Be Excellent To Each Other

Okay, I was unclear - there's no room for a third party candidate who would look to take existing blue votes with him. Because that's just handing the win to the Republicans, and he knows that as well as anyone does.

That said, Bernie isn't really a Democrat anyway.

But he won't run as independent.

Question is whether he will try to help Hillary or not. I hope so, as I would like her to be a little more to the left, and if he can make her bend that way I think it would help.

Him as VP would be the dream ticket, and it makes so much political sense. Won't happen though.

Shitstorm incoming.



Hopefully the hard right won't come visiting.

I think Cavey's busy that day

The IMF may be turning away from austerity:

International Nonetary Fund

Cameron to face vote of no confidence over EU campaign?

Tory MP seem to think so.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05 ... um=twitter

Party in absolute disarray!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05 ... rsonal-a1/



And then a few hours later on TV:



No way is this coincidental timing. It's a co-ordinated attack.

It takes 50 letters from MPs to force a vote of no confidence, apparently. That seems like a very achievable goal if the Leave camp are determined to get it.

Wait - if Remain win, but only narrowly, Cameron is clearly incompetent as he can't win a landslide in a referendum. So Nadine, paragon of consistent thought that she is, will support Boris for the leadership...who will have just lost the referendum.

Nobody said it had to make sense. Political left infighting looks like holier-than-thou intellectuals dancing around each other. Political right infighting looks like a bare knuckle street brawl.

Wow.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/po ... lenge-even

Wtf?

They want Cameron to know he's not popular, somewhat publicly, and George O isn't their star signing either.

"I want to stab him in the front so I can see his face," said the MP, speaking off the record.

Holy crap.

"Labour are in meltdown, how can we best capitalise on this?"
"Clearly we collapse in a puddle of embarrassing infighting and backstabbing"
"Great plan!"

Boris Johnson's proven track record of failing on almost every promise he ever made as London Mayor, and of potentially losing a referendum whilst riding the political coat tails of Nigel Farage.

Lord have mercy.

Bwahahahah!!! Funniest statement I've read in a good while.
No, they really don't you know; they look like a bunch of thick idiots too stupid to even have a remotest clue between them.

Abbott the intellectual?
Livingstone the intellectual?

Johnson might be unpleasant but he's a very clever, articulate man who loves to be underestimated; Cameron is similarly very expensively educated, erudite and ruthless; just look how stupid he makes Corbyn look each week at PMQs.

Doc, you truly are the master of wishful thinking, just like so many of your lefty ilk. Whereas Tories are (generally) happy to concede their movement's many legacy mistakes and current woes, the Left is utterly delusional and in self denial about its own. I can't make up my mind whether it's abject conceit or swivel eyed stupidity; probably a bit of both.

*buzzer*

Sorry, I meant to write pseudo-intellectual. On reflection, I'd also add "earnest" to that list.

You do realise "holier than thou" is a pejorative, right? I wasn't complimenting the left here.

But now you're back in this thread, please do share with us how this Tory infighting, if anything, reflects quite well on the Prime Minister.

You realise "swivel-eyed loon" is a phrase used by Tories against other Tories, right?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... dwood.html

Mr Trump is planning to visit these shores on 24 June, according to some papersort I can't be bothered to link to from my cellphone.

That might make for an interesting sideshow as we nurture our collective Brexit hangover.

Do you honestly think that when push comes to shove, the British people will vote for Brexit, Kern?
Unless there's a genuine sea-change between now and the vote, I absolutely cannot see it. No way.

Normal people - i.e. the vast, silent majority, rather than vocal 'Twitterati' types, with their jobs, kids, mortgages and pensions to protect - they're just not going to go for this. They really aren't.
Trump, though, well that's a different matter, as I've said all along. I actually think he'll be President, heavens help us.

No, but it's a fun thing to scare the children with.

Indeed it is...

The polls have been moving towards Leave for some time now. It's possible that sea-change is happening, right now.


The "Twitterati" types all want to stay in the EU.

Depends what you mean by Twitterati. The echo chamber effect of Twitter means that what you see is entirely dependent on the network you build - which you know all too well. So I'm sure there's as many vocal brexiters on Twitter as there are vocal remainers - but they're different pools in the twitter leisure centre. Wow. That was a tortured analogy.

Mmmm. Whilst that's true, I think there's legitimately a lot more left-leaning types on Twitter than right-leaning. I vaguely recall Actual Data to that effect, although I can't locate it just now.

Well, Ladbrokes reckon there's a 75% chance remain/25% chance leave

http://sports.ladbrokes.com/sports-cent ... eferendum/

Okay, not massively scientific, but they do have their money where their mouth is, I guess.

I think we'll be out but I really really hope we stay.

Because of how bookies work -- they mostly set odds in reaction to the bets being laid -- they can lag behind reality. Wait and see if it shifts in the next two weeks, I suppose.

Notably, bookies were offering decent odds against a Conservative majority ("William Hill was offering odds of 10/1 on Thursday night on the Conservatives having a majority") until the day before the last General Election (although there, admittedly, the polls got it wrong too.)

I've not been giving the election expenses investigations as much attention as it might warrant (mostly because they are still just investigations but also because we're all engaged in a festival of democracy and high-level political debate right now), but Channel 4 News has a useful overview of the various allegations.

29 winning Tory MPs implicated? With a 17-seat Tory majority? I suppose it's not likely to go that far but it'd be amusing if we lost the entire government over this!

I used to keep count of John Major's majority as Tory MPs died or resigned. Happy days.

"Different pools in the Twitter leisure centre"

And people wonder why they can't monetise it successfully.

Even if every MP was made to resign that's not to say that a by-election wouldn't re-elect a Tory though.

Or would the loss of a majority means a need for a full general election?

Actually, the polls didn't get it wrong - YouGov didn't add them up right.

The polls we ran weren't that far out at all SMUG DIMLIE

[edit]Wait, we have a smug dimlie!

Under the Fixed Term Parliament Act, if the government loses a no-confidence vote there's a grace period of two weeks for a new (or the current) administration to win a subsequent confidence vote before elections are called.

Aren't there multiple polling firms? I recall all of them pointing towards a Lab/SNP coalition or similar.

Sure, but people tend to ignore the results from them - YouGov would be by far the biggest, and if they say something different to all the little folk you would be smart to trust them.

I mean, not in this case, but still.

Yeah, but that was before that poster. You know, the one with Salmond having Millipede in his top pocket - came out only a week or so before the actual election IIRC? It sent a positively glacial shiver down Middle England's spine.
Say what you like about the Tories, but by heck, they are media-savvy when it counts. This was an absolute game-changer; bless the SNP's wee tartan socks! Their hatred for Labour, even when already utterly demolished in Scotland/job already done, what with their incursion into English affairs with all that last minute, big talk of "no more SNP not voting on English matters" and "supply of confidence" with a minority Labour government, it was Salmond's "we're alright!!" moment... all they had to do was keep schtum, show a bit of mature, demure charm... it was in the bag and theirs for the taking... but of course, they just couldn't resist. Let's face it, few things in politics are as reliable as Salmond's planet-sized ego, or the SNP just being plain old diametrically wrong about stuff generally - and most especially in terms of a complete dearth of political acumen on their part. Bless.
'Victories' don't come more Pyrrhic or bitter-tasting...

Talking of laughable incompetence, all this was about the same time as Labour's genius last-minute "Ed Stone" ad. Man, how I LOLed at that; defeat snatched from the jaws of victory, then. (Or at least, a hung Parliament with Labour being more or less the governing party, much like the Tories were with the LibDems previous term).

The polls got it wrong for sure (though certain individuals read it right, eh ), but to be fair to them they can't (generally) react quickly enough to relative last-minute developments/abject media cock ups like this? It's like I always say - responding to meaningless polls is easy, but when push comes to shove, when people are standing in the polling booth and the shit's actually real, they're not going to leap into the unknown and/or countermand REAL fears for their jobs, security, pensions or whatever unless the offer is really good, or at least appears to be so. That's how it'll go with Brexit, too; we aren't going anywhere. The case for leaving, as presented (and thus far), is nowhere near compelling enough, or good enough. (Plus Farage and Johnson... too many clowns, not enough boring grey-suited bank manager types to fill the credibility gap).

I think a regional breakdown and a demographic breakdown of IN/OUT could be interesting reading.

There are likely to be some areas massively going for OUT, I reckon, against a general murmur of IN. The only problem for IN is that the traditional voters (old people) are also often OUT voters.

I still think and hope IN carries the day, but I fear it will be close.

It also amuses me to see Farage et al stating what the policies will be when we leave. Mate, you've failed to become an MP, like, seven times. You aren't deciding SHIT, even if you win this one.

Yeah, agreed, but personally I don't think it'll be as close as you fear. ~55/45 IN? (i.e. ~10 points clear for IN; a smidge less than the Unionist victory in the Scottish Indyref but still decisive)
It's even funnier seeing them promising a whole bunch of extra public spending, when just about every single fiscal assessment and analysis points to further shortfall and austerity as a direct result of a Brexit. Like, wtf? The stupid and wilfully ill-informed will still take it all in their stride and believe it, though, as we've seen before of course.

Still, that's politics these days I guess - especially where matters of Nationalism are concerned. Facts are, increasingly, an annoying, inconvenient distraction to be ignored and treated with contempt, to be supplanted by meme-parroting bollocks (e.g. "SNPBAAAAAAAAAD" in response to pretty much any criticism), crass cherry-picking, propaganda for the stupid and gullible. Vapid half-truths and soundbites all win the day over any semblance of detailed, honest, impartial and grownup political debate, or quality discussion - which is in any event largely precluded by the increasing polarisation and "othering" of such debates in the first place, by the usual fomenters, with their usual vested interests/petty grievances.

It's almost enough to make me miss the bad old days of the 1970s when I was growing up; at least people seemed a darn sight more concerned, educated and informed back then, from what I can remember.

"War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength"

More, I think it's referendums. It's insane to think that the populous has a deep enough grasp of the complexities of such a massive issue as this to be able to properly decide it one way or another. Also, the detailed information you'd need to work out which would be the right decision is bloody boring. So what you get instead is nothing but propaganda. Soap opera politics. Referendums are a fucking ludicrous idea.