Sir Keir Starmer’s Barmy Army

2 children per family is below replacement level. Look at Japan - in real trouble with stagnant growth and an ageing population.

 

Maybe this is one area where the interests of BoJo and the country really do co-incide.

 

So Sunak is going to going to operate a "scorched earth" policy for the northern leg of HS2. Pathetic. Can't someone take out an injunction to stop such vandalism?

SKS could probably wreck this plan by announcing that a future Labour government would compulsorily repurchase this land, whatever the stage of redevelopment, at a rate of £1 per hectare! Of course no chance of anything as bold as that - no wonder the poll ratings of SKS are little better than Sunak's.

 

‘Deep Fake’ recording of Starmer emerged yesterday, briefly setting X (Twitter) abuzz. Lots of people desperate to believe it right and left.

https://news.sky.com/story/labour-f...-audio-is-posted-of-sir-keir-starmer-12980181

 

Where should Labour build its new towns?

I suggest where L*%#n is now. Ok, there is already a town there, but I think it could be done better.

 

Would be wrapped up in legal arguments for years and probably end up costing more than repurchasing at market rate.
Mind you will keep the lawyers in business so will probably happen.

You are SKS and I claim my £5 for outing you.

 

Decontamination of the land would be prohibitively expensive.
Best annex it and grant it independence. Given some foreign aid and rudimentary training assistance the population may be able to offer some useful services.

 

Or just nuke it from orbit.

 

Being a bit po-faced, it was a pretty pisspoor security response I thought. Though we've seen it all before. Bad enough the bloke got onto the stage in the first place. Even worse that they then let him give the keynote speech for the next hour.

 

Starmer is a very underrated politician. If he didn’t sound like a duck with a bad cold, he’d likely get a Blair-like majority.

 

I thought that. Very fortunate that the intruder's intention was simply to prove the old saying "you can't polish a tu rd, but you can sprinkle glitter on it" rather than anything more sinister

 

Damn you for getting there before me.

 

The bizarre thing was that the protester was asking for the abolition/reform of the House of Lords, which is Labour policy.

Like protesting the Tory conference demanding they ensure their pals pocket more of our cash.

 

Quite surprisingly the old saying is, as it turns out, wrong.

 

Sir Starkers celebrating as Labour take both by-elections with huge swings, 23.9% in Tamworth and 20.5% in Mid Bedfordshire.

 

Turns out people in those constituencies did want seven bins.

 

I just hope Labour realise that the by-election victories were more of a rejection of the Tories rather than people embracing Labour. The same people and faceless corporations will be running things though, dont worry.

 

I think that’s true and the Labour leadership clearly believe that you can’t win an election in the UK without adopting a dispiriting and unthreatening approach to power.

However, the two sides are not the same, the detail is important, if unspectacular.

 

As they say in golf, there's no room on the scorecard for pretty pictures. The result is the result.

Turnouts at by-elections are usually low but according to the political analysts I've heard this morning, even taking that into account, Tamworth and Mid-Beds suggest there'll be a thumping Labour majority at the next general election.

Unfortunately our voting system dominated by two parties doesn't reward sudden or significant movement. It rewards gently nudging the Overton Window over time. The Tories didn't move straight into the territory of crackpots and weirdos overnight, they did it bit by bit over years. It'll take Labour time to nudge it back again and so all they need to do at the moment is not be the Tories and that'll likely be good enough.

This cynicism that they're all the same, all influenced by the same shadowy forces, is – in my opinion – well, well wide of the mark. Unfortunately, it takes detailed work that most of us don't want to do in our free time to see the differences. No political party is perfect. But we don't need perfection. We just need to take a step away from incompetence and corruption.

Besides, I thought the key point of Thatcherism was that the market would sort everything out for the better, so what's wrong with faceless corporations being in charge? Thought that was what the country wanted? *ironic rhetorical question*

 

"Just for fun" - if Mid Beds swing repeated at GE:

 

I think it would help both Labour and the Libdems to acknowledge tactical voting after these type of elections.

I was just watching Politics Live where Wes Streeting was crowing over how the Libdems campaigning had failed and how the vote for Labour was a positive one.

If I were in either of the constituencies and was a Libdem that voted for Labour I would be reluctant to do so again based on those comments.

All he needed to do was to say that he accepts that some Libdems would have voted tactically, and lent their vote to Labour, and that he is sure that the victorious Labour candidates would do their best to honour that trust.

 

He’s a nob is the most coherent answer I can give.

 

Stolen Election! How Labour conspired to steal the Tamworth by-election by methods so blatant it would make a Democrat blush.

https://x.com/aidthompsin/status/1715286817157661022?s=46&t=oqOMSJXE_g7J5C7kNPG9LA

 

I caught a couple of phone ins on the wireless while on the road today. Funnily enough listening to the Tory voices (and I mean supporters, not just the professionals) trying to argue these by-elections results are meaningless and no one likes Starmer gave me big pre-2020 US election vibes. First because caller after caller seemed oblivious to how election results can be extrapolated, even with low turnout, to give a very good steer on likely outcomes at a GE. But also on the candidate popularity front all the stuff about Biden hiding in his basement, no one being enthusiastic for him etc fuelled a lot of the election conspiracy theories that came afterwards once people saw the results.

Unless the political climate changes big time between now and polling day, FPTP could deliver a Labour landslide and I genuinely think we'll hear the first serious chatter about electoral fraud and stolen elections over here.

We've already seen the Tory candidate in Tamworth scarper while his winning opponent gave her speech. That sort of sore loser behaviour is often the first step on the slippery slope towards denying the results themselves.

 

I’m really not sure even the die hard Tory supporters can predict Rishi remaining Pm

 

Indeed. It's myopy born of people retreating further than further into echo chambers/biased "media" sources that tell them what they want to hear or already believe. Those sources attract like minded people, they all get increasingly polarized from each other's bleatings, and because the sources are so biased they only hear from fellow crackpots.

Then they belt out the "I DON'T KNOW ANYONE WHO SUPPORTS [insert name here]!" nonsense, and start screaming about rigged votes and stolen elections and politically motivated prosecutions.

 

My bet is it’ll start with how Boris was the most popular leader in a generation, beloved by all and yet he only got a majority of 80, while no one I know likes Starmer and he got 120…

 

More coherent and credible than the "WhAt AbOuT tHe DoMiNiOn SeRvEr In GeRmAnY?" stuff that was given airtime by some of this parish...

 

Incidentally, I'd be ******* ashamed if I'd repeatedly propagated (or liked) this nonsense and would take myself off for a quiet period of introspection, considering where the hell I get my news from and if something had gone massively wrong with my world view but appreciate that kind of thinking isn't for everyone.

 

Yes, but anyone capable of that kind of introspection and self awareness wouldn't have believed such blatant bilge in the first place.

Hence the problem.

 

When any Tory put up to the media says "There is no great enthusiasm for Starmer" the instant response from the interviewer should be "Really? How ******* bad must you be then?"*

*Possibly moderating language.

 

Poor old Justin. Ask a silly question though and you get what you deserve:

 

You laugh, but under Labour you’ll be able to retire at six.

 

Is this an instance of nominative determinism?