Graveyard or launchpad? – politicalbetting.com
Graveyard or launchpad? – politicalbetting.com
The Rt Hon Shabana Mahmood MP @ShabanaMahmood has been appointed as Secretary of State for the Home Department @UKHomeOffice. pic.twitter.com/HUKQh8wnDT
1
Comments
With Galloway hinting WPB might now fold into the Corbyn umbrella one of his acolytes under a YP banner would be best placed to try and oust her
Though the Home Office is a very difficult department of government
https://x.com/jayinkyiv/status/1964560453247594975
ICE is sending Russian dissidents back to Russia. According to the @thetimes
When the dissidents arrived in Russia, the Russian authorities were given documents relating to their asylum applications in the US.
https://x.com/Billbrowder/status/1964297062960279595
#LegendaryModestyKlaxon
She seems very much the pound shop version of Ursula von der Leyen, continually failing upwards.
Against that, of course, apparently over a thousand people arrived in small boats yesterday, so she's already failed as HS and should be sacked.
Louise Haigh shrugs off fraud controversy with run for deputy leader
The former transport secretary, who resigned after a past fraud conviction emerged, has told friends that she plans to run in the party election
https://www.thetimes.com/article/7fe538f3-19d0-45b7-98e2-369e074436bc
We've had some on here wailing it's like the 1930s while others have compared the current state to the 1970s.
Needless to say, both are wrong - it's 1981 - who are the Soft Cell and the Adam & The Ants de nos jours?
We have an insurgent party riding high in the polls whose leader basically tells their Party Conference to go back to your constituencies and prepare for a little disappointment (I may have misremembered that).
We have a Government and Prime Minister slightly less popular than bubonic plague but determined to stay on couse and even making a virtue of its unwillingness to countenance any change in policy or direction after having performed any number of changes earlier in its time.
We have a useless ineffective Opposition whose leader is under pressure from more radical colleagues.
Yep, it's 1981 - all we need is a Royal Wedding and we can all do the Prince Charming - remember, ridicule is nothing to be scared of (the motto of the Liberal Democrats I believe).
One point that's not quite correct is that Mahmood* has already faced some of the sort of attacks that Farron attracted. But in this case from the US right on social media - I've even seen calls for the UK's access to Five Eyes data be suspended owing to her appointment.
*my autocorrect has yet to learn the correct spelling of her name
Of her actual record, of course: no hint. She was the perfect deputy prime minister for him: a politician allowed to rise to the top on personality alone. And that personality was: middle-class person’s idea of what a working-class person should be. Slobby, ribald, partying in ’Beefa — isn’t vaping on inflatables what working-class people all do? Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Most working-class people are insulted to be compared to her.
https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/angela-rayner-no-working-class-hero-ptr88wp8b
Rayner was someone from the bottom 10% who moved into the top 10% through the Labour party.
Its no wonder that Labour politicians, people who are obsessed about the top 10% and bottom 10% and very little in between, turned Rayner into their living icon.
Or was then just when Obama did it?
For now that's still a bit unlikely, but what if Trump dies and Vance takes office ?
I don't think this is about Trump alone.
Good to see you writing headers again @Cyclefree and hope you are keeping well.
Indeed it may inspire me to submit a few more headers that have been knocking around in my head.
Which is very similar to the previous Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds.
Its a pity for Labour that there isn't a cabinet post for owning multiple homes and having dubious housing transactions.
They would have no shortage of MPs with personal experience of those.
I don't think anybody is buying that BS.
Mahmood isn’t even listed on Betfair’s next PM market, but you can lay Holly Valance at 870 for £7
But here's the point.
To the racists, it won't matter. Wherever you look through history, people who have set one group up for a fall have rarely cared about the individual, only about their belonging to a group. Hence why Jews who fought for Germany in WW1 were still sent to the camps. If you were a good person, it did not matter. If you were a boon to the country, it did not matter. If you were brilliant in your field, it did not matter.
All that mattered was that you were part of a certain group.
And this is seen time and time again. The Rwandan genocide; Apartheid; racism in America's deep south.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camilla_Long
My suspicion is that the most realistic threat to Starmer in this parliament comes from the (relatively speaking) left of his party.
My experiences in Devon show the countryside is far more welcoming than the latest report on ‘normalised’ abuse would have you believe
Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/02/black-farmer-branding-countryside-as-racist-is-a-mistake/?recomm_id=9d459d0e-d0b5-4de6-907e-d97cbe2896f6
So like Kemi Badenoch, Trump is a snitch.
Health secretaries rarely have a background working in the sector, Transport secretaries rarely used to work on the railways or roads etc etc.
With any luck, we’ll be hearing it again after the F1 race later.
Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military.
https://x.com/JDVance/status/1964341094226743787
JD “I don’t give a shit” Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the “highest and best use of the military.”
Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?
Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation??
What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.
https://x.com/RandPaul/status/1964494191783714933
Which doesn’t make us a pure, prefect land of colour blind plenty, but it is food for thought.
Not doing a very good job so far.
So yes, for someone who tries hard to 'fit in' to her new home and culture, and who lives in, and works in, an area that is fairly multicultural, it is not bad at all. But that is far from being the experience of all.
Forensic handwriting experts say Sir Keir's letter to Angela Rayner reveals a man who is 'untrustworthy', 'two-faced' and 'likes to control'.
Devastating for SKS. I'll bet he wished he'd typed it.
Alternatively, political discourse in the Mail is the pits.
How they laughed.
They wont be ready to come back until they are ready to come back. Which is not achieved by inertia.
Theres some fucked up feathers between duckling and Swan
Now the Americans and their British enablers are trying to take even that away from us.
Question for the lawyers: if Farage had provided the £800k for his girlfriend to buy the flat in Clacton which he later claimed to own, does this actually open him up to any legal liability? It appears on the face of it that he has structured this transaction to avoid paying the higher rate of stamp duty.
If the £800k was a gift & the girlfriend gets to keep the property free & clear if they break up, then obviously he’s fine. But HMRC might well look at this transaction as one being structured to avoid tax & the property being “really” owned by Farage acting in a similar fashion to a shadow director of a limited company. Is that actually prosecutable though? My instincts say no, but that doesn’t mean much in this area!
*) Arguments can be made that the previous goverment got the big calls right - especially vaccines and Ukraine. Notable about Covid was Starmer calling for another lockdown very late during the crisis, which was not needed. That does not mean they didn't get many other things wrong, or were good.
*) Labour are now in power. The longer they are in power, the more responsibility they have for the mess. Harking back to the previous lot will sound increasingly shrill as this government drifts on.
*) Many of the things causing them problems - from the incredible grifting that was going on, to Rayner's stupidity (at best) over her housing are totally their own doing. Utterly unforced errors.
I think it’s too late for Badenoch now. She will be the fall girl for the 2026 elections and it’ll be someone else who needs to try and save the Party.
One of my daughters-in-law is Thai. AFAIK she's also never experienced racist abuse here. Nor, AFAIK has her husband in Thailand.
One of my granddaughters spent a few months waitressing here while she and one of her UK cousins put together enough money for a trip round Europe. The only 'racialism' she experienced was being asked, while waitressing, where she came from. When she told them, all she had was friendly interest.
Although as Chris Philp has hinted. There wasn't a small boat problem before July last year.
There are worrying signs that racism towards certain groups is becoming more 'respectable' again, fuelled by the current dehumanising attitudes towards asylum seekers and the call in some quarters for 'mass deportations'.
We have to hope she can crack this or otherwise the voters will invite Farage to have a go.
If she were able to find some way of boosting her positives from 19 to mid 20s the 'recovery' to 2024 static would be on and 120 to 150 seats is orobably the upper limit of Tory potential unless Reform implode.
Edit to add - her personal ratings have recovered slightly from their floor in May
*https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/oct/12/culture-of-deference-may-have-protected-lord-jenner-abuse-inquiry-hears
https://x.com/bgatesisapyscho/status/1964554012352500054
“Calls for America to restrict its ‘Intelligence Sharing’ with the UK following the appointment of Shabana Mahmood to UK Home Secretary.
“Mahmood swore her oath to UK Office on the Quran & has attended Pro Hamas Rallies that have called for the ‘Globalisation of the Intifada’.”
https://x.com/kevin_rainville/status/1964360369155043682
“@DNIGabbard @SecRubio Five Eyes Intelligence Services MUST exclude the UK from receiving any further data. Mahmood has publicly stated multiple times that Islam governs EVERY facet of her life. Such as spying for the IRGC and practicing Taqiyah during international relations.”
https://x.com/steve_zivin/status/1964295446358090075
“I am not sure Americans realize how outrageous this is. We need to immediately reevaluate intelligence sharing. Mahmood has refused to condemn Palestinian activists sabotaging British military hardware as well as championing boycotts of Jews.“
Whereas Rayner is disconcerting, having gone from bottom 10% to top 10%, entirely through the medium of the Labour party.
That appears great to Labour politicians who are obsessed about those at the top and those at the bottom.
But less so to the 80% who get the impression that Labour isn't interested in them.
There are, of course, other people who have gone from bottom 10% to top 10% - in sport, in entertainment, even in business. But these people leave a trail of visible achievement whereas Rayner was a pretty rubbish housing minister for a year.
Don't excuse racist fuckwits.
I do not like Farage at all but this is a non story
Lots of more important ones, like sending women back to Afghanistan and Iran and is thinking about what to do with children
Or having an anti vaxer on his stage spouting dangerous nonsense
Or his delusion on reducing taxes and tens of billions of pounds gap in his solution
And many more now, and to come
Which is why I think Cooper comes out well from the recent shuffle in terms of her prospects. Although she may have under-performed particularly from a media/comms perspective, she has avoided any of the major scandals, disasters or blunders that killed the careers of so many previous Home Secs, and now she's FS she could pitch for a future leadership having done two out of the three most senior roles.
Given that Reeves is already tarnished and Mahmood is brand new (and inherits the poisoned chalice), Cooper is effectively heir apparent. Yes, there's Streeting hanging about in the wings, but people underestimate how unpopular he is with many party members, making the young Blair look like a hero of socialism by comparison.
She called you "scum" so you don't like her. Nonetheless I don't believe you can dismiss her achievement in becoming Deputy Prime Minister.
And don't forget, Boris got all the big calls right.
But within a few months, Boris lanced that boil very effectively and saved it.
Are you sure you are not muddling her up with Marina Catherine Elizabeth Dudley-Williams?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Hyde