Be Excellent To Each Other

The last page of posts might need moving into the jacket thread of the clothing subforum.

No, it fits. Our Prime Minister is well known for her love of fashion.

"Fashion! Turn to the left."

If only!

Mr Trump is finding being the President of the USA not as easy and more work than he thought. It would be charming to see a simple man have his mind opened by the complexities of government and high office, were it not so terrifying.

The Green party standing aside. Labour supporters eportedly furious.

Apparently Mr Trump has been asking why his country had a civil war instead of doing a deal. Oh dear.

no, not really. Really?

Guardian.

Also, Andrew Jackson was very angry about it, but not as angry as having been dead for years.

I'm not looking forward to when Mr Trump finds out who burnt down the White House in 1814.

Taken from Shipley Labour's facebook. They say they are the only 'real opposition' to Davies, but they would need to retain their voters and get ALL the UKIP, Green, Lib Dems ans Yorkshire First votes fo win. They are fairly rattled, it seems, which now makes me want to vote for Sophie even more. And I saw one of them in a Corbyn t shirt.

Diane Abbott's car crash today was a thing to behold. I like the way the Grauniad is passing this off as simply "mis-speaking" when she got literally every number wrong several times in different ways, and it's her sodding shadow cabinet post's policy.

I was listening to Rudd on tne way to work and thinking "This is all bullshit, but she's hitting her marks, being polite, but firm, and running the interview well, so much better than Abbott could". then, on the way homw, listening to PM, I heard it. Jesus Christ. Amazing.

"Did you hear Diane Abbott" was the first thing Ruth said to me when I got in.

God I hate the role of the media in politics.

Yeah but can Diane Abbott eat hot chips or not?

What's it done now? The reporting on Abbott's utter incompetence is fair isn't it?

Yeah but people react more to "urh hurgh look at this incompetent woman" rather than "oh this woman just enacted a policy that fucks over generations to come".

One of them is having a nationwide job interview. She should have seen that question coming.

And it's also HER SHADOW DEPARTMENT'S POLICY. She only had to remember two sodding numbers.

And Russ, TBF you should blame the British people for that, not May - we as a plebiscite chose this stupid bloody policy, not her. If she resiled from the WILL OF THE BRITISH PEOPLE she's have been torn to pieces.Quite possibly literally.

Still, my preferred outcome would have been every single MP going "well, fuck you lot then, we all resign. Sort it out yourselves you bloody idiots".

Not even remotely. It's not even close to being in the same vicinity as the half of the world in which fair resides.

It wasn't even in the top five stupidest things done that day on the campaign trail, but it fits the narrative and allows the media to ignore any and all actual issues to focus on, "Let's all laugh at Diane Abbott".

It ignores that Theresa May did worse things even on the same day. It ignores that Abbott did the same interview numerous times throughout the day and made one (admittedly silly) mistake. It ignores whether the policy was good or bad. It ignores whether it is better policy than that currently in place. It furthers the belief that the most important thing about running a country is the ability to drone on through a hundred interviews without putting out a single thing worth saying. It explicitly encourages the parroting of stupid, meaningless lies such as 'Strong and Stable Leadership' and moves politics further and further from being about issues and purely about personalities.

The Tories are likely to win in a landslide despite not having a policy other than going for a harder Brexit than the BNP wanted. Despite utter governmental incompetence in things that actually matter. Despite bringing about the biggest crises in education and healthcare in my lifetime. They are in a position where they can literally do whatever they want, but instead of trying to hold them to account or ask what they actually want to do, people would rather laugh at the silly lady who made a mistake in one bloody interview.

I'm not a fan of Abbott, but she takes an insane amount of flak for things that others would get away with. It seems spectacularly unfair to me that you could come up with amazing policies that would change the world and save lives, but if you fuck up one interview out of many you give on the same day you'd just get laughed out of town - but only if your face doesn't fit.

Just attack the damn policies if they're so incompetent and terrible. I think Corbyn is a shambles at organising things, and he's not be my first choice as Prime Minister, but if you dissociate him from his policies, those policies are actually really popular.

But nobody engages with policies any more. They're somehow unimportant. And Abbott's fuck up is just one example of this; a symptom of a wider malaise. We've all ballsed up something at work in our time. If you're like Johnson, Trump, Gove, Hunt, May, you get away with it. If you're Abbott, less so.

I'm just so exasperated with it all. Truth and facts and policies and all that boring stuff that actually matters take a backseat to whatever makes a better sound bite.

The policy itself could be awful; it could be great. Nobody seems to care, because the weakest and least stable government in recent memory need to have time to tell you how strong and stable they are.

ALL THIS.

TL;DR

That's basically how the mass think about politics and policies. Most people have more important things in their lives than to worry about which party has the better approach to the widget problem. It's not right, and it's horribly depressing, but that's how people tend to be. You need to find a way to reach out to these people, to push those buttons, and part of that is appearing competent. Mrs May's mantra is extremely annoying and, frankly, insulting, but it suggests something about how they intend to govern in a way the Labour campaign doesn't.

In all seriousness, I agree with some of what you say, but a lot of this is Labour's fault - it wasn't just one silly mistake, it was an interview where she got every element of her own policy wrong. That's actually quite terrible - we do actually want competence in the people running the country. If a Tory had done that you'd have been all over it like a rash. And it's far, far from the first time.

Labour and their fuckwittery are allowing the Tories to get away with this - Labour and their fuckwittery are creating the narrative that the media are going to pick up on. All they have to do is NOT BE SO FUCKING INCOMPETENT. They should also be squarely attacking the Tories in their narrative, for the fact you can't trust a single thing May says as she's gone back on pretty much every single thing she's ever said, which is neither strong nor stable. But no, instead they go on about stupid sideshow policies like school meals (all of which then are shown to have been paid for by the same tax increase). The Tories are running a big picture campaign (strong and stable! Negotiations! MAKE ME STRONGER) and Labour should be countering this.

Say what you like about Campbell and Mandelson but at least they ran a tight ship and were able to get their message across to a hostile media without putting both of their own feet in their mouths.

So no, this isn't the media being unfair. This is the media acting exactly the way they always have done, but Corbyn's Labour's unbending approach to the world (it should change to be nice like we are!) is going to contribute to this massive bloody landslide for the Tories, thanks to his need to keep his ideological purity intact.

I hope Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott have at least some small sense of shame for allowing their student union politics reunion show to fuck the country over so badly.

Also, sorry, but this is palpably bullshit.

I know they're incompetent at some interviews and focusing on the wrong things at the wrong times. It's just a general sense of frustration that the way to win elections is purely about managing the media. That is literally it. And Labour are fucking awful at it.

Today you've got reports about Kelvin McKenzie saying people would love to see a headline of Corbyn knifed to death by an asylum seeker! He'll get less shit for that than one mistake by whichever Labour person says something incorrectly.

I mean, that the electoral fraud that could see dozens of Tory MPs suspended has been a tiny news story in comparison is just madness. And the continued insanity of the pronouncements by Davis, May and Johnson over Brexit are at least as stupid as anything Abbott has ever done. Gah!

Just so annoying to see the weakest Tory government I have ever seen (last days of Major maybe a contender) sleepwalk to a potentially massive majority whilst Rupert Murdoch laughs himself silly.

It's demonstrably true, but, y'know, opinions.

Which mistake is that?

Oh right, most people would rather see him beaten to death

Go on, prove that there has never been any criticism of Johnson , Hunt and Gove being shit at their jobs. Go on. Because it's bollocks and you know it.

And while you're at it, prove that the negative coverage of Abbott is because "her face doesn't fit".

It may be comforting to think that it's all due to the big bad biased media, but it isn't. Most of your fellow Britishers, and in fact most of your fellow humans, are stupid, venal, uninterested, lazy, selfish twats who can't be arsed to do any thinking about anything. And it's never, ever, ever going to get better. That's the problem.

That's a straw man. They get called out on it, but it is easily forgotten and they move on. All of those have done more stupid things than Abbott, but she has a much worse reputation and public perception, and she did even before the car crash interview yesterday. Most people can't even remember WHY unless they search on the Internet. There's the hypocrisy over private schools (for which she deserved to be criticised) but beyond that it's just a general negativity that has not been attached to the establishment types such as Gove, Hunt, Johnson et al.

It's not that those guys don't get criticised, it's that it doesn't stick to them.



People can be ostracised by the media like this for various reasons. Miliband stood up to Murdoch and was subject to (at that time) the most negative political campaign in modern British history.

Likewise, Abbott is in many ways anti-establishment. That attracts negative coverage. Then she's also a woman, and also black. It's the perfect storm!

In short, I can prove racism, sexism, and class prejudice exist, and that a lot of media in the UK is run by people with an agenda. If you think that isn't a factor, at all, in the stick she gets from the press and the absolutely vile abuse she gets on a daily basis from the public, then, well, gosh.



Well that's a shitty attitude to take. Things are better now in many ways compared to the past. Being resigned to this continuing is nonsense.

And it's absolutely not comforting at all to know that the media is fucking awful a lot of the time. If most people are what you say they are, then that makes the media even more important, because people will just take whatever lazy slurs reinforce their own prejudices rather than actually think about things.

And those who try to improve this, who try to change the way it works, they get slaughtered in the press. It won't be easy to change this, but fucking hell we should at least give it a go!

It‘s not a straw man, it is literally a refutation of what you actually just said. Right there, just then.



And that’s the media’s fault then, is it? So contrary to what you just said, you accept they get called out on the same stuff (so no bias there then), but you’re annoyed because people don’t, as far as you can see, bang on about it for ages. Which of course they do, though. There’s a running theme of Johnson being a buffoon (although the public seem to like that in him), Liam Fox being “disgraced former minister Liam Fox” Gove being a fucking stupid backstabbing idiot, etc etc etc.



I think a substantial part of the reason Abbott gets stick is because she’s an idiot and a hypocrite. I dislike her hugely, but not because she’s a woman or black. It's because I've read and listened to a lot of what she's said over the years, and I've made a judgement based on the words coming out of her mouth.

Proving racism and sexism exist does not prove that people publish negative coverage of Abbott because she’s black or a woman. That’s not even at the level of post hoc ergo propter hoc, it’s just simply an unconnected statement by you, Andy Bear of London and your opinions based, I might suggest, on your biased view of the people running the press. All of them. Every single one.

I think her being consistently a very vocal and visible hypocrite has done her no favours, and behaviour like that tends to attract a degree of approbation – rather correctly. As it does with other great hypocrites (“Family Values” and the Tory scandals of the 90s ring any bells?).



It may well be, but it has the virtue of being accurate.



Well no, they don’t always. Not even that often. That's just melodramatic hyperbole.

And as I’ve already alluded to, a massive, massive difference with this current shower in charge of Labour is that they don’t even try to work within the existing system. It’s all very well saying “well it should be better and we should change it” – but it isn’t and you’re not going to change it before the election. So they should wise the fuck up and play the game. Blair got himself elected three times despite being at odds with the politics of much of the mainstream press. You may hate Campbell et al, but it bloody well worked.

I'm not sure that we're necessarily at odds here, other than your view that Abbott is unfairly picked on and the Tories are given an easy ride. The media is shit blah blah, yes. but that's not news, and it was Labour's job to get elected, but they have consistently shown themselves unwilling to do what they need to in order to actually win an election - but then I think we all know that really that's not what Corbyn and pals are really interested in.

All of that. Rudd is a serial failure (Eye, passim). Leadsom had to ask if 'this climate change thing was real' when she took office. Hunt doesn't understand 'evidence'. IDS and Patel are third-rate, at best. Johnson, disgraced former minister Fox and Davis are lying or ill-informed. May is almost invisible because she's such a disaster when questioned. Apparently Labour overspent, yet the Tories despite savage cuts haven't managed to simply remove the deficit - if it were caused by labour overspending, removing it ought to have been easy.

And so on and so on. And yet the perception is that the Tories are capable and can run a country and Labour can't. Corbyn and Abbott apart, though, I cannot see that Labour have so many people who are so totally incompetent as the current Tory lot.

Which is all true, and has all been covered by the press.


Yep, all true also. I think the difference is that the Tories have had the virtue of having being in government for the last 6 years and are able to show that well, the house is still standing, see, we were trustworthy! And that gives them the veneer of "well, they can't be that bad, despite all that stuff in the press". And in comparison we've had two, let's be fair, shambolic oppositions which didn't really need any help from the press, whether bacon sarnie-related or otherwise, to make themselves unelectable.

Much as worked for New Labour, to a degree - there was a lot of incompetence, sleaze etc in New Labour's rule (which got publicised all over the fucking shop) but the hospitals got built and everyone left them to get on with it. The alternative was Michael Fucking Howard or William "twenty five pints before lunch" Hague, for Chrissakes.

We could end up violently agreeing with one another. The difference in what we're saying is really just nuance - as in, pointing out Abbott's failure like it's a big deal is very annoying. Because it's not that big a deal, while govt get away with all sorts of shit. Shit that is reported, but for which they are not hounded, and for which there seem few consequences.

Meanwhile, Labour are the bad opposition and that's the story. Daft! Sadly with out political system, a party with an effective whip and a majority can always do what they want, so opposition is always limited - the complaint that Labour are weak is true, but even if they weren't, I'm not sure what they'd be achieving. Would they be anti-Brexit, and losing support in the North? Making a lot of 'effective opposition' noise but not changing anything?

I struggle to imagine a scenario in the near future where any opposition party can make much headway. The numbers needed to oust the Tories are seemingly irrevocably split across different viewpoints, especially now that the Tories have brought all the complete nutters back on board by letting them have the vote on the EU. I just despair of the lot of it really.

If you like grasping at straws, and I do (it's the only way to keep sane some days), I remember around 2004/2005 reading many articles and books about the death of the Tory party and the unbeatableness of New Labourism. 15 years earlier those books would have been about Labour. The wheel will turn eventually.

It's where they keep going wrong. They aren't getting the (any) message across. In 2015, they didn't stand up to the "Labour smashed the economy" claims, well enough (if) at all, the referendum campaign was far too low key, and, now, the message is Abbott's interview. There doesn't seem to be an effictive comms policy.

Locally, Labour haven't even said who is standing in Shipley yet, for example, and seem content to wear Corbyn t shirts in the sun in Saltaire, rather than push into the Tory bits of the constituency.

This one comes to mind, mainly for the cover.

This. What are Labour standing for? What's the message? Yes, Mrs May's Dalek-like repetition of 'strong and stable' is annoying, but it works in staying your head. Labour? What do they want?

Another example: Corbyn turned down doing debates. May wasn't going to be there. Amazing chance on national TV to begin each answer with "I'd thank the prime minister for her thoughts on tbis, but she isn't here" or somesuch, and get a superb platform to build from. The rewards outweigh the risk massively, but he isn't taking it.

Rudd did this very well, yesterday.

Agree. Giving up free airtime is stupid. His supporters keep on saying that the media misrepresent him, but here's a chance to have complete access to the broadcasters and control the agenda, and he declined. Yes, the other parties might start turning on him, but he could use that to his advantage. But no, better to stay away and have the real fight on the streets.

I liked the one on the ever-brilliant Doaneld the Unready twitter feed. Something along the lines of 'Strong and stable - how Catherine the Great likes her lovers'.

EDIT: ah, here it is

I suppose thinking about it sensibly once it becomes apparent that Brexit is going to completely wreck the economy then the EU will again become the massive problem for the Tories that it always was. It seems conceivable they'll become even more divided than ever before.

But of course that is going to be some small crumb of comfort because by then the whole country and everything in it will be so fucked that whoever is in charge and however competent they are they'll be able to deliver nothing anyway. Yay!

Things can only get better.

I think I've made that point, like, twice now.

Yes, but I have better hair.

County Council election time. Did the votey thing. Third in line this time. Getting better.

North-east Oxfordshire, this morning:

So what is a rubber button?

Jeremy Corbyn does up his anorak with them.

Lolz

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... itics-live