UK General Discussion Thread: mayy lmao

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is it cherry pick o clock already?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

All above board I'm sure, nothing to see here.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Basically people who are not noted for having a sense of humour should refrain from joking in public.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well this has all become absurdly messy very quickly.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Tom Watson - who has a direct mandate of his own from members don't forget and is, I suppose, now the de facto leader of the traditionalist Right (and as such he's pro NATO and pro this) - is being very public about the need to find some sort of compromise; i.e. a free vote.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Its all very serious and could go further.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Labour MPs to get a free vote on any airstrikes on Syria - official.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Its always nasty when friends fall out isn't.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Dave Prentis easily re-elected as Unison General Secretary, which is not exactly a surprising development though will certainly annoy Trots everywhere.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In fairness to that well known ex-GMB hack they would be better placed to put pressure on than anyone in the PLP, but were that to happen it would be for their own reasons and on their own timetable...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You live in North Belfast? My commiserations.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It isn't really supposedly; there's an answerphone message and its been broadcast on the local news here...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Lord Janner is dead.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Even rumours about reshuffles that probably aren't totally baseless need to be taken with industrial quantities of salt (i.e. in terms of the names rather than necessarily any direction of travel) particularly when they obviously come from just one individual. As always you're better off playing wait and see.

As for Abbott, she's barely capable of carrying out her current role. It would be nice if the excessive promotion of proven incompetents could be kept to a minimum, and I would point out that it would even be to the benefit of the leadership to take that line.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It is a calculated mea culpa to reassure the people who buy their products (i.e. newspapers) and nothing else. Which is why the 'findings' are a joke: the problem with our survey was that the wrong people answered it!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Its more that people tend to remember the times the polls fyck up in that direction; February 1974 was as much of a polling fiasco as 1970.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

tbh I'm not convinced that the public at large really care about unilateral nuclear disarmament in this day and age. It's just another issue that the political factions of Labour pointlessly bicker about

Yes, its an issue that matters greatly in internal Labour politics because it has always mattered in internal Labour politics (i.e. we take the stance we do, comrades, because THOSE BASTARDS take the opposite stance) rather than for any other reason. Foreign/defence policy matters matter a great deal less to the electorate than they did in the 1980s, when they mattered a lot less than politicians tended to assume. O/c there's no way a Corbyn-lead Labour could hold Barrow, but that's just one seat.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ah, but I won't disagree that having to put into 'context' Comrade Corbyn's naive views on certain matters while on the doorstep would be time better used more constructively...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

If we're hiring people with as superficial an understanding of elections as that no wonder we can't win elections right now.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yes, there is a funny habit of confusing tendencies with rules isn't there? On this note never forget Heseltine insisting that the Tories were going to win in 1997 because no government had ever been defeated where economic growth had been above whatever it was for however many years.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ah, a grade A sh!tstain is dead. How sad. Do we have a comment from his daughter? You know the one I mean. That one.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Urgh, this came out of nowhere. RIP

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Lord Avebury (a.k.a. Eric Lubbock) has died. He was the winner of the famous Orpington by-election of 1962 and held that seat until he was defeated in 1970.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The most important difference is that there is no local authority oversight/control (though still oversight/control from the Department of Education).