This Wretched Hive Of Scum And Villainy

[Coldstream]

Another retirement - Stuart Anderson, in Wolverhampton South West (majority of 1,661).

An odd seat, in that Labour gained it in 2015, then lost it in 2017 (by a larger margin than they would obtain in 2019).

Anderson has only been an MP since 2019, and has been a whip since Johnson’s caretaker government last year.

I think you meant to write won? It’s Rob Marris’s old seat. A weird one in that it’s had a different person elected at each election since 2005 (non consecutively Marris in 2005 & 2015) and 5 different MP’s since ‘97.

[Coldstream]

The moment after I posted this I saw a certain former Home Office advisor has been selected for South-West-North Suffolk or wherever.

Said man has spent a lot of time on Twitter and in the Torygraph bemoaning both crime and the general state of the public realm which errrr poses questions for his former boss and his political project.

One of the more overrated ‘thinkers’ of his generation in politics but oh well- 5 years in opposition as shadow trees minister will be fun to watch.

I agree that he’s overrated, yet he’s still got far closer to an original thought than almost any Tory MP. Timothy at least tries.

[Coldstream]

Stephen Hammond, MP for Wimbledon and one of the few of the 21 MPs who lost the whip in September 2019 to have been given it back and to have stood again as a Tory, has announced he is not standing again.  He only narrowly won and some calculations suggest his seat has already been notionally flipped to the Lib Dems by the boundary review.

Although we came 3rd in 2019, Labour aren’t writing this one off either - could be an interesting vote split. Seems to have annoyed the Lib Dem’s more than us going for Two Cities or FGG - perhaps understandable given the respective circumstances in the 3 seats but still, should be one to watch.

[Coldstream]

A sign that Patel is a serious operator is that despite having a soviet majority she is very pointed & clear about her current role as a backbench constituency MP- she is regularly in the House of Commons talking about the latest issue and is pointed enough to make clear she is expecting the Government to act.

Always felt Patel is underrated. She’s quite impressive in person, in contrast to Braverman who comes off exactly as insane as she does on TV. I doubt she’ll be leader, but I wouldn’t be shocked if she came back to the front bench.

[Coldstream]

The issues a party chooses to fight on are indicative of its priorities, and the Tories picking this one just shows how out of touch they are.

Or maybe their Australian strategists are too Australiabrained to realise British private schools aren’t anything as ubiquitous as they are in Sydney.

~40% of Australians go to private school (higher in metro areas), that's why no Australian politician can touch private schools without backlash, this is not the situation in the UK

Wow 40% and they still can't deliver a proper Rugby team?

Never recommended anything so hard.

[Coldstream]

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.

Brings to mind one of the most anachronistic Yes Minister episodes, where Jim plots with the Israeli ambassador while the Foreign Office takes a staunch pro-Arab line.

The foreign office being pro-Arab is still a commonly held view. Sajid Javid complained about it a lot.

[Coldstream]

Couple of notable bits in the Sunday Times:

• There's another raft of Tory MPs who are planning to retire, but they've agreed to hold off until next year, to prevent "a stench of death" overwhelming the government during the King's Speech and Autumn Statement. Includes the likes of Kit Malthouse, Greg Clark, Robert Halfon.
• While Braverman's supporters estimate their strength is 40-60 strong, Sunak believes that (based on attendence at pro-Braverman social events) there are only 6-12 ride-or-die for Suella MPs - a hardcore that includes Cates, Kruger and Lee Anderson.
• MPs are taking some of the claims from Dorries' book seriously - and demands have been made to the Chief Whip to share whether his predecessors were aware of some of the grimmest allegations.

Her defeat at the next GE is more fervently desired than most - deeply sinister individual.

I almost miss her predecessor.

[Coldstream]

Nick Gibb, the longtime Schools Minister, resigned from government today. He also announced plans to stand down at the next election.

His constituency of Bognor Regis and Littlehampton had a 22k majority in 2019, and Gibb held it with majorities larger than 5k throughout the Blair years. It remains *largely* intact after the boundary change next year, and looks like it'll stay blue.

So, another one for the chicken-runners and former FT journalists to take a stab at.

In the long term, I actually think it’s a seat Labour could have a shot in. As Brighton became unaffordable people moved to Worthing which has swung heavily to us, and now Worthing is starting to become unaffordable so people are going to Lewes & Littlehampton. I don’t think it’d happen next time, but in the next 10-20 years as the ancient boomers die off I could see Bognor & Littlehampton following Worthing.

[Coldstream]

Not confirmed by media, but there seems to he a hot mic scandal brewing: the Labour MP for Stockton North asked the House about why child poverty is so high in his constituency, and a senior Tory MP (possibly Cleverly) said "because it's a sh**thole".

Can't really hear anything, but Sunak seems to have some kind of reaction as do many other MPs just after the question is asked. Edit: actually, maybe I can. Doesn't really sound like Cleverly though - too high pitched.

https://twitter.com/PolitlcsUK/status/1727312268122276198?s=20

I didn’t think it sounded like Cleverly, and I’d usually consider him too restrained, but I guess anything’s possible.

[Coldstream]

• Daniel Kawczynski intervenes to raise accusations against the Rwandan administration by the Congolese government, going as far as to call Paul Kagame "a Hitler-type figure" and question Rwanda's status as a safe country. An unexpected intervention from someone very much on the Brexiteer right.

Has he holidayed in Kinshasa recently?

99% sure Kawcynski is too stupid to know the history of Rwanda and assumes Kagame is the one behind the genocide.

[Coldstream]

• Daniel Kawczynski intervenes to raise accusations against the Rwandan administration by the Congolese government, going as far as to call Paul Kagame "a Hitler-type figure" and question Rwanda's status as a safe country. An unexpected intervention from someone very much on the Brexiteer right.

Has he holidayed in Kinshasa recently?

99% sure Kawcynski is too stupid to know the history of Rwanda and assumes Kagame is the one behind the genocide.

As little sympathy as I have for the French and their attempts at grey-washing, it is fairly clear that a genocide--though not of the scale of the first--was committed by the RPF.

What's more, it is at this point reasonably clear that the incident which sparked the genocide (the shooting down of Habyarimana's plane) was carried out by the RPF.

Don’t wish to derail the thread, but no it clearly wasn’t them who shot down his plane. It was Hutu power, if it was the RPF Hutu power would have made some effort to find the culprits to protect themselves if nothing else - they didn’t. They were preparing for the genocide for years in advance and just needed a trigger.

[Coldstream]

Be interesting to see if he chooses to join Reform, particularly if Truss & Braverman are also suspended. They may all think it’s worth a shot.

[Coldstream]

Would reform even want truss?

‘Want’ is a strong word. Not actively refuse may be more appropriate.

I think this is the point, she’s got enough appeal / access to money that they wouldn’t turn her down. It’s not like they are expecting to win an election anytime soon, the money she could attract might be enough.

Also if their goal is to kill off the Tories (which I think for the more politically minded amongst them it is) they do need people of note to jump ship.

[Coldstream]

Anderson is quite clearly going to be helpful to Reform, if only in the sense that he’s more charismatic than Richard Tice - who’s fundamentally still just a businessman rather than politician. But I don’t think we’ll know the needle has started to really move til you start getting Tories who have a choice defecting.

[Coldstream]

Let’s be honest, Sunak was chosen to be Chancellor because Johnson thought he was completely unthreatening - and he became PM because that allowed him to be right place right time when Johnson then Truss destroyed themselves (events he was largely a spectator to). He may not be the worst, but he’s not very good.

[Coldstream]

_{Going from a NUM striking miner to a school union rep, not exactly the traditional background of those occupying the upper echelons of the Conservative Party. Both solid culture warriors of course (moderates with those backgrounds wouldn’t be Conservative Party members).}

Just rereading my post (been busy this week), and wanted to clarity, I don’t have a problem with the party trying to show they’ve changed, and their coalition can include people with those backgrounds.

But there’s always this undertone, that they think the said MPs are a translator for voters, a reflection of the entire populace of that area. And the fact they’ve picked two buffoons who’ve built their brand on casual racism and yelling about ‘woke’ just feels patronising.

Oh to be clear I wasn’t accusing you of snobbery or anything like that. Both Anderson and Gullis are not representative of their electorates even if people at the top of the Tory party seem to think they are.

Anderson kinda is, Ashfield is a weird place.

[Coldstream]

Street might also want to become an MP, but not just yet.

Let the Tories bottom out first.

He’s 60 years old to be fair, I’m not sure he’d have another chance after this to enter parliament and have the prospect at any positions.