General Election 2019 thread

[Webzcas]

My pick would be Penny Mordaunt. I think she is also the most popular amongst the Tory membership.

If the Tories are listening and want a real shot at winning the next election then they have to select Penny.

Yes, Mordaunt for me, although Kemi a close second. Mordaunt is a naval reservist, former defence secretary, has form for putting the SNP back in their box and hopefully will ensure that the DoD is sufficiently funded, as IMO Russia is the gravest threat we face.

 

[mcgameboy]

From what I see on Twitter, the Conservative Party Membership are most certainly not 'Ready for Rishi' - also based on current polling, if Rishi was to get into number 10, the country most certainly are not 'Ready for Rishi'.

However, it appears the parliamentary conservative party are 'Ready for Rishi'. What are the chances that they will engineer by way of 'lending' votes, so the membership have to vote for Rishi or a deeply unpopular candidate with the membership, ala that lovely man Jeremy Hunt?

I had to be very careful there as my fingers nearly didn't hit the 'H' key when typing his name!

Nadine Dorries has already as good as suggested that is exactly what is being engineered. Phrases such as "dark arts", "dirty tricks" and "stitch up" were used.

I think this leadership race will get rather ugly.

 

[Webzcas]

How is her Snow Leopard getting on?

 

[mcgameboy]

How is her Snow Leopard getting on?

I wouldn't have a clue mate. But I think her slamming of Sunak was very deliberate. A little reminder for the Boris sympathisers that Sunak and Javid were
likely the chief culprits behind the plot to oust Boris.

Sunak is in that strange position of seemingly having the most backers, but also the most enemies.

Mourdant and Truss (should they get to the final four with Sunak and Hunt) may have to come to an agreement for one of them to bow out of the race,
in order to prevent a Sunak vs Hunt vote for the leadership.

An interesting week ahead.

 

[Webzcas]

Yes, I think you may well be right in regards to an agreement to stop Hunt being pushed into the second spot. One thing is for sure, if Sunak or Hunt become PM, then the tories will be decimated at the 2024 election - even Corbyn would have a chance of winning were he still Labour leader.

The red wall will not vote Tory again with a near billionaire as PM who is so out of touch with 'real' people he has to borrow a car to fill up for the photo shoot at Sainsburys after the 5p fuel duty cut.

Truss I would also be fairly happy with. The main thing going for her IMO, is that she royally pisses off that slug that is Lavrov the foreign minister for Russia. Truss as PM would send him spinning like a spinning top LOL

As for Hunt, god help us all!

 

[Mr_Slot5]

Nadine Dorries has already as good as suggested that is exactly what is being engineered. Phrases such as "dark arts", "dirty tricks" and "stitch up" were used.

I think this leadership race will get rather ugly.

What would be the point of getting him in as PM when he is likely to be unpopular with the electorate? What is the reason? May as well hand Labour the next election.

Unless there's a more general plot to stitch the electorate up with engineering a scenario where we will gain closer ties to Europe once again? Not too sure that'll go down well in the northern working class towns and it would just ensure we see another populist party pop up.

Politicians really do fail to read the room sometimes don't they.

EDIT: just checked, he's apparently a staunch brexiteer...for some reason I thought he was pro-remain.

 

[Webzcas]

EDIT: just checked, he's apparently a staunch brexiteer...for some reason I thought he was pro-remain

Ironic isn't it, as Sunak is the 'Remainer' choice, whilst Truss who campaigned for IN, is the 'Brexit' side of the memberships choice. Couldn't make it up.

*Based on what I have seen develop on Twitter over the past few days

 

[ChopleyIOM]

What would be the point of getting him in as PM when he is likely to be unpopular with the electorate? What is the reason? May as well hand Labour the next election.

Unless there's a more general plot to stitch the electorate up with engineering a scenario where we will gain closer ties to Europe once again? Not too sure that'll go down well in the northern working class towns and it would just ensure we see another populist party pop up.

Politicians really do fail to read the room sometimes don't they.

EDIT: just checked, he's apparently a staunch brexiteer...for some reason I thought he was pro-remain.

/ticks 'Remainer plot' on his Leadership Election Bingo Card.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

Ironic isn't it, as Sunak is the 'Remainer' choice, whilst Truss who campaigned for IN, is the 'Brexit' side of the memberships choice. Couldn't make it up.

*Based on what I have seen develop on Twitter over the past few days

Truss was staunchly pro-Europe and pro-Remain then had a Damascene conversion at some point and saw the Brexit light.

She's nothing it not adaptable.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

The bigger problem is that none of the contenders seem to have any idea about how disastrous their economic plans are.

A great explainer here (from a guy who is an actual economist):

You do not have permission to view link Log in or register now.

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Sky's economics correspondent not pulling any punches.

 

[Webzcas]

Yeah I know. I did laugh quite a bit when the Haunted Pencil and Madine Dorries came outside number 10 and said Truss was a bigger Brexiteer than them both.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

The problem all the Tory candidates have is that they're campaigning for 'change' after twelve years of Tory government.

So in Rishi's case we have 'REBUILD THE ECONOMY' like his party hasn't been in charge of it for the last twelve years, and him personally for the last three years.

'REUINITE THE COUNTRY' - so why is it so disunited when your lot has been running it for twelve years?

It's like a bunch of people who just knocked your house down offering to find you temporary accommodation in a hotel and expecting you to cheer for them.

And as for banging the Brexit drum, even IDS is saying there's no more mileage left in that line now, Brexit is done already, people now want to see the benefits, not some dark mutterings about how we might be TAKEN BACK IN BY STEALTH. (Something none of the candidates is even remotely campaigning for.)

 

[Webzcas]

 

[Kroffe]

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I hear its an offshoot from this.

 

[goatwack]

'I think it was Margaret Thatcher who said ''Every prime minister needs a Willie''. A woman like me doesn't have one,'

Wow Ms Mordaunt, some powerful stuff there.

Were it not for the fact that it doesn't really state much of anything, by subverting an old famous quote and giving an answer to it that nobody cared about, nor her infantilized language.

Because as we already know, she's as woke as they come, and her policies likely to be as Progressive as you'll ever see- and the reason why her run ends here. If people wanted that, they'd vote Labour!

After all, who can forget her 'trans men are men and trans women are women' statement not terribly long ago?

Sorry Penny, good try to ingratiate yourself at the 11th hour, but it's a thumb's down from me

 

[Kroffe]

Sorry Penny, good try to ingratiate yourself at the 11th hour, but it's a thumb's down from me

Fixed.

 

[dunover]

The hostile takeover edges ever closer to completion, sorry, 'leadership race', as Sunak's running away with it.

So well prepared was he, but then he'd had a six-month head-start, whilst his opponents bemusedly flail around in panic. I mean, just look at the logo for God's sake, he probably spent a few grand on that alone!

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And then there were eight!

Though looking at that list, the only viable challengers from that lot amount to Hunt, Mordaunt & Truss, so it's safe to assume 'it's in the bag'

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So slick is Fishy Rishy's campaign trail that even journalists find their mics 'cutting out' during terse Q&As, almost as if to railroad the great man into no.10 without incident.

Personally, I'm still reeling from Shapp's withdrawal (oh matron) but have come to accept the natural order of things, so it'll be interesting to see voters' reaction to this staged production in the coming years.

In the meantime, I'll leave everyone with this, again. Are you ready for Rishi? Yes we are!

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Looks like a dinghy full of bogus refugees that's just washed up at Folkestone. Because we're all going to need lifejackets with most of them....

 

[interlog]

You're still missing the last stage of the process interlog, where does the money end up.

If a furloughed worker received £1600 per month, but £800 of it went on rent, £300 of it went on shopping, £100 of it went on fuel, £150 of it went on energy bills and £250 of it went on other expenses, they actually got to keep precisely zero of that £1600. It's not like they're sticking that £1600 per month into the bank, but the £1600 still ended up somewhere.

Let's forget about everything else for now and just focus on the rent. In simple terms, the government created £800 of debt, and passed it through that person, straight into the pocket of a landlord, every single month for as long as furlough lasted.

Multiply that out across the UK for every single person who paid their rent using furlough money, tens of billions pounds being created as new government debt, and then being siphoned straight into the pockets of (often very wealthy) landlords.

What Gary is saying is that these very wealthy people, who did very well out of Covid, should be paying a bit more tax to relieve the burden on average workers - it's not exactly calling for a Communist revolution, is it?

If taxes were low overall at the moment you could argue it's all good, (I wouldn't but someone could try to make that case), but when your average worker is paying the highest rates of tax since the 1940s, how is it that the wealthy and super-wealthy get to trouser £450bn of newly created government debt, and pay far lower rates of tax than Mr Average Joe does?

And remember Mr Average Joe is not only paying the highest rates of tax for nearly 100 years, he's also being told he can't have a decent pay rise (how many people are getting 9% pay rises this year?.....), that public services are shit because there's no money to pay for them, that his energy bills are going to be the highest they've ever been (and getting higher), and also that he just has to put up with inflation running at 9% and it costing £100 or more to fill up his car.

Printing £450bn of new money is an extremely inflationary measure, so it's like a double whammy for the folks who didn't get to keep any of it.

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The alternative for the Government would have been to do fuck all and let those that couldn't work be without jobs. That would mean an increase of benefits to be paid which would go to the aforementioned things you mentioned such as rent, food, energy etc. So tax payer money going to the "rich" as you/him call it.

So, nope still not getting where this person is coming from at all

 

[slot_zombie]

Looks like a dinghy full of bogus refugees that's just washed up at Folkeston

And we can't get fucking shot of either of them.

 

[ChopleyIOM]

The alternative for the Government would have been to do fuck all and let those that couldn't work be without jobs. That would mean an increase of benefits to be paid which would go to the aforementioned things you mentioned such as rent, food, energy etc. So tax payer money going to the "rich" as you/him call it.

So, nope still not getting where this person is coming from at all

He literally says in the video that furlough was the right thing to do, the issue is around there having been no attempt to recover any of that £450bn from all the pockets it ended up in (furlough payments that ended up with the rich, dodgy PPE contracts, business loans that were embezzled to the tune of billions of pounds etc).

One way or another FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY BILLION POUNDS of new government debt was created over Covid, and that cash ended up somewhere, but the only people being asked to pay it back through increased taxes are normal working people who are taxed on their incomes. As Gary repeatedly stresses, our tax system is very good at taxing INCOME, it's very bad at taxing WEALTH.

 

[interlog]

He literally says in the video that furlough was the right thing to do, the issue is around there having been no attempt to recover any of that £450bn from all the pockets it ended up in (furlough payments that ended up with the rich, dodgy PPE contracts, business loans that were embezzled to the tune of billions of pounds etc).

One way or another FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY BILLION POUNDS of new government debt was created over Covid, and that cash ended up somewhere, but the only people being asked to pay it back through increased taxes are normal working people who are taxed on their incomes. As Gary repeatedly stresses, our tax system is very good at taxing INCOME, it's very bad at taxing WEALTH.

Nope, still not getting it at all where he is coming from.

The workers that got the furlough money (it didn't go to the rich) benefited too (they otherwise would have had fuck all) so why shouldn't they pay some of that back now via increased taxes.

 

[mcgameboy]

Hunt and Zahawi out, with 25 and 18 votes respectively.

Zahawi apparently looked in a right mood after the hustings last night, storming off in a huff. I guess we now know why.

And with Hunt out, to paraphrase the great rugby commentator Bill McLaren.....

"Dorries will be dancing with her snow leopard in the streets tonight!"

 

[09237653]

I'm just so sick to death of the lot of them, the country has to move on from this tory musical chairs game sooner or later and it looks like the polls are finally shifting in that direction.

A fresh start huh? the party has been in power 12 years!

Rishi's gonna fix the economy huh? he's been in charge of it for 2 and a half years.

 

[goatwack]

I generally like Tugendhat's honest approach to his own lack of credentials for the role, basically along the lines of "I may not know much about being Prime Minister goddammit, but I can shoot a rabbit from 50 paces"-type thing

 

[slot_zombie]

Not really liking the look of the chancers candidates, especially Sunak. Penny Mordaunt is slightly easy on the eye after a few pints (in a pinch..) so we'll go with 'PM for PM'.

Well, it's a better selection process than arguing about who has the best definition of of a woman, and pronoun usage.

Cancel cancel cancel.

I read today that our Pen has had difficulty in the past with defining a woman, so I'm out Not a bedside manner I'd wish to become acquainted with.

So I'm all in for Priti "Shark" Patel in 2024.