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  3. Racist?
    Sexist?
    Have absolute contempt for your wife?
    Well, you’ve got the Prime Minister you’ve always wanted.

    To be honest, it does satisfy a need for me … I’d be mortified if I wasn’t right that now is shite.

    One irritant in the campaign, from all parties and all media outlets, was the casual remark “The general public aren’t stupid”

    I beg to disagree … I think the general public in this sad little country are as thick as pig shit.

  5. I am now exchanging very angry emails with my parents who were proBrexit and voted Tory.

    It’s not generally a good evening when I tell my Dad “well done. Well fucking done. You two will be dead before the full catastrophe of Brexit hits everyone.
    Never mind, eh, it’s only the Grandkids’ futures that are screwed.

    You know that if I was living in the UK right now I would have to be stockpiling insulin? Minimizing dosages? Cutting short because insulin isn’t actually made in the UK. Here’s what Diabetes UK said:
    https://www.diabetes.org.uk/about_us/news/insulin-brexit

    Well done. If I’d still been in the UK, your vote would have been gambling my health.”

    I suspect our weekly call on Sunday may be a tad frosty.

    • As a type 1 myself i had some issues over the past few month, pharmacist unable to order, “out of stock,” I guess others started stockpiling and wasn’t able to get Humulin I and S. Of course they say “we can try and get you an alternative,” but when you’ve been on the same medication for 35 years with relatively no issues the doctors and myself are reluctant to fix something that isn’t broken. Okay for now but I’m sure there’ll be uproar if we start to lose access. Not an option not to take it.

      For now I’m just soaking last weeks news in. Its done, lets see what the consequences are, nothing that can be done right now. That’s my current mind set.

      Enjoy Christmas and try and forget the politics. More gin please!!

  7. We’re going to have a Tory MP in Barnsley (Penistone & Stocksbridge). Unbefuckinglievable. I am depressed. Been a shite week for my football team, an extremely shite week for the country and, closer to home, an even shittier week in respect of my teenage daughter and my marriage. Why oh why oh why did Swinson think an election was a good idea. If ever there was a time for the opposition parties to stick together…

    Off to bed. Won’t look at the news tomorrow. The country is fucked.

  12. I think the Primeminister is an unprincipled buffoon – but the chink of light that may come through is that he doesn’t have to appease the DUP or the ERG any more and given how Rees-Mogg was sidelined, we may see him and his kind kicked into touch now that they are not needed by the PM. There might be more of a move to the centre now, perhaps.

    But how will Farage be rewarded? I predict a peerage or some kind of bauble of office for him to enjoy. But he won’t be needed anywhere near actual government or be a factor in any decisions. Goodbye, you prick.

    Where are the Russian papers? Can we see them now?

    I won’t support Brexit and never will but as we lurch into the never-ending negotiations, these will be boring items on the news and not headlines. We will be lucky to get anything from Europe and it’s going to hurt. Oh well. You voted for it.

    Scotland will agitate for independence. They say the PM will never agree to another referendum but the appetite is there, cleartly, and Scotland removing themselves from the UK now becomes a real possibility. George Osborne said earlier that he can see NI move more towards unification now that the unionists have been sidelined.

    The people I am most angry with are, first and foremost, the people that voted Conservative. I am not angry with anyone in the Labour Party but they need to stop the bickering, unite under an electable leader like Keir Starmer and actually BE an Opposition. Corbyn had so many open goals that he failed to convert. It made me think of the snooker player Patsy Fagan. He had a condition where sometimes he couldn’t actually strike the ball.

    • Magic Grandpa and the Head Girl both made catastrophic mistakes, not the least of which was being to stubborn to put their heads together and do a bit of strategic thinking. For instance, Labour would have won in Chipping Barnet if LD had stood aside, and the other way round in Lewes. Labour only just squeaked in in Canterbury, where LD insisted on fielding a second candidate after the first one stood aside. They’re just three I happen to have an interest in, heaven knows how many more there are.

      • All good points.

        And what about Stanley Johnson?
        I think I dislike him more than his son, in the same way I remember disliking Mary Archer more than Jeffrey Archer.
        The media didn’t use to canvass opinion from Tony Blair’s Aunt Sally or Margaret Thatcher’s Uncle Billy, so why do we need to know what Boris Johnson’s father thinks?

        Maybe a positive is that we will hear less, preferably nothing, from him.

        • Ah yes, the party who fielded an ex-Tory against the Tories in Kensington, the constituency where Grenfell Tower is. The Tory majority over Labour was 150 votes.

          Tactical voting only works if everyone has the same tactics, and that ain’t ever going happen in a month of Sundays. The LDs are the local bike of UK politics. Ride with anyone for a sniff of power.

          In better news, we should have seen the last of Chuka Ummana, the very definition of a careerist politician.

    • Just because a government that you don’t like is voted in doesn’t mean the entire electorate that voted for them is thick as shit, any more than everyone who voted Leave in the referendum – and I say that as a fervent Remainer. It’s called democracy old chum. Had the Labour Party not been led by a Trotskyite throwback on a personal vanity project that frightened moderate Labour voters in traditional Labour seats, this might never have happened. There isn’t an ounce of self awareness or personal connectivity in Corbyn, not it seems any sense of personal responsibility for the disaster he and his Momentum cronies have created. Added to the fact that many of the thick people who you would accuse of voting Leave lived in Labour constituencies in the north of England and wanted Brexit at any price, then it’s hardly surprising those years of principled voting for the party of the working classes were abandoned in favour of the Tories.

      Let’s face it, Boris has played a blinder and capitalised on all of those factors that have come together in his favour in a way that they didn’t for Teresa May. We’ve all got the government we deserve. One of the only good things to come out of the election was the demise of that other thorn in the side of any moderate thinking Labour voter, Dennis Skinner. Goodbye to him and to Corbyn. Neither of you ever contributed anything worthwhile to the politics of this country. Good riddance.

      • Given that the English public have essentially voted to have Boris Johnson and his cronies shit in their mouths all day every day for the next 5 years, I would say that Vulpes’ statement is entirely correct. Thick as shit, and stupid cunts to boot.

          • “Had the Labour Party not been led by a Trotskyite throwback on a personal vanity project that frightened moderate Labour voters in traditional Labour seats, this might never have happened.” Might indeed. But perhaps any non-Leave backing Labour leader would have lost.

            I’m very alone, I suspect, in still liking Corbyn. I think he could potentially have been a great PM. And yes, to me his failure is more a damning inditement of the electorate than of him, but as you say, that’s democracy.

            • You’re right Gary, but part of the problem with Corbyn is that his commitment to unelectable policies was matched only by his lack of commitment to any kind of workable Brexit stance.

              • I genuinely hoped his Brexit stance would pay off. I thought it was the most sensible one: offer both second referendum and Leave, but the latter with Labour approved conditions and PM staying out of it. Made sense to me. Leave would probably have won, it now seems. Not everyone would have got the Brexit they wanted, but the same can also be said of Johnson’s deal.

                • Just wonderin’ that whilst you are being all political and serious whether or not you would like to takeover your namesake’s roll as Keeper of the Poll? Little bastard has gone awol and I’m not good with Excel (whatever Excel is). There’s a couple of sausage rolls looking for a home and I could probably rustle up a bottle or two of local hooch. PM me (once again I have absolutely no idea what that means)

      • Another good thing is that the influence of the ERG MPs is hugely diluted but I’m clearly clutching at straws now.
        While I fully appreciate there are people with a far better insight add to the pros and cons of leaving the EU than me and therefore voted intellectually, I’m still left to wonder what the people who apparently got their main information from Michael Gove and the side of a bus, are expecting to happen.

  15. I’ve deliberately abstained from commenting on the election campaign as it is my neighbours’ business. I just have one wee observation: I think that a lot of the votes for the Conservatives are borrowed ones (we encounter this a lot in Ireland where voters often switch allegiance between the two main centrist parties). Demographic issues such as age profile and rural/urban migration will continue to lessen the likelihood of future ‘landslides’ for the Tories in the medium to long term. If there are a few sore, angry heads here, I commiserate. Elections come around pretty quickly!

      • I think the turnout was about 67%? I haven’t seen any breakdown by age. I’ll miss mention of Dennis Skinner in parliamentary dispatches as The Beast Of Bolsover is a class nickname.

    • Thanks for the friendly words. We are now seriously considering moving west to Eire. We visit your shores most years anyway, and now that the British electorate have collectively shat in their own bedclothes, the time for a more permanent relocation may be here.

      • @Vulpes: you’d be more than welcome! The employment scene has really picked up here and broadband has improved a lot, also. I could finally stand you that Stonechaser pint (more like pints with compound interest).

      • Well it does say Eire on our stamps and coins but we are, these days, an English-speaking country, in which case the name is Ireland, provided you’re speaking English.

        Eire also carries undertones of scorn from whole generations of (British) people who are too disinterested to, y’know, learn the name of the country properly in the first place. Obviously, Wolfman, you don’t mean it like this, but how is one to know, especially if you drop it in the pub after four pints in your accent?

        Because it’s ALWAYS Brits who say Eire, NEVER the Irish. And it’s never harmless.

        • This time it is harmless, so that blows your closing remark out of the water. No scorn here, from someone who has visited your country every year for the past decade and a half. I said Eire because it isn’t English – so you can take that chip off your shoulder and stick it up your bun.

          😉

            • @Declan, there’s a day to be pedantic to well meaning neighbours who are great friends to Ireland and I don’t think this is that day. I’m also going to get all Eoghan Harris up in this place and add that there’s also a day to wrap yourself in the green flag while misspelling Éireann and this isn’t it either. Get up the yard with that ‘Brits’ nonsense while you’re at it.

              • Thanks, Neilo. There are levels of nuance in both directions (“Brits”). I grew up at the border but have never never been a green flag type of person, and, fair enough, don’t even know how to make a fada! QED. But your point is a good one.

                “Eire”, however, suggests.. (see above).

                • Hi Declan – I was a bit rude to you there, sorry about that. I live right on the ‘Sheugh’ myself and I’d share your sensitivity about the deployment of the É-word. It’s amazing what can annoy us!

                    • Voice Of Reasonableness? *wipes away tears of laughter* I try to be polite but I’m barely keeping a lid on The Beast Within! Cheers, Deco, you’re alright 😉

                    • Looked up “sheugh”, knew the pronunciation, didn’t know the spelling. Here’s one for you.

                      sheugh (plural sheughs)

                      (Ireland, Scotland) A ditch, especially a field boundary ditch usually used to drain fields and mark their boundaries.
                      (Scotland, colloquial) The space between the buttocks.
                      The sweat is running down the sheugh of my arse.

                      So there.

  16. I try to console myself on this most depressing of mornings with the news of how well the SNP did in my homeland. Then I realise that 54% of my homeland voted for parties who wish stay in the UK and therefore leave the EU. And it’s miserably cold and wet here. And my arthritis is playing up. And Norwich are second bottom of the league. And Little Gary has buggered off

    • Oh, come now, they’re investing in the country’s future.

      One thing … you’d have to be intensely boring to be into all of that.
      Rich, maybe, but intensely boring.

      It’s one of my (many) theories that the very rich have a far higher boredom threshold than the rest of us.
      Many of the people mentioned in that Private Eye piece would have had to have talked to the likes of Prince Andrew on numerous, and very lengthy, occasions.
      Could you do it?

  20. Too tired to be angry really. There’s going to be a lot of debate about was it Brexit or was it Corbyn, and the truth is it was both. Labour’s own polling a month ago had them at 200 seats, which is were they ended up; so much for the Great Campaigner.

    I get the feeling that quite a few people are happier with this result than they are letting on, because had Labour won they’d have had to be supportive of a sitting Government, some of them for the first time in their lives, rather than hurling bricks at it from the safety of a keyboard. This way they get five more years of being smugly superior without having to take any responsibility for making life better for the people they claim to care about.

    • I agree. I think that Labour would have struggled to deliver even a fraction of their manifesto, as from Corbyn on downwards they have almost no-one with any experience of the implementation of policies (Keir Starmer seems the only exception). As in any job ideas are the easy part – implementation is the difficult part.

      The anti-Semitism issue to me reflects this. So much the criticism of Labour has, rightly for me, focused on the moral issues. But why has it dragged on so long? Let’s take Jeremy Corbyn at his word – he abhors racism and would do anything to combat it, and the cases only reflect a very small minority of members. Well, the whole issue is internal to the Labour Party which he and his supporters control. But they seem to have no idea how to set up the correct processes and then check that they are swiftly implemented. These are basic management skills. Corbyn completely lacks these – even his supporters never really point to much he has ever achieved – it’s all about what he’s said.

      If they can’t sort this out, how would they have managed simultaneously negotiating with the EU, large scale nationalisation, and tax changes? All of these will involve dealing with a huge range of legal and other issues, and with people who to put it mildly won’t support him.

      His supporters would have ended up very angry and disappointed, as I think Johnson’s now will for pretty much the same reason, even if the policies are different.

      • Of course, at the same time, much the criticism of the Tories has, rightly for me, focused on the moral issues.

        Not that you’d know that from the main purveyors of news in this country.

        And, like the Labour Party, the Tories have demonstrated that have no idea how to set up the correct processes and then check that they are swiftly implemented.

        Thing is, the Tories don’t give a flying one about how many of their number are quiet little bigots, only that they are correctly placed to gather votes.

    • Given the size of the Tory majority, the loss of so many formerly solid Labour seats in the north and midlands, and the utter annihilation of Labour in Scotland, I fear that five years may actually turn out to be ten to fifteen years minimum. The size of this defeat is immense, and I can’t see Labour realistically overturning it next time or even the time after that, regardless of who is leader.

  21. Politics has been changing for quite a while now. Whoever would have thought that Dennis Skinner would have lost his seat, or that Doncaster would turn blue. Former mining communities that were Labour heartlands are now Conservative seats. So is most of Wales. Let that sink in for a moment. Labour need to learn from this and quickly. They need to become a proper decent opposition to this shower of bastards that are in power, and will need to quickly get over the fact that their traditional supporters have turned to the Tories for the issue of “getting Brexit done” and because Corbyn was just not the right leader. Yes, it might be hard to swallow for many. But these people will be some of the worst off under the Tories and especially once Brexit has been finally done. Labour needs to be there for such people (because no-one else will be) not hectoring at them from London for being misguided and disloyal.
    It is possible that Labour could turn into a proper opposition very quickly…but it’s unlikely. All they need to do is purge the Momentum faction and get Corbyn to go much earlier than April. Internal wranglings and party machinations should all be put aside. With a new leader in place, and it must be someone the electorate can get behind who doesn’t terrify the media, they will then need to enter into some serious dialogue with Lib Dems and the others in order to intelligently and strategically prevent this callous and unfit government ever getting close to power again. We are now a polarised country…it needs a permanant solution.

    • The Momentum faction is huge, hardly a faction. Even worse, the whole of the party structure, its committees, decision-making processes and methods of electing chairs and leaders, are so dominated by the far left-wing, I’m not quite able to share your optimism, Nick.

      • Starmer is being touted as the next cab off the rank. He’s media savvy, more presentable than Corbyn but equally middle class, bit of experience of government, deeply bland, unexciting and hard to remember. And hey, he’s called Keir and the party was founded by a Keir, so.. y’know…karma.

        The Tories will not be concerned about a Labour Party led by Starmer. Thornberry annoys far too many people whose votes we need. Long-Bailey is a non-starter despite good credentials. Looks lost and terrified in front of a camera.

        I’d rather have Jess Phillips. Not at all bland, proper working class, easy to warm to and she pisses off Tories something rotten.

        • Jess Phillips is a believe in nothing, self serving narcissist. She has spent the last four years attacking her own party. The only thing I remember her being passionate about anything other than herself is that no Tory MP complained that all the MPs who didn’t vote for Johnson’s Brexit deal were thrown out of the party.

          WTF would she do for the working class?

          • I suggest you ask her constituents what she has done for them.

            And whatever TF she would do, she’d at least stand a pretty decent chance of winning the power to do it. She’s an impressive, forceful woman who would instantly appeal to much of Labour’s core support. The same core support which has just been lost by Corbyn and his acolytes, who with their inconsequential faffing around over Brexit and their pie in the sky promises of free everything have just condemned the party to a further five to ten years of being able to do absolutely diddlysquat for the working class. Cheers for that.

            • I don’t get the lefty hatred of Jess Phillips beyond her criticism of the great leader. She’s been Labour since she was a child, people like her across the spectrum, she’s sharp, articulate and resilient. She does good media. Also Johnson finds her hard to deal with. Apart from that, a terrible candidate.

              • i think you had the answer right there – ‘her criticism of the great leader’. I like her a lot and I get the impression she’s a superb local and campaigning MP. But I agree – I can’t see her as an effective party leader at all. Tough to see an obvious candidate – maybe Angela Rayner, but again, whilst I think she comes across well I have no idea if she could be a genuinely galvanising and inspiring leader.

                • Possibly I was bring too ironic. I think she’d be a great leader, in terms of appeal to the wider electorate who I suspect would favour a softish left social democrat. I think the key ingredient is vision. Which of them has a vision of what the Labour party should look like, now we’ve remembered that the early 70s socialist model has no takers (much as some of its policies do have appeal).

                  • A a token leftie, I haven’t always agreed with JP but agree she would be an excellent leader of the LP and (more importantly for now) the Opposition.

                    Imagine, two years down the line when a post-Brexit fudge engenders a new recession, Blow Job trying to face down her laser eyes across the dispatch box with his (by then very tired) pound-shop-Wodehousian flummery? Those of you who are depressed this weekend might like to think on that.

                    And yes, out in the real world she’s tough and her passion is real and people will (and do) respond to that.

                    • When I worked in Brum, she represented the eastern fringe of my practice population. As a local MP she had a fearsome reputation for taking no shit from anyone in the way of what she saw as social justice for her constituents. The young Blairies and the old comrades elsewhere in Brum labour circles, very old school union protocols the usual order of the day, were and are gobstruck in awe. Mostly in a supportive way. Surprisingly little sniping, so far anyway. It’ll come.

        • It’s never going to happen though is it? The Labour membership seems to be dominated by Momentum and people – many of them idealistic , many deeply cynical and self serving – who don’t seem to be able to grasp the fundamental point that in order to effect change you have to have power, and in order to have power you have to appeal to a wide cross-section of the population.People who see Blair as a war criminal and beyond the pale, and his government – the only Labour one to win three elections – as traitors to the cause.

          I just can’t seem that membership electing a leader like Starmer, or Cooper. Much more likely is someone like Rebecca Long-Bailey who is more palatable than Corbyn but, I fear, no more likely to persuade the electorate that voting for Labour is a good idea.

      • Yes indeed Tiggs. But don’t think it’s just the fault of a far-left factor. I started to get quite closely involved in my local Labour party some years ago, made fired up and hopeful by Tony Blair’s rise. I frequented the Labour club that was a ten minute stroll from home, began to know some of the players by name, and began to volunteer for various roles within the apparatus. After only six months, I had learned enough to start inching my way back out again. To say that making things change within the party is a labyrinthine process beset with tribal loyalties that have no bearing upon the outside political reality of getting elected, would be to simplify things to the point of infantilisation. The sub-committees and interest groups, the union angles, the history you’re expected to doff your cap to, the kow-towing to quotas for this and quotas for that. No wonder the Tories just leave it to the toffs and the deep-pocketed business partners to forge self-serving policy while the bulk of the party (there aren’t that many of them) get on with the important stuff like playing golf, running social events and drinking gin. It’s hard work, the Labour Party. It’s steeped in history but also strangled by it. It needs to damn well wake up.

      • Tigger is absolutely right, and my despondency didn’t come across enough. I do fear for the party at the moment given it’s ability to change. Surely even the most deluded must know deep down that quick change is needed now though…

  22. Some truth there, Foxy. Thirty years ago I was active I’m the Labour Party of Knowle & Packwood, within the Meriden constituency. K&P is the posh bits around Solihull and we were, um, a compact group of middle class lefties, that the more traditional Chelmsley Wood core of the constituency viewed with a little distance: not unfriendly, just a feel we were not quite as invested in the fight of the unions and their hierarchies and structured process. Trouble was, the assumption was we were new Labour, yet, in truth, ran more for the hills as he jumped the shark than they. My point? Dunno. Funny old world politics, probably.

  23. This is just an observation and I voted Green anyway. A large majority have decided that the Torys are not to blame for the current “situation” by definition that means they blame something else. The other parties need to try and understand that depth of feeling and try and address it. There is clearly an underlying issue across many parts of the country i.e not Scotland or London that needs to be properly understood.

    • If there’s no council services when you need them, no police on the streets, zero-hours or minimum wage contracts only in the Job Centre, a health service that’s on its knees, and money by the truckload flying out of the country on a daily basis to the tax-light regimes in Richland, you really do have something to blame when thinking your life has turned to shit. That’s the “situation”.

      Which mean that it’s the large majorities’ own bloody responsibility to WAKE THE FUCK UP and see what’s happening for themselves.

      You can’t address these issues if the very people you are asking for a mandate are lost in their own sheep-like miasma of gormlessness and won’t be pursuaded to think clearly for themselves and vote you in.

  24. As a Labour member this obviously hurts, and it gives me no pleasure in saying that I have been telling anyone who will listen that this was coming. However….warning, wishful thinking ahoy…
    1. Johnson ditched the DUP to get the that ‘deal’ done, and the large majority means the ERG will likely be thrown under the bus now their usefulness has gone. This could well mean softening the line with the EU (as he did with the NI customs union question) to get a deal done quickly – he knows the no deal scenario would be a disaster and this gives him a lot of wriggle room. The country at large doesn’t care what sort of Brexit happens, as long as it doesn’t inconvenience them unduly – the leavers will be pleased we have gone and couldn’t give a flying one about the details, and remainers (and there is actually a remainer majority in this country according to all polls) will be happy with a soft Brexit, so why wouldn’t he got down that route?
    2. Whilst this was a big defeat, the actual Tory vote hardly increased. This is actually surprising given the woeful opposition and the Brexaustion. Most seats were lost by Labour leavers voting Brexit party and thus taking votes from Labour, as Farage fully intended. These could come back to Labour quite quickly post Brexit.
    3. We were always going to lose, and it could actually have been far worse, but the significant losses mean that Corbyn will go. Another close defeat and he would have clung on. This makes a change in Labour ineviable, thank goodness. A silver lining.
    4. Johnson is not popular and is clearly unfit to be Prime Minister – the mess they have made will not be cleared up easily, and there will be no one else to blame. 18 months down the line and all this could well be going horribly wrong for him.

    Anyway….the king of wishful thinking me….

    • While the vote hardly increased it is the second highest number of votes for a party in a UK general election, pushing May in 2017 into 3rd but still behind Major in 1992. Because of how our constituency system works of course the slight increase made the difference in May losing her majority, despite getting more votes that Thatcher or Blair ever did, and Johnson gaining a significant one.

    • God I hope you’re right.

      Labour voters switching to Farrago can all fuck off and die, as far as I’m concerned. And by the time we get another General election, a lot of them will have, thank Christ.

      As for the crowsd of shits we now have to suffer, I shall be slaughtering fowl on a weekly basis and looking in the entrails for signs that the Great Crash And Burn is approaching, upon signs of which I shall deck the halls with lights, buy shares in pitchfork manufacturers and get in a few barrels of tar.

  25. Anyone hear the brilliant McCartney interview on Radio 4 yesterday?
    It lasted about 20 minutes.

    Paul was humble, funny, informative, and passionate about where we get our food from and the subject of climate change.
    At all times he was easy to understand, and no time did he veer off spouting Greek philosophy or talking in Latin.

    I think that’s because he received a considerably better education at the Liverpool Institute than Boris Johnson did at Eton.

    It is Paul who is the hero of our time.

  27. This is a report from my best mate who works in local government in the East of England. He is a splendid bloke, liberal in the old-fashioned sense and passionately a Remainer. He spent yesterday as a Returning Officer deep in darkest Lincolnshire (the remuneration for sitting there for sixteen hours means he can now buy his loved ones suitably expensive Christmas presents) and is still struggling to come to terms with the day’s events.
    “Oh my, the sights yesterday! Whole families shuffling into the polling station with one tooth between them and fleecy jackets with wolves on the back, whiffing of everything from motor oil to chip fat to… well, desperation. When they asked each other how to vote they didn’t mean “Who for?” (they were there for Brexit after all) but rather which way up to hold the pencil and what an X looks like. One of them even filled in the enormous specimen ballot paper rather than his own. Orwell said “All animals are equal” but I was left thinking some are more equal than others. Anyway, they won so maybe they are not so daft after all. We are moving to Scotland”.

  28. Come on then….
    Who is going to condone the rioting in central London tonight?

    Chants of “Not my Prime Minister”….I think you’ll find we live in a democracy…and he fucking well is.

    Yes….I voted Conservative

    Sorry Vulpes….I will not be taking an early death……so fuck you.

    • Certainly not me.

      Last time I was (very, very) near a riot in London, 2011, I was scared shitless.
      Mind, I was going to take a few out before I fell.

      Thought the Mayor of the time might make a difference.
      He didn’t.
      He was as useful as a chocolate fireguard.

      … what was his name?
      Someone help me.
      Anyone remember?

        • I don’t like David Cameron at all, not even slightly, I can’t stand the guy …
          … but, his one saving grace, was that in London, in 2011, he “got it.”
          He came back from holiday, and things started moving.

          Boris Johnson was so ineffective and out of his depth it was truly frightening.
          It was when his did his first walkabout that I did my own walkabout, placing various objects (the bread-board, kitchen knives, an old cricket bat) in strategic places around the house.

          It seems that many in London still haven’t forgotten.

  29. Rioting is always deeply stupid and crap. And pathetically opportunist. Nobody will ever convince me that August 2011 was anything other than a bunch of people saying “Hmmm… I think I’d like a new TV”

    • Unlike Grosvenor Road in 1980, which was entirely caused by shit policing (like a lot of “riots” in this country).

      “Rioting is always deeply stupid and crap.”

      Hang on with that “always” chum. Makes it sound as if any civil disturbance worthy of the name “riot” is a premeditated event, which is not the case. Sometimes it’s simply the result of poor situation management on the part of the authorities.

      Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that: “Allowing events to descend into rioting is always deeply stupid and crap.”

  30. A take I just read said you get the electorate you have not the one you want. Marie le Conte came up with that one. Those bastard centrist Blairites knew that to win you must compromise. The lessons of history were there to learn from. Corbs and co. didn’t want to know. Better pure and losers than compromising and winning. Trouble is the former gets you unrestrained Toryism. It’s not Brexit stupid. Look in the mirror.

    • “Better pure and losers than compromising and winning. ”

      You hit the nail on the head there, Diddley.

      Out on the fringes, where you have no chance of winning, may be that attitude is understandable. But when millions of people, for many different, very important reasons, are depending on you to win on their behalf, it is just egoism.

      • I’m not agree. I think he genuinely believed he was the best man to enact his socialist vision, which he genuinely believed to be the best thing for the people of the country. And passionate belief in your vision and ability is not the same thing as egoism. A lot of other not-especially-stupid people believed in him, especially among the young, just nowhere near enough. Could a different leader with different tactics have won? Would Blair being passionately vocal for Remain throughout the referendum and elections, for example, have won?

        • I don’t doubt he “genuinely believed he was the best man” to enact his vision. But so what? I’d guess it’s quite likely that that is the case with every political leader who has ever stood for election anywhere.

          Could a different leader with different tactics have won? Yes, undoubtedly. Without question. Johnson is by no means a popular figure, he is generally a figure of universal ridicule… and yet he had no opposition that appealed to voters. Labour’s approach, specifically to Brexit, was incoherent and Corbyn must carry the can for that.

          And Blair? He stopped being of relevance 15 years ago. Potential Labour voters have no interest in what Blair may or may not have said about Brexit. He’s an irrelevance, no more than an historical figure, in the same way that John Major and his criticism of the current Tory cabinet are no more than of passing interest. You may just as well wonder if Harold Wilson could have done better than Corbyn. It’s like defending Harry Kane missing an open goal for England by claiming Gary Lineker probably wouldn’t have done any better.

        • His ego prevented him from recognising his personal unpopularity with the electorate. Every poll for years had documented how deeply he is disliked, the most unpopular Labour leader in living memory. His ego allowed him to listen to his faction only.

          At least John McDonnell has finally admitted the gig is up.

    • What is your definition of “British”?

      I’ve looked through the full thread and apart from some good folks looking for another Nation to cast their vote in, Scotland gets not a mention. WE didn’t vote to kick ourselves in the nuts, we voted to live in a nation that kinda resembles the post-war settlement. Or any normal Northern European Nation. It’s comin yet.

      This isn’t a British shit storm. From where I see it, Brexit is the last breath of colonial England.

        • And in Northern Ireland the DUP saw a significant downturn in support. Unionists no longer have a majority for the first time ever. And in a country which also didn’t vote for Brexit the implications of it could literally be a matter of life and death.

          • But Wales, eh? A more intrinsically labour heritage than even the red wall of similarly disadvantaged post industrial ghettoes. And is the volume of white settlers now so great that Plaid still seem to cut so little of the huge post labour slack? Over to @pencilsqeezer to offer any answer?

              • My little part of Wales remains Labour, the further one travels West, away from the border the more nationalism holds sway. The places that have voted Tory (good grief) have done so for the same reasons as
                a great many of the English constituencies..
                These places have been ignored, impoverished and reduced for many decades. Into that huge vacuum of growing discontent the same siren voices that gained the ears of the English voters who have suffered the same problems were raised. A misplaced patriotism, love of community, desperation and despite what some choose to ignore but is undoubtedly true a brimming ladle or two of good old fashioned bigotry have resulted in this debacle. Brexit has been the wedge that has been used. It’s been a gift for the right and most disturbingly the extreme right but that genie cannot be put back into a bottle. We are just going to have to suck it up. It’s upsetting, it’s depressing and for those of us already struggling badly downright frightening. The die however was cast decades ago. The forgotten places should never have been allowed to fall into such disrepair, the centralisation of money and power in the SE and London has been disastrous. This is the consequence. If this is not rectified I shudder to think at what will come next. However The Climate Emergency…

                • I have Welsh rellies so this is familiar to me. Genuine question – isn’t the Welsh assembly Labour dominated (or was). Have they made good use of their devolved poweres? Apparently not?

                  • Similar to England. The feeling is that the Senedd is far too focused upon Cardiff and Swansea. Not so long ago they were seriously considering spending the transport budget for the whole of Wales on one road to speed up travel between the two cities. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? This in a nation that doesn’t even have a direct rail link between the North and the capital. I can’t speak for the whole of Wales but many here in the North which is my patch of ground feel as forgotten and disregarded by our devolved parliament as we do by Westminster. People are fed up. They lack any hope. All they perceive is others having a much bigger slice of the nation’s wealth than them and simply ignoring their needs. Even the most basic ones.
                    After the Thatcher years and subsequent Tory governments many were convinced that the New Labour administration would rectify the damage that had been wrought. Instead all that happened was a continuation of the concentration of power, money and opportunity in London and the SE. It has caused deep and lasting animosity and out of sheer frustration parts of Wales have thrown the dice and are hoping for the best. The rationale is simple. Any change is worth a try, no matter how much against the grain it is because simply voting for more of the same will change nothing. When you have nothing to lose then why not?
                    The future is cancelled.

                    • My rellies are mostly in mid or south Wales so I don’t get much of the vibe from them (though I do have a cousin in Snowdonia) but that sounds horribly familiar. But hey, Johnson says he’s going to sort out these forgotten areas so the sunny uplands await Pencil. 🙂

                • I come from the SE valleys north of Newport and Cardiff. Formerly the home of the largest steel plant in Europe. And there were countless coal mines in the area too. This is an English speaking area, so no interest in Plaid Cymru which is seen as a party for Welsh speakers (20% of the population).

                  The steel works were closed down over an almost 30 yr period (it once employed 13,000 people), this process was started in the late 70s under a Labour government. It remained just about the safest Labour seat in the country until recently when they didn’t like the way certain candidates were being forced on them. So it went briefly independent and a former boss of my mother and then a guy I was at school with became MPs successively. Probably Labour again now, but was home to one of the biggest Leave votes in the country. There are probably about 10 immigrants from Eastern Europe in the constituency. So immigration not really a main reason.

                  There is a massive amount of poverty and hopelessness in the community, but recently there have been improvements in roads and rail in the area, plus new hospital and schools were built. Ironically some of the money for this came from the EU. It is a wonderful place and the end of the steel works has restored the valley to it’s former beautiful glory. But there are no jobs and this has resulted in a massive protest vote against the Status Quo. Like let’s give it a go, it can’t be any worse. Also just about zero interest in a independent Wales.

                  Comfortably middle class people who castigate those who vote a different way to them really don’t have a clue. Those who can just pack up and threaten to move to a new country on a whim will never understand.

                  • My Mother was born and raised in the Rhondda. My grandfather was a miner between the wars. He was needless to say a staunch Labour man. He would be aghast at what is happening. They shut the steelworks here too. It’s never been a pretty place, more English than Welsh with it being so close to the border, a tough, working class town. Happily our good constituency Labour M.P. has held onto his seat. Just. I voted for him. I’m a Green Party member nowadays but we didn’t have a candidate standing. There has been a slow influx of folk from elsewhere into the area. I like it, others don’t. To illustrate how fu*ked up things are here’s a little story. Back in the mid 80s a local man attempted to blow up the local Conservative club. He failed, was caught and rightly jailed. More recently a shower of EDL supporters were allegedly responsible for burning down their own working man’s club because they heard a rumour it was going to become the site of a mosque. Nothing happened although one of them has subsequently been jailed for paedophile offenses.
                    It has been mooted that much of the leave vote in Wales was significantly bolstered by English “immigrants” the fact that a bunch of EDL halfwits feel free to spread their unwelcome bile in my local area may offer some credence to that idea.

                  • “But there are no jobs and this has resulted in a massive protest vote against the Status Quo. Like let’s give it a go, it can’t be any worse. Also just about zero interest in a independent Wales.”

                    Bang on @dai

                    My auntie lives in Canal Terrace. Which is exactly as it sounds. When we visit, in the town centre the only thing missing from a deserted Mexican standoff scene is the tumbleweed. Oh, and the sunny heat, obviously. It’s soul destroyingly neglected. It’s a scandal.

  32. Good to see that Corbyn has put his hand up and taken full responsibility for none of this being anything to do with him.

    Anyone still in touch with my old mucker the Fauxcialist? How’s he taking it?

      • Yes, it can’t be the BBC because that was sold off by Cameron for being too left wing.

        Corbyn was a Blairist sleeper for 30 years and is an ideologically impure traitor to the true left, who will now march forth to glorious victory!

        • Lovely to see Allison Pearson lambasting the BBC for its leftist remoaner ‘Virtueosi’ (whatever the hell that means) bias today, including, apparently, on Question Time (really?!). Meantime Clive Lewis, Corbynite MP, is citing a Guardian piece of research as proof of BBC anti Corbyn bias because analysis of its News app notifications show that in stories about the Tories there was an exact balance of positive and negative stories and in stories about Labour there was ONE more negative story than positive. Which, unsurprisingly, was the equally most balanced coverage of all the news Apps they monitored (the other being the FT, curiously enough). But it’s the BBC – lets not let the facts get in the way of our calling them out for their obvious outrageous bias one way or the other.

          • I used to quite like Allison Pearson when she was on that show with Mark Lawson. Then she moved to the Telegraph and started licking Johnson’s balls for a living. Tory bucket of shit.

              • Its extraordinary isn’t it? She’s clearly not stupid but her comments these days often make her seem like it. I can only assume she reckons being a right wing shock jock columnist is a good career move financially – its obviously very deliberate and calculating.

                • I think it is a deliberate career move, without question. The trouble with that kind of notoriety is that you become deeply irrelevant very quickly. Nobody needs to hear from Hopkins et al any more. They got what they wanted. The Tories will drop them just as quickly as the media.

                  • I don’t suppose even Johnson wants to associate himself with Katie Hopkins. Too much of a loose cannon.
                    Don’t see him welcoming Farage with open arms either. Now he has his majority he has no use for him.
                    He’ll be sure to offer enough crumbs and plenty of flannel to keep all those Northern defectors from going back to Labour or the Brexit Party/UKIP.

    • A good part of the blame for Labour’s defeat lies at Corbyn’s feet but the lies and dirty tricks would have been the same no matter who the party leader was. The dirty fighting from the Tories goes back decades and has got worse and worse throughout. His lack of effectiveness in dealing with it is his fault but the rest of the party heirarchy have to take their share too.
      Whining on about unfair media coverage and denouncing working-class voters as stupid traitors will cut no ice with anyone. Neither will a retreat to the wishy-washy, London-centric Blair/Brown style of government, offering half measures to working people and taking their support for granted, while arse-kissing the financial sector.
      A truly effective and inclusive opposition is what’s been lacking. One that fights hard and fights smart.

  33. We had a menu through the door the other day from a local Indian takeaway. On the front was a recommendation from Ed Miliband, who lives nearby. Ed Miliband! He was leader of the opposition for five years! It seemed so incredible that I had to look it up to convince myself. Now just a fairly obscure backbencher. But all those years, people spent trying to persuade themselves that he could be prime minister, when they were just mistaking the reflected status of leader of opposition for some sort of innate qualities he had in himself.

    The same with Corbyn. Now, after only a couple of days, he is melting away like a snowman. Hard to believe a week ago there were discussions about the coalition he might lead, and analysis of his policies.

  35. I see that 19,000 people voted for the guy in the video in the OP and that he is now an honourable Member of Parliament who will help lead us to this new healing inclusive united country Johnson is promising us. Jesus wept.

    • Johnson’s going to have problems with him.

      He’s also the one who set up a filmed piece with a constituent he had “never met before,” even though he was seen ringing the guy up just before knocking on his door.
      The constituent turned out to be more racist etc. than him!

      Good luck, Ashfield.

  39. For those who missed the abuse the comments are still there if you look at Tahir’s profile and activity.

    I hope the Mods don’t delete them, as has been said a matter of record is a matter of record.

  40. I’ve been far more positive since the election result.

    After all the indecision it’s:
    “… over to you, Johnson, you 60s-dodging, poorly educated, poorly dressed, piece of insincere, cheating puss.”

    Positive, huh!

    All TV/Radio appliances are automatically on BBC4 Extra (see the very successful Operation Wacko Jacko exercise in 2009), I haven’t listened to a news bulletin, Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” has been on the CD player morning, noon and night, and I’ve embarked (finally) on really tidying up and trimming CD/book/magazine collections.
    Re: Rolling Stones … Anything after Brian Jones is toast; rather thinking of only keeping the first three L.P.s, the three E.P.s and the 63/64 45s. Why would I access the ugly stuff when I can access the beautiful stuff?

    I will also be giving any man very little tolerance (“yeah, yeah, squire, get to the point” – in the village where I live I reckon one woman is worth about eight of the men, seriously), focussing far more in future on what young people and women have to say and offer.

    • Your last point half-resonates here too in the Cotswolds.

      Mostly the Tory women will by and large actually listen to your point of view and occasionally even yield the veracity of one’s analysis.

      The young here however seem as rurally tribal as ever: Young Farmers (brand new Defender, entitled, inheriting, in uniform*) = Tory, and young farm workers (battered L200, unentitled, not inheriting, in uniform*) = Tory.

      *Tweeds, decent check shirt, Schoffel, brogues, cap optional.

      I love a broad stereotyping, me. Strong nub of truth in every one.

        • Mitsubishi L200 – a truck to an American, a pickup truck. Pretty good all-purpose 4X4 vehicle for a farmer, equestrian worker or an estate manager, complete overkill for the school run. Much cheaper, especially second-hand, than a top of the range Landy*.

          To be fair, you can get a lot of brats in the back if your family is so large you need a written checklist to recall all their names (likely to be a selection of Royal names from the past 6 or 7 centuries in these parts – lots of Charlottes, Eleanors, Henrys and Charles).

          *Afterthought – do you know what a Landy is? (a Land Rover)

  41. Been talking to a woman this evening whose been to loads of places around the world EXCEPT for the holiday resorts.
    Essentially, if there’s been a famine, earthquake or military coup, she’s been there, and, despite overwhelming odds, helped and saved people from whatever disaster has been enacted on them.
    Done a bit more face-to-face combat, all in the name of peace, than Trump and his ilk.

    Meanwhile, outside, the chaps are getting territorial about who should go up a ladder to put in a new bulb in one of the lanterns.

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