This Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

[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.

[Wiswylfen]

The new boundaries in Northumberland and what they mean for the Conservatives:

Newcastle upon Tyne North, West, and East and Wallsend will all safely vote Labour. No Conservative candidates have been selected for any of these seats.

Ian Levy has run away from his native Blyth to Cramlington and Killingworth. It doesn't matter: he's going to lose anyway, he's just embarrassing himself. This seat would have been very narrow in 2019 and who would have won it differs from notional to notional. I don't have any information on Blyth and Ashington but they don't stand a chance there either.

Tynemouth was held by the Conservatives from 1950 to 1997 but then they lost it to Alan Campbell and made the mistake of selecting Wendy Morton in 2010 (though, if they'd gained it then, they would have lost it in 2015 or 2017 anyway). The Conservative candidate is Tynemouth councillor Lewis Bartoli, who narrowly won re-election this year and got angry at the count just before the result was formally declared.

Hexham now crosses the boundary into Newcastle, and is slightly more favourable to Labour as a result. The way things are at the moment, Guy Opperman would lose his seat to Joe Morris regardless of that change. Labour needs a swing of around ten points to win and we'll get it. If the Conservatives were in a position to keep Labour to a minority they might be able to hold on, but they're not.

North Northumberland is the only seat where the Conservatives really stand a chance at winning. Labour needs a swing of around fifteen points to take the seat, but there's still a decent Lib Dem vote for them to squeeze. Anne-Marie Trevelyan, currently MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed (which is substantially the same constituency as this except for the addition of Morpeth), will be the Conservative candidate, having gained the seat in 2015 when Lib Dem MP Alan Beith stood down; the Labour candidate has not yet been selected.

[Torrain]

https://twitter.com/BethRigby/status/1715272169184284757?s=20
https://twitter.com/Steven_Swinford/status/1715284483312636073

[Cassius]

I don’t think they’re necessarily completely wrong - a lot of Tory voters clearly are sitting on their hands and refusing to vote for any party. On the other hand, I don’t believe they’ll bother coming out next year for the party either and I think turnout will be down by some margin at the next election (although probably not as far as the nadir of 2001).

[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?

[Torrain]

A full meeting of the ERG has been called for early next week. Agenda is EU-UK relations, ECHR jurisdiction, and this week’s electoral performance.

Rather pointedly, the meeting will be held on Tuesday night - in the last 6 hours before Sunak’s one-year immunity runs out.

Once again, I don’t think we’re headed for a confidence vote (not yet, anyway), but I do think this could be the start of a new round of pressure/threats about the legislative agenda (ahead of the Autumn Statement, and the Supreme Court decision on the Rwanda policy), now that rebellious backbenchers have their leverage back.

[ingemann]

One of the lines I've heard repeatedly during conference season is that Conservative strategists believe that the Tory brand is too damaged to win, and - because he outpolls them - Sunak should run a presidential campaign. Hence trying to position Sunak as "the change candidate", and his speech launching attacks on the approach of his Conservative predecessors.

However... we've just had the first YouGov numbers since conference - and Sunak's approvals have hit a record low. In the "who would make the best PM" numbers, Sunak has slumped to 20%. That's equal to Johnson's worst ever result in that category on July 7th 2022 - right in the midst of the mass resignations:



As ever - throw it in the average, and wait for more data. But, given how 2017 played out, it's wild that the Tories could potentially be lulled into another election where they place the personality of a technocratic, rather stiff PM who flubs interviews, at the centre of the campaign. Maybe they're acting on more sage advice from Crosby and Levido?

One question, do nobody talks about the fact that the guys is Indian and how Conservative voters will react to that, or do they all ignore the issue that people who don’t like East European coming to UK, may also have a problem with other foreigners? He doesn’t even have the benefits like Braverman or Priti Patel have (women and married to a white Briton), it seem obviously to me that some Conservative voters will react to that by voting for another party or stay home.

[JimJamUK]

One question, do nobody talks about the fact that the guys is Indian and how Conservative voters will react to that, or do they all ignore the issue that people who don’t like East European coming to UK, may also have a problem with other foreigners? He doesn’t even have the benefits like Braverman or Priti Patel have (women and married to a white Briton), it seem obviously to me that some Conservative voters will react to that by voting for another party or stay home.

They are trying to position themselves as immigrants who share the anti-immigration views of the white population. The problem is that alienates ‘liberal’ voters but the complete inability to actually deliver onimmigration (massive levels of legal migration, nevermind the Channel crossings) means that the voters they are pandering to hate them as well. This approach can work, but you need to actually deliver on the things you are promising.

Also, to answer your question more directly, there’s a group of voters who swung heavily to the Conservatives in 2019 in large part because the Labour Party became completely culturally alien to them. That the Conservative Party now has an Asian billionaire in charge is not good news for them (more so vibes than outright racism).

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

https://twitter.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1715408963712209056?s=20
https://twitter.com/Seamus_Malek/status/1715466602786021542?s=20
...so why is this guy a Tory? Does he hate poors that much?

[Torrain]

Crispin Blunt is… unique. Very liberal on drug policy, LGBT rights, very pro-Gaza and anti-Israel. Heavily eurosceptic, and fond of helping to topple leaders (he was one of the first to press for the resignations of Iain Duncan Smith in 2003, and Liz Truss, 19 years later). He’s also the actress Emily Blunt’s uncle.

I wouldn’t put him on a pedestal - his defence of the disgraced former Wakefield MP, Imran Ahmed Khan *after his conviction* was pretty sordid, given the circumstances. Not repeating it here - but suffice to say, he announced he was retiring at the next election within a fortnight.

As to why he’s still a Tory - he’s always been aligned with them on Europe and most foreign policy. He’s typically framed his more liberal positions as libertarian, rather than progressive (see his advocacy on transgender issues in particular).

[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.

[ingemann]

One question, do nobody talks about the fact that the guys is Indian and how Conservative voters will react to that, or do they all ignore the issue that people who don’t like East European coming to UK, may also have a problem with other foreigners? He doesn’t even have the benefits like Braverman or Priti Patel have (women and married to a white Briton), it seem obviously to me that some Conservative voters will react to that by voting for another party or stay home.

They are trying to position themselves as immigrants who share the anti-immigration views of the white population. The problem is that alienates ‘liberal’ voters but the complete inability to actually deliver onimmigration (massive levels of legal migration, nevermind the Channel crossings) means that the voters they are pandering to hate them as well. This approach can work, but you need to actually deliver on the things you are promising.

Also, to answer your question more directly, there’s a group of voters who swung heavily to the Conservatives in 2019 in large part because the Labour Party became completely culturally alien to them. That the Conservative Party now has an Asian billionaire in charge is not good news for them (more so vibes than outright racism).

Yes, and I find the fact that no one discuss this really weird, just as the fact that no one discuss whether it’s a good idea for a broad platform nationalist party (SNP) to do the same*. It’s like people are afraid to seen racist by discussing these issues.

* 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.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I did venture a bit of cautious speculation around the subject when he became PM a year ago. It is hard to see the ex-BNP vote (which is small overall but is significant in some places) respond that well to him, though equally I suspect there's a good chance that the ongoing movement towards the Conservatives amongst Hindu voters continues with him as PM in a GE despite the national environment.

[ingemann]

I did venture a bit of cautious speculation around the subject when he became PM a year ago. It is hard to see the ex-BNP vote (which is small overall but is significant in some places) respond that well to him, though equally I suspect there's a good chance that the ongoing movement towards the Conservatives amongst Hindu voters continues with him as PM in a GE despite the national environment.

The problem is that I can’t see the trade off being worth it especially not in FPTP system*.

*which is ironic because FPTP systems represent ethnic minorities far better than PR systems, but at the same time the cost of doing so are far higher than in a PR system.

[Estrella]

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.

[pikachu]

One question, do nobody talks about the fact that the guys is Indian and how Conservative voters will react to that, or do they all ignore the issue that people who don’t like East European coming to UK, may also have a problem with other foreigners? He doesn’t even have the benefits like Braverman or Priti Patel have (women and married to a white Briton), it seem obviously to me that some Conservative voters will react to that by voting for another party or stay home.

They are trying to position themselves as immigrants who share the anti-immigration views of the white population. The problem is that alienates ‘liberal’ voters but the complete inability to actually deliver onimmigration (massive levels of legal migration, nevermind the Channel crossings) means that the voters they are pandering to hate them as well. This approach can work, but you need to actually deliver on the things you are promising.

Also, to answer your question more directly, there’s a group of voters who swung heavily to the Conservatives in 2019 in large part because the Labour Party became completely culturally alien to them. That the Conservative Party now has an Asian billionaire in charge is not good news for them (more so vibes than outright racism).

Yes, and I find the fact that no one discuss this really weird, just as the fact that no one discuss whether it’s a good idea for a broad platform nationalist party (SNP) to do the same*. It’s like people are afraid to seen racist by discussing these issues.

* 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.

It is interesting that the UK has record high net migration (with a lot of it from India), has a PM and Home Minister of Indian origin, and that no one’s bothered to link the two together. I get why that’s been the case, but it’s kind of funny.

[ingemann]

One question, do nobody talks about the fact that the guys is Indian and how Conservative voters will react to that, or do they all ignore the issue that people who don’t like East European coming to UK, may also have a problem with other foreigners? He doesn’t even have the benefits like Braverman or Priti Patel have (women and married to a white Briton), it seem obviously to me that some Conservative voters will react to that by voting for another party or stay home.

They are trying to position themselves as immigrants who share the anti-immigration views of the white population. The problem is that alienates ‘liberal’ voters but the complete inability to actually deliver onimmigration (massive levels of legal migration, nevermind the Channel crossings) means that the voters they are pandering to hate them as well. This approach can work, but you need to actually deliver on the things you are promising.

Also, to answer your question more directly, there’s a group of voters who swung heavily to the Conservatives in 2019 in large part because the Labour Party became completely culturally alien to them. That the Conservative Party now has an Asian billionaire in charge is not good news for them (more so vibes than outright racism).

Yes, and I find the fact that no one discuss this really weird, just as the fact that no one discuss whether it’s a good idea for a broad platform nationalist party (SNP) to do the same*. It’s like people are afraid to seen racist by discussing these issues.

* 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.

It is interesting that the UK has record high net migration (with a lot of it from India), has a PM and Home Minister of Indian origin, and that no one’s bothered to link the two together. I get why that’s been the case, but it’s kind of funny.

I’m pretty sure plenty of people do link the two things together, and will vote or not vote based on that.

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

Yes, the religious extremist of the two was not Yousaf and it is sheer laziness to pretend otherwise.

[YL]

A bit of blue on blue action between the MP for Eastleigh and the former MP for Mid Bedfordshire

https://twitter.com/NadineDorries/status/1715677041582891454

[Torrain]

As attempted justifications for a chicken run go, "my constituents are joyless pricks" has to be an all-timer.
https://twitter.com/WalesOnline/status/1716016356452188566
_{For the record, Wallis has already been searching for an English seat for a while (including an unsuccessful run in Windsor), this is just confirmation that Bridgend has been officially binned.}

[YL]

Meanwhile the Bridlington & the Wolds shortlist includes two sitting MPs, Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) and Richard Holden (North West Durham), neither of whose current seats is especially close to Bridlington.

Sebastian Payne is "reserve".

[Torrain]

Meanwhile the Bridlington & the Wolds shortlist includes two sitting MPs, Stuart Andrew (Pudsey) and Richard Holden (North West Durham), neither of whose current seats is especially close to Bridlington.

Sebastian Payne is "reserve".

Two sitting ministers brawling over a safe seat, far from home, while Seb Payne sadly watches from a distance - it's like the perfect microcosm for the entire selection process this cycle.

[ingemann]

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.

[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.

[ingemann]

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.

Yes, because Blair was not at all treated as weird for his very public religiosity, it wasn’t like there were stories about him praying with Bush before the Iraq invasions.