@christopherhope NEW A Farage sized stone has just dropped into the becalmed election pond on Monday morning. Very senior figures in Reform UK have been blindsided by Nigel Farage's statement at 4pm. One friend of Farage tells me it will either be an electoral pact with the Tories (unlikely) or an about-turn on standing at the electionn (more likely). The deadline for nominations is imminent. Farage himself is not answering his phone. Watch the drama play out at 4pm on @GBNEWS .
He isn’t going to save* the Tories, surely? That would leave him with significant egg on his face.
*in his mind, anyway
This is probably the best chance in the eyes of Reform to do serious damage to the Tories . I can’t see Farage agreeing a pact with them.
In 2019, Brexit party voters were pretty well aligned with what the Tories wanted, and were big fans of Johnson.
Now, they're apparently much less keen on them, which is probably why Farage has been reluctant to do a deal, as he doesn't have anything like as much clout. The election doesn't look to be anything like as close either, so there's a strong chance they'd be standing down/doing a deal with a party that still loses, and that's not a good look.
Or he's joined the Tories and he will be running on the Tory ticket.
"We need to come together to stop Starmer, the dangerous man whose real character comes out in how he enables the wicked Diane Abbott - first she's suspended, and then he lets her back into the game shortly before an election." That should play well with Sun and Express readers.
Farage may not have as much clout as he did in 2019, but he's still got a lot of clout and if Reform pull their candidates they would significantly increase the Tory voteshare - there shouldn't be any doubt about that. The scores they've been achieving in polls have been ridiculous and won't happen IRL.
But it's possible the Farage announcement is not about Reform but about Farage. If it were about a Reform-Tory agreement it wouldn't be announced by Farage.
Nor would I put it past Sunak to offer Farage whatever he wants to come "home".
@christopherhope NEW A Farage sized stone has just dropped into the becalmed election pond on Monday morning. Very senior figures in Reform UK have been blindsided by Nigel Farage's statement at 4pm. One friend of Farage tells me it will either be an electoral pact with the Tories (unlikely) or an about-turn on standing at the electionn (more likely). The deadline for nominations is imminent. Farage himself is not answering his phone. Watch the drama play out at 4pm on @GBNEWS .
If it's the latter, I almost feel sorry for Sunak.
Only a few days ago:
Isabel Oakeshott @IsabelOakeshott · May 29 Richard Tice is Leader of @reformparty_uk and there won’t be any deals with the Tory party. End of.
Redfield ramping their poll at 3pm, opinium have started the ramp trend for this GE. Apparently 'we won't want to miss this one!!' Tories minus 2 or some such.
I don't think you can actually poll a minus percentage, Woolie, but maybe Rishi intends to give it a go.
I think after today's polling rush they are going to realise just how buggered they are
Their private polling must be telling them that.
Their private polling is just a turd with a laughing clown head stuck in it I think
The Conservative party response was to nominate Trudy McClownface for a reasonably safe seat.
Suggestions he will replace their candidate in Clacton who is in trouble for letting the mask slip and posting things that were anti-Semitic. Of course Nige isn’t immune to the odd tiny bit of racism adjacent rabble rousing.
Clacton is undoubtedly their best seat so it's strange Tice isn't standing there. Maybe because there was always an idea that Farage might slip in there.
Yes, and he will do the media rounds pretending that he’s answering an overwhelming number of calls to stand and playing the patriotic duty card. The MSM will swallow the bullshit wholesale and the GB News anchors will line up to metaphorically fellate him. Depressing and nauseating in equal measure.
Oh stop whining: Farage is playing politics. Its what politicians do. He’s just better at it than most
LOL Is that why he failed SEVEN times to get elected to Westminster?
We Brexited because of Farage. He’s probably the most consequential British politician since thatcher. You may despise him and abhor his views - fair enough - but these claims he is some kind of failure are absurd. Its like the twattish claim upthread that Trump is a bad businessman and bad politician
That’s Trump, the billionaire businessman who became the most powerful politician in the world
This is for you because you dissed a wonderful country on the previous thread. Next time you're there you should disabuse the welcoming Finn of the idea you might be someone else by saying: "Olen leon en ole noel eli elon"
@christopherhope NEW A Farage sized stone has just dropped into the becalmed election pond on Monday morning. Very senior figures in Reform UK have been blindsided by Nigel Farage's statement at 4pm. One friend of Farage tells me it will either be an electoral pact with the Tories (unlikely) or an about-turn on standing at the electionn (more likely). The deadline for nominations is imminent. Farage himself is not answering his phone. Watch the drama play out at 4pm on @GBNEWS .
If it's the latter, I almost feel sorry for Sunak.
Only a few days ago:
Isabel Oakeshott @IsabelOakeshott · May 29 Richard Tice is Leader of @reformparty_uk and there won’t be any deals with the Tory party. End of.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
I was watching a youtube Warhammer video the other day which, if you can believe it, started talking about identity politics in an interesting way, in the context of geek fandom.
Essentially, I think we're Donald Ducked. Social media, even back to the Usenet days, is a huge engine for creating identity-based groups. The pandemic gave a good kicking to in-person socialisation that would act to balance it.
Identity-based social grouping creates a sense of being an embattled and victimised minority, it damages broader social empathy, and creates an atomised society of mutually antagonistic identity groups.
Albeit, social majorities acting in the name of unity and homogeneity have done the same, and worse. The twentieth century was riddled with atrocities done by those with that mindset. Treating people well seems like a better guideline than trying to live without any social identity, and a lot more strategically sustainable in case the bad guys really are trying to destroy your group.
Yeah. Clearly I can't get a perfect account of my nuanced position across in this format, and a balance between the two extremes is warranted. There have definitely been some genuinely marginalised minority groups that have benefited a lot from the internet's ability to allow people with niche interests and minority identities to find each other.
But if everyone's identity reduces down only to which minority identity groups they are a member of (me = cyclist, aspie, knitter, mathmo, wargamer, geek, ecosocialist, hiker), and no shared identity on a larger scale (me = English, British, Democrat, European, Human) then I think we have a serious problem.
In particular, if a lot of those minority identity groups have no history of meaningful victimisation, but create a feeling of victimisation through the online expression of that identity group, which is particularly the case with geek fandom, and, say, drivers.
These minority interest groups get more interesting when attempts are made to build bridges between them. For example, I am very active in active travel and hiking/climbing groups. Both groups have large crossovers to LGBT, pro-Palestine, drug using communities, and it's often assumed that I would be interested in those too.
I'm sympathetic to their needs and objectives, but begrudge that assumption and get very irritated when I see Palestine flags all over the place when I'm trying to solve a problem like dooring, or trying to work out if a particular carabiner is incompatible with a belay device.
Badenoch is also Minister for Women and Equalities. Thanks once again for highlighting Labour’s complacency and indifference towards the rights of half the electorate. Quote
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL @campbellclaret 2h I’m sure the world of trade and business will take note that the actual Secretary of State for trade and business has decided that the biggest issue on her agenda on her first big election outing is the weaponisation of trans rights. Anyone might be tempted to think @KemiBadenoch has less interest in the general election than the internal ideological shitshow likely to follow it.
If you want to understand just how manufactured the transgender culture war is, less than 2 years ago Kemi Badenoch was celebrating the fact that it was becoming easier to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate
Technically easier, because it could be done online - no reduction in the legal requirements, which is what ScotGov proposed, ignoring all the issues that could create.
Not quite the gotcha, is it?
Just to be clear: if you’re on the left & you’re dismissing an Equality Act amendment to protect women’s rights you don’t understand as hateful on the basis of who’s proposing it you’re as guilty as anyone of culture wars rhetoric in a sensitive debate about a conflict of rights.
Another dreadful Tory no doubt. #checks notes# leader writer for the Observer
Making it practically easier to get a GRC seems to go against the whole "we know what a woman is and she can't have a penis", when the point of a GRC is that some people with a penis can get legal recognition as being a woman.
And I'm not dismissing the changes to the EA based on whose proposing them - I'm dismissing them because it's a bad idea. Because there is no "biological" definition of sex that will protect all cis men and women and only exclude trans people because there are lots of variations of sex characteristics within individuals. I know that those who are anti trans now like to fall back to "a woman is someone who produces large gametes" but if, in law, that were to be the definition of woman that would mean any time a woman wants to enforce her rights under those laws she would need to prove she does produce large gametes, with the testing that is required to back that up. Whereas under the social understanding of sex and gender it is much easier for any woman, trans or cis, to assert their rights when discriminated against.
Law is not a perfect thing. There is no legal definition that meets every single case that it is meant to encompass. However, there are plenty of definitions of biological sex that will protect the fast majority of women. Case law can iron out any small exceptions.
I look forward to you defending the rights of this biological female to use women's toilets in the company of other biological females:
@christopherhope NEW A Farage sized stone has just dropped into the becalmed election pond on Monday morning. Very senior figures in Reform UK have been blindsided by Nigel Farage's statement at 4pm. One friend of Farage tells me it will either be an electoral pact with the Tories (unlikely) or an about-turn on standing at the electionn (more likely). The deadline for nominations is imminent. Farage himself is not answering his phone. Watch the drama play out at 4pm on @GBNEWS .
If it's the latter, I almost feel sorry for Sunak.
Only a few days ago:
Isabel Oakeshott @IsabelOakeshott · May 29 Richard Tice is Leader of @reformparty_uk and there won’t be any deals with the Tory party. End of.
There’s still time for Farage to fire him as leader and stand himself.
To my mind one of the things Labour should do is to outlaw the way Reform is set up. It shouldn’t be possible for a political party to be the wholly owned subsidiary of one man’s ego.
@christopherhope NEW A Farage sized stone has just dropped into the becalmed election pond on Monday morning. Very senior figures in Reform UK have been blindsided by Nigel Farage's statement at 4pm. One friend of Farage tells me it will either be an electoral pact with the Tories (unlikely) or an about-turn on standing at the electionn (more likely). The deadline for nominations is imminent. Farage himself is not answering his phone. Watch the drama play out at 4pm on @GBNEWS .
If it's the latter, I almost feel sorry for Sunak.
Only a few days ago:
Isabel Oakeshott @IsabelOakeshott · May 29 Richard Tice is Leader of @reformparty_uk and there won’t be any deals with the Tory party. End of.
There’s still time for Farage to fire him as leader and stand himself.
To my mind one of the things Labour should do is to outlaw the way Reform is set up. It shouldn’t be possible for a political party to be the wholly owned subsidiary of one man’s ego.
Although it’s probably the main reason why they’ve underperformed. UKIP was much more like a proper party, with all the factionalism that goes with it.
"Maldives announces ban on Israelis entering country
In response, Israel's foreign ministry recommends its citizens - including those with dual citizenship - do not travel to the predominantly Muslim archipelago."
Anyone wish to dissuade me from laying Trump some more at 1.99 bf? I can't believe price is this low.
Backing at 2.54 Biden to win is an alternative and possibly better bet if you agree that his health concerns are somewhat exaggerated.
I prefer backing Biden. On Trump he is ahead in the polls and incumbants are doing badly globally.
I'm following the US elections state by state, though only a few matter. The key states are: Pennsylvania (20 Electoral College Votes) Trump leads by average of 1.9% Michigan (16 ECV) Trump leads by 0.8% Wisconsin (10 ECV) Trump leads by 1.3%
There is a difference between Trump lead for AV surveys (i.e. All Voters), RV surveys (Registered Voters) and LV surveys (Likely Voters). Trumps lead reduces by 2-3% suggesting that Trump supporters are less likely to turn out to vote.
Allowing for that differential in turnout gives Biden the above three states and 273 ECV, to Trump's 265 ECV. A very narrow win for Biden.
So currently I put it at 50/50. However I think the trend is with Biden from recent surveys and the economy. But the June debate will be the deciding event and I think Biden will win it.
Trump looks increasingly deranged and unsteady, even ill, at times.
He looked ghastly at that post-trial press conference. Like a more emaciated version of Alec Douglas-Home.
@Leon probably knows more goss on this than me, but I think he's on Ozempic. And rapid weight loss doesn't suit him.
Yes he’s on ozempic or similar
But I also think he’s going senile like Biden. Not a great combo
Many who may have been on the fence are now supporting it due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine .
Whilst I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that Russia would have been less likely to invade Ukraine if Ukraine had nukes - I still don't see why the UK needs nukes when we clearly fall under Nato and are protected by enough nukes to destroy the entire planet multiple times over with the US. If the US left Nato and the UK didn't believe the US hegemon continued to include using their nuclear deterrent if we were threatened, having nukes of are own is not the number one problem...
You're going to have to clarify that last sentence because it makes no sense.
If the US is no longer going to defend the UK from invasion with its nuclear arsenal - we have bigger issues than whether or not we own our own nukes. Because it would essentially mean that the US had become more isolationist than at any point in modern history - and the impact that has on geopolitics would go beyond whether we have a functional nuclear arsenal.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
I was watching a youtube Warhammer video the other day which, if you can believe it, started talking about identity politics in an interesting way, in the context of geek fandom.
Essentially, I think we're Donald Ducked. Social media, even back to the Usenet days, is a huge engine for creating identity-based groups. The pandemic gave a good kicking to in-person socialisation that would act to balance it.
Identity-based social grouping creates a sense of being an embattled and victimised minority, it damages broader social empathy, and creates an atomised society of mutually antagonistic identity groups.
Albeit, social majorities acting in the name of unity and homogeneity have done the same, and worse. The twentieth century was riddled with atrocities done by those with that mindset. Treating people well seems like a better guideline than trying to live without any social identity, and a lot more strategically sustainable in case the bad guys really are trying to destroy your group.
Yeah. Clearly I can't get a perfect account of my nuanced position across in this format, and a balance between the two extremes is warranted. There have definitely been some genuinely marginalised minority groups that have benefited a lot from the internet's ability to allow people with niche interests and minority identities to find each other.
But if everyone's identity reduces down only to which minority identity groups they are a member of (me = cyclist, aspie, knitter, mathmo, wargamer, geek, ecosocialist, hiker), and no shared identity on a larger scale (me = English, British, Democrat, European, Human) then I think we have a serious problem.
In particular, if a lot of those minority identity groups have no history of meaningful victimisation, but create a feeling of victimisation through the online expression of that identity group, which is particularly the case with geek fandom, and, say, drivers.
These minority interest groups get more interesting when attempts are made to build bridges between them. For example, I am very active in active travel and hiking/climbing groups. Both groups have large crossovers to LGBT, pro-Palestine, drug using communities, and it's often assumed that I would be interested in those too.
I'm sympathetic to their needs and objectives, but begrudge that assumption and get very irritated when I see Palestine flags all over the place when I'm trying to solve a problem like dooring, or trying to work out if a particular carabiner is incompatible with a belay device.
Only very loosely related, but I passed our very own Palestine camp on my way into the Uni this morning. Looked a bit forlorn really, about fifteen people waving some flags and chanting something along the lines of "What do we want?..."
Was before 9 though, so maybe worth me checking back later. They were making an impressive amount of noise for the size of the group. I pity those in offices nearby.
More related - yes, I know what you mean. Two members of the group that stopped the train* on it's way to Drax tried to recruit me to that effort, one through a climbing group and one through a student committee.
*https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/14/activists.carbonemissions (The nature of the thing I was being invited to was not disclosed to me - just that it was direct action, non-violent, with high likelihood of arrest. They were later all acquitted, I think due to the involvement of under cover police)
Badenoch is also Minister for Women and Equalities. Thanks once again for highlighting Labour’s complacency and indifference towards the rights of half the electorate. Quote
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL @campbellclaret 2h I’m sure the world of trade and business will take note that the actual Secretary of State for trade and business has decided that the biggest issue on her agenda on her first big election outing is the weaponisation of trans rights. Anyone might be tempted to think @KemiBadenoch has less interest in the general election than the internal ideological shitshow likely to follow it.
If you want to understand just how manufactured the transgender culture war is, less than 2 years ago Kemi Badenoch was celebrating the fact that it was becoming easier to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate
Technically easier, because it could be done online - no reduction in the legal requirements, which is what ScotGov proposed, ignoring all the issues that could create.
Not quite the gotcha, is it?
Just to be clear: if you’re on the left & you’re dismissing an Equality Act amendment to protect women’s rights you don’t understand as hateful on the basis of who’s proposing it you’re as guilty as anyone of culture wars rhetoric in a sensitive debate about a conflict of rights.
Another dreadful Tory no doubt. #checks notes# leader writer for the Observer
Making it practically easier to get a GRC seems to go against the whole "we know what a woman is and she can't have a penis", when the point of a GRC is that some people with a penis can get legal recognition as being a woman.
And I'm not dismissing the changes to the EA based on whose proposing them - I'm dismissing them because it's a bad idea. Because there is no "biological" definition of sex that will protect all cis men and women and only exclude trans people because there are lots of variations of sex characteristics within individuals. I know that those who are anti trans now like to fall back to "a woman is someone who produces large gametes" but if, in law, that were to be the definition of woman that would mean any time a woman wants to enforce her rights under those laws she would need to prove she does produce large gametes, with the testing that is required to back that up. Whereas under the social understanding of sex and gender it is much easier for any woman, trans or cis, to assert their rights when discriminated against.
Law is not a perfect thing. There is no legal definition that meets every single case that it is meant to encompass. However, there are plenty of definitions of biological sex that will protect the fast majority of women. Case law can iron out any small exceptions.
I look forward to you defending the rights of this biological female to use women's toilets in the company of other biological females:
Another though on Farage. Keeping it vague guarantees coverage, as everyone assumes a seat announcement. But it could be a whinge about access to debates/QT instead. Having turned up, the media would report it.
According to Politico this morning, Kemi Badenoch "will play a more active role in the Conservative campaign" from now on.
But a senior Tory source tells HuffPost UK: "She needs to be locked in a fridge away from normal people."
The appeal of Bad Enoch is lost on me and, it seems, most of the public. She is a wooden, uninspiring performer and was entirely mute as Biz Sec for months/years. Can someone explain what she has that some see in her?
"Bad Enoch" most witty. There really is no beginning to your talents, is there.
A resurgence of Boudicanism, ready to scythe down the foot soldiers of nasty cosmopolitans with their wanky central heating, baths and mosaics?
I'm more inclined to think it's pratto and twatto from the 'burbs with their banging BMWs with ambient blue lighting, dreaming to be like the guy who drove his Range Rover Sport SVR plank wagon through Park Royal at 100mph, and killed the woman he was trying to impress.
That's not the style of better off morons from the North Lincolnshire performance car business belt.
@christopherhope NEW A Farage sized stone has just dropped into the becalmed election pond on Monday morning. Very senior figures in Reform UK have been blindsided by Nigel Farage's statement at 4pm. One friend of Farage tells me it will either be an electoral pact with the Tories (unlikely) or an about-turn on standing at the electionn (more likely). The deadline for nominations is imminent. Farage himself is not answering his phone. Watch the drama play out at 4pm on @GBNEWS .
If it's the latter, I almost feel sorry for Sunak.
Only a few days ago:
Isabel Oakeshott @IsabelOakeshott · May 29 Richard Tice is Leader of @reformparty_uk and there won’t be any deals with the Tory party. End of.
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
Suggestions he will replace their candidate in Clacton who is in trouble for letting the mask slip and posting things that were anti-Semitic. Of course Nige isn’t immune to the odd tiny bit of racism adjacent rabble rousing.
Clacton is undoubtedly their best seat so it's strange Tice isn't standing there. Maybe because there was always an idea that Farage might slip in there.
Yes, and he will do the media rounds pretending that he’s answering an overwhelming number of calls to stand and playing the patriotic duty card. The MSM will swallow the bullshit wholesale and the GB News anchors will line up to metaphorically fellate him. Depressing and nauseating in equal measure.
Oh stop whining: Farage is playing politics. Its what politicians do. He’s just better at it than most
LOL Is that why he failed SEVEN times to get elected to Westminster?
We Brexited because of Farage. He’s probably the most consequential British politician since thatcher. You may despise him and abhor his views - fair enough - but these claims he is some kind of failure are absurd. Its like the twattish claim upthread that Trump is a bad businessman and bad politician
That’s Trump, the billionaire businessman who became the most powerful politician in the world
Here we are again with your hair-trigger sensitivity on anyone criticising far-right lunatics. You get very touchy about Putin and Musk too.
No, I have hair trigger sensitivity to crass stupidity. It may appear slanted right because there is more of this stupidity on the emotional left - at least on pb and maybe in the wider west - at the moment
But I’d say the same if someone tried to claim Stalin was bad at politics. Or Mao. Its obviously dumb - both were brilliant, but unfortunately evil
Hitler was a skilled orator, great agitator, nifty flag designer - and really good on the size of German opera houses. Pol pot was sadly a grand schemer. Jeffrey dahmer was good looking. Jack the Ripper was adept at getting away with ripping. Etc
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
I was watching a youtube Warhammer video the other day which, if you can believe it, started talking about identity politics in an interesting way, in the context of geek fandom.
Essentially, I think we're Donald Ducked. Social media, even back to the Usenet days, is a huge engine for creating identity-based groups. The pandemic gave a good kicking to in-person socialisation that would act to balance it.
Identity-based social grouping creates a sense of being an embattled and victimised minority, it damages broader social empathy, and creates an atomised society of mutually antagonistic identity groups.
Albeit, social majorities acting in the name of unity and homogeneity have done the same, and worse. The twentieth century was riddled with atrocities done by those with that mindset. Treating people well seems like a better guideline than trying to live without any social identity, and a lot more strategically sustainable in case the bad guys really are trying to destroy your group.
Yeah. Clearly I can't get a perfect account of my nuanced position across in this format, and a balance between the two extremes is warranted. There have definitely been some genuinely marginalised minority groups that have benefited a lot from the internet's ability to allow people with niche interests and minority identities to find each other.
But if everyone's identity reduces down only to which minority identity groups they are a member of (me = cyclist, aspie, knitter, mathmo, wargamer, geek, ecosocialist, hiker), and no shared identity on a larger scale (me = English, British, Democrat, European, Human) then I think we have a serious problem.
In particular, if a lot of those minority identity groups have no history of meaningful victimisation, but create a feeling of victimisation through the online expression of that identity group, which is particularly the case with geek fandom, and, say, drivers.
These minority interest groups get more interesting when attempts are made to build bridges between them. For example, I am very active in active travel and hiking/climbing groups. Both groups have large crossovers to LGBT, pro-Palestine, drug using communities, and it's often assumed that I would be interested in those too.
I'm sympathetic to their needs and objectives, but begrudge that assumption and get very irritated when I see Palestine flags all over the place when I'm trying to solve a problem like dooring, or trying to work out if a particular carabiner is incompatible with a belay device.
Only very loosely related, but I passed our very own Palestine camp on my way into the Uni this morning. Looked a bit forlorn really, about fifteen people waving some flags and chanting something along the lines of "What do we want?..."
Was before 9 though, so maybe worth me checking back later. They were making an impressive amount of noise for the size of the group. I pity those in offices nearby.
More related - yes, I know what you mean. Two members of the group that stopped the train* on it's way to Drax tried to recruit me to that effort, one through a climbing group and one through a student committee.
*https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/14/activists.carbonemissions (The nature of the thing I was being invited to was not disclosed to me - just that it was direct action, non-violent, with high likelihood of arrest. They were later all acquitted, I think due to the involvement of under cover police)
Luke Akehurst, a shoe in to be Durham North's next MP, has been harangued by pro Palestine protesters during his campaign over the weekend including turning up to this campaign HQ in Pelton Fell with flags and lots of chants.
I wonder if one of the Tory 'families' has decided to break with Rishi and throw its lot in with Nige. It was going to happen eventually so why not now?
Many who may have been on the fence are now supporting it due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine .
Whilst I think there is a reasonable argument to be made that Russia would have been less likely to invade Ukraine if Ukraine had nukes - I still don't see why the UK needs nukes when we clearly fall under Nato and are protected by enough nukes to destroy the entire planet multiple times over with the US. If the US left Nato and the UK didn't believe the US hegemon continued to include using their nuclear deterrent if we were threatened, having nukes of are own is not the number one problem...
You're going to have to clarify that last sentence because it makes no sense.
If the US is no longer going to defend the UK from invasion with its nuclear arsenal - we have bigger issues than whether or not we own our own nukes. Because it would essentially mean that the US had become more isolationist than at any point in modern history - and the impact that has on geopolitics would go beyond whether we have a functional nuclear arsenal.
Sorry but that’s a misunderstanding of how it works. If only the U.S. had nukes, you would have to ask whether they would really use them to prevent an invasion of Europe. Us and the French having SOME nukes means it’s going to go nuclear anyway so they need to join in. It puts skin in the game and binds us together.
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
I can see why Farage might favour a deal like that, but why should the people currently in charge of the Tory party?
Another though on Farage. Keeping it vague guarantees coverage, as everyone assumes a seat announcement. But it could be a whinge about access to debates/QT instead. Having turned up, the media would report it.
Well he’s unlikely to be invited to any debates if he’s not even standing.
The BBC debate should be open to any party standing in 326 seats, and they should be invited to nominate one of their candidates to attend.
According to Politico this morning, Kemi Badenoch "will play a more active role in the Conservative campaign" from now on.
But a senior Tory source tells HuffPost UK: "She needs to be locked in a fridge away from normal people."
The appeal of Bad Enoch is lost on me and, it seems, most of the public. She is a wooden, uninspiring performer and was entirely mute as Biz Sec for months/years. Can someone explain what she has that some see in her?
"Bad Enoch" most witty. There really is no beginning to your talents, is there.
Given it was @TSE came up with that one, I admire your courage.
Badenoch is also Minister for Women and Equalities. Thanks once again for highlighting Labour’s complacency and indifference towards the rights of half the electorate. Quote
ALASTAIR CAMPBELL @campbellclaret 2h I’m sure the world of trade and business will take note that the actual Secretary of State for trade and business has decided that the biggest issue on her agenda on her first big election outing is the weaponisation of trans rights. Anyone might be tempted to think @KemiBadenoch has less interest in the general election than the internal ideological shitshow likely to follow it.
If you want to understand just how manufactured the transgender culture war is, less than 2 years ago Kemi Badenoch was celebrating the fact that it was becoming easier to apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate
Technically easier, because it could be done online - no reduction in the legal requirements, which is what ScotGov proposed, ignoring all the issues that could create.
Not quite the gotcha, is it?
Just to be clear: if you’re on the left & you’re dismissing an Equality Act amendment to protect women’s rights you don’t understand as hateful on the basis of who’s proposing it you’re as guilty as anyone of culture wars rhetoric in a sensitive debate about a conflict of rights.
Another dreadful Tory no doubt. #checks notes# leader writer for the Observer
Making it practically easier to get a GRC seems to go against the whole "we know what a woman is and she can't have a penis", when the point of a GRC is that some people with a penis can get legal recognition as being a woman.
And I'm not dismissing the changes to the EA based on whose proposing them - I'm dismissing them because it's a bad idea. Because there is no "biological" definition of sex that will protect all cis men and women and only exclude trans people because there are lots of variations of sex characteristics within individuals. I know that those who are anti trans now like to fall back to "a woman is someone who produces large gametes" but if, in law, that were to be the definition of woman that would mean any time a woman wants to enforce her rights under those laws she would need to prove she does produce large gametes, with the testing that is required to back that up. Whereas under the social understanding of sex and gender it is much easier for any woman, trans or cis, to assert their rights when discriminated against.
Law is not a perfect thing. There is no legal definition that meets every single case that it is meant to encompass. However, there are plenty of definitions of biological sex that will protect the fast majority of women. Case law can iron out any small exceptions.
I look forward to you defending the rights of this biological female to use women's toilets in the company of other biological females:
If only we could be as Green as those wonderful Europeans...
"The European Union (EU) is set to fall far behind its ambitious energy transition targets for renewable energy, clean technology capacity and domestic supply chain investments, according to Rystad Energy research and modeling."
A resurgence of Boudicanism, ready to scythe down the foot soldiers of nasty cosmopolitans with their wanky central heating, baths and mosaics?
I'm more inclined to think it's pratto and twatto from the 'burbs with their banging BMWs with ambient blue lighting, dreaming to be like the guy who drove his Range Rover Sport SVR plank wagon through Park Royal at 100mph, and killed the woman he was trying to impress.
That's not the style of better off morons from the North Lincolnshire performance car business belt.
Bet it is owned by an estate agent from Foxtons or a recruiters from a firm of similar quality.
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
I can see why Farage might favour a deal like that, but why should the people currently in charge of the Tory party?
Because they know its over and assume the way back is through unite the right
According to Politico this morning, Kemi Badenoch "will play a more active role in the Conservative campaign" from now on.
But a senior Tory source tells HuffPost UK: "She needs to be locked in a fridge away from normal people."
The appeal of Bad Enoch is lost on me and, it seems, most of the public. She is a wooden, uninspiring performer and was entirely mute as Biz Sec for months/years. Can someone explain what she has that some see in her?
"Bad Enoch" most witty. There really is no beginning to your talents, is there.
Given it was @TSE came up with that one, I admire your courage.
Directors ?
Ah, @TSE, what a marvellous and witty name it was. I was, of course, only condemning the taking of this brilliance and passing it off as one's own.
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
A sizeable proportion of the Tory membership would quit if such a merger were proposed. It’s a lazy assumption that ‘the membership’ is a homogeneous bloc.
Tactically, Farage could play a game such as asking the Tories to agree to a set of demands and he’ll stand down RefUK candidates. They probably can’t agree to these, and then when they get beaten soundly he can use the “I told you so, if you’d listened to me you wouldn’t be in this position” line. Everything with Farage has an angle to try and make him look like a political mastermind. This would be a good way of boosting his profile/ego.
Probably too late, but wasn't Stalin a fan of Moldavan wine? Im guessing there is a personal connection here - first harvest presentation?
Ooh. Well done for having a guess! And not bad!
It is indeed associated with a significant political figure. Remember it was found on a train….
Opened when they signed the Brest-Litovsk treaty?
Oooh. Close enough for me to reveal the truth!
That bottle is part of Herman Goering’s enormous wine collection. Yes! He loved a fine drop and he had 20,000 bottles. It was found by Soviet troops - along with all Goering’s looted art, sculptures, rare books etc - in an abandoned train near konigsberg at the end of the war
In a weird bit of Soviet logic it was decided this looted Nazi wine should be divided equally between the three Soviet republics most famous for wine - Moldova, Georgia and Armenia
The Moldovan portion is now preserved in the enormous underground limestone wine caverns of Cricova winery about an hour from Chisinau. Its not usually on view to the public - too sensitive - but as I am a famous flint knapper they showed me
Suggestions he will replace their candidate in Clacton who is in trouble for letting the mask slip and posting things that were anti-Semitic. Of course Nige isn’t immune to the odd tiny bit of racism adjacent rabble rousing.
Clacton is undoubtedly their best seat so it's strange Tice isn't standing there. Maybe because there was always an idea that Farage might slip in there.
Yes, and he will do the media rounds pretending that he’s answering an overwhelming number of calls to stand and playing the patriotic duty card. The MSM will swallow the bullshit wholesale and the GB News anchors will line up to metaphorically fellate him. Depressing and nauseating in equal measure.
Oh stop whining: Farage is playing politics. Its what politicians do. He’s just better at it than most
LOL Is that why he failed SEVEN times to get elected to Westminster?
We Brexited because of Farage. He’s probably the most consequential British politician since thatcher. You may despise him and abhor his views - fair enough - but these claims he is some kind of failure are absurd. Its like the twattish claim upthread that Trump is a bad businessman and bad politician
That’s Trump, the billionaire businessman who became the most powerful politician in the world
We Brexited because of 17.4 million voters.
Farage played a bit of a role in that. A minor, supporting role alongside many other politicians that backed Brexit.
It is a total rewriting of history to suggest it is all Farage. Farage is so toxic he was quite rightly excluded from Vote Leave, had it been a Farage-led campaign to back Brexit then Remain would have won handsomely.
David Cameron pledged his in/out referendum not after the rise of UKIP, but after a mass rebellion on his own benches from politicians on his own benches that demanded it. He needed to placate his own MPs. Actual elected-to-Parliament Members of Parliament unlike the seven time failure Nigel Farage who was never an MP.
Similarly Trump is a bad politician. You can both be an elected politician and a bad one. Trump is so bad he barely scraped election against the awful politician Hillary Clinton - and then so failed in office that he failed to get re-elected against Biden who had himself been deemed too old and to weak to run for office four years earlier.
Trump joins Carter, widely regarded as a bad politician in office, in being one of only two Presidents since the start of the 20th century who failed to win re-election, when they had the first term* back in office for their party.
* George HW Bush for instance failed to get re-elected but he followed two Reagan terms, so was seeking a fourth term in a row for the Republicans not a second term.
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
A sizeable proportion of the Tory membership would quit if such a merger were proposed. It’s a lazy assumption that ‘the membership’ is a homogeneous bloc.
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
A sizeable proportion of the Tory membership would quit if such a merger were proposed. It’s a lazy assumption that ‘the membership’ is a homogeneous bloc.
Also, unless or until the Tory Party really is down to three seats, surely it would achieve the same objective (if it wanted to) by stealing the policy platform and attracting Farage via a safe seat? Not so much a merger as a hostile takeover.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
I was watching a youtube Warhammer video the other day which, if you can believe it, started talking about identity politics in an interesting way, in the context of geek fandom.
Essentially, I think we're Donald Ducked. Social media, even back to the Usenet days, is a huge engine for creating identity-based groups. The pandemic gave a good kicking to in-person socialisation that would act to balance it.
Identity-based social grouping creates a sense of being an embattled and victimised minority, it damages broader social empathy, and creates an atomised society of mutually antagonistic identity groups.
Albeit, social majorities acting in the name of unity and homogeneity have done the same, and worse. The twentieth century was riddled with atrocities done by those with that mindset. Treating people well seems like a better guideline than trying to live without any social identity, and a lot more strategically sustainable in case the bad guys really are trying to destroy your group.
Yeah. Clearly I can't get a perfect account of my nuanced position across in this format, and a balance between the two extremes is warranted. There have definitely been some genuinely marginalised minority groups that have benefited a lot from the internet's ability to allow people with niche interests and minority identities to find each other.
But if everyone's identity reduces down only to which minority identity groups they are a member of (me = cyclist, aspie, knitter, mathmo, wargamer, geek, ecosocialist, hiker), and no shared identity on a larger scale (me = English, British, Democrat, European, Human) then I think we have a serious problem.
In particular, if a lot of those minority identity groups have no history of meaningful victimisation, but create a feeling of victimisation through the online expression of that identity group, which is particularly the case with geek fandom, and, say, drivers.
These minority interest groups get more interesting when attempts are made to build bridges between them. For example, I am very active in active travel and hiking/climbing groups. Both groups have large crossovers to LGBT, pro-Palestine, drug using communities, and it's often assumed that I would be interested in those too.
I'm sympathetic to their needs and objectives, but begrudge that assumption and get very irritated when I see Palestine flags all over the place when I'm trying to solve a problem like dooring, or trying to work out if a particular carabiner is incompatible with a belay device.
Only very loosely related, but I passed our very own Palestine camp on my way into the Uni this morning. Looked a bit forlorn really, about fifteen people waving some flags and chanting something along the lines of "What do we want?..."
Was before 9 though, so maybe worth me checking back later. They were making an impressive amount of noise for the size of the group. I pity those in offices nearby.
More related - yes, I know what you mean. Two members of the group that stopped the train* on it's way to Drax tried to recruit me to that effort, one through a climbing group and one through a student committee.
*https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/14/activists.carbonemissions (The nature of the thing I was being invited to was not disclosed to me - just that it was direct action, non-violent, with high likelihood of arrest. They were later all acquitted, I think due to the involvement of under cover police)
Luke Akehurst, a shoe in to be Durham North's next MP, has been harangued by pro Palestine protesters during his campaign over the weekend including turning up to this campaign HQ in Pelton Fell with flags and lots of chants.
A competitive Gaza-based campaign in North Durham would have been interesting, but it doesn't seem to be fertile ground for one.
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
I can see why Farage might favour a deal like that, but why should the people currently in charge of the Tory party?
Because they know its over and assume the way back is through unite the right
It might (emphasis on might) result in a comeback for a party with the "Tory" label on it, but it seems highly unlikely to mean a comeback for the politicians currently in charge of the party, because Farage would be the one calling the shots. Why let someone in who would leap to instant favourite for next leader and reduce your own chances of being leader or in a good shadow cabinet post?
Suggestions he will replace their candidate in Clacton who is in trouble for letting the mask slip and posting things that were anti-Semitic. Of course Nige isn’t immune to the odd tiny bit of racism adjacent rabble rousing.
Clacton is undoubtedly their best seat so it's strange Tice isn't standing there. Maybe because there was always an idea that Farage might slip in there.
Yes, and he will do the media rounds pretending that he’s answering an overwhelming number of calls to stand and playing the patriotic duty card. The MSM will swallow the bullshit wholesale and the GB News anchors will line up to metaphorically fellate him. Depressing and nauseating in equal measure.
Oh stop whining: Farage is playing politics. Its what politicians do. He’s just better at it than most
LOL Is that why he failed SEVEN times to get elected to Westminster?
We Brexited because of Farage. He’s probably the most consequential British politician since thatcher. You may despise him and abhor his views - fair enough - but these claims he is some kind of failure are absurd. Its like the twattish claim upthread that Trump is a bad businessman and bad politician
That’s Trump, the billionaire businessman who became the most powerful politician in the world
We Brexited because of 17.4 million voters.
Farage played a bit of a role in that. A minor, supporting role alongside many other politicians that backed Brexit.
It is a total rewriting of history to suggest it is all Farage. Farage is so toxic he was quite rightly excluded from Vote Leave, had it been a Farage-led campaign to back Brexit then Remain would have won handsomely.
David Cameron pledged his in/out referendum not after the rise of UKIP, but after a mass rebellion on his own benches from politicians on his own benches that demanded it. He needed to placate his own MPs. Actual elected-to-Parliament Members of Parliament unlike the seven time failure Nigel Farage who was never an MP.
Similarly Trump is a bad politician. You can both be an elected politician and a bad one. Trump is so bad he barely scraped election against the awful politician Hillary Clinton - and then so failed in office that he failed to get re-elected against Biden who had himself been deemed too old and to weak to run for office four years earlier.
Trump joins Carter, widely regarded as a bad politician in office, in being one of only two Presidents since the start of the 20th century who failed to win re-election, when they had the first term* back in office for their party.
* George HW Bush for instance failed to get re-elected but he followed two Reagan terms, so was seeking a fourth term in a row for the Republicans not a second term.
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
A sizeable proportion of the Tory membership would quit if such a merger were proposed. It’s a lazy assumption that ‘the membership’ is a homogeneous bloc.
That is true, but a sizeable proportion of the Tory membership has already moved to reform. And reform generate new voters through Gbeebies and the Daily Mail, whereas the Conservatives no longer convert the 40 and 50 something middle classes in sufficient numbers to offset nature taking its course on an elderly membership.
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
I can see why Farage might favour a deal like that, but why should the people currently in charge of the Tory party?
Because they know its over and assume the way back is through unite the right
Middle ground voters aren’t running into the cuddly arms of boring left tinged centrist Starmer because the Tories aren’t fash enough or because there’s a cryptofash magnet for discontent singing it’s siren song just off the Tories right flank.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
I was watching a youtube Warhammer video the other day which, if you can believe it, started talking about identity politics in an interesting way, in the context of geek fandom.
Essentially, I think we're Donald Ducked. Social media, even back to the Usenet days, is a huge engine for creating identity-based groups. The pandemic gave a good kicking to in-person socialisation that would act to balance it.
Identity-based social grouping creates a sense of being an embattled and victimised minority, it damages broader social empathy, and creates an atomised society of mutually antagonistic identity groups.
Albeit, social majorities acting in the name of unity and homogeneity have done the same, and worse. The twentieth century was riddled with atrocities done by those with that mindset. Treating people well seems like a better guideline than trying to live without any social identity, and a lot more strategically sustainable in case the bad guys really are trying to destroy your group.
Yeah. Clearly I can't get a perfect account of my nuanced position across in this format, and a balance between the two extremes is warranted. There have definitely been some genuinely marginalised minority groups that have benefited a lot from the internet's ability to allow people with niche interests and minority identities to find each other.
But if everyone's identity reduces down only to which minority identity groups they are a member of (me = cyclist, aspie, knitter, mathmo, wargamer, geek, ecosocialist, hiker), and no shared identity on a larger scale (me = English, British, Democrat, European, Human) then I think we have a serious problem.
In particular, if a lot of those minority identity groups have no history of meaningful victimisation, but create a feeling of victimisation through the online expression of that identity group, which is particularly the case with geek fandom, and, say, drivers.
These minority interest groups get more interesting when attempts are made to build bridges between them. For example, I am very active in active travel and hiking/climbing groups. Both groups have large crossovers to LGBT, pro-Palestine, drug using communities, and it's often assumed that I would be interested in those too.
I'm sympathetic to their needs and objectives, but begrudge that assumption and get very irritated when I see Palestine flags all over the place when I'm trying to solve a problem like dooring, or trying to work out if a particular carabiner is incompatible with a belay device.
Only very loosely related, but I passed our very own Palestine camp on my way into the Uni this morning. Looked a bit forlorn really, about fifteen people waving some flags and chanting something along the lines of "What do we want?..."
Was before 9 though, so maybe worth me checking back later. They were making an impressive amount of noise for the size of the group. I pity those in offices nearby.
More related - yes, I know what you mean. Two members of the group that stopped the train* on it's way to Drax tried to recruit me to that effort, one through a climbing group and one through a student committee.
*https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/14/activists.carbonemissions (The nature of the thing I was being invited to was not disclosed to me - just that it was direct action, non-violent, with high likelihood of arrest. They were later all acquitted, I think due to the involvement of under cover police)
Luke Akehurst, a shoe in to be Durham North's next MP, has been harangued by pro Palestine protesters during his campaign over the weekend including turning up to this campaign HQ in Pelton Fell with flags and lots of chants.
Must be sole destroying for him.
(I apologise in advance for possibly treading the pathway for a stampede of shoe-related puns. By all means tell me to 'shoo')
Probably too late, but wasn't Stalin a fan of Moldavan wine? Im guessing there is a personal connection here - first harvest presentation?
Ooh. Well done for having a guess! And not bad!
It is indeed associated with a significant political figure. Remember it was found on a train….
Opened when they signed the Brest-Litovsk treaty?
Oooh. Close enough for me to reveal the truth!
That bottle is part of Herman Goering’s enormous wine collection. Yes! He loved a fine drop and he had 20,000 bottles. It was found by Soviet troops - along with all Goering’s looted art, sculptures, rare books etc - in an abandoned train near konigsberg at the end of the war
In a weird bit of Soviet logic it was decided this looted Nazi wine should be divided equally between the three Soviet republics most famous for wine - Moldova, Georgia and Armenia
The Moldovan portion is now preserved in the enormous underground limestone wine caverns of Cricova winery about an hour from Chisinau. Its not usually on view to the public - too sensitive - but as I am a famous flint knapper they showed me
Isn’t that fantastic? This is why I travel
What’s it for? If they aren’t drinking it and no particularly Nazi looking, historically worthy examples are on display? Worth a few million but irrelevant to a State. Pass on my suggestion of a massive piss up for the 80th anniversary of the German surrender next year. I’ll bring some cheese.
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
I think it’s way too late in the day for such a deal. It turns the political landscape on its head, and essentially marks the end of the Conservative Party as we know it.
It would be radical but I can’t see Rishi or most senior Tories being in favour of it. It is an admission of defeat, and that the party cannot compete nationally anymore.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
I was watching a youtube Warhammer video the other day which, if you can believe it, started talking about identity politics in an interesting way, in the context of geek fandom.
Essentially, I think we're Donald Ducked. Social media, even back to the Usenet days, is a huge engine for creating identity-based groups. The pandemic gave a good kicking to in-person socialisation that would act to balance it.
Identity-based social grouping creates a sense of being an embattled and victimised minority, it damages broader social empathy, and creates an atomised society of mutually antagonistic identity groups.
Albeit, social majorities acting in the name of unity and homogeneity have done the same, and worse. The twentieth century was riddled with atrocities done by those with that mindset. Treating people well seems like a better guideline than trying to live without any social identity, and a lot more strategically sustainable in case the bad guys really are trying to destroy your group.
Yeah. Clearly I can't get a perfect account of my nuanced position across in this format, and a balance between the two extremes is warranted. There have definitely been some genuinely marginalised minority groups that have benefited a lot from the internet's ability to allow people with niche interests and minority identities to find each other.
But if everyone's identity reduces down only to which minority identity groups they are a member of (me = cyclist, aspie, knitter, mathmo, wargamer, geek, ecosocialist, hiker), and no shared identity on a larger scale (me = English, British, Democrat, European, Human) then I think we have a serious problem.
In particular, if a lot of those minority identity groups have no history of meaningful victimisation, but create a feeling of victimisation through the online expression of that identity group, which is particularly the case with geek fandom, and, say, drivers.
These minority interest groups get more interesting when attempts are made to build bridges between them. For example, I am very active in active travel and hiking/climbing groups. Both groups have large crossovers to LGBT, pro-Palestine, drug using communities, and it's often assumed that I would be interested in those too.
I'm sympathetic to their needs and objectives, but begrudge that assumption and get very irritated when I see Palestine flags all over the place when I'm trying to solve a problem like dooring, or trying to work out if a particular carabiner is incompatible with a belay device.
Only very loosely related, but I passed our very own Palestine camp on my way into the Uni this morning. Looked a bit forlorn really, about fifteen people waving some flags and chanting something along the lines of "What do we want?..."
Was before 9 though, so maybe worth me checking back later. They were making an impressive amount of noise for the size of the group. I pity those in offices nearby.
More related - yes, I know what you mean. Two members of the group that stopped the train* on it's way to Drax tried to recruit me to that effort, one through a climbing group and one through a student committee.
*https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/14/activists.carbonemissions (The nature of the thing I was being invited to was not disclosed to me - just that it was direct action, non-violent, with high likelihood of arrest. They were later all acquitted, I think due to the involvement of under cover police)
Luke Akehurst, a shoe in to be Durham North's next MP, has been harangued by pro Palestine protesters during his campaign over the weekend including turning up to this campaign HQ in Pelton Fell with flags and lots of chants.
A competitive Gaza-based campaign in North Durham would have been interesting, but it doesn't seem to be fertile ground for one.
When you say “Gaza-based campaign” do you mean the UK Government should level it?
Suggestions he will replace their candidate in Clacton who is in trouble for letting the mask slip and posting things that were anti-Semitic. Of course Nige isn’t immune to the odd tiny bit of racism adjacent rabble rousing.
Clacton is undoubtedly their best seat so it's strange Tice isn't standing there. Maybe because there was always an idea that Farage might slip in there.
Yes, and he will do the media rounds pretending that he’s answering an overwhelming number of calls to stand and playing the patriotic duty card. The MSM will swallow the bullshit wholesale and the GB News anchors will line up to metaphorically fellate him. Depressing and nauseating in equal measure.
Oh stop whining: Farage is playing politics. Its what politicians do. He’s just better at it than most
LOL Is that why he failed SEVEN times to get elected to Westminster?
We Brexited because of Farage. He’s probably the most consequential British politician since thatcher. You may despise him and abhor his views - fair enough - but these claims he is some kind of failure are absurd. Its like the twattish claim upthread that Trump is a bad businessman and bad politician
That’s Trump, the billionaire businessman who became the most powerful politician in the world
We Brexited because of 17.4 million voters.
Farage played a bit of a role in that. A minor, supporting role alongside many other politicians that backed Brexit.
It is a total rewriting of history to suggest it is all Farage. Farage is so toxic he was quite rightly excluded from Vote Leave, had it been a Farage-led campaign to back Brexit then Remain would have won handsomely.
David Cameron pledged his in/out referendum not after the rise of UKIP, but after a mass rebellion on his own benches from politicians on his own benches that demanded it. He needed to placate his own MPs. Actual elected-to-Parliament Members of Parliament unlike the seven time failure Nigel Farage who was never an MP.
Similarly Trump is a bad politician. You can both be an elected politician and a bad one. Trump is so bad he barely scraped election against the awful politician Hillary Clinton - and then so failed in office that he failed to get re-elected against Biden who had himself been deemed too old and to weak to run for office four years earlier.
Trump joins Carter, widely regarded as a bad politician in office, in being one of only two Presidents since the start of the 20th century who failed to win re-election, when they had the first term* back in office for their party.
* George HW Bush for instance failed to get re-elected but he followed two Reagan terms, so was seeking a fourth term in a row for the Republicans not a second term.
Et voila and QED
Translation: Leon can't come up with a response as he knows what I wrote is correct but he's too pig-headed to admit it.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
I was watching a youtube Warhammer video the other day which, if you can believe it, started talking about identity politics in an interesting way, in the context of geek fandom.
Essentially, I think we're Donald Ducked. Social media, even back to the Usenet days, is a huge engine for creating identity-based groups. The pandemic gave a good kicking to in-person socialisation that would act to balance it.
Identity-based social grouping creates a sense of being an embattled and victimised minority, it damages broader social empathy, and creates an atomised society of mutually antagonistic identity groups.
Albeit, social majorities acting in the name of unity and homogeneity have done the same, and worse. The twentieth century was riddled with atrocities done by those with that mindset. Treating people well seems like a better guideline than trying to live without any social identity, and a lot more strategically sustainable in case the bad guys really are trying to destroy your group.
Yeah. Clearly I can't get a perfect account of my nuanced position across in this format, and a balance between the two extremes is warranted. There have definitely been some genuinely marginalised minority groups that have benefited a lot from the internet's ability to allow people with niche interests and minority identities to find each other.
But if everyone's identity reduces down only to which minority identity groups they are a member of (me = cyclist, aspie, knitter, mathmo, wargamer, geek, ecosocialist, hiker), and no shared identity on a larger scale (me = English, British, Democrat, European, Human) then I think we have a serious problem.
In particular, if a lot of those minority identity groups have no history of meaningful victimisation, but create a feeling of victimisation through the online expression of that identity group, which is particularly the case with geek fandom, and, say, drivers.
These minority interest groups get more interesting when attempts are made to build bridges between them. For example, I am very active in active travel and hiking/climbing groups. Both groups have large crossovers to LGBT, pro-Palestine, drug using communities, and it's often assumed that I would be interested in those too.
I'm sympathetic to their needs and objectives, but begrudge that assumption and get very irritated when I see Palestine flags all over the place when I'm trying to solve a problem like dooring, or trying to work out if a particular carabiner is incompatible with a belay device.
Only very loosely related, but I passed our very own Palestine camp on my way into the Uni this morning. Looked a bit forlorn really, about fifteen people waving some flags and chanting something along the lines of "What do we want?..."
Was before 9 though, so maybe worth me checking back later. They were making an impressive amount of noise for the size of the group. I pity those in offices nearby.
More related - yes, I know what you mean. Two members of the group that stopped the train* on it's way to Drax tried to recruit me to that effort, one through a climbing group and one through a student committee.
*https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/14/activists.carbonemissions (The nature of the thing I was being invited to was not disclosed to me - just that it was direct action, non-violent, with high likelihood of arrest. They were later all acquitted, I think due to the involvement of under cover police)
Luke Akehurst, a shoe in to be Durham North's next MP, has been harangued by pro Palestine protesters during his campaign over the weekend including turning up to this campaign HQ in Pelton Fell with flags and lots of chants.
A competitive Gaza-based campaign in North Durham would have been interesting, but it doesn't seem to be fertile ground for one.
When you say “Gaza-based campaign” do you mean the UK Government should level it?
Or perhaps a Newcastle-based candidate with Orange Order connections who cries at the end.
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
A sizeable proportion of the Tory membership would quit if such a merger were proposed. It’s a lazy assumption that ‘the membership’ is a homogeneous bloc.
Yep. But they are desperate.
Not that desperate. I’m persuadable to vote Tory again this time any hint of such a deal I’d not be. I suspect the combination of Tory-ref in a merger would be lower than the combined share as separate entities. It would be a suicidal play for the Tories
@christopherhope NEW A Farage sized stone has just dropped into the becalmed election pond on Monday morning. Very senior figures in Reform UK have been blindsided by Nigel Farage's statement at 4pm. One friend of Farage tells me it will either be an electoral pact with the Tories (unlikely) or an about-turn on standing at the electionn (more likely). The deadline for nominations is imminent. Farage himself is not answering his phone. Watch the drama play out at 4pm on @GBNEWS .
If it's the latter, I almost feel sorry for Sunak.
Only a few days ago:
Isabel Oakeshott @IsabelOakeshott · May 29 Richard Tice is Leader of @reformparty_uk and there won’t be any deals with the Tory party. End of.
There’s still time for Farage to fire him as leader and stand himself.
To my mind one of the things Labour should do is to outlaw the way Reform is set up. It shouldn’t be possible for a political party to be the wholly owned subsidiary of one man’s ego.
Although it’s probably the main reason why they’ve underperformed. UKIP was much more like a proper party, with all the factionalism that goes with it.
In 2015 I could name UKIP politicians other than Farage.
Nuttall, Evans and James being three others. I can't do this with Reform (except Tice).
The value in the US markets is probably Biden at this point in time, by the way the chance I make it of both surviving to the start line is 93.2% (Interpolating https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html) . Given they're both ~ 100% (Barring death) to be the nominees, the overround in the markets should be ~ 7.3% (And should decrease daily)
It's 50.5% Trump and 39.4% Biden right now, which sums to 89.4% & at least half that 7.3% should be on Kamala Harris (It's not in the betting markets)
5 months till election Trump 77 Biden 81 From the SSA data: p(77yo dead within 12m) 0.048 p(81yo ditto) 0.071 Multiply by 5/12 making silly linear assumption but overestimating chance of demise not the reverse... ...also make the even worse assumption they're both in average physical health for their age... T 0.020 B 0.030 -> chance of both surviving = 0.98*0.97 = 0.95 How did you get 0.932?
Suggestions he will replace their candidate in Clacton who is in trouble for letting the mask slip and posting things that were anti-Semitic. Of course Nige isn’t immune to the odd tiny bit of racism adjacent rabble rousing.
Clacton is undoubtedly their best seat so it's strange Tice isn't standing there. Maybe because there was always an idea that Farage might slip in there.
Yes, and he will do the media rounds pretending that he’s answering an overwhelming number of calls to stand and playing the patriotic duty card. The MSM will swallow the bullshit wholesale and the GB News anchors will line up to metaphorically fellate him. Depressing and nauseating in equal measure.
Oh stop whining: Farage is playing politics. Its what politicians do. He’s just better at it than most
LOL Is that why he failed SEVEN times to get elected to Westminster?
We Brexited because of Farage. He’s probably the most consequential British politician since thatcher. You may despise him and abhor his views - fair enough - but these claims he is some kind of failure are absurd. Its like the twattish claim upthread that Trump is a bad businessman and bad politician
That’s Trump, the billionaire businessman who became the most powerful politician in the world
We Brexited because of 17.4 million voters.
Farage played a bit of a role in that. A minor, supporting role alongside many other politicians that backed Brexit.
It is a total rewriting of history to suggest it is all Farage. Farage is so toxic he was quite rightly excluded from Vote Leave, had it been a Farage-led campaign to back Brexit then Remain would have won handsomely.
David Cameron pledged his in/out referendum not after the rise of UKIP, but after a mass rebellion on his own benches from politicians on his own benches that demanded it. He needed to placate his own MPs. Actual elected-to-Parliament Members of Parliament unlike the seven time failure Nigel Farage who was never an MP.
Similarly Trump is a bad politician. You can both be an elected politician and a bad one. Trump is so bad he barely scraped election against the awful politician Hillary Clinton - and then so failed in office that he failed to get re-elected against Biden who had himself been deemed too old and to weak to run for office four years earlier.
Trump joins Carter, widely regarded as a bad politician in office, in being one of only two Presidents since the start of the 20th century who failed to win re-election, when they had the first term* back in office for their party.
* George HW Bush for instance failed to get re-elected but he followed two Reagan terms, so was seeking a fourth term in a row for the Republicans not a second term.
Without Farage there probably wouldn't have been a referendum in the first place.
Trump has moved the political centre ground in America, not only redefining the Republicans but also forcing the Democrats under Biden to adopt some of his policies.
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
A sizeable proportion of the Tory membership would quit if such a merger were proposed. It’s a lazy assumption that ‘the membership’ is a homogeneous bloc.
Yep. But they are desperate.
Not that desperate. I’m persuadable to vote Tory again this time any hint of such a deal I’d not be. I suspect the combination of Tory-ref in a merger would be lower than the combined share as separate entities. It would be a suicidal play for the Tories
Yes but in general being in a position where you're averaging 23% in the polls is desperate for the Tories.
Suggestions he will replace their candidate in Clacton who is in trouble for letting the mask slip and posting things that were anti-Semitic. Of course Nige isn’t immune to the odd tiny bit of racism adjacent rabble rousing.
Clacton is undoubtedly their best seat so it's strange Tice isn't standing there. Maybe because there was always an idea that Farage might slip in there.
Yes, and he will do the media rounds pretending that he’s answering an overwhelming number of calls to stand and playing the patriotic duty card. The MSM will swallow the bullshit wholesale and the GB News anchors will line up to metaphorically fellate him. Depressing and nauseating in equal measure.
Oh stop whining: Farage is playing politics. Its what politicians do. He’s just better at it than most
LOL Is that why he failed SEVEN times to get elected to Westminster?
We Brexited because of Farage. He’s probably the most consequential British politician since thatcher. You may despise him and abhor his views - fair enough - but these claims he is some kind of failure are absurd. Its like the twattish claim upthread that Trump is a bad businessman and bad politician
That’s Trump, the billionaire businessman who became the most powerful politician in the world
We Brexited because of 17.4 million voters.
Farage played a bit of a role in that. A minor, supporting role alongside many other politicians that backed Brexit.
It is a total rewriting of history to suggest it is all Farage. Farage is so toxic he was quite rightly excluded from Vote Leave, had it been a Farage-led campaign to back Brexit then Remain would have won handsomely.
David Cameron pledged his in/out referendum not after the rise of UKIP, but after a mass rebellion on his own benches from politicians on his own benches that demanded it. He needed to placate his own MPs. Actual elected-to-Parliament Members of Parliament unlike the seven time failure Nigel Farage who was never an MP.
Similarly Trump is a bad politician. You can both be an elected politician and a bad one. Trump is so bad he barely scraped election against the awful politician Hillary Clinton - and then so failed in office that he failed to get re-elected against Biden who had himself been deemed too old and to weak to run for office four years earlier.
Trump joins Carter, widely regarded as a bad politician in office, in being one of only two Presidents since the start of the 20th century who failed to win re-election, when they had the first term* back in office for their party.
* George HW Bush for instance failed to get re-elected but he followed two Reagan terms, so was seeking a fourth term in a row for the Republicans not a second term.
Et voila and QED
Translation: Leon can't come up with a response as he knows what I wrote is correct but he's too pig-headed to admit it.
Suggestions he will replace their candidate in Clacton who is in trouble for letting the mask slip and posting things that were anti-Semitic. Of course Nige isn’t immune to the odd tiny bit of racism adjacent rabble rousing.
Clacton is undoubtedly their best seat so it's strange Tice isn't standing there. Maybe because there was always an idea that Farage might slip in there.
Yes, and he will do the media rounds pretending that he’s answering an overwhelming number of calls to stand and playing the patriotic duty card. The MSM will swallow the bullshit wholesale and the GB News anchors will line up to metaphorically fellate him. Depressing and nauseating in equal measure.
Oh stop whining: Farage is playing politics. Its what politicians do. He’s just better at it than most
LOL Is that why he failed SEVEN times to get elected to Westminster?
We Brexited because of Farage. He’s probably the most consequential British politician since thatcher. You may despise him and abhor his views - fair enough - but these claims he is some kind of failure are absurd. Its like the twattish claim upthread that Trump is a bad businessman and bad politician
That’s Trump, the billionaire businessman who became the most powerful politician in the world
We Brexited because of 17.4 million voters.
Farage played a bit of a role in that. A minor, supporting role alongside many other politicians that backed Brexit.
It is a total rewriting of history to suggest it is all Farage. Farage is so toxic he was quite rightly excluded from Vote Leave, had it been a Farage-led campaign to back Brexit then Remain would have won handsomely.
David Cameron pledged his in/out referendum not after the rise of UKIP, but after a mass rebellion on his own benches from politicians on his own benches that demanded it. He needed to placate his own MPs. Actual elected-to-Parliament Members of Parliament unlike the seven time failure Nigel Farage who was never an MP.
Similarly Trump is a bad politician. You can both be an elected politician and a bad one. Trump is so bad he barely scraped election against the awful politician Hillary Clinton - and then so failed in office that he failed to get re-elected against Biden who had himself been deemed too old and to weak to run for office four years earlier.
Trump joins Carter, widely regarded as a bad politician in office, in being one of only two Presidents since the start of the 20th century who failed to win re-election, when they had the first term* back in office for their party.
* George HW Bush for instance failed to get re-elected but he followed two Reagan terms, so was seeking a fourth term in a row for the Republicans not a second term.
Delusional. No Farage no Brexit. But I know it helps you sleep at night to think that he was incidental to the whole thing. Why for example do you think there was a mass rebellion on the Cons benches. Because of pressure from UKIP/Farage.
A resurgence of Boudicanism, ready to scythe down the foot soldiers of nasty cosmopolitans with their wanky central heating, baths and mosaics?
I'm more inclined to think it's pratto and twatto from the 'burbs with their banging BMWs with ambient blue lighting, dreaming to be like the guy who drove his Range Rover Sport SVR plank wagon through Park Royal at 100mph, and killed the woman he was trying to impress.
That's not the style of better off morons from the North Lincolnshire performance car business belt.
Bet it is owned by an estate agent from Foxtons or a recruiters from a firm of similar quality.
Nah, he draws votes evenly from the other 2 in hypotheticals if he stands, and when Reform go down it seems to be Labour gaining in polls. He's net neutral to the result imo. And he will be tied to a constituency campaigning not getting unwarranted airtime on the beeb
A resurgence of Boudicanism, ready to scythe down the foot soldiers of nasty cosmopolitans with their wanky central heating, baths and mosaics?
I'm more inclined to think it's pratto and twatto from the 'burbs with their banging BMWs with ambient blue lighting, dreaming to be like the guy who drove his Range Rover Sport SVR plank wagon through Park Royal at 100mph, and killed the woman he was trying to impress.
That's not the style of better off morons from the North Lincolnshire performance car business belt.
It's a 2017 - 2020 Gen 1 Toyota 86. Buddy's fitment is trash. #hellasunk
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
A sizeable proportion of the Tory membership would quit if such a merger were proposed. It’s a lazy assumption that ‘the membership’ is a homogeneous bloc.
Yep. But they are desperate.
Not that desperate. I’m persuadable to vote Tory again this time any hint of such a deal I’d not be. I suspect the combination of Tory-ref in a merger would be lower than the combined share as separate entities. It would be a suicidal play for the Tories
Yes but in general being in a position where you're averaging 23% in the polls is desperate for the Tories.
So the Tories are going to do a deal with Reform after Farages comments on Sky News .
I’m still dubious .
The Tories would probably have to stand down in 50 to 100 seats in favour of Reform for a deal to happen.
Not if they've agreed a merger after the election. Stand aside in a handful, soft pedal Clacton to get the spiv in etc, in return Reform go full tilt on the NE, Mids and Yorks/Humber and not the blue wall
A sizeable proportion of the Tory membership would quit if such a merger were proposed. It’s a lazy assumption that ‘the membership’ is a homogeneous bloc.
Yep. But they are desperate.
Not that desperate. I’m persuadable to vote Tory again this time any hint of such a deal I’d not be. I suspect the combination of Tory-ref in a merger would be lower than the combined share as separate entities. It would be a suicidal play for the Tories
Yes but in general being in a position where you're averaging 23% in the polls is desperate for the Tories.
Yes but that’s a situation not improved by falling into the toxic embrace of Farage
Suggestions he will replace their candidate in Clacton who is in trouble for letting the mask slip and posting things that were anti-Semitic. Of course Nige isn’t immune to the odd tiny bit of racism adjacent rabble rousing.
Clacton is undoubtedly their best seat so it's strange Tice isn't standing there. Maybe because there was always an idea that Farage might slip in there.
Yes, and he will do the media rounds pretending that he’s answering an overwhelming number of calls to stand and playing the patriotic duty card. The MSM will swallow the bullshit wholesale and the GB News anchors will line up to metaphorically fellate him. Depressing and nauseating in equal measure.
Oh stop whining: Farage is playing politics. Its what politicians do. He’s just better at it than most
LOL Is that why he failed SEVEN times to get elected to Westminster?
We Brexited because of Farage. He’s probably the most consequential British politician since thatcher. You may despise him and abhor his views - fair enough - but these claims he is some kind of failure are absurd. Its like the twattish claim upthread that Trump is a bad businessman and bad politician
That’s Trump, the billionaire businessman who became the most powerful politician in the world
We Brexited because of 17.4 million voters.
Farage played a bit of a role in that. A minor, supporting role alongside many other politicians that backed Brexit.
It is a total rewriting of history to suggest it is all Farage. Farage is so toxic he was quite rightly excluded from Vote Leave, had it been a Farage-led campaign to back Brexit then Remain would have won handsomely.
David Cameron pledged his in/out referendum not after the rise of UKIP, but after a mass rebellion on his own benches from politicians on his own benches that demanded it. He needed to placate his own MPs. Actual elected-to-Parliament Members of Parliament unlike the seven time failure Nigel Farage who was never an MP.
Similarly Trump is a bad politician. You can both be an elected politician and a bad one. Trump is so bad he barely scraped election against the awful politician Hillary Clinton - and then so failed in office that he failed to get re-elected against Biden who had himself been deemed too old and to weak to run for office four years earlier.
Trump joins Carter, widely regarded as a bad politician in office, in being one of only two Presidents since the start of the 20th century who failed to win re-election, when they had the first term* back in office for their party.
* George HW Bush for instance failed to get re-elected but he followed two Reagan terms, so was seeking a fourth term in a row for the Republicans not a second term.
Delusional. No Farage no Brexit. But I know it helps you sleep at night to think that he was incidental to the whole thing. Why for example do you think there was a mass rebellion on the Cons benches. Because of pressure from UKIP/Farage.
What Farage is very good at is creating enough fuss and noise that others feel that they have to dance to his tune, even without him being elected himself.
Power without responsibility. Stanley Baldwin had something to say about that.
And if you don't think that's Farage's superpower, look at us. The whole "will he, won't he" thing is exactly what an attention-hogging grifter would do.
This better be good from Nige. If we just get 'the country deserves better than Starnak' then I'll be disappointed. I want to see a Farage/Truss dream ticket at the very least.
If the answer to the question Cui Bono has to be Nigel Farage then I would imagine nothing short of a senior position in the Cons party with a safe (!) seat to boot would be acceptable.
Nige must look back on the last two decades of his unprecedented electoral success and wonder what he could do to top it. Standing for election in Fuckborough can surely not come close to defining the political destiny of a country to the extent that he was able to in 2016.
I see that Leon and I are of rare accord on this one. Anyone who thinks Farage is not one of the most successful or effective politicians of our age has no right to be commenting on PB.
There is no evidence that Farage helped the Vote Leave campaign. It depends how far back you want to go. It could certainly be argued that he and his party's success put pressure on Cameron to hold the referendum but none that he personally affected the result. The Referendum was won by Cummings and Johnson and the insipidity of Corbyn and Cameron. Farage played no useful part after the referendum was called.
Probably too late, but wasn't Stalin a fan of Moldavan wine? Im guessing there is a personal connection here - first harvest presentation?
Ooh. Well done for having a guess! And not bad!
It is indeed associated with a significant political figure. Remember it was found on a train….
Wait a minute - that area was over-run by the Wermacht in WWII - is it war booty? Not Hitler obviously as he didn't drink. In Band of Brothers ISTR they found Goering's cellar, is that the connection?
According to Politico this morning, Kemi Badenoch "will play a more active role in the Conservative campaign" from now on.
But a senior Tory source tells HuffPost UK: "She needs to be locked in a fridge away from normal people."
The appeal of Bad Enoch is lost on me and, it seems, most of the public. She is a wooden, uninspiring performer and was entirely mute as Biz Sec for months/years. Can someone explain what she has that some see in her?
"Bad Enoch" most witty. There really is no beginning to your talents, is there.
Another example of the ‘Lifelong Labour Voter’ being easily triggered by a tease of his purported opponents.
I wonder whether the change of heart is due to the lack of Con improvement in the polls or whether it is due to the way that CCO are parachuting in centrists (same as Lab are) that will make it much harder for a right winger to win the next Conservative leadership election.
On the latter point, the Wokingham Cons have selected someone who seems to be confused as to whether she is fighting Woking or Wokingham. She previously also stood for Henley so I'm guessing as no local connections at all.
Generally seems a bad move as she is fighting a LD local champion (unless the Cons are writing it off and giving her experience)
If the answer to the question Cui Bono has to be Nigel Farage then I would imagine nothing short of a senior position in the Cons party with a safe (!) seat to boot would be acceptable.
Nige must look back on the last two decades of his unprecedented electoral success and wonder what he could do to top it. Standing for election in Fuckborough can surely not come close to defining the political destiny of a country to the extent that he was able to in 2016.
I see that Leon and I are of rare accord on this one. Anyone who thinks Farage is not one of the most successful or effective politicians of our age has no right to be commenting on PB.
There is no evidence that Farage helped the Vote Leave campaign. It depends how far back you you want to go. It could certainly be argued that he and his party's success put pressure on Cameron to hold the referendum but none at all that he personally affected the result. The Referendum was won by Cummings and Johnson and the insipidity of Corbyn and Cameron. Farage played no useful part.
It's interesting how Boris and Cummings have been airbrushed out of history. There was a time when you couldn't move on here for comments about Dom and his 12D chess - the man was universally agreed to be omnipotent. What prompted this revisionism?
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
I was watching a youtube Warhammer video the other day which, if you can believe it, started talking about identity politics in an interesting way, in the context of geek fandom.
Essentially, I think we're Donald Ducked. Social media, even back to the Usenet days, is a huge engine for creating identity-based groups. The pandemic gave a good kicking to in-person socialisation that would act to balance it.
Identity-based social grouping creates a sense of being an embattled and victimised minority, it damages broader social empathy, and creates an atomised society of mutually antagonistic identity groups.
Albeit, social majorities acting in the name of unity and homogeneity have done the same, and worse. The twentieth century was riddled with atrocities done by those with that mindset. Treating people well seems like a better guideline than trying to live without any social identity, and a lot more strategically sustainable in case the bad guys really are trying to destroy your group.
Yeah. Clearly I can't get a perfect account of my nuanced position across in this format, and a balance between the two extremes is warranted. There have definitely been some genuinely marginalised minority groups that have benefited a lot from the internet's ability to allow people with niche interests and minority identities to find each other.
But if everyone's identity reduces down only to which minority identity groups they are a member of (me = cyclist, aspie, knitter, mathmo, wargamer, geek, ecosocialist, hiker), and no shared identity on a larger scale (me = English, British, Democrat, European, Human) then I think we have a serious problem.
In particular, if a lot of those minority identity groups have no history of meaningful victimisation, but create a feeling of victimisation through the online expression of that identity group, which is particularly the case with geek fandom, and, say, drivers.
These minority interest groups get more interesting when attempts are made to build bridges between them. For example, I am very active in active travel and hiking/climbing groups. Both groups have large crossovers to LGBT, pro-Palestine, drug using communities, and it's often assumed that I would be interested in those too.
I'm sympathetic to their needs and objectives, but begrudge that assumption and get very irritated when I see Palestine flags all over the place when I'm trying to solve a problem like dooring, or trying to work out if a particular carabiner is incompatible with a belay device.
I've encountered the same bundle of loud preferences in a totally different activity group. I think it's simply that people with that bundle of interests have a much weaker filter than the politically normal (Labour / Conservative), moderates, or evangelical Christians, whether due to narcissism or less fear of being socially policed by the scuffed-left bundle.
@KateEMcCann Ooof. Kemi Badenoch accuses @StigAbell of inviting her on @TimesRadio breakfast under “false pretences” because he asked her about … social care. After asking her about equalities for 80 per cent of the interview. Asking Cabinet ministers about election manifesto policy definitely isn’t off limits… usually.
How people see Badenoch as leadership material is beyond me. She really really doesn’t have it. At least Penny Mordaunt has charm.
It’s because she is willing to spout the claptrap that a significant portion of idiot Tories are signed up to. What stuns me is the way certain Tory politicians take the GB news shilling and certain Tory supporters fall over themselves to big up that outlet when their agenda is antithetical to the survival of an electable Tory party.
I think she's bang-on with identity politics.
Whether she's ready to be leader is another matter.
I’d say that aspects of the analysis are correct, the solutions that are proposed are more problematic. I have no issues with ensuring that biological women have proper protection in single sex spaces but too often rather than treat the problem as bad actors in the trans space the likes of Kemi and her ilk give the impression that Trans people are nothing but bad actors. That’s wrong and won’t help anyone get to the right place on this issue.
I have remarkably little interest in the Trans issue, which I imagine is the same of most people.
It's the broader point of judging people and weighting their experiences/views by what identity group they're in that I think is a problem. Even talking about it too much can reinforce it.
I was watching a youtube Warhammer video the other day which, if you can believe it, started talking about identity politics in an interesting way, in the context of geek fandom.
Essentially, I think we're Donald Ducked. Social media, even back to the Usenet days, is a huge engine for creating identity-based groups. The pandemic gave a good kicking to in-person socialisation that would act to balance it.
Identity-based social grouping creates a sense of being an embattled and victimised minority, it damages broader social empathy, and creates an atomised society of mutually antagonistic identity groups.
Albeit, social majorities acting in the name of unity and homogeneity have done the same, and worse. The twentieth century was riddled with atrocities done by those with that mindset. Treating people well seems like a better guideline than trying to live without any social identity, and a lot more strategically sustainable in case the bad guys really are trying to destroy your group.
Yeah. Clearly I can't get a perfect account of my nuanced position across in this format, and a balance between the two extremes is warranted. There have definitely been some genuinely marginalised minority groups that have benefited a lot from the internet's ability to allow people with niche interests and minority identities to find each other.
But if everyone's identity reduces down only to which minority identity groups they are a member of (me = cyclist, aspie, knitter, mathmo, wargamer, geek, ecosocialist, hiker), and no shared identity on a larger scale (me = English, British, Democrat, European, Human) then I think we have a serious problem.
In particular, if a lot of those minority identity groups have no history of meaningful victimisation, but create a feeling of victimisation through the online expression of that identity group, which is particularly the case with geek fandom, and, say, drivers.
These minority interest groups get more interesting when attempts are made to build bridges between them. For example, I am very active in active travel and hiking/climbing groups. Both groups have large crossovers to LGBT, pro-Palestine, drug using communities, and it's often assumed that I would be interested in those too.
I'm sympathetic to their needs and objectives, but begrudge that assumption and get very irritated when I see Palestine flags all over the place when I'm trying to solve a problem like dooring, or trying to work out if a particular carabiner is incompatible with a belay device.
Only very loosely related, but I passed our very own Palestine camp on my way into the Uni this morning. Looked a bit forlorn really, about fifteen people waving some flags and chanting something along the lines of "What do we want?..."
Was before 9 though, so maybe worth me checking back later. They were making an impressive amount of noise for the size of the group. I pity those in offices nearby.
More related - yes, I know what you mean. Two members of the group that stopped the train* on it's way to Drax tried to recruit me to that effort, one through a climbing group and one through a student committee.
*https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/14/activists.carbonemissions (The nature of the thing I was being invited to was not disclosed to me - just that it was direct action, non-violent, with high likelihood of arrest. They were later all acquitted, I think due to the involvement of under cover police)
Luke Akehurst, a shoe in to be Durham North's next MP, has been harangued by pro Palestine protesters during his campaign over the weekend including turning up to this campaign HQ in Pelton Fell with flags and lots of chants.
A competitive Gaza-based campaign in North Durham would have been interesting, but it doesn't seem to be fertile ground for one.
When you say “Gaza-based campaign” do you mean the UK Government should level it?
Thatcher made a start with Consett steelworks, just outside the constituency boundary.
Comments
"We need to come together to stop Starmer, the dangerous man whose real character comes out in how he enables the wicked Diane Abbott - first she's suspended, and then he lets her back into the game shortly before an election." That should play well with Sun and Express readers.
Farage may not have as much clout as he did in 2019, but he's still got a lot of clout and if Reform pull their candidates they would significantly increase the Tory voteshare - there shouldn't be any doubt about that. The scores they've been achieving in polls have been ridiculous and won't happen IRL.
But it's possible the Farage announcement is not about Reform but about Farage. If it were about a Reform-Tory agreement it wouldn't be announced by Farage.
Nor would I put it past Sunak to offer Farage whatever he wants to come "home".
Thank-you for the header.
I'm off-topic - a weird trend of putting spiked wheel nuts on cars a la Mad Max. WTF?
https://x.com/GlosPolSpecOps/status/1797560005165478377
"Olen leon en ole noel eli elon"
I'm sympathetic to their needs and objectives, but begrudge that assumption and get very irritated when I see Palestine flags all over the place when I'm trying to solve a problem like dooring, or trying to work out if a particular carabiner is incompatible with a belay device.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13239427/X-eSafety-Commissioner-trans-Teddy-Cook.html
I’m still dubious .
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp4475gwny1o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvQLlvO-8tc
In response, Israel's foreign ministry recommends its citizens - including those with dual citizenship - do not travel to the predominantly Muslim archipelago."
https://news.sky.com/story/maldives-announces-ban-on-israelis-entering-country-13147126
But I also think he’s going senile like Biden. Not a great combo
Was before 9 though, so maybe worth me checking back later. They were making an impressive amount of noise for the size of the group. I pity those in offices nearby.
More related - yes, I know what you mean. Two members of the group that stopped the train* on it's way to Drax tried to recruit me to that effort, one through a climbing group and one through a student committee.
*https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/jun/14/activists.carbonemissions
(The nature of the thing I was being invited to was not disclosed to me - just that it was direct action, non-violent, with high likelihood of arrest. They were later all acquitted, I think due to the involvement of under cover police)
That's not the style of better off morons from the North Lincolnshire performance car business belt.
But I’d say the same if someone tried to claim Stalin was bad at politics. Or Mao. Its obviously dumb - both were brilliant, but unfortunately evil
Hitler was a skilled orator, great agitator, nifty flag designer - and really good on the size of German opera houses. Pol pot was sadly a grand schemer. Jeffrey dahmer was good looking. Jack the Ripper was adept at getting away with ripping. Etc
The BBC debate should be open to any party standing in 326 seats, and they should be invited to nominate one of their candidates to attend.
Teddy Cook believes he’s a man. So presumably is perfectly happy using the gents?
https://www.4chan.org/index.php
EDIT: the following video was made by a recruitment firm to promote themselves. https://vimeo.com/294113332/43d60b2c24
Ah, @TSE, what a marvellous and witty name it was. I was, of course, only condemning the taking of this brilliance and passing it off as one's own.
That bottle is part of Herman Goering’s enormous wine collection. Yes! He loved a fine drop and he had 20,000 bottles. It was found by Soviet troops - along with all Goering’s looted art, sculptures, rare books etc - in an abandoned train near konigsberg at the end of the war
In a weird bit of Soviet logic it was decided this looted Nazi wine should be divided equally between the three Soviet republics most famous for wine
- Moldova, Georgia and Armenia
The Moldovan portion is now preserved in the enormous underground limestone wine caverns of Cricova winery about an hour from Chisinau. Its not usually on view to the public - too sensitive - but as I am a famous flint knapper they showed me
Isn’t that fantastic? This is why I travel
YouGov/Sky News MRP: 5pm
More in Common MRP
Redfield & Wilton 10,000 Mega Poll: 3pm
According to Sam Freedman there are two other polls being released today.
Just want to plan my day accordingly...
Farage played a bit of a role in that. A minor, supporting role alongside many other politicians that backed Brexit.
It is a total rewriting of history to suggest it is all Farage. Farage is so toxic he was quite rightly excluded from Vote Leave, had it been a Farage-led campaign to back Brexit then Remain would have won handsomely.
David Cameron pledged his in/out referendum not after the rise of UKIP, but after a mass rebellion on his own benches from politicians on his own benches that demanded it. He needed to placate his own MPs. Actual elected-to-Parliament Members of Parliament unlike the seven time failure Nigel Farage who was never an MP.
Similarly Trump is a bad politician. You can both be an elected politician and a bad one. Trump is so bad he barely scraped election against the awful politician Hillary Clinton - and then so failed in office that he failed to get re-elected against Biden who had himself been deemed too old and to weak to run for office four years earlier.
Trump joins Carter, widely regarded as a bad politician in office, in being one of only two Presidents since the start of the 20th century who failed to win re-election, when they had the first term* back in office for their party.
* George HW Bush for instance failed to get re-elected but he followed two Reagan terms, so was seeking a fourth term in a row for the Republicans not a second term.
(I apologise in advance for possibly treading the pathway for a stampede of shoe-related puns. By all means tell me to 'shoo')
It would be radical but I can’t see Rishi or most senior Tories being in favour of it. It is an admission of defeat, and that the party cannot compete nationally anymore.
Sounds like Nigel is running and no pact
Nuttall, Evans and James being three others. I can't do this with Reform (except Tice).
Trump 77
Biden 81
From the SSA data:
p(77yo dead within 12m) 0.048
p(81yo ditto) 0.071
Multiply by 5/12 making silly linear assumption but overestimating chance of demise not the reverse...
...also make the even worse assumption they're both in average physical health for their age...
T 0.020
B 0.030
-> chance of both surviving = 0.98*0.97 = 0.95
How did you get 0.932?
There's no way I'm laying off my stake on Harris!
Trump has moved the political centre ground in America, not only redefining the Republicans but also forcing the Democrats under Biden to adopt some of his policies.
NO ONE EVER COMES HERE
MAINLY BECAUSE THERE’S NOTHING HERE
Power without responsibility. Stanley Baldwin had something to say about that.
And if you don't think that's Farage's superpower, look at us. The whole "will he, won't he" thing is exactly what an attention-hogging grifter would do.
This one in Belgorod, well inside Russia, appears to have the small problem of being on fire.
https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/1797574830285636044?s=12
"The aristocrats who martyred Trump America's elites aren't as smart as they imagine"
https://unherd.com/2024/06/the-aristocrats-who-martyred-trump/
Funny old world.
A necessary response to the tedious trope of 'Nazi uniforms were so sexy & stylish, they were designed by Hugo Boss you know'
On the latter point, the Wokingham Cons have selected someone who seems to be confused as to whether she is fighting Woking or Wokingham. She previously also stood for Henley so I'm guessing as no local connections at all.
Generally seems a bad move as she is fighting a LD local champion (unless the Cons are writing it off and giving her experience)
When Dave & George faced off against Ed and Ed 2 years ago... they basically had very little to no work experience outside politics between them...
Whatever you think of their politics - Starmer, Sunak, Reeves and Hunt have had previous careers outside politics.