I know we shouldn't judge but the forenames of the other Corbyn's supporters paint a picture: Hope, Victoria, Nicole, Jana, Anna, Rachel, Jemimah, Emma, Philippa, and Alexa.
How on earth did Corbyn mk2 find such an array of names in (checks) the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea?
ANME update: We have a fifth candidate, one Jo Hart. Google the election agent, I think this is a Reform candidate.
Someone's updated the Wikipedia page now with that new candidate, agreeing with me that it's a Reform one. So, not helpful to @RochdalePioneers if he wants to court the Conservative voters. A few of them are bound to go to her.
Lets be honest here - anyone who might vote for Farage wasn't going to vote for me. Let Reform split the hardcore Tory vote. I am now pitching myself as the only candidate who lives and works in the constituency who can stop the SNP.
"Only we can stop the SNP" was the David Duguid pitch. Screw it, I've stolen it.
Yes and no. If people are peeling off from the Tories out of disgust and just want to find some other repository for their vote, without them being true believers of any particular political philosophy, then I can see them going to Lib Dem or Reform. This new candidate is going to cost you potential switchers. I don't think there's masses of true believers here. Reform aren't well loved round these parts. But there's many a protest vote up for grabs.
I believe the fear is "stop the Tories" as a counterpoint to "don't let the English take independence off us"
Duguid ran as the only candidate who could stop the SNP. And the SNP the only candidate who could stop the Tories. So with the Tory vote fragmenting and disappearing, I am going to park myself in their place. A vote for Labour or Reform is a vote for the SNP.
Also remember to point out that Douglas is only going to be a part time MP...
I have just received some Lithic Lovers Monthly travel commissions
If all this pans out it means that in the next 10-12 months I have to go Brittany (again!), Normandy, Uzbekistan, Canada, the USA, Montenegro, Japan, Colombia, El Salvador, Thailand, Cambodia, Italy/Slovenia
I say this not to boast but to - OK I say this to boast
Stay safe if you are in the USA around November. It may remind you of Odessa.
Clearing out an embarrassingly large mound of paper in my office today, around 2/3rds of the way down, I came across an old copy of Computer Weekly, which I must have deliberately saved at the time.
The date, 12-18 May 2009. The front page" "Bankruptcy, prosecution, disrupted livelihoods. Postmasters** tell their story."
CW comment: "The company insists the IT system has been exonerated and fully tested, but we would contend that does not mean local problems are impossible. The Post Office has a responsibility to fully investigate users' concerns, and the postmasters' complaints may have left* a question mark over whether it does this. There is also the question of whether the Post Office has allowed the postmasters to pay for mistakes produced by the technology...."
(*That 'may have" sounds like in-house lawyer speak.)
If a pleb like me twigged to it, it's impossible that directors were not aware of the likelihood of a problem.
(**Lee Castleton Jo Hamilton Noel Thomas Amar Bajaj Alan Bates Alan Brown Julie Ford)
ANME update: We have a fifth candidate, one Jo Hart. Google the election agent, I think this is a Reform candidate.
Someone's updated the Wikipedia page now with that new candidate, agreeing with me that it's a Reform one. So, not helpful to @RochdalePioneers if he wants to court the Conservative voters. A few of them are bound to go to her.
We need to crowdsource snark for him to throw at his opponents. We adopt RP as the PB candidate and see what ridiculousness we can give him to use against his opponents. Donations to a charity of his choice if he uses any of our lines in public.
We're formally launching the campaign tomorrow - 10am in Banff at the Mercat Cross. Followed by a busy weekend of door-knocking and video shooting.
There's a hustings in Cullen on Thursday 20th - have already imagining how I am going to speak to the leader of the Scottish Tories...
Just to say, I don't want a humungous Labour majority at the price of empowering Farage. I'll take the vanilla landslide.
I agree, but I don't think that's going to happen. Reform are not actually going to poll 18%, or even 15%, and they're not going to win more than one or two seats. Look at that Torquay council result, in a Brexit voting and very elderly area. 8.5%, at the height of the Farage bubble. Tories 42%.
The Deplorable demographic is approx 15% of the population, I'd say. Litmus question would be do you like Donald Trump? That fingers them and it's of the order 15%. Maybe a touch higher. If you can get most of them, that's a solid base from which to stretch towards break through and seats. I reckon with Farage in play and the Cons in meltdown we might see that. But I hope we don't.
So you spend years moaning about the Tories and then when they're at deaths door you want them back .
Harsh but fair.
I am not sure a political landscape with Labour, LDs and Reform being the main three parties in England would be too awful though. I really struggle to see Reform ever winning a majority in that world, even noting 'be careful what you wish for'.
John Bull @garius · 3m Tonight Penny Mordaunt, a serving Royal Navy Reserve Officer, gets to be asked live on TV what she thinks of Rishi leaving the D Day anniversary early.
Not serving. The minuscule amount she did ended in 2019.
Just to say, I don't want a humungous Labour majority at the price of empowering Farage. I'll take the vanilla landslide.
I agree, but I don't think that's going to happen. Reform are not actually going to poll 18%, or even 15%, and they're not going to win more than one or two seats. Look at that Torquay council result, in a Brexit voting and very elderly area. 8.5%, at the height of the Farage bubble. Tories 42%.
The Deplorable demographic is approx 15% of the population, I'd say. Litmus question would be do you like Donald Trump? That fingers them and it's of the order 15%. Maybe a touch higher. If you can get most of them, that's a solid base from which to stretch towards break through and seats. I reckon with Farage in play and the Cons in meltdown we might see that. But I hope we don't.
So you spend years moaning about the Tories and then when they're at deaths door you want them back .
@boulay, I do find your account of meeting Farage interesting, but the fact that you two didn't hit it off over drinks is not something that is going to influence my view of him as a politician deeply, if at all.
One of the points about the last 35 years in UK politics is that simple solutions haven't been tried. We haven't tried immigration at levels that we can assimilate happily, we haven't tried reducing the burden of taxation and regulation on businesses successively, we haven't tried the basics of governing and procuring government equipment and services in the national interest and looking after our companies the way France and Germany do, we haven't tried cutting the civil service and quangocracy down to size, we haven't tried zero tolerance policing with an equal approach to all communities. I am sure all these ideas appear very boorish and pedestrian to you, but given that they haven't been implemented at all by governments of any stripe, perhaps they actually are the solution, rather than some delphic arcane mysticism about 'the markets' that you were clearly hoping that NF would reveal to you. Sounds like you'd have preferred a drink with Dominic Cummings.
Secondly, Nigel is in the process of stamping all over what's left of Rishi Sunak's career, and given your oeuvre where he is concerned, I'm afraid I don't consider you an entirely impartial observer.
@boulay, I do find your account of meeting Farage interesting, but the fact that you two didn't hit it off over drinks is not something that is going to influence my view of him as a politician deeply, if at all.
One of the points about the last 35 years in UK politics is that simple solutions haven't been tried. We haven't tried immigration at levels that we can assimilate happily, we haven't tried reducing the burden of taxation and regulation on businesses successively, we haven't tried the basics of governing and procuring government equipment and services in the national interest and looking after our companies the way France and Germany do, we haven't tried cutting the civil service and quangocracy down to size, we haven't tried zero tolerance policing with an equal approach to all communities. I am sure all these ideas appear very boorish and pedestrian to you, but given that they haven't been implemented at all by governments of any stripe, perhaps they actually are the solution, rather than some delphic arcane mysticism about 'the markets' that you were clearly hoping that NF would reveal to you. Sounds like you'd have preferred a drink with Dominic Cummings.
Secondly, Nigel is in the process of stamping all over what's left of Rishi Sunak's career, and given your oeuvre where he is concerned, I'm afraid I don't consider you an entirely impartial observer.
I broadly agree with you @Luckyguy1983 I wish Truss’ economics had been tried during Blair’s golden inheritance. It was just the wrong time, too much at once and not explained clearly and rationalised. I’m pro small state - Christ I live in a place with 20% income tax, no CGT, no inheritance tax and can see how it can work but it’s a massive project to reset the UK and needs to be done right.
I was honestly so open to Farage politics but it was the curtain being drawn back ashe seriously had no real depth - actually a millionth of the wide ranging views that Truss had.
Ex Tory Georgina Hill standing against Anne Marie Trevelyan as an Ind in North Northumberland, should hive off a few unhappy Con voters. If Reform stand a candidate, it could be Goodnight Berwick.
Who(m) pray tell, is financing Reform and it's array of candidates around Great Britain???
Probably Richard Tice, the former leader just replaced by Nigel Farage. The deposit for each candidate is £500 which you lose if you get less than five per cent of the vote. The party is spending little if anything on national advertising, and in each constituency, there is a free leaflet delivery. So there is not a great deal that *has* to be spent, although there is more that *can* be spent.
PBers linked to rival parties may know more about what is actually going on.
In the debate tonight, Rayner is going to complain that this election was their chance to get themselves across, and explain to the voters the detail and minutia of all their plans for government, but Sunak is deliberately drowning this out and hogging the narrative, with constant stories of his own ineptitude.
Senior Labour sources are upset the voters will go into election day still unclear what Labours actual plans are. They believed the focus of the campaign would be on them and their policies, and suspect Sunak deliberately pulled his Dunkirk Moment stunt to continue to lock Labour out from its deserved special moment in the spotlight.
What's your preview on the all-important Battle of the Big Hair?
Any inside track from the Beeb's hair and makeup team?
Red Angela for the win or Blue Penny to sail away with victory?
There will be plenty of other hair on the platform… well, from six of the debaters at least, so we should be fair and divide attention equally amongst it all?
What would they do in make up with Stephen from Scotland? Too glossy and it could reflect the lights, and prove a distraction advantage when he’s speaking? So a Matt finish on the old egg shell?
The Tory answers clearly laid out by Sunak, for his party to follow - waiting lists are down, boat crossings are down, pensioners have never paid tax, Rwanda will be a fabulous deterrent, the 2K Lie wasn’t made up by SPADs in an echo chamber the treasury really did do most of it.
To what extent is everyone else lined up now with responses, soundbites, even cutting jokes to each of those ridiculous lies. So tonight really is all about Penny. How does she answer?
If I were Penny I’d just go rogue to be honest. What’s the worst that could happen?
I’m expecting this debate to be much better than the first one. Mordaunt, Rayner and Cooper are all good engaging debaters, and I expect both Ange and Penny will come across as more likeable than their leaders. Better format too.
Indeed. I'm taping it. But like most of Joe Public, I'll be watching the football on the other channel.
No most of joe public wont be watching the football, will be probably 7 to 8 million, less than 20%....even fewer will watch the debates because frankly most of us couldn't care less about either
Comments
I know we shouldn't judge but the forenames of the other Corbyn's supporters paint a picture: Hope, Victoria, Nicole, Jana, Anna, Rachel, Jemimah, Emma, Philippa, and Alexa.
How on earth did Corbyn mk2 find such an array of names in (checks) the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_UK#Funding_and_structure
The date, 12-18 May 2009.
The front page" "Bankruptcy, prosecution, disrupted livelihoods.
Postmasters** tell their story."
CW comment:
"The company insists the IT system has been exonerated and fully tested, but we would contend that does not mean local problems are impossible.
The Post Office has a responsibility to fully investigate users' concerns, and the postmasters' complaints may have left* a question mark over whether it does this. There is also the question of whether the Post Office has allowed the postmasters to pay for mistakes produced by the technology...."
(*That 'may have" sounds like in-house lawyer speak.)
If a pleb like me twigged to it, it's impossible that directors were not aware of the likelihood of a problem.
(**Lee Castleton
Jo Hamilton
Noel Thomas
Amar Bajaj
Alan Bates
Alan Brown
Julie Ford)
Oliver Pridmore
@OliverPridmore
NEW: The final list of general election candidates are being published and something rather strange has cropped up for Broxtowe.
Dr John Doddy, a Conservative member of Nottinghamshire County Council, is running as an independent against his party's candidate - Darren Henry.
https://x.com/OliverPridmore
I am not sure a political landscape with Labour, LDs and Reform being the main three parties in England would be too awful though. I really struggle to see Reform ever winning a majority in that world, even noting 'be careful what you wish for'.
One of the points about the last 35 years in UK politics is that simple solutions haven't been tried. We haven't tried immigration at levels that we can assimilate happily, we haven't tried reducing the burden of taxation and regulation on businesses successively, we haven't tried the basics of governing and procuring government equipment and services in the national interest and looking after our companies the way France and Germany do, we haven't tried cutting the civil service and quangocracy down to size, we haven't tried zero tolerance policing with an equal approach to all communities. I am sure all these ideas appear very boorish and pedestrian to you, but given that they haven't been implemented at all by governments of any stripe, perhaps they actually are the solution, rather than some delphic arcane mysticism about 'the markets' that you were clearly hoping that NF would reveal to you. Sounds like you'd have preferred a drink with Dominic Cummings.
Secondly, Nigel is in the process of stamping all over what's left of Rishi Sunak's career, and given your oeuvre where he is concerned, I'm afraid I don't consider you an entirely impartial observer.
I was honestly so open to Farage politics but it was the curtain being drawn back ashe seriously had no real depth - actually a millionth of the wide ranging views that Truss had.
Anyway I’m on the other thread now being a dick.
PBers linked to rival parties may know more about what is actually going on.