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

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Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaas!

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Not only is COVID testing the union, it's testing the whole concept of England. All that matters, has ever mattered since Thatcher is London as a cash cow/money pit and the Home Counties. It's deeply imbalanced.

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Labour Liverpool gonna Labour Liverpool. I almost love this.

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Johnson must be worth a few points to the independence polling, just personally.

Oh he clearly is. One of the salient facts about polling for the independence question is the number rises and falls in response to the ups and downs of entirely (or mostly) unrelated political factors all the time.

And having a PM who doesn't even pretend to believe in devolution is a big boost.

But you are correct. The shabbier the union looks, the worse it gets for the No's. There was a temporary boost post 2016 referendum. This one seems solid enough to last through actual Brexit/no trade deal to the elections in May.

[afleitch]

Did anyone see that absolute bonkers speech by Liz Truss?

The part that has got attention was some rant about how the problem with Britain was that she was taught about Foucalt at school in the 1980s but wasn't taught how to read? Along with some rubbish about how New Labour/Cameron cared about the wrong sort of equality issues.

I honestly don't know what was more worrying; the fact that this is the Secretary of State for Equalities saying this or the fact that it was so obviously just playing to the Gallery

Random question but why does Boris Johnson get seen in high vis vests so much? Is he trying to make a subconscious point about linking himself with construction and economic growth?

All politicians are guilty of it but Boris as Mayor of London had a love for grand infrastructure projects but had no love for actually putting in the required effort (which is pretty much a theme of most parts of his life)

I mean Trumpism is getting it's second term. It's just that it's here.

[afleitch]

Just as well that Trumpism is so popular in this country, then......

I'm afraid to say it probably is. Not Trump himself, but that same level of boorish reactive populism with Boris.

[afleitch]

So Boris tell us what you got....

....mumbles....'fish.'

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If tariffs get imposed if we deviate from EU workers rights etc, that's actually not a bad thing.

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They also don't have a majority for this in the House of Lords (or in the commons, or even their own MPs)

The opinion polls on this have support at around 55% for certain more heinous murders like children or police officers.

Which maybe isn't a guarantee of a win in any referendum. When the fact most judges, lawyers and even senior policemen are strongly opposed to its return would register far more strongly than now.

Anyway - and this really can't be emphasised enough - even most *Tory* MPs don't support it these days; and back when most did *and* they had a bigger majority than now, it was still well beaten in the summer of 1983 (widely seen as the last realistic chance to reverse abolition) Add to that the fact that it has *always* been a conscience issue with a free parliamentary vote, and that a strongly anti HoC could hardly be expected to OK a referendum on the subject, and the dooming from some on this in the last 24 hours looks all the sillier.

What this *does* show, IMO, is that some in the Tories realise they might soon need something to replace Brexit as the glue that basically holds their 40% coalition together. This isn't it, though.

Attempting to reintroduce the death penalty would probably collapse the government. I think they areaware of the mass mobilisation against it.

[afleitch]

'Nationalists' are those Scots Nats, Welsh speakers and Northern Irish Catholics.

British Nationalists are Unionists. Flag waving, anti-Europeanism and British exceptionalism isn't called Nationalism because Nationalism is bad/divisive/the other lot. And Britishness imposed outside and within Britain isn't allowed to ever be considered an expression of 'bad Nationalism'.

[afleitch]

Cassius thinking devolution in Scotland was a devious Labour 'plot' and thinking the people of Scotland didn't have any f-cking agency in choosing it themselves.

[afleitch]

Cassius thinking devolution in Scotland was a devious Labour 'plot' and thinking the people of Scotland didn't have any f-cking agency in choosing it themselves.

Well, they wouldn’t have been able to exercise their ‘f-cking agency’ if Labour hadn’t given them a referendum, would they?

Yes. That would have been holding Scotland to hostage in refusing to let them vote in favour of something that Scotland wanted and even voted for in 1979 but didn't get because of a recking amendment given that 74% voted for devolution months after Labour won. And those who voted Labour, from Thurso to Truro in May 1997, knew that Labour proposed referenda on devolution. So they delivered.

[afleitch]

The Guardian is reporting that Labour strategists plan to make the party’s branding and messaging more “patriotic” (e.g. making prominent use of Union flags in their imagery) to win back the fabled “Red Wall” seats.

Personally, I find this kind of thing somewhat sickening, especially coming from the left-of-centre (and if they went overboard with it, it would make up my mind to vote Lib Dem if I felt both had an equal chance of winning my constituency), but I suppose I can’t complain if this does actually help to break the Tory majority (which I’m not sure either way if it will), and it doesn’t translate into actual policy.

This also got me thinking again about Gordon Brown’s encounter with the “bigoted woman”. I view it as a truly tragic moment in British politics, not because of how it may or may not have affected that general election, but because cemented it being taboo to dismiss concerns about “mass immigration” as being scapegoating not grounded in economic reality.

It was the only thing he was right on.

[afleitch]

This is where we are at folks

https://twitter.com/lgbtqiacatfem/status/1356971438012567553

None of this will ever get reported as the joke it is. No journo will investigate the dark money funding this crap, the links with right wing US 'heritage' groups and the endless threats of lawsuits for anyone taking transphobia to task. Because they are all making money off of it.

There's a crisis in British feminism, with British cis women, just as dangerous and destructive as men falling down into the incel, alt-right etc pipeline over the past few years.

[afleitch]

'O'

That's the venn diagram of the SNP members who think trans inclusionism is misogynistic but who think Salmond's accusers were plotting harpies.

[afleitch]

I'd highly reccomend that everyone watches It's a Sin on Channel 4; it's a TV drama about the AIDs epidemic in the 1980s (with a particular focus on the gay community) in the UK.

It's one of the best series I've seen for a while (It's by Russel T Davies so I'm not surprised) & it's a pretty harrowing look into the personal impact of the epidemic, while brushing up against some of the political themes of the era.

I binged it. It broke me.

[afleitch]

Before the epidemic/Section 28 the 'gay' vote was certainly a lot Tory than people appreciate- I remember reading newspaper cuttings from some of the community press about the Miners strike and there was a strong disdain for the miners & their community (which was associated by some as being Macho, homophobic & the provincal community many gay people left as young adults)

And, of course, vice versa. Though these two different cultures "mixing" in pro-miners support groups in 1984-85 did sometimes produce positive long term effects.

Well yes. There was a social conservatism in working class culture that saw homosexuality as 'weak' or a middle class (read Tory) public/grammar school vice. The TUC did lead the way in 1985 calling for equal rights, but in terms of early intervention and structural support for LGBT workers it was more white collar unions like NALGO (later Unison) in the 1970's that led the way over more traditional unions. But that's why the TUC was so important.

[afleitch]

Gender critical feminists have ruffled feathers ober a gender 'self-ID' question on the Census. Despite the fact that nearly all census questions are self-id.

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https://mobile.twitter.com/ChrisGreenNews/status/1366667444497113088?s=19

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https://mobile.twitter.com/johnmcdonnellMP/status/1369337586746023942

No constitutional dissent allowed in a party that used to accommodate both Dewar and Dalyell.

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It's been 25 years since the Dunblane massacre. It still makes me feel a little hollow when I think back to that day.

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They should have just pretended to be football fans.

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The Met is the worst police force in the country. It has improved a bit since Macpherson, but the fundamental character is what it is and just look at it.

The optics are just dire. One of their own has been arrested for murder, there's a history of disturbing behaviour that the Met may or may not have known about...and they do this.

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Richard Tice stood there last time. I expect ContinuityKIPxit to at least put some effort in.

[afleitch]

My favourite is alma-mater (shudder) Gerry Malone who lost in Hillhead in 1982, won Aberdeen South in 1983, lost it in 1987, won Winchester in 1992 lost it in 1997 by two votes, won a legal challenge and got hammered in the by-election