UK Tory leadership campaign

[quote]Share all the goss and your views of the candidates!

Not until you tell me what a "spad shagger" is.

Special adviser, R1.

Spad = Special Advisor

Young, ambitions, amoral Oxbridge grads in their late 20s / early 30s who will do anything, and I mean ANYTHING, to get ahead. Dominic’s was one of the intellectual bullying kind, but it’s the sex specialists who get further ahead. (See: Carrie Symonds)

Thank you r2.

I am now ready to share all of my goss and views.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

A SPAD is a joy forever

R5 Damn! What happened?!

So far the ones who have launched bids are:

Sajid Javid

Nadhim Zahawi

Jeremy Hunt

Liz Truss

Grant Shapps

Rishi Sunak

Penny Mordaunt

Cutting tax and increasing defence spending seems to be a big policy for most of them.... wonder what other spending they'd cut to pay for that though? Or none... ugh.

Also:

Suella Braverman

Kemi Badenoch

Tom Tugendhat

Penny Mordaunt has tried to clarify her previous support for Stonewall’s gender ideology and anti science beliefs by declaring that she knows what a woman is and she has always supported women’s rights.

And has promptly been called a liar and given evidence of how she is reinventing history.

Considering she has very limited experience as a senior politician she has limited experience of broadcast interviews with the best journalists in TV and radio. It’s not going to be pretty.

Jeremy Hunt teaming up with Esther McVey is most unfortunate.

OMG seriously? That is so desperate as well as unappealing. Who is he going to appeal to by doing that? He is going to turn off both natural Hunt and McVey supporters.

Jeremy Hunt has to be the most desperate of the lot to become PM as well as one of the least likely to win this. There was a Conservative Home poll of Tory members which had him losing against everyone they asked about if they got to the last two.

Gimme Priti as PM with Nads as deputy PM.

Assuming Hunt doesn't win he will be a welcome addition to a Tory cabinet in terms of status and experience.

Johnson's initial cabinet appointments were based on loyalty and ideology, not competence, and didn't compare unfavourably to Corbyn's choices. But Starmer's cabinet has some real strength = Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting, Yvette Cooper, Lisa Nandy, Bridget Phillipson and Thangam Debbonaire - but also some really weak members - David Lammy, Ed Miliband, Lucy Powell.

Lucy Powell was inexplicably picked to shadow Nadine Dorries, and with Dorries going to be sacked does the new PM pick a nobody to match Powell's abilities or someone with a bit of potential?

The same with Foreign Secretary. Lammy is such a bizarre appointment for a role which requires clear thinking, tact and diplomacy. When compared with Lammy Liz Truss doesn't seem that unsuited to the role. Tom Tugendhat as Foreign Secretary would embarrass Labour and Lammy.

This will make the Sussex v Buckingham Palace Saga also plying out here on DL look anaemic.

Continuing the grandly bloody, literary, and theatrical tradition of Britain's politics.

Remember, the Wars of the Rose's is the nation's longest running soap opera.

The parallels to Julius Caesar, Richard II and III are a kn ready being noted in the TIMES today.

Caesar was highly flawed, too.

Think Sunak and Javid as Cassius and Brutus (and we know how that ended).

I don't see Carrie J as Calpurnia. I'd slate in the loyal to the death Nadine Dorries for that role - I enjoyed the footage of her howling back at the at the howling mob outside 10 Downing, "He who laughs last, laughs best!"

Throw in some farce from Falstaff.

and finish off with that deathless line from Henry IV Part 2 . . .

[quote] I'd slate in the loyal to the death Nadine Dorries for that role - I enjoyed the footage of her howling back at the at the howling mob outside 10 Downing, "He who laughs last, laughs best!"

That wasn't Nadine Dorries.

Jesus, do all fair haired white women look the same to you?

^*playing out (not plying)

are already being noted in the media . . .Richard II and Richerd III . . .

Ah look, it's the silly little Tory at r14 trying to blame Labour for Johnson's awful cabinet.

The Mail have their knives out for Penny.

"Tory leadership hopeful Penny Mordaunt has suffered an early blow after it was noticed her campaign launch video featured convicted murderer Oscar Pistorius. (H)er entry into the race to become Prime Minister risked being overshadowed by the choice of footage included in the three-minute video unveiling her 'PM 4 PM' campaign. Included in the video were scenes of British sporting success; such as England cricketer Jonny Bairstow celebrating a century, and the moment the Welsh football team qualified for this year's World Cup. The footage also featured British paralympian Johnny Peacock winning gold at London 2012. And it was this clip that included scenes of a grinning Pistorius - filmed two years before he was convicted for killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp."

[quote] Ah look, it's the silly little Tory at [R14] trying to blame Labour for Johnson's awful cabinet.

Have you changed your nappy yet today? Sounding a bit irritable. Maybe it’s the heat.

Politics is about choice. If what one party is offering is pure shite and the other party is offering pure shite don’t be surprised when you end up with a government that is pure shite.

The good thing is that Labour has started flushing the shite and looks like a government in waiting but still has some nasty skid marks to come out in the wash.

If the Tories try and follow Starmer and detoxify the cabinet and appoint on talent and vision not tribal loyalty and ideology then that can only be a good thing.

I saw Hunt interviewed this morning, and he came across OK - surprisingly better than Javid, who flailed a bit. You can tell Hunt is the more experienced statesman; I still don't want him in power, though.

[quote]Have you changed your nappy yet today? Sounding a bit irritable. Maybe it’s the heat.

Says the person still talking about Corbyn in 2022.

[quote]"I think I was the first one to not believe," Sajid Javid tells @sophieraworth, in an epic claim that realising Boris Johnson was a wrong 'un FIVE DAYS AGO counts as insight.

David Davis mocking Rishi, you love to see it

r22 People who still talk about Corbyn to this day remind me of the "but her emails" folk.

British politicians have some gold names. Our best is Zephyr Teachout. *sigh*

R5, a few years ago, Raab would have been a strong leadership candidate, but he pretty much wrecked his prospects due to his lamentable handling of the UK’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. He became the figurehead for that failure and hasn’t yet recovered.

R23 Didn't Sajid resign as Chancellor quite soon after being appointed by Boris? I assume he was talking about that? It was quite a shock to me at the time.

r28 Over six months is quite soon? And that was over Dominic Cummings firing his spad, not about Johnson - after all, if he thought Johnson was so bad why would he have agreed to rejoin the cabinet?

[quote][R5], a few years ago, Raab would have been a strong leadership candidate, but he pretty much wrecked his prospects due to his lamentable handling of the UK’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. He became the figurehead for that failure and hasn’t yet recovered.

He DID stand for leader 3 years ago. And wasn't a strong leadership candidate. He came 4th and had less support than Michael Gove or Jeremy Hunt.

[quote]r22 People who still talk about Corbyn to this day remind me of the "but her emails" folk.

The Tories are going to elect the UK's first Prime Minister from a racial minority.

Do you think he'll not take the opportunity to raise the fact that the Labour Party under Corbyn became the second political party to breach the UK's equality act and unlawfully discriminate and harass members of another racial minority?

I appreciate you want to forget that you voted (enthusiastically?) for a notorious antisemite who shilled for Putin and the Iranian government but just like the Tories who enabled Boris, the Labour MPs who enabled Corbyn aren't going to be let off the hook any time soon. xx

Raab is the kind of guy who would want gays executed. No thanks.

R16 That's quite a broad inference from one error, dont you think?

Be that as it may, Dorries IS fanatically loyal to Johnson and the parallel stands.

Meanwhile, given the extraordinarily cruel threads on the topic of white women, stereotypes within in hes of their virtual lives that are so welcome on this site, methinks the poster doth protest too much.

Let's be a white . . .

Why do white women. . .[fill in the blank]?

Let's be a Karen . . .

Meanwhile, I did seem to remember two BoJo loyalists of the white female persuasion respibdi g venomously to the revolting mob outside Downing Street, and could have sworn the statement in question was Dorries'.

You're free to correct the error.

You're not free to extrapolate a nonsensical accusation of bigotry from it

R15

R31 Jew are not a "racial" minority.

And in literal fact, neither are non-African Muslims. It's only Europeans bigotry that classifies someone like Sadiq Khan or Sunak as "black".

Arabs and Persians, believe it or not, are classed in the Caucasoud DNA group.

I'm sure you didn't mean to replicate one of the most ancient canards about Jews, that they are a separate race, but you did.

^*Caucasoid

Being Jewish is both a religion and a race because you can only be a Jew if your mother is a Jew. DNA links pretty much prove that being Jewish is a race.

[quote] but he pretty much wrecked his prospects due to his lamentable handling of the UK’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.

As I understand it the Chancellor's responsibilities are internal, not international. Wouldn't Afghanistan come under the Foreign Secretary and the Defense Minister. Not that they had many options after the US cut and ran.

R37 Dominic Raab has never been Chancellor. He was the Foreign Secretary. But I don't think it was the Afghanistan thing that has wrecked his chances. I think it's his personality and views in general.

The Afghanistan debacle and the return of the Taliban was not the fault of the British Government - that's purely on Trump then Biden - but the actions of the UK government in response to the evacuation were appalling.

This was the most excruciating detail for me. A total disgrace.

[quote]In the final days of the evacuation effort, with extremely limited capacity for removals, Raab was asked to personally approve exceptional cases. But Marshall claimed Raab took “hours to engage” – and then returned the files, asking for them to be submitted in a different spreadsheet format.

Correction noted r38.

ty

R36 No, it does not prove anything of the kind.

Proving biological parentage has nothing to do with race except in the most tangential way.

A woman who converts to Judaism also becomes the Jewish mother. Only the most radically closed segments of Judaism do not accept said woman as proof of having been born to a Jewish mother these days.

Actress Sophie Okonedo is the child of a Nigerian father and a Jewish mother.

Is she ipso facto a white Jew or Anglo-African?

And that doesn't begin to address the huge numbere s of Jews marrying "out" since the 1960s.

In that regard alone, the idea of Jews as a distinct "race" is now non-existent.

If it were only about genetics, Dad would do just as well these days, with all those paternity tests available.

In a DNA test, you will absolutely find markers for Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. But that marker is carried to varying degrees by 85% of European and American Jews

Tour assertion is that race can be defined as any group sharing any set of certain markers.

Its like saying all Queen Victoria's descendants are a separate race, rather than a family, because of the haemophilia marker or the blue eyes marker.

Jews have been a closed society for centuries, justije royalty and other tribal entities.

That doesn't constitute a race.

Wow, a mention of Corbyn and his obsession with Jews and out comes the "Jews aren't a race" obsessive with some nice facts and figures.

Still, if she's posting on Datalounge at least she's not planning an attack on a synagogue.

It's the person with utterly horrible spelling and grammar rambling nonsensically on about Shakespeare plays. She's not quite right in the head.

[quote]The Tories are going to elect the UK's first Prime Minister from a racial minority.

Or "the ethnics" as you referred to them in the 'Boris Johnson's sad last days' thread.

[quote]Or "the ethnics" as you referred to them in the 'Boris Johnson's sad last days' thread.

Yes, clearly a sarcastic post referencing the outpouring of hostility from the "progressive" left towards black and Asian men and women because they don't have the right policies.

Ah, so your own racism is just something else you're going to blame Labour for, is it?

A supporter of notorious antisemite Jeremy Corbyn, someone deeply hostile to a British Asian becoming Prime Minister, is calling SOMEONE ELSE RACIST.

You're so deluded Boris Johnson should appoint you to his cabinet before he quits, you'd fit right iin.

[quote] People who still talk about Corbyn to this day remind me of the "but her emails" folk.

Corbyn's Jew hatred continues to infect/infest an unrepentant Labour. See R34 R41 for examples.

[quote] Being Jewish is both a religion and a race

Jews are a nation. Not a race. Only the US relegates them to a "religion". The rest of the world views Jews as a separate national and cultural identity. Especially in Britain. See Corbyn and Labour for examples.

If a South Asian wins the Tory leadership, both Gandhi and Jinnai will be chortling hysterically from the next world.

I searched "Rishi Sunak nude" and all I got was the article below.

r47 Go on then, quote my post where I said I supported Corbyn or where I'm hostile to an Asian becoming PM. Yet more bullshit from you.

It's useful to bring up Corbyn to deflate all the Boris loyalist stuff about his 'huge personal mandate'. That means they are saying no other Tory could have defeated the political Titan that is Jeremy.

Steve Baker saying we only had Brexit because of Suella Braverman LOL

The past weekend alone will probably be enough to make sure the 1922 Committee tries to get the options down to the final two within days

The she is a he with a decade at least on DL, and as the Shakespearean link was the subject of a large article in the Sunday TIMES today. I suppose the editorial board is also not quite right in the head.

And the inherent "otherness" of Jews as justification for what they succeed at the hands of Europeans over the last millenia . . . I think the really suspect poster not quite right in the head is the one arguing for Jewish racial otherness.

I'd say, mate, that in pushing that you're standing close to the edge of a rather dangerous cliff edge.

[quote]It's useful to bring up Corbyn to deflate all the Boris loyalist stuff about his 'huge personal mandate'. That means they are saying no other Tory could have defeated the political Titan that is Jeremy.

Sssshhh, you're not allowed to mention the political situation that led to Boris Johnson's election as Tory Leader and 80 seat majority as Prime Minister.

IT WAS LITERALLY TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO - ANCIENT HISTORY.

Is R55 and the other JEWS AREN'T A RACE!!! posts from "Concerned European"? Or just a coincidence that her shares the verbose pompous writing style and dislike of Jews ?

r56 You do understand that Johnson was elected leader by Tory party members, right?

[quote][R56] You do understand that Johnson was elected leader by Tory party members, right?

Yes.

You do understand what circumstances led to Theresa May's resignation and the leadership contest that Johnson won?

R57 I am not, nor have I ever been Concerned European, as any check would show.

It's unfortunate that you haven't an attention span longer than two sentences, but there it is.

To each according to his gifts, as the man said.

This should remind us how rare Margaret Thatcher's political skills really are. They're all toads by comparison.

r59 You mean her own party turning on her? Ah, funny how you always skip that part isn't it? How you hold no anger at any of the shits within the Tory party who enabled the rise of Boris, who enabled Brexit, who enabled the whole shitshow. No, you never criticise them. The only person you blame for it all is Corbyn. And I'm sure that stupidity works amongst the other gammons down at Wetherspoons while you watch Nige on GB News, but it just makes you look like an idiot in reality.

[quote][R59] You mean her own party turning on her? Ah, funny how you always skip that part isn't it? How you hold no anger at any of the shits within the Tory party who enabled the rise of Boris, who enabled Brexit, who enabled the whole shitshow. No, you never criticise them. The only person you blame for it all is Corbyn. And I'm sure that stupidity works amongst the other gammons down at Wetherspoons while you watch Nige on GB News, but it just makes you look like an idiot in reality.

FYI Wetherspoons play BBC News in their pubs not GB News.

And I've condemned the Tories multiple times. My expectation of the Tories is that they're arseholes which is why I've never voted for them. But if you want to talk about those who have enabled the right wing let's look at who helped.

1. Len McCluskey's deal with Ed Miliband to give him Union backing, and thus giving him the Labour leadership despite not winning member votes. 5 years of dull uninspiring leadership that made Iain Duncan Smith look appealing. 5 years of him refusing to defend Tory attacks on the Blair and Brown years. And then opening up party membership to the £3 trots and handing the Tories an election victory.

2. The election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, a lifelong Brexiteer, when David Cameron had promised an EU referendum. Labour voted for the referendum, Corbyn and inner circle sabotaged Labour's campaign and celebrated the result. Corbyn called for Article 50 to be triggered the morning after the referendum. At this point Labour MPs should be given SOME credit for 80% of them voting no confidence and trying to oust him but arseholes like Andy Burnham supported him because he wanted the Manchester mayor nomination and Labour MPs couldn't agree on a leader to challenge Corbyn.

3. Labour imposing a 3 line whip to trigger Article 50 despite no negotiations taking place or any idea of what MPs would vote for. TICK TOCK TICK TOCK

4. Standing in 2017 election on a platform to leave the EU and end freedom of movement and doing much better than anyone expected.

5. Repeatedly voting against Theresa May's Brexit deal which met Labour's manifesto pledge, which ended freedom of movement, protected the Good Friday agreement. Voted against May's deal the final time knowing it would user in Boris Johnson, who wanted a hard Brexit.

6. Supporting a General Election in December 2019 with an absolutely incoherent Brexit policy which would have resulted Jeremy Corbyn's new Brexit deal being put to a referendum on accept or remain in the EU, with almost the entire cabinet voting to reject Corbyn's deal and stay in the EU, Corbyn remaining neutral and no one of any standing leading Corbyn's campaign.

7. Being totally humiliated and having to vote for Boris Johnson's hard Brexit deal.

So there you have it. Corbyn's Labour party enabled Boris Johnson every step of the way., The Tories could not have done it without Corbyn and Labour.

You voted for your boy Corbyn? FUCKING OWN IT. You're experiencing economic hardship because of Brexit? FUCKING OWN IT. Regret voting for Corbyn? FUCKING OWN IT. You knew who he was and what he stood for.

r63 And once again, completely absolving the Tories who have been in power for 12 years.

Wasn't it recently discovered Sunak is a dual UK/US citizen? Has he renounced the US citizenship or is he still eligible with the dual status?

I think Sunak and his wife had Green Card status, meaning they had committed to eventual US citizenship. This has been quickly dropped. They are real 'citizen's of nowhere', to quote Theresa May, though not as she intended..

Green Card status means a commitment to immigrate to the US and actually be permanently resident there. There's no commitment to acquire citizenship.

The news reports are vague on the issue, but a reasonable guess is that US Homeland Security revoked his Green Card when it became clear that as a high UK government official he had abandoned his intent to permanently reside in the US.

^*suffered (not succeeded) at the hands of Europeans

R55

[quote][R63] And once again, completely absolving the Tories who have been in power for 12 years.

The Tories didn't just do Brexit on a whim. They were elected on a manifesto commitment for a referendum campaign, to get Brexit done and then to get Brexit done again. I have a clear conscience - I didn't vote them and I didn't vote to leave the EU.

But it remains an undisputable fact that the Tories could *only* have achieved what they did with the support of Corbyn's Labour. Had Corbyn's Labour voted for Theresa May's Brexit deal which was in line with 2017 election pledge then there'd be no hard Brexit and Boris Johnson wouldn't be Prime Minister.

Had Labour not voted for the election in 2019 there would have been no election.

Had Labour not had Jeremy Corbyn as leader with their batshit Brexit policy then Johnson wouldn't have got an 80 seat majority., the 80 seat majority that Johnson claims is a personal mandate.

REPEAT: THE TORIES COULD NOT HAVE MANAGED IT ALL WITHOUT CORBYN.

R69 REPEAT: ONCE AGAIN ABSOLVING THE TORIES

You're just a joke. Waving away the fact that the Tories did it all themselves, with absolutely no criticism even aimed at a Tory. Every single thing you lay at Corbyn's feet equally applies to the Tory party, and yet not even a single criticism of them. Bullshit you didn't vote for them.

The DL is now much like a dog park. You go to enjoy but the snapping and snarling, growling and pissing, the endless noise .... .. .

[quote]Waving away the fact that the Tories did it all themselves

THE TORIES COULD NOT HAVE DONE ANY OF IT WITHOUT LABOUR.

It's like talking to Boris Johnson talking to you, the amount of delusion and denial.

R72 Says the person who has refused to criticise a single Tory for their role in propping up Boris, despite the fact that those Tories played a much larger role and had more opportunity to prevent him, or indeed Brexit. Reminds me of how Trump refused to criticise Putin.

r13 Rumour is Nadine Dorries is thinking of entering the leadership race as a disruptor to make mischief in debates for the candidates she thinks betrayed Boris. But has no expectations of winning. Private Eye magazine or Guido Fawkes(both mainly reliable) can't remember which says Boris Johnson will put Nadine in the house of lords in his resignation honours thus causing an immediate by election for his successor.

This is the kind of piece of shit Johnson has made a minister so he can cling to power, and the Tories allow it

Well, it's really hard to be Prime Minister in the 21st century from the House ofLord's. If she's made a Lady she should be struck from the list of candidates as nor serious.

Someone is going to ask "House of Lord's what."

r76 Yes that is precisely my point. Her flirting with the idea of being party leader and prime minister is not sincere on her part. She wants to be a disruptor.

r76 The Lady in the Lords offer will not come until after the contest is finished. Prime minister departing dishing out honours is a very last minute thing.

R75 State of that!

I can only imagine Nadine calling some of those who betrayed Boris and screeching down the phone at them. The woman is unhinged.

So far Sunak has the most backers at 33. Mordaunt next with 19. Truss, Tugendhat, Zahawi, Hunt, Badenoch on 11-12 each.

Seems likely that Sunak will get to the final two?

I've seen the video at R81 several times and am always drawn to Zahawi's crotch region. There's something going on there.

Meanwhile MICHAEL GOVE HAS COME OUT and is supporting Kemi Badenoch.

If the final two are Sunak and Mordaunt I wouldn't be shocked if Tory members get to know Sunak and find him to be awkward, ending up with Mordaunt.

Here's ConHome's play off poll for them:

Rishi Sunak: 33 per cent.

Penny Mordaunt: 58 per cent.

Don’t know: 19 per cent.

[quote]If the final two are Sunak and Mordaunt I wouldn't be shocked if Tory members get to know Sunak and find him to be awkward, ending up with Mordaunt.

Tory members have had 2 years to get to know Sunak. They've seen him in interviews, at Covid press conferences, in Parliament and giving speeches at conferences. They know who he is and what he stands for.

Mordaunt on the other hand is the unknown quantity. She's been widely ridiculed for her launch video which didn't feature her at all, except for a photo, and she's been called out by countless people for lying about the "pregnant people" maternity law for cabinets ministers which was introduced for Suella Braverman.

Incidentally Suella Braverman's birth name is Sue-Ellen and she studied at the Sorbonne. Not sure what she doctored in but she can't fix a computer or choose the perfect time.

Sunak is also brown, which will put some conservatives off.

[quote]Incidentally Suella Braverman's birth name is Sue-Ellen and she studied at the Sorbonne. Not sure what she doctored in but she can't fix a computer or choose the perfect time.

Law at Cambridge and then a master's degree in European and French law at the Sorbonne.

Braverman is on the right of the Tory party. I don't think it'll be her though.

[quote]Law at Cambridge and then a master's degree in European and French law at the Sorbonne.

Not a Pet Shop Boys fan I take it? LOL

No, what reference did I miss?

There are so many open questions before I could make an informed decision. If they consider Sunak, they need to tell me first who is fucking him, how do they do it, and what does it look like?

Who's Sunak's spad and is it a man? I mean someone has to be the spad shagger.

[quote]Sunak is also brown, which will put some conservatives off.

I keep seeing these comments from so many liberals/lefties and it's really a mixture of their own prejudices and a total lack of understanding of Tory members/voters. And that lack of understanding is why the Tories keep winning elections.

Rishi/Kemi/Suella/Nadhim/Sajid/Priti etc will win or lose based on their policies and beliefs and competence, not their skin tone. Of course a tiny minority of members won't vote for them for that specific reason but over all they will look past race or sex.

It's likely that the Tories will also have the first openly gay Prime Minister although Wes Streeting should hopefully claim that title.

[quote]why the Tories keep winning elections.

Corruption, FPTP and a biased media

[quote] based on their policies and beliefs and competence

Yes, the electorate who chose Boris Johnson care so much about policy and competence

Weirdly Sunak is the only candidate not promising tax cuts (he says those who are in the current situation are living in fairyland) and yet is way in the lead.

Mad Nads isn't going to be a candidate. The committee that sets the election rules is going to insist on a relatively high number of backing MPs, to stop no-hopers clogging up the election.

[quote]Yes, the electorate who chose Boris Johnson care so much about policy and competence

Johnson was seen as a good mayor of London. People knew about the lying and the abortions and the affairs and the dodgy articles and still voted for him.

His policy of Get Brexit Done was put forward after May's deal was repeatedly rejected. The alternatives were the Lib Dems policy of Reverse Brexit and the Labour policy (sorry to mention it again) of 1. Renegotiate deal. 2. Put to referendum 3. Majority of Labour government campaign to reject Corbyn's deal. 4. Corbyn remains neutral 5. Who the fuck runs the "vote for Brexit" referendum campaign.

[quote]Corruption, FPTP and a biased media

The Tories got 3.5 million more votes than Labour in 2019. Not sure what "corruption" you mean other than Len McCluskey installing his former mistress and current girlfriend into senior Labour Party positions to sabotage it from the inside out.

As for biased media, how awful they reported stories about Corbyn laying wreathes at the graves of the men behind the Munich Olympics massacre.

Proofread your posts, R41. Unless there's a compelling reason forbidding you from doing so, it's disrespectful to your fellow forum users not to.

r92 Which gay tories do you think might be future contenders for Prime Minister? Damien Moore perhaps?

The TIMES nattering on about Shakespeare vis-a-vis Johnson's demise.

They're also clearly not quite right in the head, I assume"

The Times article is good and clear. Your rambling, nonsensical post wasn't.

R100- Nice try. This isn't the TIMES - I'm not required to pretend I'm a TIMES journalist. The parallels stand.

You just can't stand being caught wrong.

R86, it's a lovely shade of brown tho.

[quote] You mean her own party turning on her? Ah, funny how you always skip that part isn't it?

That is a 𝑓𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 of the British parliamentary system. Not just the Tory party.

Lacking term limits for the Prime Minister and tiring on waiting for the voters, the ambitious politicians further below eventfully eventually conspire and backstab the boss.

I don't know much, if anything, about Mordaunt but I hope her campaign isn't derailed right away by the "sex-based rights", "women are a sex class" drones. These people are always protesting loudly about how they were lifelong Labour voters, anyway, right?

[quote]because you can only be a Jew if your mother is a Jew

You need to do a little more reading on the matter.

R105 Yeah, and Rachel Dolezal is a Black woman.

"Which gay tories do you think might be future contenders for Prime Minister?"

Chris Pincher

Have you seen this which is going around twitter? It's hard to read but there are a few claims about Tory MPs and men on it.

[quote]I don't know much, if anything, about Mordaunt but I hope her campaign isn't derailed right away by the "sex-based rights", "women are a sex class" drones. These people are always protesting loudly about how they were lifelong Labour voters, anyway, right?

We’ve just had the most dishonest Prime Minister in history and Penny Mordaunt has launched her campaign with an easily disprovable lie.

Mordaunt brought into the whole Trans Women Are Women Trans Men Are Men Be Kind No Debate and insisted that legislation should refer to pregnant people. Mark Drakeford, the first minister of Wales l, quoted Mordaunt saying TWAW in response to being asked whether male athletes (Miss Emily Bridges is a Welsh lady} should take the places of female athletes in competitions.

Mordaunt has now said no she doesn’t believe males should enter female sports and has claimed she’s been Queen TERF since like forever.

And the same trans rights activists who have been saying there is literally a Holocaust of trans people taking place and that their existenc is under threat are now demanding no candidates get asked about trans rights because they’re not up for debate and other things are more important. 🤷

[quote] We’ve just had the most dishonest Prime Minister in history

:::: tee hee hee :::

[quote]"Which gay tories do you think might be future contenders for Prime Minister?"

Conor Burns.

Wasn't there some controversy with Rishi Sunak, especially involving his billionaire wife?

Can't say I know much about UK politics. US politics are quite fucked up, and will likely continue to be for the next few years, especially since that orange moron became president. I spend a lot of time time reading about what's going on here.

[quote] I spend a lot of time time reading about what's going on here.

Then expect to be broadly uninformed. Maybe you'd do better getting your news from some more serious sources

Conor Burns befriended Margaret Thatcher in her sad last days and is responsible for some of the campest moments in Partygate.

Meanwhile repulsive creepy gays Crispin Blunt and Daniel Kawczynski have come out for Jeremy Hunt.

And Michael Fabricant and his wig are backing Penny Mordaunt.

Amongst the 2019 intake of gays support is more widely spread than Angela Rayner's legs at PMQs (topical joke LOL) Damien Moore and Paul Holmes want Tom Tugendhat, Lee Rowley is backing Kemi Badenoch, Jacob Young and Peter Gibson want Rishi, Kieran Mullan is backing Penny and Scott Benton wants Priti Patel to stand.

The first trans MP Jamie Wallace, awaiting a criminal trial, has not yet confirmed who they is supporting.

Thanks for the rundown, R114. Conor Burns is a funny one: one wonders how much he told Mrs T about his private life. I seem to recall that she knew he was gay - she had had many, many gay staffers over the years - but I also seem to recall that it wasn't spoken of beyond that (e.g. she wouldn't ask about his love life). I would find it hard to be "friends" with someone who thinks a core part of me is shameful but, then again, the friendship does give him a certain amount of mystique as keeper of the Thatcherite flame.

[quote]Then expect to be broadly uninformed. Maybe you'd do better getting your news from some more serious sources

😂 🤣😂 🤣 I read three newspapers a day, one being The NY Times.

"Here" was NOT referring to me getting political news @ DL! I meant "here", as in the political situation [bold]here in the US. [/bold]

If you don't know, DL is a US based website. That's why I posted "here", as in "here in the US." Not here at DL. LOL

for anyone struggling with pronunciation

It’s always the worst of the worst who end up in positions of power. That’s why humanity is doomed.

[quote]Nadh Zahawi tells Sky News he plans to impose 20% cuts on every government department in order to pay for his planned tax cuts.

[quote]Zahawi now suggesting he meant to 20% cut to headcount in departments rather than budgets.

Because a cost of living crisis is just the right time to cut the staff needed to help people.

LOL these people

[quote]George Freeman emphasising Mordaunt's credentials as the Partridge candidate on Times Radio this morning: "Penny is no woke warrior. She's more of a... liberty lioness." "She speaks human. I've heard her speak about love."

And Michael Green looks like he's already given up

Some of these people are running to get noticed and get a Cabinet job by the new leader - not serious candidates.

The latest numbers are: Sunak 35, Mordaunt 21, Truss and Tugendhat on 14 each.

Johnson has finally found a little self-awareness

[quote]Boris Johnson is asked by @BethRigby whether he will publicly back any of the candidates in the Tory leadership contest. “I wouldn't want to damage anyone's chances by offering my support”.

Dear god, Rees Mogg is considering a run

[quote]Transgender Tory MP Jamie Wallis 'was wearing high heels and a black leather PVC mini-skirt when he crashed his Mercedes into lamppost and telegraph pole at 1am before fleeing the scene'

I'm shocked this guy isn't running: he'd fit right in.

Rees Mogg running and winning would have at least one upside. Comedy could live on.

A bit surprised about JRM - he seemed to be trying for kingmaker over the weekend, but no-one was giving a flying fuck, which probably put his nose out, so we get this piece of nonsense.

[quote]Boris Johnson 'in line to become special envoy to Ukraine' after leaving No 10

This is cute: [italic]someone[/italic] still likes Bojo. It'll also keep him out of the way.

IIRC Suella Braverman has said a trans woman is a woman.

I love Kemi Badenoch. Been following her for a while. Impressive with leadership skills. Is she ready for PM? Probably as ready as many others.

R109 Please. Blair dragged this country into Bush's Iraq folly knowing full well the intelligence basis for the invasion was false.

There are lies and lies.

Hundreds of British soldiers died.

That's why Blair has to walk around with bodyguards.

Otherwise known as Tony Bliar.

Look up the Downing Street Memos.

Blair hooked his little cock to what he thought would be Bush's successful invasion wagon and ignored the actual intelligence. Yu

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Braverman and Zahawi both holding events at the Churchill War Rooms - looks like they haven't learned from Boris the folly of trying to be seen as a new Winnie

And an ally of Patel has been uncovered and admitted being the author of a dirty dossier on Sunak, the idiot didn't remove his name from the metadata of the file

"Jeremy Hunt pledges to bring fox hunting back if he’s elected PM"

Seriously? This is desperation to appeal to a very small minority. Even the majority of people in rural areas don't support fox hunting. I find it hard to take Hunt seriously. First picking McVey and then this which would be a vote loser in a general election?

Wow, he's desperate

Bizarre from Hunt. A couple of years on the backbenches building up a reputation for measured judgement as chair of a Select Committee, then just blowing this apart by random lunacy.

Ipsos Mori poll shows Labour ahead on key issues, except growing the economy and cutting taxes - and even then a 2 and 1 point lead for the Tories in their bread and butter area is pretty bad

Not politics - but to show how stupid this country has become, people are arguing with the Met Office over their prediction that Britain could hit 40 degrees for the first time, insisting they remember from their childhood that it was regularly over 40.

[quote]I love Kemi Badenoch. Been following her for a while. Impressive with leadership skills. Is she ready for PM? Probably as ready as many others.

The hate Badenoch generates from people is quite something. That ridiculous Dr Shola woman's tweets were deranged.

The clip of her challenging Caroline Noakes on trans kids was a masterclass in straight talking.

Caroline Noakes is quite a strange Tory and who she supports will be interesting. She's one of the ones I'd look out for for defecting to Labour or the Lib Dems in the future. Noakes previously voted against same sex marriage and is now Stonewall's chief ally as chair of of Women & Equalities committee. She wrote an article about trans rights for The Guardian and it had to be corrected almost immediately because she had misunderstood the law. Recently she misquoted the protected characteristics of the Equality Act.

More Kemi. You can see why so many men hate her. She's opinionated, forthright, unapologetic and speaks with confidence.

So many of the black Labour MPs are from a Caribbean background, not an African background. The cultural differences between the two groups is not always appreciated.

The look Corbyn gives her is typical.

I've never liked Badenoch ever since she laughed about hacking into a Labour MP's website to change it to say positive things about Tories. That gave me sociopathic vibes because it's illegal as well as not fair play. I would never think of doing something like that.

SavantaComRes has Labour on 43%, 15pts ahead of the Tories.

Labour and the Lib Dems have 55% between them.

Starmer has been right to category rule out any form of coalition with the SNP. Unionists in Scotland will be able to vote for Labour knowing there's no chance of a deal with the SNP and Labour are free to attack the SNP's incompetence and obsession with independence. WIN WIN.

Meanwhile, over at Corbyn Memorial Corner, Owen Jones has spoken! Johnson was the only thing Labour had going for them so now Starmer is over. Never change, Owen! You might be right occasionally if you did, which would force us all to recalibrate.

r142 1997 type numbers!

[quote][R142] 1997 type numbers!

It does have that kind of vibe.

The way the Tory candidates are talking about cutting tax when people are struggling with fuel bills *IN A HEATWAVE* is ridiculous. Whoever goes up against Rachel Reeves is going to struggle.

r145 And our current chancellor promising to cut green levies, which itself will cost £20 billion because of contracts and already agreed payments. It really does show how utterly disconnected the membership of the Tory party is from reality

Suella Braverman is now talking about cutting welfare, because SKIVERS.

They are all completely mad and have lost any sense of the electorate wo are watching this utter guff.

[quote]1922 Committee has unanimously agreed rules for the Tory leadership race. I’m told threshold for getting on the ballot will be lower than expected but all to be confirmed by Graham Brady in a statement after his meeting with the Conservative Party board due to start shortly.

excellent, this will ensure maximum chaos

[quote]Meanwhile, over at Corbyn Memorial Corner, Owen Jones has spoken! Johnson was the only thing Labour had going for them so now Starmer is over. Never change, Owen! You might be right occasionally if you did, which would force us all to recalibrate.

Owen Jones has backed Penny Mordaunt for leader and the Tories should be worried.

Every time I hear that "less about the leader, more about the ship" I cringe. And then cringe again at PM for PM. It's so Partridge.

Though, it was said that the two people Labour really didn't want to win were Wallace and her.

r125 Banned from driving for six months and £2500 fine.

Imagine that in a PVC miniskirt

[quote]Imagine that in a PVC miniskirt

Such dehumanising language, R152! Who could hold such hatred in their heart for this beautiful trans woman!?

It is clear that the magistrate's carefully phrased remarks that he doesn't believe a word of the rape story.

Jamie Wallis achievements

✔ Married to a woman with 2 kids

✔ Britain's first transgender member of Parliament (pronouns he/him/his)

✔ Criminal conviction for driving offenses, possibly caused by driving in high heels

✔ Company he ran banned from working with Ministry of Justice

✔ Ran "Sugar Daddies" pimping website

✔ Disqualified as a town councillor

✔ Has a very, very dodgy PHD along with his father, supervised by a professor who left the university 3 years before it was awarded.

Surely an heir to Boris Johnson.

What's Theresa May doing these days?

Nominations open and close tomorrow. 20 supporters needed to get on the first ballot, which will be on Wednesday. 30 votes needed to get to second ballot on Thursday. New leader announced 5 September

September 5 ensures Boris serves longer than May. And you just know he specifically asked Brady to arrange that

He'll still be not much more than a QUARTER of Maggie in terms of longevity. He spoke recently of joining her (and Blair) in serving for more than a decade.

So after a week of horrors for the Tories, Owen Jones decides to moan about...Keir Starmer. Who apparently has no policies and isn't left-wing enough, and stole the policies he does have from the left-wing.

Make it make sense, Owen. Schrödinger's Starmer?

[quote]So after a week of horrors for the Tories, Owen Jones decides to moan about...Keir Starmer. Who apparently has no policies and isn't left-wing enough, and stole the policies he does have from the left-wing. Make it make sense, Owen. Schrödinger's Starmer?

Owen Jones needs Starmer to fail because if Starmer succeeds where Corbyn failed it means Owen Jones was wrong and Owen Jones can't be wrong so Owen Jones will do everything in his power to see Starmer fail. That includes giggling with George Galloway when he was unleashing the most disgusting by election campaign against a gay woman in Batley and trying to turn the Muslim community against her.

Remember the "Unseat" campaign where Owen Jones and Momentum activists flocked to Boris Johnson's constituency and campaigned en masse to unseat Johnson and replace him with a a Labour candidate who'd had to apologise for being an antisemite? Boris Johnson's majority increased.

Owen Jones is a sad pathetic little man. The Guardian have covered up bullying complaints against him and his articles are widely ridiculed, which is great for advertising revenue for the people who click on the links to see what shite he's drummed up this time.

Can't really understand why the Guardian keep him on. They've even stopped opening his columns for comments these days, which is what really gets the hits, so why bother even reading them? Obviously, it's now the same anti-Starmer diatribe week in week out, so no need anyway. He's firmly in Afua Hirsch territory now.

[quote] Owen Jones is a sad pathetic little man.

You are too kind, R161. Owen Jones is a disgusting POS.

Mad Nad, Mogg and Cleverley are endorsing Truss, so she's clearly got BoJo's backing. Cleverley described Sunak as being like a Labour chancellor!

Labour tabling VONC tomorrow with expectation it'll take place on Wednesday

R164 How do you figure? Bojo didn't want to reduce taxes.

r166 Three of his uber-loyalists back Truss...

And Zahawi had to turn down Jonhson's plan to cut taxes. As it turns out that's because he wanted to announce that as part of his leadership bid

Latest numbers (they need 20 for the first ballot tomorrow).

Sunak 39, Mordaunt 24, Tugendhat 19, Truss 15, Hunt 14, Zahawi and Badenoch 13, Javid, Braverman and Patel 11, Shapps 8.

For those who think Tories won’t vote for an ethnic minority leader, a Corbyn supporting Palestine activist has taken issue with the same politicians entering into interracial marriages

LOL still acting like Corbyn is relevant. Guess it's all you can cling to when the latest poll is showing a replay of 97

I didn't vote for Labour when they were led by Corbyn (I didn't vote for the Tories either) but I am thinking I will vote for them this time around because Keir seems sane and in charge. The Tories have NO direction. Even hardcore Conservatives have got to be unhappy with the crappy economy under them and how they seem to spend money like water without creating any solid foundations for anything.

Keir won’t be around much longer. The party hates him.

Keir Starmer has a 28% approval rating.

[quote] Nominations open and close tomorrow. 20 supporters needed to get on the first ballot, which will be on Wednesday. 30 votes needed to get to second ballot on Thursday. New leader announced 5 September

What happens between the second ballot and September?

R174 The final two candidates go around the country making pitches to Tory members. Then Tory members vote for one of them.

Dominic Raab is a hot daddy.

R175, when does that vote take place? September?

Take your pic.

Is Javid the one alleged to use prostitutes? I vaguely recall a Popbitch item that talked about a politician who took his daughter to Australia(?) on an official trip and used a prostitute there. People were guessing him.

But who is the one "named in the divorce papers of a leading Establishment figure"?

No devout Muslims?

[quote] Not politics - but to show how stupid this country has become, people are arguing with the Met Office over their prediction that Britain could hit 40 degrees for the first time,

Non-conforming people hardest hit

^ Gender non-binaries will indeed be most affected by global warming.

Their panties are in a twist and ride up in the heat!

Pink News is such an embarrassment to the LGB community these days.

The normally sensible Hugo Rifkind has offered his opinions on how the Tory candidates should deal with "the trans issue".

He understands it's a complex matter

[quote]Candidates of all parties are now routinely asked to define “woman” and it’s a challenge you can mess up. Sir Keir Starmer’s wriggling makes him look shifty, and will probably lose him votes. Ironically, though, his tortured demeanour of “can’t this question just go away and leave me alone?” probably captures the broad public mood far better than pitiless, declamatory clarity in either direction. Think of the brilliant columns on this topic by my colleague Janice Turner, or the long, agonised blogs by JK Rowling. The public aren’t fools. They know you can’t just land this fish in half a sentence. Politicians who pretend you can, appease nobody. To those who know this territory well, they look dim and unschooled. And to the young, they may simply look vicious.

But then doesn't accept that Stonewall's refusal to debate and look at the sex/gender clashes is part of the culture war.

[quote]Remember this, as you shout at each other. Other people can hear you.

^ it's actually not a complex matter, at least not in the eyes of the majority of the public.

It is complex though . A woman *CAN* have a penis, legally, if they have gone through the GRC process, Their passport will say FEMALE, even though they're clearly not biologically female. That is the law.

So one on hand you have the theological debate of what is a woman, and JK Rowling is the world's most famous heretic because she doesn't believe in the new gender religion. The Maya Forstater tribunal upheld her right to be a heretic and her belief is not something that she can lose her job over.

But then you have questions on public policy. Should all toilets in government/public buildings be gender neutral or do women have the right to single sex space.

All the polling shows that the public generally supports trans rights but when the person has made some commitment to living as the opposite sex. They are opposed to male athletes competing in women's sports though.

If Paris Lees was to be convicted of a serious crime (again) and sentenced to a(nother) custodial sentence, should she be put in a men's prison where she'd be at risk of sexual assault or a women's prison where women have the right to say no they don't want to be housed with a male. There are conflicting rights that need to be resolved.

r177 There'll be several rounds of voting by Tory MPs until only two are left, and then these two are voted on by the Tory membership. It's done by postal ballot, so voting will go on all through summer, with various debates and so on.

Great opening here

[quote]Nadine Dorries and Jacob Rees-Mogg come out for Liz Truss.

[quote]“She’s probably a stronger Brexiteer than both of us.”

[quote]Jacob agrees.

[quote]*Liz Truss campaigned for remain in 2016.

Sir Graham says that the final two will be picked by the 21st July at the latest.

Grant Shapps has given up on his campaign (I think it was more to pitch to be Tory chair again) and supports Sunak. Hot Dominic Raab has come out to support Sunak also. They may be betting on the person they think is most likely to win but we'll see what the Tory members think.

I saw that yesterday, R181! Couldn't believe what I was reading.

R171 Tge Tories didn't unleash the pandemic, and as for the printing of money without a foundation, America, the EU, and China are doing the same thing.

There are plenty of reasons to criticize the Tories but it does bear noting that Biden is also being blamed for the state of America's economy, to the extent that not even the Roe v Wade shock is shifting voter intentions there.

The pandemic ravaged economies here and elsewhere.

France's economy has been stagnant forcat least 20 years under leftists and Goldman Sachs business acolytes like Macron.

The fact is, big countries with too many competing issues, especially in the sphere of health, are caught between a rock and a hard place.

You can't go the Danish route in a country like this. They pay the highest taxes in the developed world.

But the pack we have here are all screaming about cutting taxes, even the ones who pointed out barely 2 months ago that there wasn't much else to do to shore up the NHS, once this country's pride.

This isn't a socialist country. Neither, for that matter, is Denmark: Denmark is what real socialists call benign capitalism. It has some of the most unregulated capital markets in the world and is ranked in the top ten of good places to do business.

No one can traly "afford" the cost of health care as it's billed out today.

I can't stand the lot of them, personally, but the economy is the result of quite a few other factors, including globalisation.

If you think Labour would have done better under the huge economic pressures of the pandemic, then I think you're naive.

The West has had half a century to heed the earnings and get off oil dependency that now gives someone like Putin an edge.

This isn't down to the Tories, it's far more compkex.

As I said, there's plenty to vote against here, but in also think it's dangerous not to recognise the tangled economic web most of the West is in now.

R193 At least when Labour spends money it's sometimes investment in education, infrastructure, housing. The Tories just want to piss it away on stupid things like 'Eat out to help out'. I just did not get that at all. How's the housing problem going as well? Why are we spending enormous amounts on housing benefit while scores of people want to be able to afford their own home. Oh yeah, because the Tories are protecting their landlords and NIMBYS. The Tories pissing away millions on their stupid fake Rwanda bullshit as if it reduces immigration whatsoever as well? I can't respect that at all. It's so fake and such a huge lie. They can't be honest.

I suddenly had the idea that Ben Wallace, everyone's expected winner till he said he wasn't standing, has basically decided the Tories are a lost cause at the next election and whatever new leader they chose will just crash and burn. He is just going to wait to pick up the pieces.

I read a comment elsewhere in the Guardian that pointed out that Owen Jones' piece yesterday was based on almost certainly deliberate misrepresentation of the figures (he used 2017 polling figures rather than the relevant 2019 ones). Naughty Owen!

It is fascinating that a PM with such strong election results, gets deposed so early in his run by his own people. Something clearly is wrong with the system. The party is just following the voters' (presumed) lead. I get that. But how is it possible that public opinion is changing so extremely quickly and so drastically when the PM didn't really change at all. After all, he never had a vision for the country or a moral compass - and the voters knew that. The lies that caused him all the trouble were really not that new. He always had lied. So what made people change their mind now?

R194 - Good lord, open a history book.

The Rwanda plan isn't to "reduce immigration". It's to stop illegal migrants from walking in by the tens of thousands, imposing billions on the UK taxpayer for their upkeep and legal cases, and standing next to no chance of being deported.

That's not "immigration".

Remember the 1970s and its dire economic conditions? That was Harold Wilson: Labour.

Take off your rose-coloured glasses.

I think, R197, that it may have something to do with the fact that the Tories have been in power for so long that, as in the 1990s, they have become corrupted by the notion that they will always be in power because there is no alternative (as they see it). So, yes, Johnson is as much of a mendacious cunt as he always has been, but their long period in power has convinced the others that the public will tolerate some corruption and lying because, again, they thought there's no alternative. The polls may now be changing their minds, hence their jettisoning of Johnson.

[quote]Tge Tories didn't unleash the pandemic

They didn't do anything to control it either, before it was too late

Speaking of diseases - Priti Patel has just ruled herself out

It stopped being funny during COVID. Johnson was never going to recover from Partygate. People still burn with fury and Tory voters almost more and others.

To correct you R200, Patel discovered she couldn't get anywhere near the number of supporters she needed.

R200, was that because of her ally's involvement with the hit document on Sunak? Patel is a notoriously difficult person, so, if that's what has led her to withdraw, I almost feel sorry for the guy who wrote the Sunak document.

[quote]I suddenly had the idea that Ben Wallace, everyone's expected winner till he said he wasn't standing, has basically decided the Tories are a lost cause at the next election and whatever new leader they chose will just crash and burn. He is just going to wait to pick up the pieces

Ben Wallace is a good defence minister when we (Ukraine) are at war with Russia. I'm not sure how different the UK's response would be if someone else had been defence minister but he's done a decent job.

He's also got some dodgy view points that would need to be explained - he opposed gay marriage as others have said in this thread and like a lot of right wingers he's sympathetic to Iran.

John Major shitting on the Tories

[quote]What has been done in the last three years has damaged our country at home and overseas and I think has damaged the reputation of parliament as well.

[quote]The blame for these lapses must lie principally - principally, but not only - with the prime minister, but many in his cabinet are culpable too and so are those outside the cabinet who cheered him on.

[quote]They were silent when they should have spoken out and then spoke out only when their silence became self-damaging.

[quote]It is fascinating that a PM with such strong election results, gets deposed so early in his run by his own people. Something clearly is wrong with the system. The party is just following the voters' (presumed) lead. I get that. But how is it possible that public opinion is changing so extremely quickly and so drastically when the PM didn't really change at all. After all, he never had a vision for the country or a moral compass - and the voters knew that. The lies that caused him all the trouble were really not that new. He always had lied. So what made people change their mind now?

Boris Johnson won an election and then lied, lied, lied, lied some more, got fined by the police, lied about a sexual predator and was finally held to account by his MPs who demanded his resignation.

The system worked as it should. It should have happened sooner, but better late than never.

[quote]The system worked as it should

Imagine actually believing that

R205 The last fundamentally decent person to serve as Prime Minister. He's also become quite the statesman in retirement.

R206 I don't there being a huge problem is a defence secretary becoming PM is a situation like this - a plus, if anything. And I'm no fan of the homophobic bastard or any Tory,

Still can't quite believe Major shagged a Currie.

a Currie - no idea where most of that name went

[quote]Imagine actually believing that

In my life time there have been people who became Prime Minister because they won elections - Wilson, Thatcher, Blair, Cameron - people who became PM when their predecessor retired - Callaghan and Brown - and people who became PM when their predecessor was forced out - Major, May, Johnson.

We are not a parliamentary democracy where the leader of the biggest party becomes Prime Minister. If that leader is not up to the job the the MPs in that party can make a change.

When Johnson refused to resign immediately last week there were pearl clutchers comparing him to Trump trying to overthrow the election result with the attack on the Capitol when the system worked as it should.

It did it again - does this place hate the name E D W I N A

^ Muriel has banned the first five letters of Mrs Currie's name because they form the name of a notorious troll who forced Muriel to ban all mention of him (a.k.a. the Brooklyn Seacow).

There is a Datalounge setting that doesn't like the name E-D-W-I-N so doesn't allow it to be typed.

Not sure the full story.

[quote]We are not a parliamentary democracy where the leader of the biggest party becomes Prime Minister. If that leader is not up to the job the the MPs in that party can make a change.

There's an erroneous NOT in there.

Should read: We are a parliamentary democracy where the leader of the biggest party becomes Prime Minister. If that leader is not up to the job the the MPs in that party can make a change.

It's why Boris Johnson's claims that he had a personal mandate of 14 million votes was utter bullshit,

R53 Corbyn and Bernie Sanders are this generation's equivalent of William Jennings Bryan. They're the political version of Rocky Balboa in the first film.

Their cults treat them like living gods, even though they're LOSERS. Whatever fantasies they have about mandates or "the right side" are complete bullshit. They never won a national election. More people voted against them than for them.

Completely mental that Brexit headbangers like Dorries and Jacob Rees Mogg are rallying around Remainer Liz Truss, while the Tory centrists (such as they are), are all going to lifelong Brexiteer Sunak. How do their minds work?

Penny Mordaunt's latest video had to be changed after the family of murdered Labour MP Jo Cox notices she'd been included in it. What the actual fuck?

r212 A load of blather to avoid stating the obvious - that the system did not work. The only reason the Tories took action was because it harmed them. Not because of the lies, the corruption, the greed, the disrepute that the government has been brought into, the law breaking, the sexual harassment, the sexual abuse, et al ad nauseum. That is not a functioning system.

At this point, it's like they want Labour to win

[quote]BREAKING: Boris Johnson has blocked Labour's bid to hold vote of no confidence in Govt tomorrow. Senior Labour source: "It's just another example of them ripping up the rules to protect their own side. They're saying he's going anyway but they're clearly frightened of losing".

[quote]Labour spksperson: “This clapped-out government is running scared and refusing to allow time to debate Labour’s vote of no confidence motion. This is totally unprecedented. Yet again the Tories are changing the rules to protect their own dodgy mates."

Now normally the government will have to reverse ferret within 12 hours or so, but we might get an example of BJ being bloody minded now, and it'll be hilarious if that's so

Government statement falsely says the PM has resigned, which of course he hasn't yet

The motion reads

[quote]That this House has no confidence in Her Majesty’s Government while the Rt Hon Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip remains Prime Minister.

[quote]This is the Government’s response 👇🏼. Labour sources pointing out that the PM hasn’t technically resigned - ie hasn’t yet gone to the Palace - and that clerks have ruled motion would be in order.

Clerks ruling it in order gives the government no hiding place. One more part of the constitution ignored by this government.

Vote 4 Sammi

[quote][R212] A load of blather to avoid stating the obvious - that the system did not work. The only reason the Tories took action was because it harmed them. Not because of the lies, the corruption, the greed, the disrepute that the government has been brought into, the law breaking, the sexual harassment, the sexual abuse, et al ad nauseum. That is not a functioning system.

All governments lie and are corrupt *to an extent* (never as bad as Johnson), and all parties protect their leaders where possible and with populist leaders the lying and incompetence often has little impact on their popularity. (Hi Nicola!)

All governments and parties cover up sexual harassment and abuse and many go on to win elections despite testimonies in court that staffing rotas were organised to ensure women weren't allowed to be left on their own with the head of the government. (Hi Nicola!)

But Westminster is a parliamentary democracy and the MPs of the governing party took action to remove their leader and thus change Prime Ministers. They'd tried to do it earlier with the vote of confidence, but that didn't work.

Boris Johnson is the worst PM this country has had since Chamberlain. He is a grotesque and delusional pompous arsehole who was the leader of the part that won an 80 seat majority.

What formal constitution would you have in place to deal with situations like his?

[quote]What formal constitution would you have in place to deal with situations like his?

Moving the goalposts, eh? The point was, and remains, you claiming the system works. It doesn't. Even Peter Hennessy, who has made a career from Britain's constitutional oddities, has said the system is broken and it's time for a formal constitution. Relying on people just voluntarily following the rules does not work.

[quote]Suella Braverman has deleted her tweet stating that she's got the numbers

[quote]Under rules each candidate has to book an allocated time with the 1922 their nominations can be formally checked

[quote]Until this process is complete, they can't formally declare they have numbers

This idiot is our AG and wants to be our PM

[quote]Moving the goalposts, eh?

No, I'm asking you a question.

You say the system doesn't work, so I asked what you would like to have in place of the current unwritten process which resulted in Boris Johnson being forced to resign as Prime Minister.

8 through -

Badenoch, Braverman, Hunt, Mordaunt, Sunak, Truss, Tugendhat, Zahawi

2nd round of voting tomorrow 13:30-15:30 where people with 30 backers get through.

r229 Enforcement of the rules which exist would be a start, along with removing the PM's ability to decide whether investigations are started, what the result will be, etc. Having them be written and codified instead of a "gentlemen's agreement" type situation or having decisions based on a letter to The Times

LOL - Nadine is claiming that Team Rishi are lending votes to Jeremy Hunt to make sure he gets through to the final round.

Which is quite funny because that's exactly what Team Boris did last time to ensure Jeremy Hunt was in the final 2 and not Michael Gove.

Andrew Marr is predicting Rishi Sunak with the deputy being a further-right Brexiteer.

Braverman is horrifying. Shola is worse.

Ben Cohen, the little person who runs Pink News, has not taken Penny Mordaunt's gender heresy well and is now obsessively tweeting about her.

JK Rowling has some competition in the woman he's most obsessed with.

Labour has no shot at wining. Those days are long gone. Brits are conservative through and through. It’s Thatcher all over again.

R236 No shot? Have you seen the polls. If there were an election today, I'd guess it'd be a Labour-LD coalition. And historically Labour have been in government multiple times so it's not as if they can't win either.

That's only because of Boris r237, not because Labour is popular. A new Tory leader will fix a lot of the problems.

It's also not necessarily because the country is "conservative", it's because Labour are shit and offer nothing.

Bold of you to think that a new Tory leader will be a better election winner than Johnson, to be honest. That's one thing he's really good at and he got a whopping majority. David Cameron and Theresa May both barely scraped in.

R239, Johnson is now tarnished and dragging the Tories down. That's why he's had to stand down, if you hadn't noticed that, and the Tories have been flopping in recent elections. His breezy campaigning boosterism is no longer effective or believable.

There is absolutely nothing attractive about the Labour Party today. In 2017, May was dealing with some voters hoping a Labour government could reverse Brexit or arrange a closer relationship with the EU. She was also battling the rebellious Brexiloons in her own party. Cameron barely scraped through the first time and got a solid majority the second time. A new leader for the Tories is going to be a problem for Labour.

Maybe if you repeat it enough times it'll become true!

[quote]Told Boris has decided this was his last PMQs. Doesn’t plan to turn up next week. Hence his final reply to Keir.

Pathetic little man

Seems he plans to bin Ukraine, again.

be in, obvs

#TeamKemi

She would be amazing.

[quote]As the Evening Standard reports, a poll by Ipsos Mori found that 12% of people said they they knew either a great deal or a fair amount about Stewart Lewis - a fictitious Tory leadership candidate invented by the polling company.

[quote]And 6% of people said they knew “a great deal” about him - more than the 5% who knew a great deal about Suella Braveman and the same figure as for Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat, all three of whom are in the contest and do actually exist.

[quote]Bold of you to think that a new Tory leader will be a better election winner than Johnson, to be honest. That's one thing he's really good at and he got a whopping majority. David Cameron and Theresa May both barely scraped in.

Boris Johnson's majority is flattered by how awful the alternative was.

Cameron got 10m (36%) and then 11.3m (37%) votes, May got 13.6m (42%) and Johnson got 13.9m (43.6%).

In 2017 people didn't really think Labour could or would win so lent them their vote. By 2019 people knew exactly who Corbyn was and what he stood for. In 2 years Labour lost nearly 2.5m votes and an 8% share of the vote. BUT DON'T MENTION CORBYN!

[quote]BUT DON'T MENTION CORBYN!

Cling to that strawman all you want. No-one's saying you can't. We're just pointing out how ridiculous you look in 2022 when you keep bringing him up, despite him now being politically irrelevant.

On a side note, you might want to consider why you have t constantly resort to logical fallacies, rather than actually post in good faith.

New: Hunt and Zahawi have been eliminated. Poor Jeremy Cunt will probably never get his dream of being PM now.

R247 My counterpoint to that would be that Boris has an unique appeal to Red Wall seats which made a big difference. Will the new Tory leader have a similar appeal? Either way it's near certain that they are going to lose a lot of seats at the next election so the only question will be how many.

Boris and Brexit. Funny how r247 didn't mention that

There was another Jeremy Cunt.. Hunt from an interviewee on the BBC again this morning. They just let it pass now.

Supposedly the Sunak team will be lending votes to underperforming Truss (the technical term for this is apparently 'shenanigans'), out of worry about the rise of the unfathomably popular Penny Mordaunt. This seems pointless, if true, as there is no guarantee he'd do better with the membership against Truss, so why bother?

[quote][R247] My counterpoint to that would be that Boris has an unique appeal to Red Wall seats which made a big difference. Will the new Tory leader have a similar appeal? Either way it's near certain that they are going to lose a lot of seats at the next election so the only question will be how many.

[quote]Boris and Brexit. Funny how [R247] didn't mention that

Between 2017 and 2019 Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and increased the Tory vote by 300,000 and 1.5%

Between 2017 and 2019 Jeremy Corbyn remained Prime Minister and the Labour vote decreased by 2.7 million and 8%

Yes Boris Johnson was liked in the "Red Wall" seats who voted Labour for the first time but Corbyn was disliked and distrusted more. And no one trusted his policy on Brexit which I will remind everyone just for the sake of it.

1. Corbyn goes to Brussels to renegotiate deal. 2. Deal is put to referendum - leave the EU on terms of Corbyn's deal or remain in EU 3. Majority of Labour government campaign to reject Corbyn's deal and remain in EU. 4. Corbyn remains neutral during referendum 5. Who the fuck runs the "vote for Brexit" referendum.

They are all equally mired in their own involvement in keeping Boris Johnson in situ throughout all his lies and obfuscation. Cunts, the lot of them.

I wonder why Jeremy Hunt flopped so early on in the contest.

[quote]I wonder why Jeremy Hunt flopped so early on in the contest.

Because no one likes him.

R255 Teaming up with Esther McVey for his deputy and saying that he'd bring back fox hunting, for example were obviously desperate measures. He was trying to counter how the Tory right doesn't trust him but he went too far and I don't think that anyone on either side of the party would find that combination appealing or something they can trust.

Hunt spent 9 years in government across 3 departments. He isn't the fresh start that anyone wants.

omg, this is pretty funny:

"@CharlotteIvers

Bob Stewart MP on Times Radio saying he’s backing Penny M because of her bravery. Asked for an example he says she bellyflopped a dive on the reality show Splash and then came back to dive again."

R252 I've just seen that it's not just the ConHome survey but also a YouGov survey of Tory members that finds that Penny Mordaunt would currently beat *every* candidate in a run off by at least 18 points.

The YouGov survey found that Mordaunt would currently beat Sunak by 39 points and that Truss would beat Sunak by 24 points.

I personally think that this looks like that Sunak is fucked when it goes to the Tory members. He has kind of an Ed Miliband vibe once you actually get to know him so I can't see how it gets better for him either.

I've linked to the YouGov poll.

r256 Yes but why? He came second last time.

Ben Bradley is a real asset to the candidate he is supporting Kemi Badenoch- just watched him on channel 4 and got strong BDE from him... I'd have dropped my calvin kleins to the floor quickly for him!

Whiff of desperation, perhaps, R261? Sunak has it, too. And Truss, with her truly cringe-making antics in the tank (aping Mrs. T). Mordaunt seems less calculating and it's often the case that we trust the people who are least blatant about their ambitions.

As you're a fellow royal-watcher, SA, you may have heard people saying that one of the Queen's strengths as a constitutional monarch is that everyone suspects she'd really much rather be on a farm somewhere with her horses and dogs; the fact that she sees her role as one imposed on her (i.e. a duty) makes her less likely to abuse it.

Well, the fact that he already lost to Boris isn't a good look is it? Backing a loser.

r263 Good points thank you. I think Penny is in the good territory of not being overly associated with Boris Johnson and supporting him but also not treacherous.

r264 Fair enough.

Re: Rishi, apparently BDF is not counted as highly among Tory members as it is among conservatives on DL.

r266 You think Rishi has BDE or BDF?

The DL conservatives seem to be supporting Badenoch, bizarrely. Someone who has no Cabinet experience and is on the right of the Tory party. Nice.

r268 If they were being they'd back someone like Mordaunt or Sunak who can appeal beyond the partys base.

r269 Should say if they were being smart.

Wait. Wasn't Badenoch recorded ridiculing gay marriage? And she admitted to hacking and altering a rival's website...

Hmm.

Gay conservatives aren't too smart. It's tragic but there it is.

From February 2020:

"Boris Johnson’s new junior minister for equalities, Kemi Badenoch, abstained on the extension of same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland."

In 2020 even after it was the Tories who legalised gay marriage in 2013!

Rishi's video and launch came across as way too smug and slick. He oozes over-confidence and perfection, as against the swaggering misrule of Boris. A goody-goody who knows it. These factors can rub people up the wrong way, and his big lead tonight won't help. Let's take him down a peg or two, is a likely reaction.

Penny's a huge favourite in the odds now, probably has this in the bag. Worst of them all, but best for Labour's chances in the general.

[quote]"Boris Johnson’s new junior minister for equalities, Kemi Badenoch, abstained on the extension of same-sex marriage to Northern Ireland."

There were huge numbers of abstentions on the bill, including the SNP. Many felt it was an issue for Northern Ireland to resolve.

From memory very few members of the Government voted for it but they knew it would pass with Labour votes. Michael Gove and Liz Truss voted for it.

R276 Odd that you say that Gove and Truss voted for it but try to excuse away Badenoch's abstention. She was even a junior minister for equalities. Comparing this to the SNP doesn't make sense when the Conservatives are Unionists. There's no excuse. Badenoch is on the right of the Tory party and any gay person has to be self-hating if they think she's a good idea to be PM.

[quote][R276] Odd that you say that Gove and Truss voted for it but try to excuse away Badenoch's abstention. She was even a junior minister for equalities. Comparing this to the SNP doesn't make sense when the Conservatives are Unionists. There's no excuse. Badenoch is on the right of the Tory party and any gay person has to be self-hating if they think she's a good idea to be PM.

I wasn't excusing Badenoch. It was a officially a free vote but the majority of government ministers abstained because of the sensitives around the lack of government in Stormont. Truss and Gove were the exception.

The same thing happened with Stella Creasy's abortion amendment. The majority of government ministers abstained despite supporting it.

ripx4nutmeg@ripx4nutmeg 7.13.22

Penny Morduant:

Said 'trans women are women' at the Despatch Box

Tried to change the word 'woman' with 'pregnant person' in a bill

Accepted Pink News awards for the above

Has, as a twin brother, a trans activist who she attends Pride events with Is now favourite to be PM

R278 Nice deflections but why wouldn't a junior minister for equalities support it like Gove and Truss did when the Tories had legalised gay marriage. It was actually probably pretty much Cameron's only real achievement. He still brings it up as something he's proud of and doesn't seem to have anything else.

If Mordaunt can survive the Sunak-Truss game playing she’s the next Prime Minister. Her twin brother is a fabulous muscleboy homo. 🌈

[quote][R278] Nice deflections but why wouldn't a junior minister for equalities support it like Gove and Truss did when the Tories had legalised gay marriage. It was actually probably pretty much Cameron's only real achievement. He still brings it up as something he's proud of and doesn't seem to have anything else.

BECAUSE GAY MARRIAGE IS A DEVOLVED ISSUE AND THE GOVERNMENT WHICH KEMI BADENOCH WAS PART OF MADE A DECISION TO ABSTAIN BECAUSE OF THE SENSITIVIES OVER THE WESTMINSTER GOVERNMENT DICTATING LAW IN NORTHERN IRELAND WHICH IS DEVOLVED.

R282 Again, why would Gove and Truss feel free to vote for it if that's an issue? They weren't even junior ministers!

R283, because maybe they weren't principled enough and just wanted to pander.

You were given the reason. The fact you don't understand UK politics is on you.

R284 Nah, I actually do believe that Gove and Truss believe in gay marriage equality. Truss used to be a member of the LDs, she's probably liberal on social issues.

American here. I'm a little confused as to why Mourdant became a favorite seemingly overnight. Does this have to do with Sunak's vote lending so he has an artificial deficit that he'll recover from once the field is whittled down further? It's both conservative PMs and wider population survey of Tories from Yougov. Is this the first pop survey of those in contention or was there a previous one supporting Sunak? One of the reasons I'm confused is that I used to work for a survey research company that Ipsos eventually purchased. You just don't see dramatic swings like this in such a short period.

[quote]If Mordaunt can survive the Sunak-Truss game playing she’s the next Prime Minister. Her twin brother is a fabulous muscleboy homo. 🌈

If Mordaunt becomes Prime Minister maybe she can get her brother a new facial expression. His Zoolander stare needs a revamp.

R286 Mordaunt feels like classic Middle England to me. She's a solid Brexit supporter without being weird about it. Sunak, Truss, Hunt, Tugendhat supported Remain which is a problem for Tory members while people like Badenoch and Braverman are too far right to be appealing to the general public. Mordaunt seems like a good compromise for a lot of members. That's my guess.

Does anyone else get Catherine Deneuve circa 1990 vibes from Mordaunt? I think it's the hair.

[quote]American here. I'm a little confused as to why Mourdant became a favorite seemingly overnight. Does this have to do with Sunak's vote lending so he has an artificial deficit that he'll recover from once the field is whittled down further? It's both conservative PMs and wider population survey of Tories from Yougov. Is this the first pop survey of those in contention or was there a previous one supporting Sunak? One of the reasons I'm confused is that I used to work for a survey research company that Ipsos eventually purchased. You just don't see dramatic swings like this in such a short period.

Because she's a blank canvass, and because a lot of the Tory leadership isn't who you want as leader but who you don't want as leader.

She has a huge lead amongst Tory members despite one poll showing only 16% of Tory votes recognising her from a photo.

In the last leadership election Johnson supporters made sure Jeremy Hunt got enough votes to see off Michael Gove for the final 2.

Expect Rishi's team lend votes to other candidates he's more likely to beat in a one to one.

[quote]Sunak, Truss, Hunt, Tugendhat supported Remain which is a problem for Tory members

?????? Rishi Sunak is a famous Brexiteer! Are you confusing him with Sajid Javid who campaigned for Remain?

Thank you, r288/r290. I'm becoming more familiar with the parliamentary system. I didn't realize cabinet members were MPs or exactly what a shadow cabinet means (intriguing idea).

I've always been interested in politics and have volunteered for several campaigns starting in high school as an active Reagan loather. But now, in my late fifties I've become so demoralized and borderline hopeless about what's happened in our country in less than a decade (though it's been brewing longer), I've stopped watching/reading political news beyond reading headlines and knowing the very, very basics. It's just unbearable and depressing. So I've been getting my politics fix and amusement on these threads. It's easy when your not a citizen.

And British Tory politicians, a very few loonies aside, seem eminently more sensible and reality-based, even if they're just as craven as ours. Our GOP doubles down on the lunacy and circles wagons (except for Cawthorn, god knows what he did), at least yours see some writing on the wall... Which implies a more sensible voter base. As awful as these times are, at least it seems like the UK has a far better chance of righting the ship.

r288 Wasn't Sunak a brexiter before 2016 and during the referendum?

Forgot to add at r292 that the British have the BEST and possibly most* sex scandals of politicians anywhere on the planet. It makes the proceedings so much more fun.

*I say possibly most because U.S. pols have to hide it better due to the large puritanical segments in our society. Plus we don't have the same tabloid culture and readership. The main stream media would not touch the John Edwards story until it had to after the Enquirer broke it and said practically nothing about Nicole Boebert's alleged abortions and sex work. Anthony Weiner's about as salacious as it's gotten here, but he was stupid and targeted and there was evidence.

Jeremy Hunt is backing Rishi, in a BLOW TO PENNY, after Penny launched his leadership bid in 2019.

Who wants Hunt supporting them? The other candidates will probably take it as a positive.

The BBC hyping up Sunak and Hunt... yeah, I'm thinking they'll come crashing to the ground once this gets to the members.

[quote]Thank you, [R288]/[R290]. I'm becoming more familiar with the parliamentary system. I didn't realize cabinet members were MPs or exactly what a shadow cabinet means (intriguing idea).

You don't have to be an MP to be a member of the government or shadow cabinet - you can be an unelected/appointed member of the House of Lords. This happens when an MP loses their seat in an election but is seen to be of value.

An example of this The Baroness Chakrabarti, better known as Shami Chakrabarti, human rights lawyer who was commissioned to provide an "independent" report into antisemitism in the Labour Party. She wrote her report, said there wasn't a major problem, and was then nominated to be a member by Jeremy Corbyn and given a job in his shadow cabinet as shadow Attorney General.

Members of the House of Lords can't come to the House Of Commons to be questioned by MPs about their brief and responsibilities.

The sooner the House of Lords is abolished and preferably not replaced with anything, the better. I'm embarrassed that it still exists.

[quote]I'm a little confused as to why Mourdant became a favorite seemingly overnight. Does this have to do with Sunak's vote lending

I wonder why Penelope Mourdaunt of Torquay, Devon, daughter of a decorated British paratrooper, and the first female British Defence Minister, would win the leadership of the Conservative Party of Britain over Rishi Sunak, a Hindu teetotaller grandson of Punjabis who immigrated to East Africa, from where his parents subsequently immigrated to England, who holds an American Green Card and who's wife claims to be an Indian resident on her taxes?

Actually, it's Rishi's wife's family's money that has the BDE.

Electing Sunak PM is like marrying the man she snagged whilst he was still married to the wife he loved but who didn't understand him.

After the euphoria of the wedding, she realises that this little niggling voice she keeps hearing every time he's late at the office is the first wife's, saying, "He did it to me, what makes you think he won't do it to you?"

And doubly revolting was Sunak's attempt to overlay his long-planned betrayal of Johnson with a glossy refusal to rewrite history and demonise Boris Johnson.

That isn't a defence of Johnson, by the way. It is still a marker of Sunak's real character.

Beware.

[quote]the first female British Defence Minister

A role she spent less than 3 months in.

[quote]I wonder why Penelope Mourdaunt of Torquay, Devon, daughter of a decorated British paratrooper, and the first female British Defence Minister, would win the leadership of the Conservative Party of Britain over Rishi Sunak, a Hindu teetotaller grandson of Punjabis who immigrated to East Africa, from where his parents subsequently immigrated to England, who holds an American Green Card and who's wife claims to be an Indian resident on her taxes?

Because Rishi is being labelled a socialist for his Covid spending and tax increases and untrustworthy by Johnson loyalists and no one really knows who Penny Mordaunt is but she's a clean slate.

Quite simple.

r299 What's wrong with replacing it with a second elected chamber like in the US?

Mordaunt seems wholly calculating, r263. How did a mid-ranking minister that no one ever thinks about come to have so much "momentum" from the moment the leadership election was announced? With campaign material already, and a carefully planned undoing of her previous support for trans extremism.

[quote]American here. I'm a little confused as to why Mourdant became a favorite seemingly overnight.

So are most of us, r286, especially her apparent popularity with the party members.

Then we'd have a similar mess as they have in the US, r304.

r306 Not necessarily it depends how you design it, the electoral cycle for a revising second chamber. Not every country with two elected chambers experience a US style mess.

In most countries where it sort of works r307, the second chamber is comprised of representatives of the regions. Not sure if that would work in the UK. They are also often elected by an electoral college.

r308 We elect mps from regions and specific localities so I can't see what the issue is?

Brits have zero room to say shit about US politics. After the antics of BoJo the Clown, their on the cusp of having a classist opportunist with zero loyalty to the UK as PM. You can’t make this shit up!

r310 Why? You are an american saying negative stuff about UK politics even though your country elected a thug like Trump so by the same token a british person can criticise US politics despite the fact some in their country elected idiot Johnson and possibly Sunak? I have no problem you slagging of british politics-that is your right.I may agree or disagree with some of your criticisms but I have no issue with your right to criticise just as you should have no problem with my right to criticise US politics whether you agree or disagree with my criticisms? Same rules same token for everyone. I am not sure how up to date you are but recent polls have Sunak losing to two of his main rivals in the party in any final vote.

Oh look, it's my biggest fan on the site, demented stalker R57. Thanks for your dozens and dozens (I counted) of illuminating and not at all unhinged posts on this thread and I'm glad your mental health and emotional stability appears to be just about holding up. Somehow I'm not surprised that Kemi Badenoch is your new flame.

I'll let Jez have the final word (don't worry about him btw, he'll be fine. British democracy, not so much).

Fun fact: if she wins, and somehow she appears to be the huge favourite now, Penny Mordaunt will be the first person to serve as Prime Minister without previously having held a great office of state (Chancellor, Home Secretary, or Foreign Secretary) or having served as Leader of the Opposition, since the Earl of Derby in 1852.

On top of that comparatively modest CV, most commentators seem to struggle to give a clear and comprehensive account of her worldview. We know she's a Brexiteer by conviction and voted that way in 2016, but apart from that, not being any of the other ones may well have won her this leadership election.

Given what a disaster Theresa May turned out to be - something the Tory selectorate really didn't see coming - they are taking a BIG chance with this one.

Penny's surprising popularity reminds me of Andrea Leadsom. The Tory 'men in grey suits' were terrified she would win and handed the role straight to Theresa May without even taking it to the members for a vote. But lots of people say that was a mistake because once you got to know her, May isn't much good for a leadership role, so it's a good thing for candidates to be scrutinised.

I wonder if we'll see similar wrangling to get someone like Truss on the final two instead.

Can't believe I'm saying this but, on reflection, maybe the best Tory minister for PM all along was...... Gove.

r314 I think the final two could be Morduant versus Truss with Morduant winning.

R311, I’m not being literal. I’m only trying to point the UK has had a series of ridiculous PM’s over the past 12 years (without a single break), yet they’re among the most vocal in criticizing US politics. Don’t even get me started on Brexit, which was one of the most bone-headed, isolationist decisions made by a western democracy in decades (I would say since the US’s decision to invade Iraq, but guess who was right there with us?

Isn’t it funny how those in glass houses tend to be the quickest to throw stones?

R309, many second chambers are comprised of politicians from local government or that represent local government, e.g. the second chambers of France and Germany. What would you base a revised UK second chamber on?

I think there's a possibility that the final two could be Sunak and Truss. The backers of the other candidates are more likely to go to Truss and Sunak than to Mordaunt, especially Zahawi's and Braverman's backers. Mordaunt is currently benefiting from the fact that the "mainstream" vote is split between many candidates (Truss, Zahawi, Javid, Braverman). Most of those will switch to Truss, some to Sunak.

[quote][R311], I’m not being literal. I’m only trying to point the UK has had a series of ridiculous PM’s over the past 12 years (without a single break), yet they’re among the most vocal in criticizing US politics. Don’t even get me started on Brexit, which was one of the most bone-headed, isolationist decisions made by a western democracy in decades (I would say since the US’s decision to invade Iraq, but guess who was right there with us?

Cameron and May were serious politicians and preferable to the alternatives on offer in 2015 and 2017.

I don't support Brexit and voted to remain in the EU, but the debate around whether the UK should be in the EU is a valid one to have. The UK was never a full member of the EU anyway, thanks to Thatcher's opt outs and Gordon Brown's opposition to the single currency. Free movement of people has benefitted a lot of people in the country, but it also caused problems.

Worth pointing out again that Theresa May's Brexit deal was a really good deal and yet the the hard core Brexiteers led by Johnson rejected it, as did Labour MPs because they wanted to sit on the fence for so long and try and bring down Theresa May. They did help bring down Theresa May, and as a result got Boris Johnson and a hard Brexit.

And as much as I despise Johnson, his leadership on Ukraine has been fantastic, unlike the Germans who have enabled Putin for decades. And when 9 unelected judges can decide whether a woman can have an abortion in the US, the Westminster parliament recently voted to further liberalise abortion laws so women can take abortion pills at home, provided they're in the early stages of pregnancy.

The UK will move on from Johnson quickly. The US is stuck with Trump's legacy for years.

[quote]First round in 2019 Johnson got 114 in a much smaller party... First round it 2016 May got 165... ditto. Any suggestion that Sunak is a position to be lending vote is nonsense. 270 Tory MPs voted AGAINST him.

I wonder if it's possible Sunak won't even get to the final two. For a front-runner he isn't that popular plus Tories will be looking at the run off polls and wondering if someone else would be more competitive.

r317 But are the same people criticising US politics the same ones who voted for brexit or Johnson? I criticise US politics and neither voted for brexit or Boris and I am far from alone. There is no generalised' they 'throwing sticks in glass houses when you are talking about a population of over 60 million.

R321 That would depend on whether there's a significant number of Tories who want to stop Mordaunt at any cost, which seems not to be the case.

r318 Revising chamber not revised chamber. Ie a chamber that revises and amends legislation but cannot initiate primary legislation of its own which is different from many second chambers. An elected House of lords with a set number of people elected from regional lists in elections held on a different electoral cycle to the first chamber and with maximum fixed terms so they can't be a member of the second chamber for more than 25 years. No more long termers like there is with life appointments in the house of lords now Anything in life that can be checker and revised is better in my opinion. I'm politics it would be a check on populism .

R320, Johnson's legacy of Brexit plus his terrible management of the economy and running down of public services will blight us for decades. Trumpism is rhetoric, it easily disappears once people (mostly the Democrats) decide to move on from it. Trump and Bojo did have a good relationship, though.

On Ukraine, the UK plays no role beyond telling the Ukrainians what they want to hear and making lots of publicity whenever we send them some weapons. Britain is not in reality sending Ukraine any more weapons or financial and other support than countries like France or Germany are (in fact, French and German long-range missile systems are superior to the UK ones). The UK is absolutely irrelevant when it comes to the politics of the Ukraine-Russia crisis, how to find a political settlement once the war has run its course, and the eventual rebuilding of Ukraine within the framework of the EU.

Boris Johnson personally has enabled Russian oligarchs and former KGB agents and London has been their money laundering hotspot. We've played a huge role in enabling Putin's corrupt power system, whereas the Germans just traded with them (and in the same way as the Poles and Baltics did).

R324, a revised - reformed, if you life - second chamber, which will be a revising chamber, i.e. a revised, revising chamber, is what I meant.

I don't really agree with your proposal for a second chamber. More elections supposedly sounds democratic but I think there's also something to be said for a second chamber comprised (mostly) of people who have distinguished themselves in their life and career and who have great experience and expertise but who are less beholden to party politics scrutinising proposed legislation.

R321, Sunak will get to the final 2, unless you think, e.g. Suella Braverman's backers will all switch to Penny Mordaunt. The question is will Mordaunt be in the final 2 once the other candidates drop out and their backers switch to someone else.

In opinion polls, Sunak is the only Tory who can currently beat Starmer as best prime minister.

Hm, he does do better than the others but the latest polls have Starmer leading on the PM question.

Savanta ComRes poll: Sunak 36%, Starmer 39%

Redfield Wilton poll: Sunak 34%, Starmer 41%

I did see a poll where Sunak was ahead of Starmer. Regardless, he does better than the others and would probably improve his standing if he were to become PM and Bojo and his mess were out of the way.

I personally think he'd do worse as people get to know more of him. He gives me Ed Miliband vibes.

Can someone clear something up for me:

Does BoJo only remain PM until his party chooses a new leader, or does he stay in the job until there’s a new election?

Does his successor automatically become a caretaker PM until there’s a new election?

R331 He only stays until the successor is picked. The successor will become PM straight away.

Context: in order to be PM, you must be able to advise the Queen that you enjoy the confidence of a majority of the House of Commons (ie that they would vote for your government in a Confidence vote). If you lose the confidence of the majority, you should go to the Queen to tender your resignation and advise her whom she should send for next (ie whoever commands the confidence of the majority now). The new PM will not be a caretaker if s/he commands the confidence of the majority. If no-one has the confidence of a majority of the House, the Queen must be advised to call an election.

Technically, Johnson doesn't have to be a party leader in order to be PM, though invariably the PM is a party leader.

R333 overstating the Queen's role.

Her role is to listen to what the outgoing PM tells her and then hand over the seal of office to the next one, it ain't difficult.

In other words, r335, you're overstating the Queen's role. In order to be PM you must be the leader in parliament of the party that has a majority or is able to lead a coalition. That's it. All the going to the Queen stuff is irrelevant.

Well ok, but officially and legally the Queen is the person who appoints the PM. It's like saying that Joe Biden taking the oath of office is irrelevant, or Congress certifying the election results from the states is irrelevant (it wasn't last time!).

r336 You're an idiot

Most reforms to the House of Lords have come from Labour and it's something they are currently thinking about.

Just read a comment in the Guardian that waiting for this election to be over is like waiting to hear what cancer you've got.

No, I'm not an idiot r338. The Queen has absolutely nothing to do with what's going on in politics in the UK right now.

R341 No-one said she did. All r333 did was point out the facts of what happens in terms of her appointing a PM.

And yes, you very obviously are.

Actually r342, he pointed out what happens, as he sees it, "in order to be PM", and then went on about the Queen, not about the process whereby a PM is selected in the current circumstances.

r343 That is how a PM is appointed. You're not exactly helping yourself in the not looking like an idiot stakes here. To the shock of no-one, except r343, the head of state is involved in the appointment of the head of government.

Boris deciding to pick a fight with Cummings is going to ensure the fag-end of him premiership is still alive with drama

Braverman out. She got 27 so she didn't get the threshold of 30 and also came last. Tugendhat got 32 and lost 5 since the last round so he probably will be eliminated next round.

Her votes come from the right of the party so I'd expect Truss and Badenoch to benefit from them next round.

There's now 3 TV debates before the next vote which will really put the candidates to the test.

Mordaunt and Badenoch have the most to lose.

The stories about Mordaunt promising to make her campaign chief Andrea Leadsom her Chancellor are quite odd as Leadsom sabotaged her own leadership campaign with her "as a mother" jibe about Theresa May. The childless spinster Mordaunt will do well to avoid anything Leadsom did during her leadership campaign, including the march on Westminster.

"@Steven_Swinford

Suella Braverman will back Liz Truss for the Tory leadership, The Times has been told. Around half of her 27 backers are expected to follow her. Steve Baker is also expected to back Truss."

Pretty sure we can rule out Badenoch too - Tugendhat's votes will likely go to Sunak/Mordaunt.

Apparently Leadsom has been running Mordaunt's campaign. If May v. Leadsom had gone to a member's vote she probably would have won and things would look very different. She was cheated out of it really.

The former BBC Stonewall spokesman Ben Hunte has reported an EXCLUSIVE STORY about Kemi Badenoch forcing the Financial Conduct Authority to SCRAP its proposed policy on allowing staff to self ID.

It includes a paragraph WHICH LITERALLY STATES WHAT THE LAW IS, the law that Badenoch was responsible for.

[quote]Boo added: “In UK law, a person’s legal sex is determined by what is recorded on their birth certificate. A trans person can change their legal sex by obtaining a Gender Recognition Certificate.” He says, his concern is that the trans-inclusive policy change “will make it more difficult for you to gather accurate data on the longstanding under-representation of women in senior roles.”

I know it's shocking that a member of Boris Johnson's government knew what the law is BUT COME THE FUCK ON.

[quote]Apparently Leadsom has been running Mordaunt's campaign.

I've liked Mordaunt so far but Andrea Leadsom is the stupidest woman in British politics (yes, even Diane Abbott).

Andrea Leadsom is not the most stupid woman in politics.

Nadine Dorries outshines everyone in that field.

Diane Abbott is ideologically ridiculous but she outshines her ex boyfriend and leader on intellect.

Honourable mentions to Andrea "Finger" Jenkyns and Kate "Baseball Bat" Osomor.

Watching Leadsom attempt Brexit negotiations would have been hilarious.

R353 More hilarious than Boris Johnson? May's failure is what gave us Johnson.

Theresa May didn't fail in negotiating. After all her "Brexit means Brexit" and "No deal is better than a bad deal" bullshit she actually negotiated a remarkably good deal which the EU compromised more on than they wanted to, primarily because of the Northern Ireland peace process.

Her deal left the UK outside the EU and without freedom of movement - Labour also had committed to end that - but the backstop meant we had some of the other benefits of being in the single market.

That wasn't a true Brexit for the hardcore nationalists so they voted against, and the opposition parties voted against it, despite it being the best deal possible. Labour complaining it didn't have employment protections was bullshit - create your own employment laws if you want to.

So May's deal was rejected, she resigned, Boris Johnson negotiated a much worse deal which Labour voted against, Johnson called an election which Labour backed, Labour promised to renegotiate the deal and put to the country in a referendum with overturning the original referendum the other choice and surprise surprise they had their biggest election defeat in 80 years and Boris Johnson then passed the shite Brexit deal.

THE END.

R354, Leadsom would failed much faster than May did. She's dim as a 2-watt bulb.

R344, the head of state's involvement is irrelevant. Absolutely no one in the UK is mentioning it at all. Do you even know what the fuck is happening here right now?

I don't care about your approval for whether I'm "helping" myself or not.

The Daily Mail wants Truss. Apparently their journalists have been told to not be overly critical of her, and they've been going after Mordaunt in particular since it seems like she's the main competitor.

Truss says that she will borrow money to make tax cuts.

r357 You absolute moron. Absolutely everyone in the media was talking about whether the queen could turn down a request for an election when it looked like BJ might call one to try and avoid having to resign.

The funniest part here is you can't even point to a single thing that poster got wrong (because they didn't).

Why exactly does Lord Frost think his opinion is relevant? Telling Badenoch to withdraw and back Truss, and saying he'd not serve in a Mordaunt cabinet - as if anyone would ask him! The arrogance of the fuckwit who negotiated a deal that he them almost immediately attacked as being a failure.

I find it annoying that people keep blathering on about the Queen and get so excited about the idea of her getting politically involved. She is just a figurehead who doesn't make political decisions and NOR SHOULD SHE.

Badenoch is Gove's sock-puppet and she will do what he tells her, to benefit his future prospects. Truss has now put herself under the thumb of nutmegs like Steve Baker, whose puppet Braverman was/is. To the non-Tory outsider, the best result is a final two of Sunak and Mordant, as whoever wins will likely purge the cabinet of the Johnson lackeys and malevolent Brexit lightweights. I don't think any of the candidates are capable or restoring the govt's reputation before the next election, so I would prefer a basic level of competence and lack of divisive shithousery till then.

r361 Nice strawman, but no-one has said she'd get politically involved. Literally the only thing that's been discussed is her constitutional role. And Private Eye reported this week that her flunkies had laid out the various scenarios and how she should respond to each one, complete with consulting their own legal team, because they don't trust government lawyers.

Anyway, point being absolutely no-one has said she's anything more than a figurehead, but one that does play a role when it comes to the appointment of PMs.

"Tory infighting has led Keir Starmer to believe for the first time since he became Labour leader that he can win the next election regardless of who becomes PM, the Times lobby team reports. “He always felt that with Boris in place, Labour would end up losing,” a source tells the paper. “Despite the sleaze, he thought that by 2024 it would have faded into the background and Labour would struggle to win back the seats in the north and Midlands that it lost in 2019. That’s now changed.”

On that note: After knocking around parliament in the past few days, Team POLITICO gets the sense Mordaunt is the Tory contender whom Labour MPs and advisers most fear — and that they are hoping for a Truss victory." (Politico Playbook)

On that note, Sunak's favourability trajectory with the general public looks bad. The last poll had him at a net minus 29 favourability.

Well hopefully this means we see a bolder and more confident performance, not just from Starmer but the rest of the shadow cabinet too

If anyone cares, here are the answers to the questions put to each candidate by Self Loathers Anony...sorry, LGBT+ Conservatives

Truss and Badenoch didn't respond

Badenoch spent many of her formative years in the US and it's been noted that she is basically a Republican, not a Tory (there is a difference).

To save her floundering campaign Truss has just promised over £30 billion in tax cuts.

Whereas Penny Mordaunt worked on George Bush's election campaigns in the US in both 2000 and 2004, r367.

Oh, I'm sure there are all sorts of links, R369. But Badenoch is a current, Hawsley-style Republican. I do think Mordaunt is the least worst option and would jettison some of the crazies out of the government, despite many blots on her own history and personality (Brexiteer, big homeopathy-pusher, etc). Badenoch and Truss were the two candidates who refused to answer questions sent in by the gay Conservative group.

[quote]Why exactly does Lord Frost think his opinion is relevant?

He's the Len McCluskey of the Tory Party.

Lynton Crosby at work to make the House of Lords even more of a joke than it already is

Johnson's resignation honours are going to be awful

[quote]"Project Homer", a confidential document drafted by Sir Lynton Crosby's CT Group and seen by ITV News, says that if there had been around 40 additional committed Tory supporters in the Lords, Boris Johnson would have avoided more than half of the defeats he suffered in the second chamber since becoming prime minister.

[quote]It says the loyalty of individual peers could be rewarded by giving them CBEs for political service, making them special envoys or advisors to the prime minister, and giving them lunches and dinners at Chequers, the PM's country residence.

[quote]It also says that if the list were to contain controversial candidates such as Paul Dacre, editor in chief of the business that owns the Daily Mail, the media and critics would concentrate their outrage on him, rather than looking too hard at the bigger picture.

Hmm, seems Muriel doesn't like links to ITV News, as won't post the post when I link to it - that's where the quotes are from anyway

Kemi dazzling in yellow, the candidate with any colour.

Rishi looks quite diddy in between Penny and Liz.

The biographies weren't quite right, and I did LOL at Tom Tugendhat's parents being described as a "A high court judge and French mother" as if French is an occupation.

The "gay conservative" group, r370, is actually an "LGBT" group, in other words it's nothing but a trans activist group that does nothing for gays (the opposite) and the questions were entirely about trans, not about gays. Truss and Badenoch are the Equalities Secretary and Minister respectively, and they've been working to disentangle all the harmful anti-gay, anti-woman proposed legislation and language that Penny Mordaunt tried to introduce when she was Equalities Minister. Mordaunt herself is now completely backtracking on her previous positions, however, and now claims to believe in single-sex spaces (although she can only say it in a roundabout way).

The answers Sunak, Tugendhat and Mordaunt gave were all generic fluffy meaningless answers which don't say anything.

How funny that both candidates of the right of the Tory party didn't respond though... The right of the Tory party aren't your friend. But you just see tax cuts.. (which by the way 30 billion will have to be borrowed for and even Thatcher didn't believe in such an approach).

TOM IS READY TO SERVE

RISHI WILL SAVE THE NHS

Badenoch and Truss didn't respond to the Conservative trans group questions, r376, because they support actual lesbians and gay men (as well as women) and they are very aware that the Conservative trans group is opposed to people being exclusively same-sex attracted and in facts hates us for our sexuality.

Despite answering the "LGBT" Tory trans group's questions Penny Mordaunt was so embarrassed to say anything gay-related that she forgot to mention that her own beloved twin brother is gay. Perhaps she "forgot" to mention him because he looks like this.

Penny's gay twin brother, whom she's too embarrassed to mention, has also made his Instagram private since his sister announced her candidacy. I wonder why she wants to keep him under wraps.

He can still be found on some Facebook pages.

Ew, Truss and Badenoch don't believe in net zero either. So predictable.

I don't like Sunak's approach of just throwing some money at the problem either. Tugendhat makes a great point that energy is used as weapon. We just need to invest more in creating more of it ourselves. Not fracking but nuclear, wind, solar.

Rishi is outshining Liz as the heir to Boris

Kemi is outshining Penny as the protégé

Tom is outshining them all as the clean slate

"@OpiniumResearch

🚨BREAKING - SNAP DEBATE POLL🚨

Tonight we asked over 1000 normal voters to watch the debate and we have just asked them who they thought performed best.

Results:

Tugendhat 36%

Sunak 25%

Mordaunt 12%

Badenoch 12%

Truss 6%"

Would like to see a poll of *just* Tory members though, will look out for one.

[quote]1000 normal voters

That’s a massive sampling error when the electorate consists of insane swivel eyed gammons.

I watched the debate and I thought they were all spineless, self serving cunts.

[quote]That’s a massive sampling error when the electorate consists of insane swivel eyed gammons.

It was the whole of the UK, not just Scotland.

Penny Mordaunt's claim that none of the the top 180 innovations(?) are not used by the NHS has generated some pushback.

Vaccines, antibiotics, x-ray machines, computers, wheels, fire, engines etc etc etc.

More Maggie cosplaying from Truss

r386 Tories then?

Truss's resting smirking-bitchface is off-putting.

Great article looking at Labour during the campaign

[quote]Amid the noise and chaos of PMQs on Wednesday, Keir Starmer turned to his deputy Angela Rayner and said quietly: “You’d better get ready for next week, Ange. Looks like this is his last one.”

On Sunak:

[quote]Labour strategists are hoping that Sunak wins the race precisely because the next election will be an “economy election” and the former Chancellor will be forced to own the looming recession, the cost of living crisis and years of weak GDP. “I’ve got to be honest, we’d be delighted if he won,” one senior figure said. “He’s thin-skinned in interviews, he’s never struggled like ordinary people and he’s the face of the Johnson government. And he’s given us the best attack line on tax ever.”

On Truss:

[quote]Truss herself is also seen as an ideal opponent, not least because of her plans to slash public spending and her unfunded tax cuts. A shrink-the-state policy paper she co-authored before becoming an MP called for “user charges” to see a GP and described the winter fuel allowance as a “pensioner gimmick”. Just as potentially wounding is her record of gaffes and recent use of a private jet that reportedly cost the taxpayer up to £500,000. [bold]Labour has also picked up dark mutterings among Tory critics about “skeletons in her closet”.[/bold] One Tory had confessed: “We can manage four prime ministers in 12 years. We can’t manage five in 12 years and six months. She could be gone very quickly.”

On Mordaunt

[quote]But Mordaunt’s flaws are being mercilessly exposed both by her own side and by newspapers loyal to Johnson and Truss. Labour is storing up all the attacks on her competence from former colleagues like Lord Frost. Amid the feeding frenzy of bitterness, some Tory camps are passing to Labour contacts their dossiers on rival candidates, and Labour’s own intel finds its way into newspapers. In the wake of Johnson’s lies, Mordaunt’s record of truthfulness is a key target. One example is her suggestions to Tory MPs that she didn’t personally support the civil service’s insistence on using “pregnant persons” instead of “mothers” in the Ministerial and Other Maternity Allowances Bill.

And this is key for Labour:

[quote]A Labour insider said that navel-gazing was the worst feature of the current contest. “Our problem was we thought Twitter was Britain. Their problem is they think the Spectator magazine is Britain.” Another senior figure adds: “Their obsession with things like trans and university campus platforms is a million miles from where the public are. People on the doorstep are saying they can’t afford Christmas because of the energy bill rises coming this autumn.”

Realising Twitter does not represent the real world is huge for Labour. And I think we've already seen the impact of that, with Starmer pivoting questions about trans issues to the economy instead - because the latter is the issue real people actually care about.

And finally - Saj just didn't have the killer instinct

[quote]Before former Health Secretary Sajid Javid dropped out of the race last week, he was advised by a fellow MP to roll the dice with a really clean break with Johnsonism. “He could have said ‘we’ve become the Toxic Tories and I’m the man who will change all that’. Sadly, Saj didn’t want to do it.”

[quote]Such is the effort to ensure Sunak remains untainted that diehard supporters took it upon themselves to organise chaperoning him around parliament. A WhatsApp group named “the walkers” was set up by MPs to coordinate meeting and ferrying the former chancellor between events, to avoid him being collared by colleagues and journalists.

Jesus. He's going to snap after his first PMQs if he gets it

[quote]One MP who supported Javid in the previous leadership race said that after he failed to secure a place on the first ballot – having gathered only 12 of the 20 required supporters – Javid approached them with tears in his eyes and entreated to know why they had not done so again.

Poor ickle Saj. Are they sure it wasn't sweat?

[quote]As attention turns to the final stages of the parliamentary leg of the leadership election, MPs fear a brutal weekend. Sources on the 1922 Committee, which set the rules for the short contest, admitted it had been deliberately designed to take place from Wednesday to Wednesday, allowing the Sunday newspapers to interrogate and “weed out” awkward policy positions and past behaviour. So concerned are some camps about the dirt that rivals are dishing on them that several are said to have hired media lawyers.

I'd say tomorrow should be fun then, except, you know, HEAT

[quote]Despite the humiliating nature of Johnson’s downfall, he is said to still be desperate to regain the popularity he achieved during the heady heights of 2019’s general election campaign. A No 10 source suggested he believed he could “do a Churchill” and make a comeback, swooping in again if the new Tory leader loses the next election and stands down. Another Johnson loyalist said he was “still very angry” and likely to take swipes at Sunak if he emerged as the next leader.

He has to be talking about the dog

[quote]Labour has also picked up dark mutterings among Tory critics about “skeletons in her closet”

The "skeletons" in Liz Truss's closet is that she has had sex with several men, one of whom wasn't her husband (she had an affair with a Tory MP). and one of whom was a black man (Kwasi Kwarteng)

Doubt that's it, given it's widely known, and wouldn't be enough to bring her down as PM

R392, Labour is going to lose precisely because it wants to do away with protections for women and supports mutilating kids. What you've quoted is a partisan piece that is trying to present Labour as mature and sensible, yet they still don't have a single policy, beyond gender self-id, a windfall tax on energy companies and green investment (all still just generic slogans, details yet to be worked out).

A new Tory leader who isn't Boris Johnson (except perhaps Mordaunt, as she has many of the same ideological flaws as Labour) will be a disaster for Labour. Labour are not popular, Starmer does not click with the voters and their front bench is joke.

IMO the Guardian piece is right that the general public really doesn't care as much about trans issues as some rightwingers think - I saw a recent poll which asked people what they were concerned about and women's issues was RIGHT at the bottom with only 2% citing that. Guess what was top? Yep, the cost of living/economy. So I think it's flat out wrong to say that Labour are "going to lose precisely because it wants to do away with protections for women and supports mutilating kids."

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

[quote]IMO the Guardian piece is right that the general public really doesn't care as much about trans issues as some rightwingers think - I saw a recent poll which asked people what they were concerned about and women's issues was RIGHT at the bottom with only 2% citing that. Guess what was top? Yep, the cost of living/economy. So I think it's flat out wrong to say that Labour are "going to lose precisely because it wants to do away with protections for women and supports mutilating kids."

Are you surprised no one cares about women's rights when put alongside the economy energy, poverty, climate change, the war in Ukraine etc?

The problem Labour has is that it is unable to articulate what its position on trans rights is and the sex/gender clash. Thankfully they've moved on from the Labour leadership campaign in 2020 when Dawn Butler claimed babies are born without a sex(!) and Lisa Nandy argued sex offenders should be able to self ID into a women's prison.

There are many in the party like Angela Rayner who refuse to deviate from Stonewall's no debate policy and simply repeat the TWAW TMAM NBPAV mantra over and over.

2 weeks ago the Labour Party pledged to protect and uphold the Equality Act (which has sex as a protected characteristic and legislates for single sex spaces) and modernise the GRA. You can't do that without there being a massive conflict of rights and Labour have to get ahead of the game and make the case for what will happen.

As long as Labour refuse to do that and remain defensive they're going to be asked gotcha questions like "can a woman have a penis" by journalists who want their tweet to go viral.

And the more the public see of squirming politicians who can't answer honestly the less likely they are to vote for them, regardless of their policies on heating bills, public sector pay and

It's quite funny watching Penny Mordaunt claim the throne of Queen TERF when she spent so long pushing the TWAW mantra. Take away the dishonesty of her claiming she's always felt this way and she's actually managed to articulate a stance that is widely accepted.

I'm saying that it's not a top issue for voters in any way and that Labour really aren't going to lose the next election because of it.

The right wing media in the UK has an obsession with trans issues. It provides a convenient diversion from the grotesque chaos of the Tory government, and Labour’s inability to score in an open goal.

[quote]Boris Johnson skipped out on his second emergency meeting in a row today and tomorrow he is hosting a lavish goodbye bash at Chequers. A spokesman said Sunday's party was a 'private event'

So Churchillian of him

The left-wing media in the UK has an obsession with trans, r401. The Independent and Guardian are obsessed with trans, to the point of overt misogyny and homophobia.

To see how far the left is in the complete grip of the trans cult, just look at the debate in the US on abortion rights and the overturning of Rowe vs Wade. What is very obviously a women's issue that affects only women, a subject that should be all about women's rights, has now become about "centring trans and non-binary people" and anyone saying "pregnant women" is allegedly transphobic.

[quote]Rowe vs Wade

You fucking idiot

Mind-blowingly stupid letter from NHS management. As if hospitals have extra space and staff that they just haven't been using until now because they never thought about it

[quote]The right wing media in the UK has an obsession with trans issues. It provides a convenient diversion from the grotesque chaos of the Tory government, and Labour’s inability to score in an open goal.

Is this someone from Pink News posting this? LOL

The focus on "trans rights", which includes removing single sex provisions, removing female healthcare/biological terms from public service communication and deliberately misinterpreting the Equality Act has come almost *EXCLUSIVELY* from the left. Every time The Guardian publishes an opinion piece on trans rights it is corrected within hours because the journalists are so ill informed.

After Theresa May's government flirted with self ID and some female journalists pushed back the Government have made their position clear - no self ID, they've made the GRC process cheaper and simpler. Sajid Javid was looking at the Cass review in to appalling care at the Tavistock and the erasure of female terms in the NHS.

It's Labour, the Lib Dems and SNP who have been driven to distraction by trans issues, not the Tories.

LOL r407 acting like trans issues aren't playing a ridiculously large part in the leadership campaign.

Trans issues are playing a part in the leadership debate because Penny Mordaunt has been blatantly lying about her previous position on it.

Mordaunt aside there is no difference in the stances between any of the leadership candidates - trans people deserve dignity, no plans to change GRA or Equality Act, single sex spaces are important for women.

It will come up in interviews with journalists going for the gotcha moment but as far as the debates are concerned it's mostly a non issue.

They're playing a large part because of Penny Mordaunt, r408, a candidate for the leadership of the Tory party who claims never to have pushed for gender self-id when she was at the Equalities Ministry, even though she was trying to ram it through. It's an issue of trust, and Penny Mordaunt can't be trusted.

And so why was Johnson bringing up trans issues before he resigned? Because the Tory party was planning on making the "culture wars" part of their electoral campaign. I know lying is a natural state for you Tories, but it doesn't half make you look foolish

We're not Tories you moron, we're fed up former Labour voters. We're also lesbian/gay, so the way the trans activists have taken over the gay organisations and the gay community in the UK and used them to campaign against biological sex and hence homosexuality has directly affected us.

Boris Johnson wasn't "bringing trans issues up" - the government was being forced to respond to the mess created in Britain as a result of the trans activist push in the previous years. There had long been problems at the Tavistock youth gender clinic, for example, and the Keira Bell case underlined that and made it an issue that could no longer be ignored. Penny Mordaunt was trying to push gender self-id through by stealth and for a long time anyone who tried to speak out about it was aggressively cancelled. Stonewall has become a nasty anti-gay, anti-woman, trans activist organisation, creaming millions off the public and private sectors each year while misrepresenting the law to them.

The trans activists continue to try to abolish biological sex- especially in schools- and there are still many problems with trans policies and measures that have been implemented in the UK that need dealing with.

[quote]Boris Johnson wasn't "bringing trans issues up"

LOL this re-writing of history from the idiot claiming he isn't a Tory

[quote]And so why was Johnson bringing up trans issues before he resigned? Because the Tory party was planning on making the "culture wars" part of their electoral campaign. I know lying is a natural state for you Tories, but it doesn't half make you look foolish

Unless Boris Johnson and his advisors are negotiating with journalists to ask him about trans issues, he isn't "bringing up trans issues", he is responding to questions from journalists based on media storms generally generated by trans activists.

He was asked about male record holder Emily Bridges competing in the women's category in cycling and gave a straight forward and (for him) appropriate answer that didn't ridicule Bridges. This was after Lia Thomas won races in the US and a huge media storm about Bridges.

And journalists know what their audience respond to. Clips of politicians stumbling around the "can a woman have a penis" question go viral in ways that questions about the economy or benefits don't.

He literally brought them up at PMQs to attack Labour, you lying fuckwits

[quote]He literally brought them up at PMQs to attack Labour, you lying fuckwits

When was this?

Google it. You're clearly not arguing in good faith, so I'm not going to waste my time finding a link for you. While you're at it, google about the Tory plans to make culture wars a central theme of their election strategy.

I did google it. I found a story about BJ mocking Keir Starmer for his dithering response to being asked "what is a woman" but I wouldn't call that "bringing up trans issues", just one politician mocking another.

Is there another example or is that what you were referring to?

Dead Ringers did a joke about "what is a woman" yesterday and the punchline was along the lines of "a woman is anyone Boris Johnson will shag behind Carrie's back". Is that transphobic?

Ah, so bringing up trans issues isn't bring up trans issues to you? Sure, you're not bad faithing this at all.

And how exactly is my opinion on a joke remotely relevant to the topic of the thread? Funny how you Tories, who you insist don't bring up trans issues, sure do love bringing up trans issues to try and distract people from the actual subject of interest.

[quote]New: J.L. Partners poll of 4,434 British adults for The Sunday @Telegraph, conducted 12th-14th July 2022

[quote]Voting intention amongst likely voters

[quote]CON: 31%

[quote]LAB: 42%

[quote]LDEM: 11%

But I thought Labour's lead was all down to Johnson being unpopular, and yet he's being replaced but that lead still stands...funny that

He hasn't been replaced yet, r420.

r421 Why should that matter? You said Boris was the problem, since he's on his way out shouldn't there be some resurgence? That's it, keep your head in your ground

[quote]Ah, so bringing up trans issues isn't bring up trans issues to you? Sure, you're not bad faithing this at all. And how exactly is my opinion on a joke remotely relevant to the topic of the thread? Funny how you Tories, who you insist don't bring up trans issues, sure do love bringing up trans issues to try and distract people from the actual subject of interest.

MARY!!!!

You're one of the TRAs who insist discussion about abortion should be centred around trans people, aren't you?

I'd be quite happy of trans issues were never discussed again. I watched Paris Lees on a BBC politics show this week saying she wants to leave the UK because it's so awful for trans people here, then repeatedly talk over a black woman who had a different point of view to her.

Between Pink News, Mermaids and Stonewall you'd think the claims of a trans genocide are true, that politicians are creating concentration camps to house gender non conforming people and murder them. In the words of India Willoughby "Trans are the new Jews!" And then when politicians are asked about trans rights and give an opinion, TRAs scream "our lives aren't up for debate - leave us alone".

But again, the reason why trans issues are being discussed in the Tory leadership race is because Penny Mordaunt has lied about her previous position. She didn't say she'd changed her mind, or that her views were misunderstood. she's denied things that blatantly happened. And following on from Boris Johnson and his lies about the parties, about Chris Pincher, about Brexit, about hospitals, a lying candidate is quite rightly under scrutiny.

[quote]MARY!!!!

That's not how you use that at all

[quote]You're one of the TRAs who insist discussion about abortion should be centred around trans people, aren't you?

Oh look, another strawman. And more paragraphs totally irrelevant to the thread

"That's it, keep your head in your ground" - It's very easy to tell that r422 is an angry man TRA by his patronising and arrogant attitude. He must be appalling around women.

I have (almost) no time for "trans rights activists" but the "women's rights activists" will make a TRA out of me yet. So smug, repetitive and irritating.

Baroness Williams, one of the other ministers in the equalities office says the stories about Penny Mordaunt are incorrect and a smear. Most likely instigated by someone on Liz Truss's team.

Baroness Williams isn't even making sense: "the allegations that I won't specify aren't true".

They're absolutely true, r427, and no one needs to "instigate" false stories and rumours because we all lived through that period when the Tory government - with Penny Mordaunt as the responsible minister - was trying to push through gender self-id. Mordaunt was a big TRA until she realised that the winds had changed and she had to change her tune too. Truss didn't need to do anything, these are well-known facts.

Even that idiot Ben Cohen of Pink News says Mordaunt is not being honest when she says that she never supported gender self-id.

Benjamin Cohen @benjamincohen Breaking: @PennyMordaunt says that she didn’t ever support changes to the Gender Recognition Act to de-medicalise the process. This will surprise many in the LGBTQ+ community as it was the policy of the department she was the cabinet minister for In her full answer, @PennyMordaunt implies that it was the policy of her predecessors and ultimately Theresa May but not her. As someone who first met Penny a decade ago, it’s the first time I’ve heard that she didn’t agree with this (but I may have been out the loop!)

Trying again with Ben Cohen's tweet where he says Penny Mordaunt has changed her position on self-id, even if she denies that.

I don't understand why these people can't just say that they've changed their mind. Why do they have to LIE? There's nothing wrong with changing your mind - people do all the time when faced with new evidence or arguments. It's the stupid lying that's dragging this story out longer than it ought to be. The exact same thing with Johnson and his lying. Why couldn't he just own up to it and apologise? Instead it became a long and painful dragged on story.

It really is fun to watch the two Tory posters become ever increasingly unhinged. At this rate they might not survive long enough to cast their vote.

r428 I dont class Ben Cohen as reliable.He is a horrible man and a viper. The stories all appearing in the media about Penny on a number of things in recent days has more than a whiff of black ops and a hit job.Why are the tory press ignoring that Liz Truss was a passionate remainer and used to be a liberal democrat? Penny seems a much nicer person than Liz Truss. I just get the feeling some of the claims about Penny are being distorted.I am not saying she is blameless but I do feel the right wing media has an agenda.If Penny gets through to the final 2 against Rishi just watch some of the press attacking her do an about turn.

NBPAV = Non-Binary People Are Virile? Vain? Vapid?

[quote]It really is fun to watch the two Tory posters become ever increasingly unhinged. At this rate they might not survive long enough to cast their vote.

Classic TRA. Classic DARVO techniques.

R433, are you really suggesting that Penny Mordaunt wasn't trying to push through gender self-id as Equalities Minister? Because that's quite clearly what she was trying to do - and publicly so - at the time.

Watch her here literally saying that transwomen are women, transmen are men and that is the basis on which she is going to reform the Gender Recognition Act.

Here's Penny Mordaunt just this week taking a selfie at a garden party with a known misogynist trans activist.

Penny and Tom T have their first big interview this morning on the BBC.

Sophie Raworth isn't the best interviewer. Hopefully C4 will get Andrew Neil in for the final two campaign.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear, Penny is not handling the economic questions very well.

SOPHIE HUN, PENNY JUST AIN'T GOT THE DEETS RIGHT NOW!

r436 She has explained that she meant legally not biologically and that reform of gra was about shortening the length of time and getting medical recognition quicker. The clip in itself doesn't contradict what I am saying or prove the claims against her.

Here's more in Penny's interview with Beth Rigby of Sky News. I have often been accused on here of being a transhater so I have no reason to back someonein a biased way on this side of the argument. I am just trying to be fair. This has all the markings of a coordinated hit job on Penny Mordaunt-Black ops. I smell smear with all the half baked stories thrown at her the past week.

If Mordaunt is telling the truth and she never favoured any form of self ID then why did Pink News crown her "politician of the year"? What made th TRA Ben Cohen think she was worthy of an award when she has always favoured the status quo and has a history of opposing male trans women competing in female sports?

Either Cohen got it badly wrong or Mordaunt did offer support for self ID.

Mordaunt floundered during questioning on her economic plans and her dishonesty about her Brexit claims in 2016, and now she's saying a vote for her as leader/PM means "we'll get Brexit re-done".

And the pitiful claims of being briefed against are ridiculous. She's in the running to be Prime Minister and her integrity is being put under scrutiny, as are the other candidates.

r441 Not really. The press is cheerleading Truss- in the mail and Rishi in the Murdoch press. Little scrutiny.

The Mail has been attacking Sunak since he announced he'd run for leader! The Mirror is running a story today that he wore PRADA SHOES(!) on a visit to a building site.

The Mail are clearly pro-Truss but other papers have been reporting negative stories and opinion pieces about her.

r443 Yes that's what I am saying. Truss backed by Mail ,Rishi getting an easy ride of Murdoch press. Tory party members don't read the Mirror or Guardian so that's neither here or there. It's the tory press unleashing attack dogs.

Is Kemi Badenoch a real contender?

No, R445. She'd have to take all Braverman's votes and steal half of Truss's to get anywhere near the membership vote..

Rish! not wearing a tie to the debate has probably ensured the membership now votes against him

Has Mordaunt decided she doesn't want the job now? Her lying over the trans matter, and then doubling down over the lie about Turkey, and now saying she'd ditch the rule about borrowing to fund daily spending...is she just incompetent or self-sabotage?

Rishi was so bitchy with his question to Liz Truss about what she regretted most but she scratched back with the comment about his school.

Once again Rishi looked like a relatively experienced statesman, Liz had a bit more life in her and performed better with the format, Tom T looked like a Lib Dem leader who hasn't got a chance in hell of being PM, Penny was anonymous (can't remember anything she had to say) and Kemi didn't do as well in this format with her truthtelling.

Stop being naive r440. As r441 says, Mordaunt aspires to become prime minister and so she should be put under proper scrutiny, especially as she is so unknown and is flip-flopping (however much you deny that).

As others have mentioned, Sunak is getting pilloried by the Mail, so you needn't see this scrutiny and doubting of Mordaunt as a conspiracy theory, it's part of the process.

Opinium's snap poll for this one:

Sunak 24%

Tugendhat 19%

Mordaunt 17%

Truss 15%

Badenoch 12%

r450 looks like Truss supporters are backing a weak candiate.If they want to prevent Rishi getting the top job they need to back Penny.

It's a lot about ideology for them. I guess the new leader will have two years of governing and putting through those tax cuts at least (unless they call an early election).

Also, those attacks on Penny appear to have cut through because Con Home's new member's survey says that Rishi would beat Penny now. But Truss would beat Rishi.

r449 Its not a conspiracy theory its the brutal real politique of the tory party.Political smears, lies , we must destroy reputationally the candiate who is a threat etc is standard fare. But it is distorted and dishonest and I dont respect it. Its very obvious to many why its happening-its not a secret but well understood. If they were purely interested in scrutiny of candiates there would be a lot more about Liz truss record they would examine. Its cheerleading.

r450 Should be pointed out they asked 1000 voters, not specifically Tory party members

After the Times reported yesterday that Zahawi mysteriously gifted £27m of shares to an offshore company owned by his parents, thus avoiding £3.7m capital gains tax, we learn today his property company was in receipt of equally mysterious 'unsecured loans' adding up to the mysterious figure of £26m.

[quote]Also, those attacks on Penny appear to have cut through because Con Home's new member's survey says that Rishi would beat Penny now. But Truss would beat Rishi.

The "attacks" being scrutiny of her honesty, understanding of the law and grasp of the economic situation.

She's a totally untested politician who is now being tested.

Rumor is that Truss is expecting to pick up 13 of the 18 Braverman votes.

Sorry hun but if you're going to discuss British politics can you please use English spellings of words like rumour? xx

Meanwhile Penny's campaign slogans go from strength to strength.

R459 Sorry, I am genuinely British born and bred but my previous job was in U.S. politics for a few years, hence the sloppy mistake. My bad.

S'ok hun. Woz juz been a mare coz uv da wevver innit lol.

[quote] Woz juz been a mare coz uv da wevver innit lol.

You are just taking the piss; this makes no sense at all.

[quote] and said practically nothing about Nicole Boebert's alleged abortions and sex work.

Maybe because even the most rabid supportive democratic news sources weren't dumb enough to fall for that manufactured hit piece.

OMG the Tory leadership contest is a victim of CANCEL CULTURE with Rishi and Liz pulling out of the (largely pointless) debate tomorrow and it now being pulled.

As the candidates for PM pull out of bad natured TV debates, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party throws a huge can of petrol onto the culture war fire and agrees with a member of the public that Labour's shadow Chancellor as a transphobe.

r465 Angela Rayner is a f****ng idiot and liability.

No more debates because blue on blue attacks are getting too public and nasty (Sunak calling Truss a socialist) and because Sunak and Truss have got what they wanted out of them?

[quote][R465] Angela Rayner is a f****ng idiot and liability.

There's something bizarre going on with the media that no one seems willing to report the fact that Rayner is in a relationship with horrible bully Sam Tarry, a Corbynite to the core. They were together when Rayner tweeted about going to the opera, they've been photographed together leaving his flat, but no one in the media will acknowledge that they are a couple. The media uses phrases like "believes to be in a relationship" when they are an established couple.

(In the run up to the 2019 there were huge efforts made to get Corbynites in safe seat. Mike Gapes had held Ilford South since 1992 and quit Labour over antisemitism, Brexit and Corbyn's foreign policy. Jas Athwal, the leader of the local council, was selected for Labour as candidate in the election until totally fraudulent allegations of sexual abuse were made and he was suspended from Labour and unable to stand the Tarry was given the candidacy. Ilford South are now moving to deselect him so he won't be their candidate at the next election, something Tarry is VERY angry about.)

Weird for you to think Rayner is a liability for her position on the trans cult r466, while you give Mordaunt a pass for holding (however much she tries to deny it now) a similar position and for even having attempted to enact it in law.

Jess Phillips tearing the Tories a new one over their covering up of sexual predators in their party.

SHE IS FUCKING FURIOUS!

What does that have to do with the Tory leadership campaign r470? Aside from the fact that the only reason there is a leadership campaign is because the Tories are dumping Johnson precisely for trying to cover up sexual predators in their party.

[quote]What does that have to do with the Tory leadership campaign r470? Aside from the fact that the only reason there is a leadership campaign is because the Tories are dumping Johnson precisely for trying to cover up sexual predators in their party.

There's a vote of no confidence debate in the House of Commons. Jess Phillips spoke in it.

Ian Blackford delivered one of his monologues and Harriet Harman looked like she about to slit his throat from behind he was just going on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.

What are Labour going to do without Boris Johnson? They might have to come up with some policies then.

More like what are the Tories going to do without Boris Johnson. Their absolute best election-winning asset. Can't see any of these contestants being anywhere near as good in a general election.

The Sun have found an old Sunak article in a Winchester College magazine where he defends Labour's economic policy and urges readers to ignore 'Tory party propaganda'. Sunak attacked Liz for being a Lib Dem when she was younger.... they are all just amoral opportunists.

PENNY DROPS!

Lol, her vote count actually dropped compared to the last round.

Tom Tugendhat OUT. Did you know was in the army?

Tugendhat's votes will probably go between Rishi and Mordaunt. Badenoch's will likely go to Truss so it's RISHI V LIZ in the final two.

Third ballot results:

Rishi Sunak – 115

Penny Mordaunt – 82

Liz Truss – 71

Kemi Badenoch – 58

Tom Tugendhat – 31 (eliminated)

Rishi gains 14, Penny loses 1, Kemi gains 9, Liz gains 7, Tom lost 1. First impressions: not good for Liz. Tugendhat votes will probably mostly go to Sunak in the next round.

Tugendhat was the least awful, but he was never going to win. Ah well.

Nadine Dorries is drunk, part 4673:

She's right though - Starmer is boring as fuck. So is Sunak. So if they run, Starmer at least has a fair chance. (Normally the more dynamic and less boring candidate wins.)

After the lies, the scandal, the law breaking and the debauchery of Boris Johnson I'll take a boring and serious man as Prime Minister.

Keir Starmer, Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting, Yvette Cooper and Bridget Phillipson make a pretty decent team. Yes there are still problems with Labour and some bad judgments (the Holocaust Memorial photo shoot being one of them) but they're infinitely preferable to the Tories.

Angela Rayner

Every time they announce a policy, the Tories nick it - windfall tax, anyone?

Badenoch's supporters won't necessarily go to Truss (who only got a minority of even Braverman's votes). Don't forget Kemi is Michael Gove's sock-puppet.

Hearing Johnson bring up the deep state conspiracy theory during the confidence debate reminds you he can always sink lower than you previously thought.

[quote]Badenoch's supporters won't necessarily go to Truss (who only got a minority of even Braverman's votes). Don't forget Kemi is Michael Gove's sock-puppet.

Oh please.

Yes, please. No Truss. I DO NOT want money to be borrowed to pay for an enormous £30bn tax cut. Fucking stupid and irresponsible. It won't 'pay for itself' except in the feverish unrealistic fantasies of libertarians and it will help drive inflation up more as well. Even Tory grandees like William Hague are saying that it's stupid.

Not sure why you're 'oh, please'-ing me, R485. Truss didn't scoop up the Braverman votes and Badenoch is a known protege of Gove, who wants to stay in power. Truss is probably the least likely of the leading three to be able to win a general election..

r487 Morduant is the best placed to win a general election in my opinion.

Betting odds currently think: Rishi 50%, Liz 30%, Penny 16%.

Cat killer Tobias Ellwood has lost the whip for not turning up for the vote of confidence. He was supporting Penny M.

Lots of people thinking it's part of a plot to help Liz Truss but it's just pure spite from Johnson which typically makes Johnson look smaller and gives his enemies more stature. Ellwood was in Moldova meeting their Prime Minister.

Ellwood comes across as a bit of a dick at times (the recent cat incident for example) but his response to the Westminster terrorist attack showed his character. I can't think of many MPs who wouldn't have run away.

Kemi OUT, Liz now just 6 votes behind Penny.

Hard to see how Mordaunt makes the final 2 now.

Omg it does look like we're going to get a PM Liz Truss (unless Sunak turns it around with the members):

YouGov Tory members poll

Sunak v Truss

Sunak: 35

Truss: 54

Early days and I'm sure things can change once the public get to know a candidate but Labour must be feeling good:

"Who would be the best PM at this moment in time?"

Starmer 43% v. Sunak 33%

Starmer 41% v. Truss 29%

Starmer 37% v. Mordaunt 31%

-Redfield & Wilton this morning

The problem for Labour, r494, is that Keir Starmer is not liked and does not inspire confidence. He himself has a net approval rating. Even a slightly competent showing by the new Tory leader in the months to come and the sense that a page has been turned will certainly restore some votes that the Tories have lost in the past few months due to Boris Johnson. Even with Labour's current lead in the polls, the party would struggle to get a workable parliamentary majority. Even worse, Starmer just does not have the appeal to attract the lost traditional Labour voters in the so-called Red Wall seats, so there are few seats that can be considered certain Labour wins. For a start, it's going to be very difficult for Labour to win without getting back the Scottish seats it once held. Without Scotland, without many of the traditional Northern Labour seats, it's not going to be easy.

Especially now that a new Tory leader will surely want to introduce some policies that are different from those under Johnson, the pressure will be on Labour to come up with some policies of its own, which it is still yet to do. Its focus as an opposition has solely been on how to come up with new quips to show up the government.

[quote] For a start, it's going to be very difficult for Labour to win without getting back the Scottish seats it once held. Without Scotland, without many of the traditional Northern Labour seats, it's not going to be easy.

I think I can see a solution to this problem that would be of mutual benefit.

It's Rishi and Maggie cosplay in the final.

Sunak - 137

Truss - 113

Mordaunt - 105

The implosion of Mordaunt's campaign is pretty stunning, one day the favourite to being defeated by Truss of all people.

So god help us, we're getting PM Truss. Either way, champagne corks popping in Labour HQ

I think the next election will result in a torturous hung parliament 2017-2019 style that is hell for the political class and frankly they deserve it.

Patel cancelled her appearance before the Home Affairs committee again this week. You know she knows she's finished as a cabinet member and she clearly just can't be bothered. And now the leadership campaign is between two people who served in the cabinet with people like her.

I can't with the Tories on immigration. In reality Conservative politicians and bigwigs love immigration (cheap labour, makes housing more expensive which benefits the landlord class, and so on) but they pander to voters who want to reduce it. It's such a lie and a joke. This Rwanda bullshit is classic. Without even bothering to look it up, I'd say that there has been no reduction of net immigration under the Tories yet they keep saying that they are for it. Labour won't pretend. The Tories pretend and reap electoral benefits for it.

Typical Truss competence

R502 Pedantic, it's normal for people to leave out parts of phrases that most people know. I do it myself all the time and it's pretty acceptable. Truss almost certainly isn't writing those tweets herself either.

I'm no fan of Truss at all but this is not a good attack line at all. How about people attack her on her policies not on dumb stuff like this?

Attack line? Why are you acting like I'm a Labour MP and I just said that on Newsnight? It isn't an attack line, it's mockery.

I thought you lot were the ones who accused others of being snowflakes and getting triggered?

R504 I've never accused anyone of being a snowflake or 'triggered' in my life. I still think it's a dumb mockery or attack line. Why can't people scrutinise policies, why are they so obsessed with superficial so-called 'gotchas' (and I still don't think that this is much of an actual gotcha)?

r505 You mean like her policy of £30 billion of unfunded tax cuts? And, erm, oh what other policies is it she has?

It was a little joke from a mistake her own campaign team made, I don't get why you're trying to make it into something it's not with these claims it's an "attack line" or a "gotcha". If the Truss fanboys are getting upset about something that tiny, this campaign is going to be hell for you.

R506 I'm fascinated that you totally missed that I said that I am NOT a fan of Truss. And in fact I am the person who has brought up her stupid tax cuts multiple times in this thread.

I think I just have contempt for people like you because you don't really care about what it takes to win over the foul Tories, you just want to virtue signal and mock them. Do you genuinely want to be in government? Because if you do, that takes seriousness and understanding the electorate.

One thing about Truss, is that I trust she will maintain the UK's strong position on Ukraine and against Russia.

r507 Once again, dumb fuck, you're on a DL thread with a handful of posters. You're acting like what's said here will impact an election.

And if you're getting that upset over a little joke and you're not a Truss fan, you really need to go outside for a bit.

R509 You're the one who sounds sensitive and upset that someone is calling you out for your stupid crap and being blunt with you.

r510 LOL if you say so. Don't you have a lot of angry tweets to send to all the political journalists, like Paul Waugh who I linked to, who posted the screenshot to begin with? Hmm, I wonder who to trust more, political correspondents, or an American cosplaying as a Brit

Penny was right about one thing at least

I don't have a twitter account, pal. Also, I am not American, I simply worked in U.S. politics for a few years.

Sure you did

Being blunt, Penny would have been equally likely to 'murder' the Tory party had she won. I've known people like Penny and they just don't cut it when it comes to it.

From our own little loon here, to another - Dominic Cummings think Boris is backing Ms Pork Markets because she'll be such a disaster he can stage a comeback

Cummings is a Sunak supporter, fwiw, and Boris hates Sunak. So please engage some healthy scepticism when you read this crap.

[quote]For a start, it's going to be very difficult for Labour to win without getting back the Scottish seats it once held. Without Scotland, without many of the traditional Northern Labour seats, it's not going to be easy.

Starmer making clear he won't do a deal with the SNP is a good thing for voters in England and Wales who hate Sturgeon and what she stands for.

The good thing about the SNP's recent independence push is that Labour can attack the SNP hard on it, prioritising a bullshit nationalistic cause rather than focus on improving Scotland's appalling public sector failings in health and education and the cover up of bullying and sexual harassment.

Sturgeon needs the Tories to win. The Tories need Sturgeon to win.

[quote]Cummings is a Sunak supporter, fwiw, and Boris hates Sunak. So please engage some healthy scepticism when you read this crap

Dominic Cummings is one of the most dishonest and disreputable people in British politics, a man with no redeeming features.

The people who now savour his every word because it's anti Boris and "truth telling" need to remind themselves that he's a liar and a fraud.

Cummings is a weird guy. This might sound odd but I think he's more similar to Boris than to anyone else despite his professed contempt for Boris. Why? Because both are great at winning country-wide elections/referendums and yet both are horrible when it comes to interpersonal power relations. Which is why neither Johnson nor Cummings have been able to stay in government. For a contrast, I would say that people like George Osborne and Ed Miliband were good at interpersonal relations within their parties but poor when it came to the wider electorate.

[quote]For a contrast, I would say that people like George Osborne and Ed Miliband were good at interpersonal relations within their parties but poor when it came to the wider electorate.

George Osborne knows a thing or two about making a party electable and winning elections.

The lesser Miliband on the other hand...

R521 That was David Cameron. Osborne had very little appeal to the general public. I remember him being brutally booed when he appeared at the Paralympics. Yes, that was partly because of his policies but he always had a Child Catcher vibe to him.

Osborne was a vital part of the Cameron project. Cameron couldn't have entered Downing Street in 2010 without him and couldn't have won the 2015 election without Osborne and Miliband.

I didn't think much of Cameron when he had the job but compared to Boris he was a political genius. At least he didn't disgrace us on the world stage.

Theresa was a hard worker and carried herself well but had too many people out to usurp her. She was the kinda person more suited to being the competent Deputy as she didn't have the natural charisma of a leader

R523 Definitively have to disagree. There are tons of people I think would have boosted Cameron's popularity. Cameron was only able to get a hung parliament and then a very small majority, remember. Osborne was just too good at weaselling his way in.

[quote]At least he didn't disgrace us on the world stage.

You mean aside from pulling his party out of the dominant group at the European Parliament so they could align with fringe nutters and racists? You mean aside from campaigning against the inevitable president of the European Commission and then having to go and try and negotiate with him? You mean aside from starting the entire Brexit bullshit because he didn't have the balls to deal with his own party?

Great article by David Gauke from June of this year. He predicted just about everything right. Plus this paragraph alone:

[quote]There is an assumption among many that Liz Truss cannot become prime minister. Her critics say she lacks gravitas, her views are too uncompromising, and that her media performances are uneven. It is also argued that her platform speeches can be poor. This. Is. A. Fair. Point. Dominic Cummings has described her as “about as close to properly crackers as anybody I’ve met in parliament”. This, however, is unfair. Cummings never really got to know MPs as well as he might have done. There are quite a few in parliament who are even closer to being properly crackers than Truss.

[quote]Obvs the Liz Truss cheese speech is now more iconic than Churchill’s beaches – but I still don’t think the *level* of cringe/nonsense/hilarity is appreciated enough. Most clips don’t even get to the Isaac Newton apples bit. I will simply never get over this performance.

Like Thatcher before her, Truss has seemed to learn how to play the game. She has gotten a full makeover, including like MT, her voice. Plus is karmic payback for all the Sarah Palin jokes the Brits have made from 2008-onwards.

It's bizarre that you see Truss as comparable to Palin, to be honest.

R530 Basically based on the cheese speech I haven't seen too much of her since, and most of the jokes about her seem to stem from that time period.

I can only conclude that Keir Starmer has sold his soul to Satan. He hasn't opposed the government on one memorable issue and doesn't have any policies, yet, the Conservative Party appears set to destroy itself just at the right moment for him to walk into Downing St over its prone, bloodied corpse.

Unless Truss manages to start a nuclear war in the interim.

What policies would you want him to have? I'd love to see something serious to fix the housing problem.

I'd like to see him reverse the trend towards precarity and insecurity in profession after profession, and I'd like to see a version of the Green New Deal. I'd also like to see him oppose the Rwanda flights on grounds other than cost. And while we're fantasising, I'd like to fly to the moon in a golden bathtub.

r533 Inflation/wage stagnation obviously needs tackling, the amount of "HOW MUCH!" complaints I heard in Morrisons earlier were ridiculous. And the UK at this point is verging on infrastructure collapse so that needs some sort of plan putting in place if we have any hope of future economic growth, also speaking as someone in a commuter town that's seen massive housebuilding with the c council and builders cashing in but no supplementary enlarging of doctors or schools to keep up with that I foresee a ticking time bomb in itself. I also want some sort of political reform, the system of traditions and agreements that's built up the last 3 centuries clearly can't handle someone like Boris. But the Tories with their majority aren't going to touch that. But those are my top 3.

Yes, access to dentists, doctors, etc. would be good but would cost money.... Inflation is a tricky thing to tackle - the main tool would be to raise interest rates but that's the BoE's power to do (not politicians) currently and also if you raise them, people with mortgages will be hit hard.... so it's not that easy. I just wish that there wouldn't be so much money printing in the first place.

I want to see some form of proportional representation.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

R538, green was the colour of Prince Philip's livery. All the senior royal women and many other women in attendance were wearing it at Philip's memorial service. Truss's choice of green was entirely in keeping with that theme.

On the basis of your comment, Sigmund Freud would point out your weird attitude towards women.

Ugh, there are weirdo people here who have to make EVERYTHING about the royals. Truss wearing green has NOTHING to do with the royals.

OK, that woman chose green to honour the dead prince.

But added those useless chains to advertise her vagina.

Truss wearing green at Prince Philip's memorial service is everything to do with Prince Philip's livery colour of green, twerp at r540.

I've not followed Tory politics closely enough to have previously formed opinions on the candidates, but just going by the datalounge discussion Truss will probably be their best bet. Datalounge has one of the internet's very finest reverse barometers in such matters.

Batshit interview with Truss on Today. I'm sure it appeals to the Tory membership but the general electorate will be appalled at her saying she wanted Boris to go on.

I do like the posters here whining Labour hasn't put out a slate of policies (and why would they shoot their wad so early and allow the Tories to steal them) but those same posters are silent about the lack of policies from the two people currently vying to be the next PM

Aside from the policies laid out in the 2019 campaign manifesto, r544, Sunak and Truss have actually made quite a number of policy pledges. Labour indulges in generic slogans (green! fair! stronger together!) with no actual policy suggestions. Unless Labour can actually come up with clear policies, they will struggle to win an election.

The rumour is Liz Truss is quite free and easy with her vagina so the vagina chain makes sense.

Just look at Labour's policy on green issues, for example. It's nothing but a bunch of slogans and then some very obvious stuff that the Tories are already doing (e.g. trying to attract gigafactories, and Johnson was very proactive about that).

If you look at the very few policies that Labour specify (and even then only vaguely) they are almost exactly the same as Tory policies with the only difference being that Labour will apparently be competent at implementing them whereas the Tories are incompetent. The perception of the Tory party as incompetent is very much to do with Boris Johnson, however. With him gone, much of those arguments disappear.

The only policy area where Labour differs from the Tories is on trans issues - and this is something that will lose Labour votes.

She's a woman r546 so she must be a slut, whereas Boris Johnson could sow his sperm everywhere and that made him a man's man.

r547 Sucks for you that the polling data doesn't support a single thing you claim. Barely anyone cares about trans issues, and since Johnson has announced his resignation, the Labour lead hasn't wavered.

And again, you've not given any reason why Labour needs to announce policies so long before an election. After all, that's what manifestos are for. And we all know how much the Tories love stealing Labour ideas. Hell, Truss is planning on stealing Corbynomics

I'm loving seeing the BoJo loyalists like Mad Nad get so pissed off at Labour not joining in the standing ovation yesterday. Just tells you it really got under Johnson's skin

Are you gay r549? In which case you absolutely should care about what happens in your name as an "LGBTQ+ person".

Labour claim they want a general election now. What policies would they include in their election manifesto? They don't even have a process for developing policies to be ready in time for the next general election - despite claiming they do have policies. They don't need to give the final details but they have to show what kind of direction they want to take the country in. At present, every policy direction they do suggest is almost a copy of Tory policies. The only area they have a different, stated position - albeit convoluted and unworkable in reality - is the trans issue. Or, more accurately the issue of women's and homosexual rights, which Labour are attacking and want to limit.

What exactly is the difference between the Tory and Labour parties?

[quote]NEW: YouGov poll of Tory membership has Liz Truss on 62% and Rishi Sunak on 38% - that's a huge 24% lead.

[quote]They don't even have a process for developing policies to be ready in time for the next general election

You really are laughably ignorant

R548 how do you conflate what I said about Liz Truss into I think Boris Johnson’s behaviour is fine? You are reading words that aren’t there. Last time I looked a prime purpose of this site is to share gossip.

[quote]Barely anyone cares about trans issues, and since Johnson has announced his resignation, the Labour lead hasn't wavered.

You mean like the Labour activists who were calling for Rachel Reeves to be sacked from as Shadow Chancellor because she made the most inoffensive comments about sex/gender and didn't just repeat the TWAW TMAM mantra?

And when Angela Rayner was asked about her transphobic comments she didn't defend her? That was 3 days ago.

The Labour Party is going to have a civil war on trans issues. The Corbyn loyalists who despise Jews are now fully paid up members of the gender theology cult and will have no reservations in criticising whoever they can and sabotaging Starmer's electoral prospects.

Expect an Owen Jones column imminently which talks endlessly about trans rights and why it's transphobic to talk about trans rights.

[quote]The Labour Party is going to have a civil war on trans issues

LOL I'm sure Tories wish this were the case, but no. In case you haven't noticed, that wing of the party has been whining about every single thing since Starmer took over, and yet no civil war. This isn't Militant. They've shot their bolt and now they're shouting into the void on Twitter, which is not the real world.

Wishful thinking in your part.

You don't think the men in black screaming DIE TERF SCUM at other women's meetings are going to protest the Labour Women's Declaration meeting at the conference in 2 months time where Tonia Antoniazzi (former international rugby player) Diana Johnson (abortion decriminalisation campaigner) and Marsha de Cordova (Starmer's first choice for the equalities brief) will be speaking alongside some high profile DINOSAUR TERF SCUM.

Rosie Duffield isn't even involved.

It is going to be VICIOUS.

r534 When Liz Truss says bold economic reform she means less workers rights becshe believes making the livelihoods of more people flexible to the markets by stripping back rights will spur great economic growth. But has anyone told people that in the red wall seats because I don't think they'd agree. The coalition of voters they put together in 2019 because of brexit is too diverse politically for them to hold it together in future. There is a reason Truss is vague at the moment about what she means by bold economic reform.

r557 So protestors yelling stuff is your idea of a civil war, is it? Grow up.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

[quote][R557] So protestors yelling stuff is your idea of a civil war, is it? Grow up.

No, Labour MPs attacking other Labour MPs for attending and the fall out from it will be a civil war.

LGBT+ Labour are promoting a clip where their Shadow Chancellor is denounced as a transphobe.

If you don't realise that a storm is coming you know nothing about Labour or British politics.

I saw a report of a focus group with swing voters in Oldham (Labour voters who had switched to Conservative) and none of them had heard of the trans row. Their big concern was the cost of living and how much prices had gone up by.

r561 You're simply deluded. Or maybe just simple.

Here are some quotes from the focus group:

[quote]A man who works at a discount supermarket, said: “I put the price changes up in the morning so I can see everything what's going on. “There have been some mornings where it’s going up 40p or 60p. It’s every day now we are getting these price changes.” He said it has been “absolutely mental” busy and shoppers have been bulk buying to avoid spiralling inflation. The energy bailouts barely registered, with one branding it a “drop in the ocean”. Asked to sum up their feelings about Britain in 2022 in just a few words, they all gave a grim assessment. One said “absolute mess”, another “shambles”. Another said “laughing stock” while one said “down the pan” and one said “left behind”.

Doesn't BBC have a tranny on every show like netflix does already?

[quote]I saw a report of a focus group with swing voters in Oldham (Labour voters who had switched to Conservative) and none of them had heard of the trans row. Their big concern was the cost of living and how much prices had gone up by.

Because they very sensibly don't spend their lives on twitter or read The Guardian or have any idea what goes on in Labour conference.

But some aspects of conference do get noticed by non politicos. People who flinch at their own country's flag yet love to see a crowd waving another country's flag? Hmmmm.

Anti Starmer Labour MPs and members and Owen Jones will want to sabotage the conference season, as will Tory media. The see the trans issue as a way to do it.

Who do you believe?

Liz Truss says her “tax cuts will decrease inflation”.

Rishi Sunak says Liz Truss's £30bn tax cutting bonanza would backfire by fuelling inflation.

Penny Mordaunt and her supporters planning revenge against Liz Truss according to media reports.

How come Mordaunt and Truss are more amusing than the ordinary males?

[quote] Doesn't BBC have a tranny on every show like netflix does already?

It has BAMEs and NESBs everywhere already.

If Liz Truss can keep the Tories in line, she won't be required to hold a general election until January 24,2025. Which should give her enough time to show if she is up to the job or not. I hope y'all don't get Rishi, how can you trust a man who held a US green card and paid taxes as a resident of the US, while serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer who sets tax policy.

r521 Surely Late December 2024 at the latest as it is not allowed to go past 5 years between elections?

R572 Parliament can be dissolved December 31, 2024, followed by a 25 day campaign period and the election on Jan. 24th.

r573 Ok Cheers .Thank you for the clarification.

[quote][R561] You're simply deluded. Or maybe just simple.

I'm deluded, yes, which is why Labour's Dawn Butler was tweeting about trans rights and the culture war yesterday, having first tweeted an apology to a Jewish journalist she smeared.

That's the same Dawn Butler who repeats the TWAW TMAM mantra and declared on TV that babies are born without a sex.

So when the party conference season ends, and there's no civil war, just the same sad bunch of Owen Jones-esque whiners, are you going to admit you were wrong, or move the goalposts yet again?

Given how Johnson has led this country to even further copy the US, this is a concerning development

Truss and Sunak aren't particularly socially conservative (the main reason why I don't think that Palin is a good comparison) so I don't really feel concerned about abortion rights. The UK has even expanded access to abortion under the Tories. They are mostly economically right wing. Probably closer to libertarians than traditional conservatives.

We've already seen Truss is willing to give up on any principle to win favour and therefore power, and I doubt Sunak is much better on that front

Yeah, Truss is a twit who is just throwing red meat at the members (tax cuts!). However, I don't even see the members as particularly energised on abortion issues. It's rare to hear about it. Weirdo religious Melanie McDonagh in The Spectator but that's about all I can think of.

When it comes to issues like abortion in the UK, any requests for restrictions wouldn't come from the Tories, it would come from a party like the DUP demanding it in order to prop up a Tory government. But, it would in turn hurt the Tories everywhere else so they probably wouldn't agree to it.

R578 I don't really think of Palin as super socially conservative, just more of a populist. Prior to her VP run, she ran totally on economics and good government issues. However, she has fallen further and further into the abyss of saying whatever she thinks will please the people that like her. And, pro-life people really adopted her as a poster woman for them because she chose to have a son with Down's Syndrome and when her unwed teenage daughter was found to be pregnant she supported her keeping the child. So she talks a lot more about abortion now then she used to, because those are the people that love her.

R581 How do you define socially conservative vs. populist? I'm genuinely interested. Palin is anti-gay marriage, anti-abortion, is pro-capital punishment. Even though every single one of those things do not have majority U.S. backing according to polls.

R582 Yes, she is socially conservative, but she didn't talk about it much, back when she was a serious politician in office or running for VP, she focused on economic and reform type things. When I think of a socially conservative candidate I think of that screwy judge from Alabama who lost the Senate race, all he talked about were social issues. A populist focuses more on bread and butter issues and leaves others to worry about social issues unless they directly affect their core issues.

Also, capital punishment depends upon the polling as of Oct. '21, Gallup still has capital punishment having majority approval.

A friend of mine commented that we all knew Johnson was coming steaming down the tracks at us for years beforehand, so were sort of braced for it The idea of Liz Truss as PM is like being struck by lightning out of a clear sky.

When it comes to the personal choice liberty issues Liz Truss voted to legalise abortion and same sex marriage in Northern Ireland in 2019 when the majority of the government abstained due to political sensitives. Rishi Sunak abstained.

She also voted for same sex marriage in the Cameron era, before Sunak was an MP.

[quote]So when the party conference season ends, and there's no civil war, just the same sad bunch of Owen Jones-esque whiners, are you going to admit you were wrong, or move the goalposts yet again?

The heat has really gotten to you hasn't it? Either that of you've wanked yourself into a frenzy watching George Galloway rants.

The culture war is being fought by Labour and The Guardian as much as is it by the right. Labour have serious problems that they are not going to resolve and it's going to get messy.

r586 Haha, okay so the answer is moving the goalposts. Within thirty posts, from predicting a civil war in r555 you're now down to "it's going to get messy". Does that mean by the next thread it'll be "some people won't agree with each other"?

Meanwhile, the Tory party is divided on the economy, you know that thing voters actually care about. But of course, you desperately don't want people mentioning that. And you claim to not be a Tory lol

Yes, the economy is the pressing issue.

In July, in a heatwave, people are already unable to pay their electricity bills. Those who can afford to go on holiday are stuck at Dover. The Northern Ireland protocol, NHS waiting times, teacher shortages, more child abuse scandals caused by social work failings in underfunded councils. So many issues that are the result of 12 years of Tory governments.

And many on the Labour party want to focus obsessively about trans people and the sex/gender clash. And they are accusing the Tories of wanting a culture war. The crank left are still obsessed about Jews (see the response to the Forde report) but TERFs are now their main point of attack, and they see the TERF war as a way to weaken Starmer.

Because if Starmer and Reeves and Streeting etc DO succeed, it means they were really wrong, and Corbyn is a total abject failure. And they can't possibly have that. So it's war. It won't just be about trans issues, but that will be the pretext of it.

When you see briefings about Starmer from "a source close to Angela Rayner it'll be her boyfriend Sam Tarry, Corbyn's former campaign manager who is being deselected by the constituency he was parachuted into after false claims were made about the previous candidate and he was conveniently suspended just before the election, leaving a vacancy for Tarry to fill.

2022 is going to be the year Tory MPs join the Labour Party, and the crank left MPs quit. Corbyn gone, Aspana Begum is on her way out and will jump ship and others will follow before being deselected.

[quote]And many on the Labour party want to focus obsessively about trans people and the sex/gender clash

It's not many though, is it? Twitter isn't the real world.

Also, you of all people complaining about others focussing obsessively on trans issues...

Well I'll bid you goodnight. You know what's coming for Labour from inside the party even if you refuse to acknowledge it.

[quote]And many on the Labour party want to focus obsessively about trans people and the sex/gender clash. And they are accusing the Tories of wanting a culture war.

This has got to be projection because it's you who seems desperate for a culture war and are focusing obsessively about trans people even though multiple polls and focus groups have demonstrated that it's very low down on what ordinary voters are concerned about. You've clogged this thread up with dozens of bizarre posts about trans people. You're either demented or a Russian troll.

Rishi's pitch:

'Britain is facing a national emergency over the economy, NHS backlogs and illegal migration, Rishi Sunak has said as he pledges to put the government on a “crisis footing" from day one if he becomes prime minister.'

"Interest rates will have to rise as high as 7 per cent to allow tax cuts, according to Liz Truss’s economic guru.

Professor Patrick Minford said that despite fears over mortgages, higher interest rates were “a good thing” because they protected savings and killed off “zombie companies” that were holding the economy back."

r593 Minford is on record as arguing that it would be ok if most of the farms in the UK went out of business.Truss has an economic extremist vandal as an adviser.

[quote]This has got to be projection because it's you who seems desperate for a culture war and are focusing obsessively about trans people even though multiple polls and focus groups have demonstrated that it's very low down on what ordinary voters are concerned about. You've clogged this thread up with dozens of bizarre posts about trans people. You're either demented or a Russian troll.

You were one of the Corbyn supporters shouting "YOU'RE THE REAL ANTI SEMITE FOR TALKING ABOUT ANTISEMITISM- LEAVE JEREMY ALONE - IT'S A MOSSAD PLOT TO TOPPLE HIM BECAUSE HE CARES ABOUT PLASTICINE"

So many commentators insisted the Tories would use the culture war and trans issues in the leadership contest. The only reason this came up as a talking point at all was because Penny Mordaunt told a huge lie about her previous stance in supporting self ID. That's it. Maybe if Nadhim Zahawi had progressed in the contest he could been asked about the new version of Section 28 he was accused of wanting to reintroduce.

No doubt Truss and Sunak will be asked about it again in 1-1 interviews and debates but Truss has been clear in the past that she wants the law to stay as it is, i.e. she doesn't want to scrap the GRA or remove gender reassignment as a protected characteristic from the Equality Act.

Meanwhile it's Labour who are talking repeatedly about sex/gender, and again JUST THIS WEEK the Deputy Leader didn't challenge a caller on a radio show who called the Shadow Chancellor a transphobe.

You can pretend all you like that it's not happening but Labour are deeply ideologically split over this issue in a way that the Tories aren't. And that is going to come to a head over the summer and at conference. And the public will see this reported and they'll think "why aren't they talking about the cost of living".

Deny it's happening, throw insults around. call anyone who disagrees with you a Tory. But it's happening and is going to cause Labour problems when they least need them.

[quote] IT'S A MOSSAD PLOT TO TOPPLE HIM BECAUSE HE CARES ABOUT PLASTICINE"

But it does leave residue on your hands.

Link to part two with hopefully less focus on Jeremy Corbyn and more on the topic at hand.

[quote]So many commentators insisted the Tories would use the culture war and trans issues in the leadership contest.

This is just a lie. It was said that the Tories were preparing to use the culture war bullshit in the election campaign, not the leadership contest. You're just full of so much bullshit

Labour saying "the Tories are trying to start a culture war" is in reality Labour trying to start a culture war and divert from its own moronic trans positions.

Sucks for you then that it wasn't Labour saying that, but sources within the Tory party itself.