Right but this is an easy win for Starmer. Something very unpopular you can scrap, that is costly, that even if you’re a bigot you can recognise isn’t working, etc. That’s something you can instantly do to create the impression you’re very different to the previous party. And the impression, per your comment, is impactful. It really doesn’t say much one way or the other about more important policies (e.g. like the Tory cuts that he said pre-election he would not axe).
I mean, the FPTP system is fucked – that aside… For your stat to be right, wouldn’t you have to calculate it also in terms of the number of constituents to a given constituency? E.g., Constituency A has 10 constituents, Constituency B has 15 constituents, and Constituency C has 100 constituents; both A + B have a non-Lab/Cons party in first or second place; C has Lab first and Cons second. In that scenario, it wouldn’t be true that “most people” live in a constituency where Lab or Cons are not both 1st or 2nd (where A-C is exhaustive).
I don’t know how that would extrapolate to the real constituencies with their varying population/electorate figures. Certainly, it’s a very uneven and strange system at present, which allows for all sorts of gerrymandering. But only given the sum of 20 constituencies (per your calculation) where Lab/Cons are not the top two, I don’t think you can infer the situation for most people.
In any case: fuck this system, PR soon please.
If they’re not going to be be near cenotaph then fine.
The way you’ve worded that response provides the reason why Cruella et al. did wade in. Because it’s a hypothetical for you, “oh, if that’s the case…” – it IS the case, but unless you’re part of the protest or following sympathetic sources, you’re simply unlikely to know that. In fact, you’re likely to assume the opposite. You’re likely to presume that this is something that goes right past the cenotaph because that’s exactly how the Tory agitators have framed it. As Tory Baroness Warsi called them: arsonists.
I wouldn’t mind betting the two scumbags just let back onto the birdsite are getting their tuppence in as well.
Yeah at least one of them, Tommeh, is actively organising marches as we speak. The rhetoric coming out of (I think, at present) 3 far-right marches is all about “defending the cenotaph” from “terrorism”. Predictable, which is why Cruella and the others are such reprehensible cunts.
I’m often the odd one out in thinking this, but I thought The IT Crowd was generic, derivative shite, and I was dismayed that people of the calibre of Chris Morris were involved with it at the time. I cannot make my way through a whole episode.
I used an emoji therefore I am sad he’s a bigot and he’s a Tory?
No, you’ve misread the original comment. I said you sound disappointed that Linehan has aligned with the Tories. I used the phrase “a bigot” to refer to GL, because he is; I used the phrase “a collection of bigots” to refer to the Tories, because they are.
Using those phrases in those constructions does not imply anything about what you think or know about the Tories or GL. The phrases are plainly in my voice identifying them by what you can infer I think is factual: their bigotry.
Your sadface emoji generally connotes something like disappointment. So my comment is essentially: oh, you’re really disappointed that this guy is aligned with the Tories? Why, when he is a bigot and they are also bigots? Why would you even want him to be aligned with a party you do support?
picking random fights based on your poor reading skills
Irony. Helluva thing.
It is exactly that, yes. But what is weird is that outside of a few permanently online diehard Starmerites, I never come across anybody in any walk of life now who is saying: “what we really need is a Labour government”. At this point it’s just: not the Tories please, it can’t get any worse. This is depressing.
from a single sentence
In both comments, your emojis work wonders.
Lol that is such an Ian Dunt headline. It writes itself.
I didn’t know he was a Tory 😔.
You seem disappointed, as though you wanted this bigot not to politically align himself with a collection of bigots.
I love how the BBC is constantly labelled as having right wing bias by leftists and left wing bias by the far right. 😂😂🤣🤡🤣🤣😂
What’s going on here is that the far right, consciously or not, conflates a kind of attenuated social liberalism and left wing progressivism. What it complains about (and greatly exaggerates) is the extent to which the cultural and creative programming features diversity, the comedy programming doesn’t feature as much bigotry as it would like, and the daily programming (stuff like The One Show) always uses very neutral and PC language.
But this liberal sheen is largely a facade – the political and economic programming is astonishingly right wing, from Andrew Neil formerly hosting (while being chairman of the hard right Spectator), Kuenssberg lapping up and running Tory attack lines, the revolving door between BBC senior positions and the government, the panelling of Question Time and Newsnight, the strong editorial lean towards outdated austerity economics and immigration moral panics, the constant flirtation with right-wing think tanks, and so on. This would be a good introduction to the topic: https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/253-the-bbc.
Can’t stand Starmer but yeah it would be politically dim to make any sort of commitment on rejoining right now. Among other things, what sank Labour in GE19 (and not 17) was precisely their flirting with a second referendum and the unclarity of their Brexit policy (Starmer was, funnily enough, integral to both).
There you go intentionally missing the point again.
Holding a seat for a long time is not mutually exclusive with being divisive. Maggie Thatcher held a seat for a long time and she was a cunt. 🤣
Difference being that Thatcher divided the overall electorate enough in her favour to win elections. Her being divisive in that sense is not really comparable. Moreover, those voting for parties at GEs either do so because they lean towards the Prime Minister candidate or the constituency candidate. We know that Abbott didn’t divide her constituency significantly, and you’re having a laugh if you think the rest of the electorate cares about Abbott’s stance on anything, let alone her relation to Corbyn, who himself would not be particularly electorally toxic at this moment.
She’s divisive to the current election chances of Labour because of her blasé attitude towards the Jewish community and her support of Corbyn. Both of which are going to hurt Labour if left in place.
Interesting use of the word “divisive”. Labour will win the next election, despite themselves, and whether or not Abbott runs in Hackney. And they will do so because the Tories have had a series of collapses and scandals; the public is absolutely sick of them.
Ah yes, divisive candidates who’ve held their seats in successive elections for how long now? If you think the purge is anything other than bitter factionalism – by this point – you are sorely mistaken.
As much as I thought her original comments were disappointingly wrongheaded, or at the very least poorly put, she’s right about the procedural issues with this investigation. It stands as yet another example of the Starmer project’s chief goal: to purge the party of its left.
Sir Alex Younger, the former head of MI6, said China’s definition of intelligence work was “far broader” than typically understood in the UK, including attempts to influence people as well as information gathering.
Ah yes, so much broader than the UK’s notion of intelligence work. It’s unfathomable that UK intelligence operations might seek to influence other states or gather information about them, right?
z spellings are pretty English, fwiw. The s thing only came in pretty belatedly, from the French. Z spellings are still very common in academic writing; OUP requires it in their style guide. There’s no defence of defense though.