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

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And I can tell you that there are few constituencies in the entire United Kingdom that have less in common than Birmingham Ladywood and Perth & North Perthshire. Bad data is bad data is bad data.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, the question is, why is Starmer appealing to that kind of Labour voter who voted for Boris Johnson in 2019? Why is Starmer succeeding where Corbyn failed?

It's not like Starmer is any closer to that kind of voter than Corbyn?

More significant in terms of 'initial recovery' would be the (much larger!) number of Labour supporters, often previously very loyal ones, who did not vote at all or who scattered to minor parties. Anecdote is not the plural of data, but a lot of people I know who fit that description like Starmer: the general view is that he's a serious man who is properly 'Labour'; that he's the sort of person they're comfortable with. That actually shouldn't be surprising given Starmer's social background (similar to that of many of these people), which is the sort of thing that people in this country often pick up on subconsciously.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Of course my own brain gets annoyed at the idea of giving seats a description like this; some seats, especially in London have different wards which are worlds apart in terms of ethnicity, child poverty, education, income etc

It's a habit from a different age in British society, when whole towns had a social monoculture - over eighty per cent of jobs in my Grandad's home town were down the pit when he was born, for instance - and entire constituencies were often pretty uniform. These days, though, nearly everywhere is a patchwork.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If you want to play hypotheticals, how about some fantasy version of Alan Johnson with political ambition? Unlike either Miliband, a man who was (is) very well liked with the broad public and a man totally lacking in that stilted wonkish manner of speak common to many of the younger figures from the Blair and Brown governments. Of course there's the rub: he doesn't have any political ambition and never really did - this is also why he lacked much in the way of political energy; not a driven man in that sense, so none of the urgency and electricity that is so absolutely critical to political success.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

But his utter lassitude as the official head of Labour's remain campaign in 2016 was inexcusable - and taking the easy way out afterwards and blaming everything on Corbyn (knowing how that would be relayed uncritically by all his pals in the media) was simply cynical and cowardly.

That's sort of the issue though: he was terrible in that role because of his lack of personal political ambition and all that that fuels - even more of a problem by then because he winding up his political career by that point. The hypothetical Alan Johnson: Labour Leader is just that - a fictional version of the man, without that feature. The point being, why fantasize about D. Miliband when with a bit of imagination?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

BoJo now promising to beat the virus with something that has not been invented yet, apparently.

Don’t forget the COVID Freikorps Marshals!

God, just imagine if they actually go through with that. There's a certain number of people in every town in the country who just long to be given a badge, a tin hat, and a right to shoult PUT THAT LIGHT OUT every thirty seconds.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

She was solid. That's good. Room for improvement, absolutely, but that's fine so early into a career. But once again the PM put in an absolutely catastrophic showing...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

On that point, it may be helpful that she has a fairly old-fashioned Manchester Region accent, and so sounds more generically Northern than North Western.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Rayner certainly has a "style" of her own. Not everybody is a fan, but I am and happily admit it

Plus even her detractors will struggle not to admit she was one of the more effective front benchers for Labour throughout the Corbyn years.

The thing I would note is that while she has been in politics for a while via her union activism, she is really very new to public life: she has only been an MP for five years and had no public facing role before then. It will be interesting to see how she develops, as she's a fast learner: she is already a very different politician to the one she was a year ago.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The first one basically failed because someone decided to release people from hospitals into care homes without doing a Covid test first.

That happened everywhere and was probably unavoidable (if really regrettable) given the pressures at the time. But the thing that went very wrong in England and Scotland was that people who had tested positive were released back into care homes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The household visit ban seems questionable if you can meet up with someone at a pub or restaurant. The actual distances involved wouldn't change. You might well be further apart in a house or garden.

We have those now. Unenforceable ban

Even less enforceable here: small unarmed police force, tiny (for the size of the population) standing army.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Snouts in the trough.

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Voting intention surveys are essentially asking not so much a hypothetical situation as a fantasy one at the moment, but this is significant simply because it punctures the air of hubristic arrogance and endless crowing that has built up over the past year. Which is something that will have consequences. I think an awareness that this would be a significant moment and a slight nervousness about that explains the surreal herding we've seen in recent polling figures. Rubicon crossed now, though.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's obvious in my view that the Government will eventually just move every region of the country (bar maybe Cornwall) into the High or High Risk group; so we'll be in a national lockdown but pretending it isn't a lockdown.

And it will last longer - and so be more painful - as a result of doing it that way...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well let's just say that the meaning of the term 'lockdown' has been subject to some serious hyperinflation over the past few months in this country.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Some people are saying that this is a problem.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, he thinks he knows what he's doing. Which isn't always quite the same thing. Big majority presently, but one of the most electoral unstable parts of England so this is extremely foolish behaviour. But, as you say, the sort of foolish behaviour that stems from a certain odious cynical arrogance, not naive idiocy.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Some people are saying that Gary Sambrook MP 'eats big dinners', I understand.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Sunak's scores are dropping slowly, Labour's ratings on the economy are also gradually rising.

Looking at polling internals there may be an argument that whilst Tory headline scores remain good, their support is gradually being "hollowed out" in the same way New Labour's was over time. There might be only Brexit that is really holding most of that 40% together now, which of course raises the question of what happens when that is finally (?) "done" next year.

You'll remember - horribly well! - how Labour's poll ratings were remarkably good for almost a year after the 2005 election: quite often higher than polled during that election and so in a very tight two-way contest with the newly invigorated Conservatives. This despite increasingly poor approval ratings and then by-elections; national and local. Turned out to be so much of nothingness.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

We literally had a general election last year where Labour's entire strategy was predicated on a "youthquake" surge in youth turnout that never materialised...

A remarkable strategy indeed in an old country (in all senses) like this one. And one made all the more remarkable by a (common, narcissistic) tendency to conflate the interests and priorities of younger professionals with 'all young and young-ish people'.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The story (no doubt backed by his not at all doctored blog entries) is that he planned all along to go at the end of this year. Which doesn't really tally with various other things that have gone on.

'A HARD RAIN IS GOING TO FALL'

Five seconds later

'Well, that's it boys, cheerio!'

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Joe Anderson, the Mayor of Liverpool, has been arrested on charges of bribery and intimidation in connection with a local corruption scandal involving building contracts. Also arrested - oh dear God - is a seventy two year old man from the Aigburth district of the city. It just so happens that a well-known property developer and former leading local government figure in the city happens to live in Aigburth and is, well, seventy two years old.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Joe Anderson, the Mayor of Liverpool, has been arrested on charges of bribery and intimidation in connection with a local corruption scandal involving building contracts. Also arrested - oh dear God - is a seventy two year old man from the Aigburth district of the city. It just so happens that a well-known property developer and former leading local government figure in the city happens to live in Aigburth and is, well, seventy two years old.

Hatton?

https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1334919063710158850

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The critical thing is that this is not the end of the matter, no matter.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The fishing issue is a load of absolute cobblers - a complete red herring, in fact. Herring being one of the issues: the British fleet lands a lot of the stuff, but hardly anyone eats it now,* thus it is exported to continental countries. The other issue is shellfish. Again, an awful lot landed here, but the domestic market is tiny and thus it is exported, especially to France.

_{*Despite it being a perfectly pleasant fish, historically much-consumed here. Developed an association with poverty in the 1930s making  it unfashionable postwar. Stocks then mysteriously collapsed in the 1970s and by the time they had (equally mysteriously) recovered the people who ate it had mostly died off.}