There's a boring 'in the middle' truth here. The Con GE19 landslide WAS due to Corbyn's weakness as a candidate. But it was also due to Johnson's strength. It was, truly, the Brexit election and it was Brexit that cemented the negative/positive view of the 2 leaders. For Johnson, hellbent on pushing Brexit through, his breezy 'can-do' persona was burnished. For Corbyn, dithering and triangulating, his previous rep as a man of principle was destroyed. So, that 80 seat result, it was Corbyn, and it was Johnson, but above all it was BREXIT.
It was above all CORBYN.
I loathe Boris. I loathe Brexit. But I loathe Corbyn about a million million million times more.
And I imagine as I think so does perhaps a majority-winning number of reasonably centrist types around the country.
It was above all CORBYN.
You're projecting, I'm analysing.
You would rather that the anti-semitic, Brit-hating, terrorist-loving c**t who you supported was a minor factor in the election result.
But he wasn't.
You replied to my post without reading it. It said that both Johnson and Corbyn were major factors.
I did read it. You are right they were all major factors but the most important one was Corbyn.
But that said I'm sure someone has the evidence to support either your or my point. I tried a mini-google but gave up.
Brexit, for me, since it was the biggest (almost only) issue in its own right and it also impacted positively on Johnson's image and negatively on Corbyn's. Hence it had a massive direct impact and a significant indirect impact. This is to repeat the main point in the post I wrote so I think that needs to be a wrap.
The issue as to why Corbyn was quite so disastrous though was that he was disliked by all sorts, so there was far less room for Labour to gain or hold people who were bothered about Brexit but might cast a vote differently, whichever way they jumped. A significant number of staunch remainers would never vote for him - either because they were generally Tory and viewed him as PM an even more dangerously stupid idea than Brexit or were ex-Labour/floating voters bothered by antisemitism or the extremism it served as a prime example of. It's remarkable in hidsight given the divides on Brexit that there were no Tory to Labour defections given how the significant anti-Brexit minority were basically told to get out of the Tory Party. Except of course it wasn't because someone like David Gauke was never going to endorse Jeremy Corbyn as PM - even as a gamble to get a desired outcome on Brexit.
Disastrously, though he couldn't embrace Brexit to counterbalance that, as why on Earth would a Labour leave/UKIP voter bothered about things like immigration, sovereignty and national prestige, vote for someone whose entire persona and support base was being vocally in opposition to those notions? Even if they turned round and said 'Brexit is great'. So they ended up where they had to be on damage limitation - in part because they had a leader so unpopular he couldn't take his own stance on Brexit and build a coalition around that.
Good analysis imo. Couple of points I'd not so much add but stress.
That Corbyn was unpalatable to Remainer Tories and Centrists meant they forewent the opportunity to put him in as caretaker PM with a brief to deliver Ref2 and cancel Brexit. PM Corbyn was a bigger bad for them than Hard Brexit was.
Antisemitism was a self-inflicted wound for Labour but Brexit was not. The policy they ended up with for the GE was the worst possible apart from all the alternatives. Soon as Johnson threw the DUP under a bus, accepted the Brexit deal that 'no PM could ever accept', and framed the 'people v parliament' narrative, Labour were sunk. It was only about the margin. Big or very big. Maybe a not Corbyn could have limited it to just big.
The issue was that many people weren't prepared to give Corbyn a hearing on Brexit because it was Corbyn. Of course he did spectacularly well (as @isam continues to remind us) vs previous Labour efforts but for a significant number of people just being Corbyn meant that whatever Brexit arguments Lab might have had weren't heard.
Now you think it was Brexit first then Corbyn but my point is that Corbyn rendered moot Lab's Brexit position by being Corbyn. Slick, affable salesman he is not. Would it have made a difference to have, say a Tony Blair in charge? I believe it may well have.
He also did better, voteshare wise, in 2019 than Labour managed in 2010 and 2015
Seems to me Tory 2019 Was Tory 2015+UKIP 2015, with a few lost to the LDs, whereas Labour more or less (more) held their 2015 vote
The Labour position of being neutral on a united Ireland is the correct one.
Northern Ireland is an expensive, heavily subsidized province full of sectarian bigots with a tendency towards rioting and violence. The sooner we can get rid of it, the better.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started and has been developing all the way back since the 1960's really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average British speech, until at least the late '60s.
Today I learned, while endlessly prevaricating instead of tackling a difficult flint, that the population of the Ukraine has declined from a peak of 52 million in 1993 to just 41.9 million today (some recent estimates put it down at around 37 million)
That is an incredible fall. A fifth of the country has disappeared in 25 years. If it continues Ukraine will cease to exist in the next century, and will be virtually deserted within a few decades
Bulgaria's has shrunk 30% since 1988 - and that excludes any impact from a separate movement from the countryside into Sofia and the other larger towns.
Yes. People who eulogise the EU forget that the expansion into the East has been calamitous for several countries there, as all their young people vigorously decanted to the richer West, en masse
So why don’t they leave if it is such a calamity?
Because the EU gives them loads of cash
Ukraine isn't part of the EU, this sort of economic movement is inevitable if you can earn more money elsewhere (and have the means to pay for the initial relocation).
There's a bit of weird speculation in EU-focused circles about a conflict between Ukraine-EU and Ukraine-NATO relationships.
The Russian invasion cost about 30% of that pop fall in the parts of Ukraine that were occupied.
I'd say that Ukraine would like to follow the Poland route, but security needed first.
WATCH: Labour’s Shadow NI Secretary tells me that if there was a referendum on a united Ireland that the British government and British political parties should not campaign for the Union “if there is a border poll, we should remain neutral”
Blair publicly supported the union. Starmer has said he would campaign for the union in a border poll. But such is the facile level of understanding about the Good Friday Agreement it is now assumed the UK is the only state in the world that cannot campaign for its own existence.
I think the best policy is not to campaign... let the people of NI decide.
Do you think the Irish government will follow your advice?
I suspect they will.
It is not currently clear to me whether the Irish government would want a united Ireland given the financial and social issues that come with it; I very much doubt whther they would want it on the back of a devisive referendum the outcome of which they have narrowly helped sway.
They may or may not, deep down, want it. But they can't say they don't. Nor even really broach the subject in public. So we'll never know.
Which is why they will hide behind the screen of neutrality: 'it is for the people of NI to decide'.
This is absolutely not the case. The current coalition government on Ireland had created a new unit for Irish unity in the Taoiseach's office. They are all unequivocally behind Irish unity. They have many disagreements on what they should be doing to prepare for, or encourage, it, however.
There was an interesting discussion on RTÉ not too long ago. I'll see if I can find a link.
The future is a unfied Ireland and it always will be.
Not in Antrim, East Londonderry, East Belfast or the north of Down it won't be
You really aren't very bright - and continually come back to your cut and paste comments without thinking through the points others have made earlier on.
The first link relating to a survey done in the Republic, so irrelevant to what NI Protestants feel. As 2017 showed they can also be Kingmakers in the UK already anyway.
The fact Keys was isolated from loyalists by his comments show they are also not the majority view
There's a boring 'in the middle' truth here. The Con GE19 landslide WAS due to Corbyn's weakness as a candidate. But it was also due to Johnson's strength. It was, truly, the Brexit election and it was Brexit that cemented the negative/positive view of the 2 leaders. For Johnson, hellbent on pushing Brexit through, his breezy 'can-do' persona was burnished. For Corbyn, dithering and triangulating, his previous rep as a man of principle was destroyed. So, that 80 seat result, it was Corbyn, and it was Johnson, but above all it was BREXIT.
It was above all CORBYN.
I loathe Boris. I loathe Brexit. But I loathe Corbyn about a million million million times more.
And I imagine as I think so does perhaps a majority-winning number of reasonably centrist types around the country.
It was above all CORBYN.
You're projecting, I'm analysing.
You would rather that the anti-semitic, Brit-hating, terrorist-loving c**t who you supported was a minor factor in the election result.
But he wasn't.
You replied to my post without reading it. It said that both Johnson and Corbyn were major factors.
I did read it. You are right they were all major factors but the most important one was Corbyn.
But that said I'm sure someone has the evidence to support either your or my point. I tried a mini-google but gave up.
Brexit, for me, since it was the biggest (almost only) issue in its own right and it also impacted positively on Johnson's image and negatively on Corbyn's. Hence it had a massive direct impact and a significant indirect impact. This is to repeat the main point in the post I wrote so I think that needs to be a wrap.
The issue as to why Corbyn was quite so disastrous though was that he was disliked by all sorts, so there was far less room for Labour to gain or hold people who were bothered about Brexit but might cast a vote differently, whichever way they jumped. A significant number of staunch remainers would never vote for him - either because they were generally Tory and viewed him as PM an even more dangerously stupid idea than Brexit or were ex-Labour/floating voters bothered by antisemitism or the extremism it served as a prime example of. It's remarkable in hidsight given the divides on Brexit that there were no Tory to Labour defections given how the significant anti-Brexit minority were basically told to get out of the Tory Party. Except of course it wasn't because someone like David Gauke was never going to endorse Jeremy Corbyn as PM - even as a gamble to get a desired outcome on Brexit.
Disastrously, though he couldn't embrace Brexit to counterbalance that, as why on Earth would a Labour leave/UKIP voter bothered about things like immigration, sovereignty and national prestige, vote for someone whose entire persona and support base was being vocally in opposition to those notions? Even if they turned round and said 'Brexit is great'. So they ended up where they had to be on damage limitation - in part because they had a leader so unpopular he couldn't take his own stance on Brexit and build a coalition around that.
Good analysis imo. Couple of points I'd not so much add but stress.
That Corbyn was unpalatable to Remainer Tories and Centrists meant they forewent the opportunity to put him in as caretaker PM with a brief to deliver Ref2 and cancel Brexit. PM Corbyn was a bigger bad for them than Hard Brexit was.
Antisemitism was a self-inflicted wound for Labour but Brexit was not. The policy they ended up with for the GE was the worst possible apart from all the alternatives. Soon as Johnson threw the DUP under a bus, accepted the Brexit deal that 'no PM could ever accept', and framed the 'people v parliament' narrative, Labour were sunk. It was only about the margin. Big or very big. Maybe a not Corbyn could have limited it to just big.
The issue was that many people weren't prepared to give Corbyn a hearing on Brexit because it was Corbyn. Of course he did spectacularly well (as @isam continues to remind us) vs previous Labour efforts but for a significant number of people just being Corbyn meant that whatever Brexit arguments Lab might have had weren't heard.
Now you think it was Brexit first then Corbyn but my point is that Corbyn rendered moot Lab's Brexit position by being Corbyn. Slick, affable salesman he is not. Would it have made a difference to have, say a Tony Blair in charge? I believe it may well have.
He also did better, voteshare wise, in 2019 than Labour managed in 2010 and 2015
Seems to me Tory 2019 Was Tory 2015+UKIP 2015, with a few lost to the LDs, whereas Labour more or less (more) held their 2015 vote
Agree. Which is why I backed a large Cons majority. Add UKIP to CONS and you have a big maj but I really couldn't see where Lab's extra votes could come from vs 2017. All the rejuvenated, reinvigorated youth and "true" left wingers had come out/returned for Corbyn and I couldn't see where, in 2019, any more would come from.
Middle England, not Nigel Farage, is now Boris Johnson’s biggest political challenge.
Thanks to the economy and the PM's governing style, the Tories should be worried about losing voters they won back in 2005.
Johnson’s allies are convinced Farage and a new right wing force could pose a huge danger in splitting the vote. “The old enemy is rearing his head,” one says.
But if Farage doesn’t come back, Richard Tice and Reform have shown scant campaigning success
Tory strategists reckon the next big battleground is a set of middle-class, middle-income, middle of the road, middle England seats which voted Tory because they were fed up with Labour. After 11 years in power, the cycle could be about to go into reverse
2005 is generally remembered for the Lib Dem surge. But the Tories also gained 33 seats, mostly in the south of England that set the foundations for their return to government. But some have already flipped back: Illford North, Enfield Southgate, Putney
I would say this is an accurate prediction EVEN IF Farage comes back. I think he was a spent force long before he decided to 'retire' from politics.
Farage is massively overrated because the Westminster and journalistic class are heavily Europhile and attribute to him some magic charisma in selling euroscepticism to the public. In reality euroscepticism is a mainstream, moderate position in the electorate, which has been proven time and time again by its electoral success even when UKIP weren't fronting it. Many British voters felt compelled to vote for Farage for a while because he was the only one offering then something the establishment parties were trying to shut out, even though they didn't like his overall hard right politics. Once the Brexit vote happened, people got what they wanted from mainstream politicians so no longer needed to suffer Farage.
I'm not sure that Farage is so hard right. Undoubtedly UKIP found themselves in that position, but Farage is a far gentler politician, and I think a very good one. It's insane that he's not in the Lords.
He's done what he set out to do, and is essentially off the scene.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
Yes, I yield. I just checked on Youtube. Very American in Sweden. Yet British in Norway. An odd mix
And the Crown Princess of Denmark literally is Australian, with Scottish parents.
Young Australian ladies, particularly those with Scottish parents, are, I’m told, very friendly!
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
Yes, I yield. I just checked on Youtube. Very American in Sweden. Yet British in Norway. An odd mix
Not that odd, when you consider that Norway has long been more aligned with & connected to United Kingdom, thanks to North Atlantic connection, whereas Sweden has traditionally been closer to Germany, thanks to Baltic connection, so going "American" for Swedes is a "natural" as it is for Germans.
Plus fact that Norskis are also traditionally inclined (if not downright eager) to differentiate themselves from Swedes, their former (sort of) overlords.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started in the 1960's, really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average speech until at least the late '60s.
Here in the US there is plenty of British language creeping into common parlance. The new MLS team being started here is "Charlotte Football Club". Traffic circles have started to be called roundabouts. I even here nice things being described as posh nowadays.
There's a boring 'in the middle' truth here. The Con GE19 landslide WAS due to Corbyn's weakness as a candidate. But it was also due to Johnson's strength. It was, truly, the Brexit election and it was Brexit that cemented the negative/positive view of the 2 leaders. For Johnson, hellbent on pushing Brexit through, his breezy 'can-do' persona was burnished. For Corbyn, dithering and triangulating, his previous rep as a man of principle was destroyed. So, that 80 seat result, it was Corbyn, and it was Johnson, but above all it was BREXIT.
Yes
And remember that brilliant Xmas Election ad with Boris at the door
The best British political ad I've ever seen. Powerful and persuasive, and it relies almost entirely on Boris' charm and charisma. Of recent prime ministers only Blair at his peak could equal that. Imagine Major or Cameron or May trying it on. Cringe
Farooq made a brilliant analogy on the prior thread. Campaigning is like conceiving, Governing is like parenting. Boris is now surrounded by the tedious nappies of political reality (and real nappies, as well). He needs to learn to be a decent Dad, super quick
Such inventive genius that Rosena Allin-Khan shamelessly copied it a fortnight earlier.
Jesus F Christ. We had this tedious debate at the time. Allin-Khan didn't invent it, either. She ripped it off Love Actually. But then Richard Curtis quasi-plagiarised it from Bob Dylan, and the same technique has been used by lots of other people, over the decades
The point is that Boris and his media team did it superbly well, better than anyone, and they pitched it perfectly at an electorate bloody bored of Brexit. And it has that genius payoff when Boris, shoulders slumped like Churchill, gruffly walks to the camera, and says "Enough. Enough. Let's get this done" - giving a growly voice to the heartfelt desire of practically the entire country
I get that Boris has many many flaws. But it is futile to deny his charisma. Those that do are blinded by their hatred of him, and thus under-estimate him. Fatally. And it is this charisma which also enables him to overcome the flaws - until now, perhaps.....
Not really, she used the meme to make a political ad. And the Ludicrous Boris shamelessly copied it.
And who would you rather have knocking on your door?
QED. You fear and loathe him, and it warps your judgement of him
I neither fear nor loathe him. I just think he is an embarrassment.
And you didn't answer my question.
Who would I rather have knocking on my door? Boris Johnson or Rosina Allin-Khan? Is that a serious question??
lol. Again: QED
Would I rather have some boring, horse-faced non-entity of a Woke Labour MP for Nowheretown come to visit, or would I rather have the rollicking Boris Johnson, Prime Minister of the country, father of seven, husband of three, ex editor of the Spectator, winner of the Brexit wars, clown and/or hero to millions.
Ooh. Tough question. Which one gets invited in for some egg nog and a gossip?
The fecking prime minister, idiot
I've met Boris twice – believe me, he's remarkably tedious IRL.
I've also met him, did not find him tedious at all
I haven't met him but if I did I'd find him tedious. Or put it this way, I'd be disappointed in myself if I didn't.
I think you'd get on famously; shooting the breeze, sharing your midget gems.
It is possible, yes. In which case, as I say, I'd be looking in the mirror and giving the clear thinking progressive I see there a good ticking off.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started and has been developing all the way back since the 1960's really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average British speech, until at least the late '60s.
My half-Thai, half-British grandchildren sound vaguely American but also vaguely Australian when they speak English.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started in the 1960's, really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average speech until at least the late '60s.
Here in the US there is plenty of British language creeping into common parlance. The new MLS team being started here is "Charlotte Football Club". Traffic circles have started to be called roundabouts. I even here nice things being described as posh nowadays.
I've noticed this too. An increasing amount of once-very-local vocabulary seems to have crossed the atlantic. A "grand" for a thousand, "bonkers", which used to be irredeemably British, "cheesy" , and many others.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
Yes, I yield. I just checked on Youtube. Very American in Sweden. Yet British in Norway. An odd mix
And the Crown Princess of Denmark literally is Australian, with Scottish parents.
Young Australian ladies, particularly those with Scottish parents, are, I’m told, very friendly!
So the rhyme is true, that OKC is a merry old soul? (Leastways south of the Equator!)
Next question - do you really prefer to do your fiddling in threes?!?
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started and has been developing all the way back since the 1960's really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average British speech, until at least the late '60s.
My half-Thai, half-British grandchildren sound vaguely American but also vaguely Australian when they speak English.
You have to tell them how their army occupied Germany in 1918-19 !
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started and has been developing all the way back since the 1960's really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average British speech, until at least the late '60s.
My half-Thai, half-British grandchildren sound vaguely American but also vaguely Australian when they speak English.
Do they speak Thai like a Liverpudlian? Or a Georgie? Or a [fill in the blank]?
Middle England, not Nigel Farage, is now Boris Johnson’s biggest political challenge.
Thanks to the economy and the PM's governing style, the Tories should be worried about losing voters they won back in 2005.
Johnson’s allies are convinced Farage and a new right wing force could pose a huge danger in splitting the vote. “The old enemy is rearing his head,” one says.
But if Farage doesn’t come back, Richard Tice and Reform have shown scant campaigning success
Tory strategists reckon the next big battleground is a set of middle-class, middle-income, middle of the road, middle England seats which voted Tory because they were fed up with Labour. After 11 years in power, the cycle could be about to go into reverse
2005 is generally remembered for the Lib Dem surge. But the Tories also gained 33 seats, mostly in the south of England that set the foundations for their return to government. But some have already flipped back: Illford North, Enfield Southgate, Putney
I would say this is an accurate prediction EVEN IF Farage comes back. I think he was a spent force long before he decided to 'retire' from politics.
Farage is massively overrated because the Westminster and journalistic class are heavily Europhile and attribute to him some magic charisma in selling euroscepticism to the public. In reality euroscepticism is a mainstream, moderate position in the electorate, which has been proven time and time again by its electoral success even when UKIP weren't fronting it. Many British voters felt compelled to vote for Farage for a while because he was the only one offering then something the establishment parties were trying to shut out, even though they didn't like his overall hard right politics. Once the Brexit vote happened, people got what they wanted from mainstream politicians so no longer needed to suffer Farage.
Farage has a good political antenna - which you can see with his switch from Brexit to Refugees sailing across the channel.
He does seem to know how to touch the buttons of a certain type of voter.
I was under the impression that Europeans spoke in Yank accents because they learnt English via Hollywood movies.
I, for one, am not going to critiisise them for that.
The whole point of posh RP English is it should be elitist, not everyone should speak it.
It should therefore be authoratative and clear, of course Hugh Grant, Colin Firth and actors playing Hollywood villains have done well out of speaking with crisp English accents. See also Jeremy Irons
I was under the impression that Europeans spoke in Yank accents because they learnt English via Hollywood movies.
I, for one, am not going to critiisise them for that.
The whole point of posh RP English is it should be elitist, not everyone should speak it.
It should therefore be authoratative and clear, of course Hugh Grant, Colin Firth and actors playing Hollywood villains have done well out of speaking with crisp English accents. See also Jeremy Irons
Yup - hence the horrendous tone of Tone's "Estuary English"
In the USA, fans of "soccer" are HEAVILY into all the Englishness of classic Association Football, for example official name of Seattle pros is "Seattle Sounders FC" who play "matches" NOT (heaven forbid) "games".
Only tradition from the Mother Country that is NOT embraced is racist chanting and taunting. Because bulk of US fans are either > middle-class White Wokeists; or > Latinos of all kinds & colors.
Is the Government of France, going to enforcee the laws of France, in France?
The UK should immediately sue the EU for breach of the FTA if they allow these dodgy fishermen to block UK exports. They are trying to blackmail British victims because they don't have evidence of their historic illegal fishing.
There's a boring 'in the middle' truth here. The Con GE19 landslide WAS due to Corbyn's weakness as a candidate. But it was also due to Johnson's strength. It was, truly, the Brexit election and it was Brexit that cemented the negative/positive view of the 2 leaders. For Johnson, hellbent on pushing Brexit through, his breezy 'can-do' persona was burnished. For Corbyn, dithering and triangulating, his previous rep as a man of principle was destroyed. So, that 80 seat result, it was Corbyn, and it was Johnson, but above all it was BREXIT.
It was above all CORBYN.
I loathe Boris. I loathe Brexit. But I loathe Corbyn about a million million million times more.
And I imagine as I think so does perhaps a majority-winning number of reasonably centrist types around the country.
It was above all CORBYN.
You're projecting, I'm analysing.
You would rather that the anti-semitic, Brit-hating, terrorist-loving c**t who you supported was a minor factor in the election result.
But he wasn't.
You replied to my post without reading it. It said that both Johnson and Corbyn were major factors.
I did read it. You are right they were all major factors but the most important one was Corbyn.
But that said I'm sure someone has the evidence to support either your or my point. I tried a mini-google but gave up.
Brexit, for me, since it was the biggest (almost only) issue in its own right and it also impacted positively on Johnson's image and negatively on Corbyn's. Hence it had a massive direct impact and a significant indirect impact. This is to repeat the main point in the post I wrote so I think that needs to be a wrap.
The issue as to why Corbyn was quite so disastrous though was that he was disliked by all sorts, so there was far less room for Labour to gain or hold people who were bothered about Brexit but might cast a vote differently, whichever way they jumped. A significant number of staunch remainers would never vote for him - either because they were generally Tory and viewed him as PM an even more dangerously stupid idea than Brexit or were ex-Labour/floating voters bothered by antisemitism or the extremism it served as a prime example of. It's remarkable in hidsight given the divides on Brexit that there were no Tory to Labour defections given how the significant anti-Brexit minority were basically told to get out of the Tory Party. Except of course it wasn't because someone like David Gauke was never going to endorse Jeremy Corbyn as PM - even as a gamble to get a desired outcome on Brexit.
Disastrously, though he couldn't embrace Brexit to counterbalance that, as why on Earth would a Labour leave/UKIP voter bothered about things like immigration, sovereignty and national prestige, vote for someone whose entire persona and support base was being vocally in opposition to those notions? Even if they turned round and said 'Brexit is great'. So they ended up where they had to be on damage limitation - in part because they had a leader so unpopular he couldn't take his own stance on Brexit and build a coalition around that.
Good analysis imo. Couple of points I'd not so much add but stress.
That Corbyn was unpalatable to Remainer Tories and Centrists meant they forewent the opportunity to put him in as caretaker PM with a brief to deliver Ref2 and cancel Brexit. PM Corbyn was a bigger bad for them than Hard Brexit was.
Antisemitism was a self-inflicted wound for Labour but Brexit was not. The policy they ended up with for the GE was the worst possible apart from all the alternatives. Soon as Johnson threw the DUP under a bus, accepted the Brexit deal that 'no PM could ever accept', and framed the 'people v parliament' narrative, Labour were sunk. It was only about the margin. Big or very big. Maybe a not Corbyn could have limited it to just big.
The issue was that many people weren't prepared to give Corbyn a hearing on Brexit because it was Corbyn. Of course he did spectacularly well (as @isam continues to remind us) vs previous Labour efforts but for a significant number of people just being Corbyn meant that whatever Brexit arguments Lab might have had weren't heard.
Now you think it was Brexit first then Corbyn but my point is that Corbyn rendered moot Lab's Brexit position by being Corbyn. Slick, affable salesman he is not. Would it have made a difference to have, say a Tony Blair in charge? I believe it may well have.
I will absolutely grant you that a better leader wouldn't have lost to BoJo and Get Brexit Done by such a margin. My point is just about the line we hear a fair amount from people who hate both Johnson and Corbyn that GE19 was all about how bad Corbyn was and nothing about how powerful the Boris/Brexit proposition was. It's a bad take. I doubt anybody on here hates BJ more than me but I have to credit him where credit is due. He set that election up brilliantly, campaigned brilliantly, and he won it. Jez just made it easier than it needed to be. If you want numbers, he put 20 to 30 on the majority.
Is the Government of France, going to enforcee the laws of France, in France?
The UK should immediately sue the EU for breach of the FTA if they allow these dodgy fishermen to block UK exports. They are trying to blackmail British victims because they don't have evidence of their historic illegal fishing.
If they had evidence of their historic illegal fishing they would have a chance of getting a licence. It's because they burnt the evidence that they have a real issue.
In the USA, fans of "soccer" are HEAVILY into all the Englishness of classic Association Football, for example official name of Seattle pros is "Seattle Sounders FC" who play "matches" NOT (heaven forbid) "games".
Only tradition from the Mother Country that is NOT embraced is racist chanting and taunting. Because bulk of US fans are either > middle-class White Wokeists; or > Latinos of all kinds & colors.
And the tradition of being promoted or relegated between leagues and tiers according to performance, unlike the fixed “major leagues” of soccer and other sports. I honestly don’t see how American sports dans can follow their local or favourite team when they know that can effectively never lose, and play the same boring set of opponents year after year.
Go read up on the story of AFC Wimbledon, which simply could not happen in the US.
Labour defend @LouHaigh on border poll neutrality: "Clearly government needs to read and understand the basic principles of the GFA before attempting to engage in Northern Irish politics."
Govt say neutrality only extends to poll happening - would make case for Union during one.
“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.”
Quite amusing statement by Biden. Sixty years after a supposedly slam dunk case against a lone gunman.
I can't see how one can deny it was all three. To what percentage each can be debated, but they, crucially, pulled in voters from radically differing constituents. Brexit, Boris, Corbyn. Each significant. Added together you get a landslide for a Party which had won one very modest majority in 27 years.
Is the Government of France, going to enforcee the laws of France, in France?
The UK should immediately sue the EU for breach of the FTA if they allow these dodgy fishermen to block UK exports. They are trying to blackmail British victims because they don't have evidence of their historic illegal fishing.
If they had evidence of their historic illegal fishing they would have a chance of getting a licence. It's because they burnt the evidence that they have a real issue.
They could also be prosecuted for that illegal fishing. The Jersey authorities have asked the French if they really want Jersey to prosecute them?
There's a boring 'in the middle' truth here. The Con GE19 landslide WAS due to Corbyn's weakness as a candidate. But it was also due to Johnson's strength. It was, truly, the Brexit election and it was Brexit that cemented the negative/positive view of the 2 leaders. For Johnson, hellbent on pushing Brexit through, his breezy 'can-do' persona was burnished. For Corbyn, dithering and triangulating, his previous rep as a man of principle was destroyed. So, that 80 seat result, it was Corbyn, and it was Johnson, but above all it was BREXIT.
It was above all CORBYN.
I loathe Boris. I loathe Brexit. But I loathe Corbyn about a million million million times more.
And I imagine as I think so does perhaps a majority-winning number of reasonably centrist types around the country.
It was above all CORBYN.
You're projecting, I'm analysing.
You would rather that the anti-semitic, Brit-hating, terrorist-loving c**t who you supported was a minor factor in the election result.
But he wasn't.
You replied to my post without reading it. It said that both Johnson and Corbyn were major factors.
I did read it. You are right they were all major factors but the most important one was Corbyn.
But that said I'm sure someone has the evidence to support either your or my point. I tried a mini-google but gave up.
Brexit, for me, since it was the biggest (almost only) issue in its own right and it also impacted positively on Johnson's image and negatively on Corbyn's. Hence it had a massive direct impact and a significant indirect impact. This is to repeat the main point in the post I wrote so I think that needs to be a wrap.
The issue as to why Corbyn was quite so disastrous though was that he was disliked by all sorts, so there was far less room for Labour to gain or hold people who were bothered about Brexit but might cast a vote differently, whichever way they jumped. A significant number of staunch remainers would never vote for him - either because they were generally Tory and viewed him as PM an even more dangerously stupid idea than Brexit or were ex-Labour/floating voters bothered by antisemitism or the extremism it served as a prime example of. It's remarkable in hidsight given the divides on Brexit that there were no Tory to Labour defections given how the significant anti-Brexit minority were basically told to get out of the Tory Party. Except of course it wasn't because someone like David Gauke was never going to endorse Jeremy Corbyn as PM - even as a gamble to get a desired outcome on Brexit.
Disastrously, though he couldn't embrace Brexit to counterbalance that, as why on Earth would a Labour leave/UKIP voter bothered about things like immigration, sovereignty and national prestige, vote for someone whose entire persona and support base was being vocally in opposition to those notions? Even if they turned round and said 'Brexit is great'. So they ended up where they had to be on damage limitation - in part because they had a leader so unpopular he couldn't take his own stance on Brexit and build a coalition around that.
Good analysis imo. Couple of points I'd not so much add but stress.
That Corbyn was unpalatable to Remainer Tories and Centrists meant they forewent the opportunity to put him in as caretaker PM with a brief to deliver Ref2 and cancel Brexit. PM Corbyn was a bigger bad for them than Hard Brexit was.
Antisemitism was a self-inflicted wound for Labour but Brexit was not. The policy they ended up with for the GE was the worst possible apart from all the alternatives. Soon as Johnson threw the DUP under a bus, accepted the Brexit deal that 'no PM could ever accept', and framed the 'people v parliament' narrative, Labour were sunk. It was only about the margin. Big or very big. Maybe a not Corbyn could have limited it to just big.
The issue was that many people weren't prepared to give Corbyn a hearing on Brexit because it was Corbyn. Of course he did spectacularly well (as @isam continues to remind us) vs previous Labour efforts but for a significant number of people just being Corbyn meant that whatever Brexit arguments Lab might have had weren't heard.
Now you think it was Brexit first then Corbyn but my point is that Corbyn rendered moot Lab's Brexit position by being Corbyn. Slick, affable salesman he is not. Would it have made a difference to have, say a Tony Blair in charge? I believe it may well have.
I will absolutely grant you that a better leader wouldn't have lost to BoJo and Get Brexit Done by such a margin. My point is just about the line we hear a fair amount from people who hate both Johnson and Corbyn that GE19 was all about how bad Corbyn was and nothing about how powerful the Boris/Brexit proposition was. It's a bad take. I doubt anybody on here hates BJ more than me but I have to credit him where credit is due. He set that election up brilliantly, campaigned brilliantly, and he won it. Jez just made it easier than it needed to be. If you want numbers, he put 20 to 30 on the majority.
I don't see where you're getting your evidence. Voters didn't have a clue what Corbyn would do and what they did know they didn't like and neither did anyone know if he was in favour of Leave or Remain. He wasn't just toxic he went way beyond that. He was unvotablefor even against Johnson!
I've not gone right through the thread but I thought the 2019 Conservative majority was built on 75% of the identified LEAVE voters at the time (48%) and an additional 9% from among the REMAIN voters (52%) who could not stomach the prospect of Corbyn at No.10 and voted Conservative tactically to keep him out even though that meant endorsing Brexit.
The fear of a Corbyn-led Government trumped the fear of Britain leaving the EU.
Yet it's five and a half years since the Referendum now and nearly two years since the GE - to what extent and in what way should we allow the results of the June 2016 Referendum to be the only barometer by which people vote and the chances of parties are assessed? Is it still a valid measure or are there other measures (education, prosperity, house prices etc which are now or have once again become more meaningful?)
I've got a video of me on Youtube, chewed up on Vallies if anyone wants to hear what I sound like?
Err ... Ok
I honestly don't think I sound like this in everyday life (I was vallied up) - but if you watch the whole thing you get to hear me play a little ditty on guitar.
I was under the impression that Europeans spoke in Yank accents because they learnt English via Hollywood movies.
I, for one, am not going to critiisise them for that.
The whole point of posh RP English is it should be elitist, not everyone should speak it.
It should therefore be authoratative and clear, of course Hugh Grant, Colin Firth and actors playing Hollywood villains have done well out of speaking with crisp English accents. See also Jeremy Irons
The whole point of RP is to make it easy to identify the bad guys, both in Hollywood movies and in life.
“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.”
Quite amusing statement by Biden. Sixty years after a supposedly slam dunk case against a lone gunman.
The fun bit is the obviousness of what they are hiding. In plain sight.
There's a boring 'in the middle' truth here. The Con GE19 landslide WAS due to Corbyn's weakness as a candidate. But it was also due to Johnson's strength. It was, truly, the Brexit election and it was Brexit that cemented the negative/positive view of the 2 leaders. For Johnson, hellbent on pushing Brexit through, his breezy 'can-do' persona was burnished. For Corbyn, dithering and triangulating, his previous rep as a man of principle was destroyed. So, that 80 seat result, it was Corbyn, and it was Johnson, but above all it was BREXIT.
It was above all CORBYN.
I loathe Boris. I loathe Brexit. But I loathe Corbyn about a million million million times more.
And I imagine as I think so does perhaps a majority-winning number of reasonably centrist types around the country.
It was above all CORBYN.
You're projecting, I'm analysing.
You would rather that the anti-semitic, Brit-hating, terrorist-loving c**t who you supported was a minor factor in the election result.
But he wasn't.
You replied to my post without reading it. It said that both Johnson and Corbyn were major factors.
I did read it. You are right they were all major factors but the most important one was Corbyn.
But that said I'm sure someone has the evidence to support either your or my point. I tried a mini-google but gave up.
Brexit, for me, since it was the biggest (almost only) issue in its own right and it also impacted positively on Johnson's image and negatively on Corbyn's. Hence it had a massive direct impact and a significant indirect impact. This is to repeat the main point in the post I wrote so I think that needs to be a wrap.
The issue as to why Corbyn was quite so disastrous though was that he was disliked by all sorts, so there was far less room for Labour to gain or hold people who were bothered about Brexit but might cast a vote differently, whichever way they jumped. A significant number of staunch remainers would never vote for him - either because they were generally Tory and viewed him as PM an even more dangerously stupid idea than Brexit or were ex-Labour/floating voters bothered by antisemitism or the extremism it served as a prime example of. It's remarkable in hidsight given the divides on Brexit that there were no Tory to Labour defections given how the significant anti-Brexit minority were basically told to get out of the Tory Party. Except of course it wasn't because someone like David Gauke was never going to endorse Jeremy Corbyn as PM - even as a gamble to get a desired outcome on Brexit.
Disastrously, though he couldn't embrace Brexit to counterbalance that, as why on Earth would a Labour leave/UKIP voter bothered about things like immigration, sovereignty and national prestige, vote for someone whose entire persona and support base was being vocally in opposition to those notions? Even if they turned round and said 'Brexit is great'. So they ended up where they had to be on damage limitation - in part because they had a leader so unpopular he couldn't take his own stance on Brexit and build a coalition around that.
Good analysis imo. Couple of points I'd not so much add but stress.
That Corbyn was unpalatable to Remainer Tories and Centrists meant they forewent the opportunity to put him in as caretaker PM with a brief to deliver Ref2 and cancel Brexit. PM Corbyn was a bigger bad for them than Hard Brexit was.
Antisemitism was a self-inflicted wound for Labour but Brexit was not. The policy they ended up with for the GE was the worst possible apart from all the alternatives. Soon as Johnson threw the DUP under a bus, accepted the Brexit deal that 'no PM could ever accept', and framed the 'people v parliament' narrative, Labour were sunk. It was only about the margin. Big or very big. Maybe a not Corbyn could have limited it to just big.
The issue was that many people weren't prepared to give Corbyn a hearing on Brexit because it was Corbyn. Of course he did spectacularly well (as @isam continues to remind us) vs previous Labour efforts but for a significant number of people just being Corbyn meant that whatever Brexit arguments Lab might have had weren't heard.
Now you think it was Brexit first then Corbyn but my point is that Corbyn rendered moot Lab's Brexit position by being Corbyn. Slick, affable salesman he is not. Would it have made a difference to have, say a Tony Blair in charge? I believe it may well have.
I will absolutely grant you that a better leader wouldn't have lost to BoJo and Get Brexit Done by such a margin. My point is just about the line we hear a fair amount from people who hate both Johnson and Corbyn that GE19 was all about how bad Corbyn was and nothing about how powerful the Boris/Brexit proposition was. It's a bad take. I doubt anybody on here hates BJ more than me but I have to credit him where credit is due. He set that election up brilliantly, campaigned brilliantly, and he won it. Jez just made it easier than it needed to be. If you want numbers, he put 20 to 30 on the majority.
I don't see where you're getting your evidence. Voters didn't have a clue what Corbyn would do and what they did know they didn't like and neither did anyone know if he was in favour of Leave or Remain. He wasn't just toxic he went way beyond that. He was unvotablefor even against Johnson!
A few bits of toxic - and essentially unvotable - historical baggage, here and there, and a few less wise policies, but also some perfectly respectable ones that were usually misrepresented in the press. Rather than 1970's-style top-down nationalisation of all the key utilities, for instance, as was so often parodied in the rightwing press, as something like cuba in 1970, the Corbyn and McDonnell plan was actually for some form of very decentralised, mutualised form of public ownership. Alongside a few more crackers spending pledges, particularly in the 2019 manifesto, that is actually quite innovative and interesting thinking.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started in the 1960's, really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average speech until at least the late '60s.
Here in the US there is plenty of British language creeping into common parlance. The new MLS team being started here is "Charlotte Football Club". Traffic circles have started to be called roundabouts. I even here nice things being described as posh nowadays.
I've noticed this too. An increasing amount of once-very-local vocabulary seems to have crossed the atlantic. A "grand" for a thousand, "bonkers", which used to be irredeemably British, "cheesy" , and many others.
Mobile phone instead of cellphone seems to be creeping into everyday use in the US as well.
They don't seem to get that there is no such thing as a British accent, though! I guess they mean RP.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started in the 1960's, really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average speech until at least the late '60s.
Here in the US there is plenty of British language creeping into common parlance. The new MLS team being started here is "Charlotte Football Club". Traffic circles have started to be called roundabouts. I even here nice things being described as posh nowadays.
I've noticed this too. An increasing amount of once-very-local vocabulary seems to have crossed the atlantic. A "grand" for a thousand, "bonkers", which used to be irredeemably British, "cheesy" , and many others.
Most amusing is the current trend among younger Germans for describing things as ‘tipp topp’ (the extra ‘p’s being a german thing, it seems). In Bavaria this summer a couple of times I heard people saying “Das ist tipp topp”; brought a smile each time.
I can't see how one can deny it was all three. To what percentage each can be debated, but they, crucially, pulled in voters from radically differing constituents. Brexit, Boris, Corbyn. Each significant. Added together you get a landslide for a Party which had won one very modest majority in 27 years.
Yep. Nailed in your usual short sharp style. I should take a leaf.
And, duly not taking that leaf, I'm making the additional point that Brexit itself flattered 'Boris' and messed up Corbyn, so if you have to pick just one factor from the 'BBC' election as the one which really drove it, it was that one - Brexit.
I've got a video of me on Youtube, chewed up on Vallies if anyone wants to hear what I sound like?
Err ... Ok
I honestly don't think I sound like this in everyday life (I was vallied up) - but if you watch the whole thing you get to hear me play a little ditty on guitar.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started in the 1960's, really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average speech until at least the late '60s.
Here in the US there is plenty of British language creeping into common parlance. The new MLS team being started here is "Charlotte Football Club". Traffic circles have started to be called roundabouts. I even here nice things being described as posh nowadays.
American English is surely an imaginary construct; there is English, spoken and written properly, and then there are mistakes.
I've got a video of me on Youtube, chewed up on Vallies if anyone wants to hear what I sound like?
Err ... Ok
I honestly don't think I sound like this in everyday life (I was vallied up) - but if you watch the whole thing you get to hear me play a little ditty on guitar.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started in the 1960's, really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average speech until at least the late '60s.
Here in the US there is plenty of British language creeping into common parlance. The new MLS team being started here is "Charlotte Football Club". Traffic circles have started to be called roundabouts. I even here nice things being described as posh nowadays.
I've noticed this too. An increasing amount of once-very-local vocabulary seems to have crossed the atlantic. A "grand" for a thousand, "bonkers", which used to be irredeemably British, "cheesy" , and many others.
Mobile phone instead of cellphone seems to be creeping into everyday use in the US as well.
They don't seem to get that there is no such thing as a British accent, though! I guess they mean RP.
TBF we don't get that there is no such thing as an American accent either.
Labour defend @LouHaigh on border poll neutrality: "Clearly government needs to read and understand the basic principles of the GFA before attempting to engage in Northern Irish politics."
Govt say neutrality only extends to poll happening - would make case for Union during one.
I've got a video of me on Youtube, chewed up on Vallies if anyone wants to hear what I sound like?
Err ... Ok
I honestly don't think I sound like this in everyday life (I was vallied up) - but if you watch the whole thing you get to hear me play a little ditty on guitar.
“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.”
Quite amusing statement by Biden. Sixty years after a supposedly slam dunk case against a lone gunman.
The fun bit is the obviousness of what they are hiding. In plain sight.
I've got a video of me on Youtube, chewed up on Vallies if anyone wants to hear what I sound like?
Err ... Ok
I honestly don't think I sound like this in everyday life (I was vallied up) - but if you watch the whole thing you get to hear me play a little ditty on guitar.
I've not gone right through the thread but I thought the 2019 Conservative majority was built on 75% of the identified LEAVE voters at the time (48%) and an additional 9% from among the REMAIN voters (52%) who could not stomach the prospect of Corbyn at No.10 and voted Conservative tactically to keep him out even though that meant endorsing Brexit.
The fear of a Corbyn-led Government trumped the fear of Britain leaving the EU.
Yet it's five and a half years since the Referendum now and nearly two years since the GE - to what extent and in what way should we allow the results of the June 2016 Referendum to be the only barometer by which people vote and the chances of parties are assessed? Is it still a valid measure or are there other measures (education, prosperity, house prices etc which are now or have once again become more meaningful?)
It's still big, I think, Brexit, in that it's delivered a high structural base to the Cons which under FPTP is a godsend. On your analysis, yes, the landslide was built on consolidating the Leave vote plus some Remainers who couldn't stomach Corbyn, but also a 3rd group - Remainers and Brexit agnostics who were sick of the impasse and wanted it over. Hence the power of Get Brexit Done. For many the 'Brexit' there just meant 'it' - being the interminable parliamentary bickering. We loved it on here but lots out there didn't.
“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.”
Quite amusing statement by Biden. Sixty years after a supposedly slam dunk case against a lone gunman.
The fun bit is the obviousness of what they are hiding. In plain sight.
Which is…?
Consider Oswald's background. Consider the strange emphasis on hie had absolutely-nothing-to-do-with-Russia-no-sir. As the very height of the Cold War no less.
Regarding these Covid loons, the extent of their disdain for state direction in their lives must surely be a matter of psychosis rather than just ideology.
“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.”
Quite amusing statement by Biden. Sixty years after a supposedly slam dunk case against a lone gunman.
The fun bit is the obviousness of what they are hiding. In plain sight.
Which is…?
Consider Oswald's background. Consider the strange emphasis on hie had absolutely-nothing-to-do-with-Russia-no-sir. As the very height of the Cold War no less.
Bit like the USS Scorpion thing.
James Woolsey has said he thinks it was a hit sponsored by Krushchev hasn’t he? But that the Soviets got cold feet and Oswald ignored them and did it anyway.
“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.”
Quite amusing statement by Biden. Sixty years after a supposedly slam dunk case against a lone gunman.
The fun bit is the obviousness of what they are hiding. In plain sight.
Which is…?
Consider Oswald's background. Consider the strange emphasis on hie had absolutely-nothing-to-do-with-Russia-no-sir. As the very height of the Cold War no less.
Bit like the USS Scorpion thing.
The failure to declassify is very iffy.
Of course every fruitbar in the US probably at least thought of defecting to the Soviets in those days.
A bit like (replace USSR with Al Qaeda or Isis) Islamic terrorists today.
Not necessarily a sign of Soviet involvement per se.
“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.”
Quite amusing statement by Biden. Sixty years after a supposedly slam dunk case against a lone gunman.
The fun bit is the obviousness of what they are hiding. In plain sight.
Which is…?
Consider Oswald's background. Consider the strange emphasis on hie had absolutely-nothing-to-do-with-Russia-no-sir. As the very height of the Cold War no less.
Bit like the USS Scorpion thing.
James Woolsey has said he thinks it was a hit sponsored by Krushchev hasn’t he? But that the Soviets got cold feet and Oswald ignored them and did it anyway.
More likely people further down the chain of command were talking with him, and trying to use him as an asset in the US.
They ignored his ranting about Kennedy - until it all went sideways.
And ended up with a connection between Soviet intelligence and the killer of the US President. At the very height of confrontation between powers.
At that point someone borrowed JFKs copy of the "The Guns of August", read it, and realised the obvious point.
There's a boring 'in the middle' truth here. The Con GE19 landslide WAS due to Corbyn's weakness as a candidate. But it was also due to Johnson's strength. It was, truly, the Brexit election and it was Brexit that cemented the negative/positive view of the 2 leaders. For Johnson, hellbent on pushing Brexit through, his breezy 'can-do' persona was burnished. For Corbyn, dithering and triangulating, his previous rep as a man of principle was destroyed. So, that 80 seat result, it was Corbyn, and it was Johnson, but above all it was BREXIT.
It was above all CORBYN.
I loathe Boris. I loathe Brexit. But I loathe Corbyn about a million million million times more.
And I imagine as I think so does perhaps a majority-winning number of reasonably centrist types around the country.
It was above all CORBYN.
You're projecting, I'm analysing.
You would rather that the anti-semitic, Brit-hating, terrorist-loving c**t who you supported was a minor factor in the election result.
But he wasn't.
You replied to my post without reading it. It said that both Johnson and Corbyn were major factors.
I did read it. You are right they were all major factors but the most important one was Corbyn.
But that said I'm sure someone has the evidence to support either your or my point. I tried a mini-google but gave up.
Brexit, for me, since it was the biggest (almost only) issue in its own right and it also impacted positively on Johnson's image and negatively on Corbyn's. Hence it had a massive direct impact and a significant indirect impact. This is to repeat the main point in the post I wrote so I think that needs to be a wrap.
The issue as to why Corbyn was quite so disastrous though was that he was disliked by all sorts, so there was far less room for Labour to gain or hold people who were bothered about Brexit but might cast a vote differently, whichever way they jumped. A significant number of staunch remainers would never vote for him - either because they were generally Tory and viewed him as PM an even more dangerously stupid idea than Brexit or were ex-Labour/floating voters bothered by antisemitism or the extremism it served as a prime example of. It's remarkable in hidsight given the divides on Brexit that there were no Tory to Labour defections given how the significant anti-Brexit minority were basically told to get out of the Tory Party. Except of course it wasn't because someone like David Gauke was never going to endorse Jeremy Corbyn as PM - even as a gamble to get a desired outcome on Brexit.
Disastrously, though he couldn't embrace Brexit to counterbalance that, as why on Earth would a Labour leave/UKIP voter bothered about things like immigration, sovereignty and national prestige, vote for someone whose entire persona and support base was being vocally in opposition to those notions? Even if they turned round and said 'Brexit is great'. So they ended up where they had to be on damage limitation - in part because they had a leader so unpopular he couldn't take his own stance on Brexit and build a coalition around that.
Good analysis imo. Couple of points I'd not so much add but stress.
That Corbyn was unpalatable to Remainer Tories and Centrists meant they forewent the opportunity to put him in as caretaker PM with a brief to deliver Ref2 and cancel Brexit. PM Corbyn was a bigger bad for them than Hard Brexit was.
Antisemitism was a self-inflicted wound for Labour but Brexit was not. The policy they ended up with for the GE was the worst possible apart from all the alternatives. Soon as Johnson threw the DUP under a bus, accepted the Brexit deal that 'no PM could ever accept', and framed the 'people v parliament' narrative, Labour were sunk. It was only about the margin. Big or very big. Maybe a not Corbyn could have limited it to just big.
The issue was that many people weren't prepared to give Corbyn a hearing on Brexit because it was Corbyn. Of course he did spectacularly well (as @isam continues to remind us) vs previous Labour efforts but for a significant number of people just being Corbyn meant that whatever Brexit arguments Lab might have had weren't heard.
Now you think it was Brexit first then Corbyn but my point is that Corbyn rendered moot Lab's Brexit position by being Corbyn. Slick, affable salesman he is not. Would it have made a difference to have, say a Tony Blair in charge? I believe it may well have.
I will absolutely grant you that a better leader wouldn't have lost to BoJo and Get Brexit Done by such a margin. My point is just about the line we hear a fair amount from people who hate both Johnson and Corbyn that GE19 was all about how bad Corbyn was and nothing about how powerful the Boris/Brexit proposition was. It's a bad take. I doubt anybody on here hates BJ more than me but I have to credit him where credit is due. He set that election up brilliantly, campaigned brilliantly, and he won it. Jez just made it easier than it needed to be. If you want numbers, he put 20 to 30 on the majority.
I don't see where you're getting your evidence. Voters didn't have a clue what Corbyn would do and what they did know they didn't like and neither did anyone know if he was in favour of Leave or Remain. He wasn't just toxic he went way beyond that. He was unvotablefor even against Johnson!
Ok, so before May got the chop, Labour under Corbyn were consistently level with or even ahead of the Cons. Then comes Johnson and his Get Brexit Done + Parliament v People framing, and boom it's the Cons miles ahead, and GE19 confirmed this lead was real. I therefore conclude that the BoJo/Brexit package was a big factor in the GE19 result.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started and has been developing all the way back since the 1960's really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average British speech, until at least the late '60s.
My half-Thai, half-British grandchildren sound vaguely American but also vaguely Australian when they speak English.
You have to tell them how their army occupied Germany in 1918-19 !
There's a boring 'in the middle' truth here. The Con GE19 landslide WAS due to Corbyn's weakness as a candidate. But it was also due to Johnson's strength. It was, truly, the Brexit election and it was Brexit that cemented the negative/positive view of the 2 leaders. For Johnson, hellbent on pushing Brexit through, his breezy 'can-do' persona was burnished. For Corbyn, dithering and triangulating, his previous rep as a man of principle was destroyed. So, that 80 seat result, it was Corbyn, and it was Johnson, but above all it was BREXIT.
It was above all CORBYN.
I loathe Boris. I loathe Brexit. But I loathe Corbyn about a million million million times more.
And I imagine as I think so does perhaps a majority-winning number of reasonably centrist types around the country.
It was above all CORBYN.
You're projecting, I'm analysing.
You would rather that the anti-semitic, Brit-hating, terrorist-loving c**t who you supported was a minor factor in the election result.
But he wasn't.
You replied to my post without reading it. It said that both Johnson and Corbyn were major factors.
I did read it. You are right they were all major factors but the most important one was Corbyn.
But that said I'm sure someone has the evidence to support either your or my point. I tried a mini-google but gave up.
Brexit, for me, since it was the biggest (almost only) issue in its own right and it also impacted positively on Johnson's image and negatively on Corbyn's. Hence it had a massive direct impact and a significant indirect impact. This is to repeat the main point in the post I wrote so I think that needs to be a wrap.
The issue as to why Corbyn was quite so disastrous though was that he was disliked by all sorts, so there was far less room for Labour to gain or hold people who were bothered about Brexit but might cast a vote differently, whichever way they jumped. A significant number of staunch remainers would never vote for him - either because they were generally Tory and viewed him as PM an even more dangerously stupid idea than Brexit or were ex-Labour/floating voters bothered by antisemitism or the extremism it served as a prime example of. It's remarkable in hidsight given the divides on Brexit that there were no Tory to Labour defections given how the significant anti-Brexit minority were basically told to get out of the Tory Party. Except of course it wasn't because someone like David Gauke was never going to endorse Jeremy Corbyn as PM - even as a gamble to get a desired outcome on Brexit.
Disastrously, though he couldn't embrace Brexit to counterbalance that, as why on Earth would a Labour leave/UKIP voter bothered about things like immigration, sovereignty and national prestige, vote for someone whose entire persona and support base was being vocally in opposition to those notions? Even if they turned round and said 'Brexit is great'. So they ended up where they had to be on damage limitation - in part because they had a leader so unpopular he couldn't take his own stance on Brexit and build a coalition around that.
Good analysis imo. Couple of points I'd not so much add but stress.
That Corbyn was unpalatable to Remainer Tories and Centrists meant they forewent the opportunity to put him in as caretaker PM with a brief to deliver Ref2 and cancel Brexit. PM Corbyn was a bigger bad for them than Hard Brexit was.
Antisemitism was a self-inflicted wound for Labour but Brexit was not. The policy they ended up with for the GE was the worst possible apart from all the alternatives. Soon as Johnson threw the DUP under a bus, accepted the Brexit deal that 'no PM could ever accept', and framed the 'people v parliament' narrative, Labour were sunk. It was only about the margin. Big or very big. Maybe a not Corbyn could have limited it to just big.
The issue was that many people weren't prepared to give Corbyn a hearing on Brexit because it was Corbyn. Of course he did spectacularly well (as @isam continues to remind us) vs previous Labour efforts but for a significant number of people just being Corbyn meant that whatever Brexit arguments Lab might have had weren't heard.
Now you think it was Brexit first then Corbyn but my point is that Corbyn rendered moot Lab's Brexit position by being Corbyn. Slick, affable salesman he is not. Would it have made a difference to have, say a Tony Blair in charge? I believe it may well have.
I will absolutely grant you that a better leader wouldn't have lost to BoJo and Get Brexit Done by such a margin. My point is just about the line we hear a fair amount from people who hate both Johnson and Corbyn that GE19 was all about how bad Corbyn was and nothing about how powerful the Boris/Brexit proposition was. It's a bad take. I doubt anybody on here hates BJ more than me but I have to credit him where credit is due. He set that election up brilliantly, campaigned brilliantly, and he won it. Jez just made it easier than it needed to be. If you want numbers, he put 20 to 30 on the majority.
I don't see where you're getting your evidence. Voters didn't have a clue what Corbyn would do and what they did know they didn't like and neither did anyone know if he was in favour of Leave or Remain. He wasn't just toxic he went way beyond that. He was unvotablefor even against Johnson!
Ok, so before May got the chop, Labour under Corbyn were consistently level with or even ahead of the Cons. Then comes Johnson and his Get Brexit Done + Parliament v People framing, and boom it's the Cons miles ahead, and GE19 confirmed this lead was real. I therefore conclude that the BoJo/Brexit package was a big factor in the GE19 result.
It's not credible to suggest otherwise I think, though its extent is certainly arguable.
It's basic push/pull stuff. Corbyn had loads of push factors, and those may well be regarded as having increased for a lot of people since the 2017 vote, but you might win because of that, but not win as big as the Tories did. There had to be something actually pulling people to vote Tory as well, not merely the absence of May.
That said even under May post 2017 the Tories were in front for long stretches from 2018ish. The sizable leads in 2019 remain inexplicable, even with the temporary factor of ChangeUK.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started and has been developing all the way back since the 1960's really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average British speech, until at least the late '60s.
My half-Thai, half-British grandchildren sound vaguely American but also vaguely Australian when they speak English.
Do they speak Thai like a Liverpudlian? Or a Georgie? Or a [fill in the blank]?
Good quality Bangkokian, I would hope, bearing in mind what my son is paying for their education, and with whom they mix!
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started and has been developing all the way back since the 1960's really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average British speech, until at least the late '60s.
My half-Thai, half-British grandchildren sound vaguely American but also vaguely Australian when they speak English.
You have to tell them how their army occupied Germany in 1918-19 !
There's a boring 'in the middle' truth here. The Con GE19 landslide WAS due to Corbyn's weakness as a candidate. But it was also due to Johnson's strength. It was, truly, the Brexit election and it was Brexit that cemented the negative/positive view of the 2 leaders. For Johnson, hellbent on pushing Brexit through, his breezy 'can-do' persona was burnished. For Corbyn, dithering and triangulating, his previous rep as a man of principle was destroyed. So, that 80 seat result, it was Corbyn, and it was Johnson, but above all it was BREXIT.
It was above all CORBYN.
I loathe Boris. I loathe Brexit. But I loathe Corbyn about a million million million times more.
And I imagine as I think so does perhaps a majority-winning number of reasonably centrist types around the country.
It was above all CORBYN.
You're projecting, I'm analysing.
You would rather that the anti-semitic, Brit-hating, terrorist-loving c**t who you supported was a minor factor in the election result.
But he wasn't.
You replied to my post without reading it. It said that both Johnson and Corbyn were major factors.
I did read it. You are right they were all major factors but the most important one was Corbyn.
But that said I'm sure someone has the evidence to support either your or my point. I tried a mini-google but gave up.
Brexit, for me, since it was the biggest (almost only) issue in its own right and it also impacted positively on Johnson's image and negatively on Corbyn's. Hence it had a massive direct impact and a significant indirect impact. This is to repeat the main point in the post I wrote so I think that needs to be a wrap.
The issue as to why Corbyn was quite so disastrous though was that he was disliked by all sorts, so there was far less room for Labour to gain or hold people who were bothered about Brexit but might cast a vote differently, whichever way they jumped. A significant number of staunch remainers would never vote for him - either because they were generally Tory and viewed him as PM an even more dangerously stupid idea than Brexit or were ex-Labour/floating voters bothered by antisemitism or the extremism it served as a prime example of. It's remarkable in hidsight given the divides on Brexit that there were no Tory to Labour defections given how the significant anti-Brexit minority were basically told to get out of the Tory Party. Except of course it wasn't because someone like David Gauke was never going to endorse Jeremy Corbyn as PM - even as a gamble to get a desired outcome on Brexit.
Disastrously, though he couldn't embrace Brexit to counterbalance that, as why on Earth would a Labour leave/UKIP voter bothered about things like immigration, sovereignty and national prestige, vote for someone whose entire persona and support base was being vocally in opposition to those notions? Even if they turned round and said 'Brexit is great'. So they ended up where they had to be on damage limitation - in part because they had a leader so unpopular he couldn't take his own stance on Brexit and build a coalition around that.
Good analysis imo. Couple of points I'd not so much add but stress.
That Corbyn was unpalatable to Remainer Tories and Centrists meant they forewent the opportunity to put him in as caretaker PM with a brief to deliver Ref2 and cancel Brexit. PM Corbyn was a bigger bad for them than Hard Brexit was.
Antisemitism was a self-inflicted wound for Labour but Brexit was not. The policy they ended up with for the GE was the worst possible apart from all the alternatives. Soon as Johnson threw the DUP under a bus, accepted the Brexit deal that 'no PM could ever accept', and framed the 'people v parliament' narrative, Labour were sunk. It was only about the margin. Big or very big. Maybe a not Corbyn could have limited it to just big.
The issue was that many people weren't prepared to give Corbyn a hearing on Brexit because it was Corbyn. Of course he did spectacularly well (as @isam continues to remind us) vs previous Labour efforts but for a significant number of people just being Corbyn meant that whatever Brexit arguments Lab might have had weren't heard.
Now you think it was Brexit first then Corbyn but my point is that Corbyn rendered moot Lab's Brexit position by being Corbyn. Slick, affable salesman he is not. Would it have made a difference to have, say a Tony Blair in charge? I believe it may well have.
I will absolutely grant you that a better leader wouldn't have lost to BoJo and Get Brexit Done by such a margin. My point is just about the line we hear a fair amount from people who hate both Johnson and Corbyn that GE19 was all about how bad Corbyn was and nothing about how powerful the Boris/Brexit proposition was. It's a bad take. I doubt anybody on here hates BJ more than me but I have to credit him where credit is due. He set that election up brilliantly, campaigned brilliantly, and he won it. Jez just made it easier than it needed to be. If you want numbers, he put 20 to 30 on the majority.
I don't see where you're getting your evidence. Voters didn't have a clue what Corbyn would do and what they did know they didn't like and neither did anyone know if he was in favour of Leave or Remain. He wasn't just toxic he went way beyond that. He was unvotablefor even against Johnson!
Ok, so before May got the chop, Labour under Corbyn were consistently level with or even ahead of the Cons. Then comes Johnson and his Get Brexit Done + Parliament v People framing, and boom it's the Cons miles ahead, and GE19 confirmed this lead was real. I therefore conclude that the BoJo/Brexit package was a big factor in the GE19 result.
It's not credible to suggest otherwise I think, though its extent is certainly arguable.
It's basic push/pull stuff. Corbyn had loads of push factors, and those may well be regarded as having increased for a lot of people since the 2017 vote, but you might win because of that, but not win as big as the Tories did. There had to be something actually pulling people to vote Tory as well, not merely the absence of May.
That said even under May post 2017 the Tories were in front for long stretches from 2018ish. The sizable leads in 2019 remain inexplicable, even with the temporary factor of ChangeUK.
If I had one sentence for why Johnson won so big I'd say it's because he consolidated the Leave vote and added to it voters who couldn't stand Corbyn and those who simply wanted Brexit over. Then, like you say, it's about the relative influence of the various factors. Eg Corbyn. He put how many on the Con majority? For me, maybe 25, but others will argue with that. Is it a good and worthwhile argument to have? Course it is. It's important because it impacts how to call the next election and therefore make good long-range bets on it.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
Yes, I yield. I just checked on Youtube. Very American in Sweden. Yet British in Norway. An odd mix
Not that odd, when you consider that Norway has long been more aligned with & connected to United Kingdom, thanks to North Atlantic connection, whereas Sweden has traditionally been closer to Germany, thanks to Baltic connection, so going "American" for Swedes is a "natural" as it is for Germans.
Plus fact that Norskis are also traditionally inclined (if not downright eager) to differentiate themselves from Swedes, their former (sort of) overlords.
Nadine Dorries as Culture Minister is one of Boris’s little jokes.
That he thinks it is appropriate to joke with ministerial placements is part of the reason he’s not fit for the job.
And teaming the beanpole Clarke with the midget gem at the Treasury. So obvious. Poor guy, Clarke, had to confect a bullshit excuse for missing the trad pre-Budget photo standing outside Number 11.
Dad of Birmingham Jess Phillips MP writes glorious letter defending her roots
...my Mom worked as a conductor on the buses during the war... My Mom remarried when I was four years old, and with my wonderful stepfather we eventually got a council house of our own in Sheldon (also part of Jess's constituency). Jess's other Grandma was a dinner lady at the local school in Yardley - are you getting the links!
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips Mrs Thatcher told my Gran to buy her council house. She said it would mean she had something to leave her family. Boris Johnson says to all those who bought their modest 2 bed houses that he's going to take it all away, while people like him get to keep so much
What a difference four months make:
'I was given a sense of injustice from the day I was born. My grandparents set up the independent Labour party in Birmingham. My grandad was a flag-waving activist. I was born, in 1981, to socialist parents who worked in the public sector. Mrs Thatcher was in power and we’d go on rallies, marches and take part in picket lines from before I can remember.' (Jess Phillips, The Guardian, 18 July 2021)
Granny must have been less of a flag-waving socialist activist than she let on. Wonder how her picketing, rallying kids felt about mum obeying Margaret Thatcher's injunction to buy her council house? Given that they sent darling Jess to a selective grammar school ten years later, perhaps it was where the rot set in.
You don't get sent to a selective grammar school. You win a place as a result of what can be a loaded exam.
"My Mom" - is this a Birmingham thing? The only place I know of in England who don't have a "Mum" are those in the North East who have a "Mam".
Yeah mom is a Birmingham thing, it is weird.
Also very much a US thing.
it's not. It is definitely British parlance now. Do you not have kids?
"Mum" will probably be gone entirely within 20 years. Blame social media
Really? Our kids still say "mum" despite two of them actually being American. In this country I've only ever heard "Mom" from Brummies. Other Americanisms are happening in our house, though. We do correct them when we can and try to encourage use of proper South London idioms in keeping with our surroundings.
If you go on Insta or Tik Tok you encounter a lot of British kids saying "Mom" now
The same process happened in Canada, they went from universal Mum to commonly saying Mom, because of the huge American influence. I doubt we will be different, sadly
Try Scandinavia. Officially our children are meant to be taught English English. Bollocks. They are taught US English. Everyone under 30 speaks and writes pure Yankee.
Yet they generally speak it with a British accent? They all speak English near-perfectly, but it is rare to find one with an American accent.
I dunno about spellings. They definitely use American idioms - as do we
Have you heard Crown Princess Victoria? I have followed and liked her for many years, but was shocked when I first heard her talking English. Yankee doodle dandy. And she has a mild case compared to the generation under her.
Listen to anybody under 20 and “British accents” are non-existent. YouTube accents abound.
The British-American cross started in the 1960's, really, with the cross-pollenation of British and American youth cultures. If you listen to everyday speech from the early 1970's, it's already extremely different from the that of the early 1960's. Although some distinctiveness was lost, it also wasn't an entirely bad thing, as there were some ridiculously artificial, self-conscious and preserved-in-aspic Victorian hangovers lingering around in average speech until at least the late '60s.
Here in the US there is plenty of British language creeping into common parlance. The new MLS team being started here is "Charlotte Football Club". Traffic circles have started to be called roundabouts. I even here nice things being described as posh nowadays.
I've noticed this too. An increasing amount of once-very-local vocabulary seems to have crossed the atlantic. A "grand" for a thousand, "bonkers", which used to be irredeemably British, "cheesy" , and many others.
Mobile phone instead of cellphone seems to be creeping into everyday use in the US as well.
They don't seem to get that there is no such thing as a British accent, though! I guess they mean RP.
TBF we don't get that there is no such thing as an American accent either.
"Accent" is a term like "family" where you can have accents within accents. There are features that are common to all British accents and to all American accents, to the extent that someone can have an American or British accent, even while there are variations within them.
Nadine Dorries as Culture Minister is one of Boris’s little jokes.
That he thinks it is appropriate to joke with ministerial placements is part of the reason he’s not fit for the job.
And teaming the beanpole Clarke with the midget gem at the Treasury. So obvious. Poor guy, Clarke, had to confect a bullshit excuse for missing the trad pre-Budget photo standing outside Number 11.
You think someone without agoraphobia makes it up?
Ed Conway @EdConwaySky · 2h Something I hadn’t quite appreciated when first glancing at today’s antibody numbers: levels among those aged 80+ are now higher than EVER. Fresh evidence the booster programme is lifting protection BEYOND the initial two-dose levels.
Is the Government of France, going to enforcee the laws of France, in France?
TBF they don’t enforce squat when the fishermen and farmers go on the rampage and block ports and roads in a domestic dispute. Eventually when things get too silly they might send in the CRS to crack a few heads, but usually the government capitulates before it reaches that point.
I'm guessing the history department at this school is pretty shit.
A boarding school has come under fire for asking pupils to wear a “yellow badge” to show they are exempt from using a face mask.
Farringtons School in Kent, which charges £34,050 per year for boarders, has made it compulsory for children to wear face masks in classrooms and corridors following a rise in cases of Covid-19.
In a letter to parents, David Jackson, the school’s headmaster, said that pupils who are exempt from wearing masks “should wear a yellow badge to indicate this”.
The move has been criticised by family groups, who say it is “deeply inappropriate” given the “historic connotations” with yellow badges.
Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe were forced to wear a yellow star so they could be easily marked out for segregation and discrimination.
Man Utd might not thank me, but get the contract out put it on the table & let him sign it, let him right whatever numbers he wants, let him sign the contract. Carrick’s at the wheel man! #VILMUN @ChampionsLeague
Interesting time with the Tories, and Boris's polling slump. What fascinates me is the question of whether it is just mid term polling doing its thing, and the momentum should be opposed, or if we are in the middle of a genuine, and permanent, fall from grace
The problem is that almost everyone on here who has always disliked Boris/Leave etc wont countenance it being anything but the latter, yet the former is the one with the historical precedent.
Also people have a desperation to be the first to have "called it", which means the early cheer of "told you so"is often heard
Is the 24 hour news cycle a bad thing for betting? Listening to all day news/following every political account on twitter must be similar to the increased fear people get from terrorism/bad accidents by news overload. I think so anyway, and am trying to treat it all as exaggerated noise, but maybe this time it is different and the fall from grace is real
Nadine Dorries as Culture Minister is one of Boris’s little jokes.
That he thinks it is appropriate to joke with ministerial placements is part of the reason he’s not fit for the job.
And teaming the beanpole Clarke with the midget gem at the Treasury. So obvious. Poor guy, Clarke, had to confect a bullshit excuse for missing the trad pre-Budget photo standing outside Number 11.
You think someone without agoraphobia makes it up?
No but I'm skeptical about it as the reason in this case.
I'm guessing the history department at this school is pretty shit.
A boarding school has come under fire for asking pupils to wear a “yellow badge” to show they are exempt from using a face mask.
Farringtons School in Kent, which charges £34,050 per year for boarders, has made it compulsory for children to wear face masks in classrooms and corridors following a rise in cases of Covid-19.
In a letter to parents, David Jackson, the school’s headmaster, said that pupils who are exempt from wearing masks “should wear a yellow badge to indicate this”.
The move has been criticised by family groups, who say it is “deeply inappropriate” given the “historic connotations” with yellow badges.
Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe were forced to wear a yellow star so they could be easily marked out for segregation and discrimination.
Given I once persuaded some lawyers that comparing people's skin colour to a chart and/or defining race in terms of a cut down version of the Nuremberg Laws was the way too go..... I can easily see this.
I'm guessing the history department at this school is pretty shit.
A boarding school has come under fire for asking pupils to wear a “yellow badge” to show they are exempt from using a face mask.
Farringtons School in Kent, which charges £34,050 per year for boarders, has made it compulsory for children to wear face masks in classrooms and corridors following a rise in cases of Covid-19.
In a letter to parents, David Jackson, the school’s headmaster, said that pupils who are exempt from wearing masks “should wear a yellow badge to indicate this”.
The move has been criticised by family groups, who say it is “deeply inappropriate” given the “historic connotations” with yellow badges.
Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe were forced to wear a yellow star so they could be easily marked out for segregation and discrimination.
I personally find the letters talk very tiresome. The one person who knows for sure isn't suppose to talk about it, and the May experience shows lots of people are either making up sending one in, or others are just repeating rumours about lots of people sending in letters.
So most of the time all it really is is a public warning to the Leader, and I feel like they could just as effectively signal discontent by just putting an anonymous post it on a Commons toilet door.
Man Utd might not thank me, but get the contract out put it on the table & let him sign it, let him right whatever numbers he wants, let him sign the contract. Carrick’s at the wheel man! #VILMUN @ChampionsLeague
Not again. In the first half United were awful. Seriously lucky not to be 2 down. After an hour with the subs they looked a bit better but no one should delude themselves that was a good performance. Good result, certainly, good performance definitely not.
Comments
Some people!!
Seems to me Tory 2019 Was Tory 2015+UKIP 2015, with a few lost to the LDs, whereas Labour more or less (more) held their 2015 vote
The Russian invasion cost about 30% of that pop fall in the parts of Ukraine that were occupied.
I'd say that Ukraine would like to follow the Poland route, but security needed first.
https://twitter.com/francediplo_EN/status/1462821275399868417
The fact Keys was isolated from loyalists by his comments show they are also not the majority view
As long as BJ writes that letter I hope he has pre-prepared...
He's done what he set out to do, and is essentially off the scene.
Plus fact that Norskis are also traditionally inclined (if not downright eager) to differentiate themselves from Swedes, their former (sort of) overlords.
I, for one, am not going to critiisise them for that.
Is the Government of France, going to enforcee the laws of France, in France?
Next question - do you really prefer to do your fiddling in threes?!?
He does seem to know how to touch the buttons of a certain type of voter.
It should therefore be authoratative and clear, of course Hugh Grant, Colin Firth and actors playing Hollywood villains have done well out of speaking with crisp English accents. See also Jeremy Irons
(R) Trump 53% (+12)
(D)* Biden 41%
WI
(R) Trump 52% (+10)
(D)* Biden 42%
AZ
(R) Trump 51% (+8)
(D)* Biden 43%
PA
(R) Trump 51% (+6)
(D)* Biden 45%
GA
(R) Trump 48% (+3)
(D)* Biden 45%
https://twitter.com/PollProjectUSA/status/1463177378427916289?s=20
Only tradition from the Mother Country that is NOT embraced is racist chanting and taunting. Because bulk of US fans are either
> middle-class White Wokeists; or
> Latinos of all kinds & colors.
Go read up on the story of AFC Wimbledon, which simply could not happen in the US.
Govt say neutrality only extends to poll happening - would make case for Union during one.
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1463199455533051904?s=20
“Temporary continued postponement is necessary to protect against identifiable harm to the military defense, intelligence operations, law enforcement, or the conduct of foreign relations that is of such gravity that it outweighs the public interest in immediate disclosure.”
Quite amusing statement by Biden. Sixty years after a supposedly slam dunk case against a lone gunman.
Brexit, Boris, Corbyn. Each significant. Added together you get a landslide for a Party which had won one very modest majority in 27 years.
I've not gone right through the thread but I thought the 2019 Conservative majority was built on 75% of the identified LEAVE voters at the time (48%) and an additional 9% from among the REMAIN voters (52%) who could not stomach the prospect of Corbyn at No.10 and voted Conservative tactically to keep him out even though that meant endorsing Brexit.
The fear of a Corbyn-led Government trumped the fear of Britain leaving the EU.
Yet it's five and a half years since the Referendum now and nearly two years since the GE - to what extent and in what way should we allow the results of the June 2016 Referendum to be the only barometer by which people vote and the chances of parties are assessed? Is it still a valid measure or are there other measures (education, prosperity, house prices etc which are now or have once again become more meaningful?)
https://youtu.be/Y-CeJeq8wf0
They don't seem to get that there is no such thing as a British accent, though! I guess they mean RP.
And, duly not taking that leaf, I'm making the additional point that Brexit itself flattered 'Boris' and messed up Corbyn, so if you have to pick just one factor from the 'BBC' election as the one which really drove it, it was that one - Brexit.
It’s a shame the more crisp RP of the 60s and 70s has gone, in my opinion. Check out (came to my mind for some reason) Diana Rigg in the Avengers.
Let's all get his YouTube "likes" up.
I’m not entirely convinced there isn’t some logic to it.
I’d rather have it now, before my family visit at Christmas, than then.
Bit like the USS Scorpion thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bugchasing
Regarding these Covid loons, the extent of their disdain for state direction in their lives must surely be a matter of psychosis rather than just ideology.
That he thinks it is appropriate to joke with ministerial placements is part of the reason he’s not fit for the job.
Of course every fruitbar in the US probably at least thought of defecting to the Soviets in those days.
A bit like (replace USSR with Al Qaeda or Isis) Islamic terrorists today.
Not necessarily a sign of Soviet involvement per se.
They ignored his ranting about Kennedy - until it all went sideways.
And ended up with a connection between Soviet intelligence and the killer of the US President. At the very height of confrontation between powers.
At that point someone borrowed JFKs copy of the "The Guns of August", read it, and realised the obvious point.
It's basic push/pull stuff. Corbyn had loads of push factors, and those may well be regarded as having increased for a lot of people since the 2017 vote, but you might win because of that, but not win as big as the Tories did. There had to be something actually pulling people to vote Tory as well, not merely the absence of May.
That said even under May post 2017 the Tories were in front for long stretches from 2018ish. The sizable leads in 2019 remain inexplicable, even with the temporary factor of ChangeUK.
Good quality Bangkokian, I would hope, bearing in mind what my son is paying for their education, and with whom they mix!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yht_Y7WywAU
Sleepy Joe about to make a statement about... Inflation.
Not Fit For Purpose.
It could even be a coronation unless Romney makes a last stand.
The Dollar in Your Pocket...
@EdConwaySky
·
2h
Something I hadn’t quite appreciated when first glancing at today’s antibody numbers: levels among those aged 80+ are now higher than EVER.
Fresh evidence the booster programme is lifting protection BEYOND the initial two-dose levels.
Putin isn't half as clever as he thinks he is.
Bojo never was.
And poor old Joe doesn't know who he is any longer.
A boarding school has come under fire for asking pupils to wear a “yellow badge” to show they are exempt from using a face mask.
Farringtons School in Kent, which charges £34,050 per year for boarders, has made it compulsory for children to wear face masks in classrooms and corridors following a rise in cases of Covid-19.
In a letter to parents, David Jackson, the school’s headmaster, said that pupils who are exempt from wearing masks “should wear a yellow badge to indicate this”.
The move has been criticised by family groups, who say it is “deeply inappropriate” given the “historic connotations” with yellow badges.
Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe were forced to wear a yellow star so they could be easily marked out for segregation and discrimination.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/11/23/echo-nazi-stars-yellow-badges-pupils-exempt-wearing-face-masks/
https://twitter.com/Carra23/status/1463231535214125062
The problem is that almost everyone on here who has always disliked Boris/Leave etc wont countenance it being anything but the latter, yet the former is the one with the historical precedent.
Also people have a desperation to be the first to have "called it", which means the early cheer of "told you so"is often heard
Is the 24 hour news cycle a bad thing for betting? Listening to all day news/following every political account on twitter must be similar to the increased fear people get from terrorism/bad accidents by news overload. I think so anyway, and am trying to treat it all as exaggerated noise, but maybe this time it is different and the fall from grace is real
SENIOR Tories have warned that a dozen MPs have sent in letters demanding a leadership challenge to oust Boris Johnson.
Amid growing fury at the PM’s bungling of sleaze and the social care cap, “a flurry” of Tories have written demanding a change at the top, MPs said.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/politics/16826364/boris-johnson-in-danger-of-confidence-vote/
Did that really need explained?
So most of the time all it really is is a public warning to the Leader, and I feel like they could just as effectively signal discontent by just putting an anonymous post it on a Commons toilet door.