as Labour Leader in 2015.

His seat of East Worthing and Shoreham was won by 7.7k votes in 2019, and 5.1k in 2017, and remains untouched by the boundary review. It’s been held by Loughton since its 1997 creation.

It is, as obviously stated in the name, in Worthing, which has seen a spectacular Conservative collapse and Labour rise in local elections recently (it had a safe Conservative majority since more than a decade and no Labour councillor since the 70's until Labour won a by-election in a safe Conservative ward in 2017, which snowballed into them winning multiple seats when the next tier was up in 2018, culminating in the council going NOC in 2021 and then Labour taking the majority in 2022 and now holding almost 2/3 of the seats).

One of the first signs of the political changes in Worthing was when the constituency, where Labour had never really looked in contention before, swung 10% to them in 2017.

It does include the whole of Adur district (Shoreham as well as other places between Worthing and Hove) as well as the east side of Worthing.

I mean it's not like those other places are Conservative anchors pulling in the other direction.  Quite the opposite,  Worthing is just most prominently displays Labour's gains. Adur for example has been on the same trajectory and timeline as Worthing, it just has only two classes of councilors not three. So there was less ability to slowly chip.away at the seat count, as since no councilor was up last year,  the Tories still have control.  But that will likely end in May.

IMO Worthing is the type of place that's eventually going to end up in the Safe Labour column. Like how Brighton saw a just as spectacular innitial Tory collapse, to be followed by Labour kicking out the 2010 Conservatives even while losing overall elsewhere in the country. Maybe not this election but give it a few years and a similar situation.

Let's be clear, a Conservative who had a larger majority in 2005 than in 2019 and a similar one in both 1997 and 2017 is trending the wrong way for them.