Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Wed Jan 15, 2025 12:49 pm Among other zingers from Kemi today, Labour was too concerned with making a woman chancellor that it didn't select the best person.

Has she forgotten that Starmer’s initial appointment as Shadow Chancellor was Annaliese Dodds - also a woman. But Annaliese wasn’t the best woman for the job, so he appointed Rachel Reeves.

As Robert Hutton says, this is Twitter stuff. Women are "DEI hires". Labour mean while gets shit for not having had a female leader.

Make it make sense.

It doesn't have to make sense. It just has to provide soundbites for the rightwing press (and their lackeys in broadcast media) to latch on to, and then create chaff.

It's a strategy often used by less-able adolescent boys on the wrong end of institutional wrath.

Badenoch has also let it beknown today that she is very happy with her shadow cabinet and won't sack any of her shadow cabinet before the next election. This seems a very bold claim especial when she has the likes as Jenrick and Patel in her shadow cabinet. Is she really saying Jenrick has her full backing regarded of what racist nonsense he spouts?

One can always be surprised in a bad way by the rightwing press, but I'd be surprised if they ran too much with "Rachel Reeves only got the job because she's a woman". Women are, after all, half the population and they've held jobs in Government for a while without passing too much comment. This seems like a very online meme. And it's mad.

satnav wrote: ↑Wed Jan 15, 2025 6:32 pm Badenoch has also let it beknown today that she is very happy with her shadow cabinet and won't sack any of her shadow cabinet before the next election. This seems a very bold claim especial when she has the likes as Jenrick and Patel in her shadow cabinet. Is she really saying Jenrick has her full backing regarded of what racist nonsense he spouts?

That rather startling prediction was from Badenoch's spokesperson, who in fairness was dealt a bad hand by this silly going after Rachel Reeves to resign. Badenoch hadn't considered that it might be applied to her own side.

On the other point, she more than backs Jenrick. Unlike Sunak, she wouldn't have disciplined Lee Anderson was saying that Sadiq Khan was controlled by radical Islamists.

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Wed Jan 15, 2025 6:21 pm It doesn't have to make sense. It just has to provide soundbites for the rightwing press (and their lackeys in broadcast media) to latch on to, and then create chaff.

It's a strategy often used by less-able adolescent boys on the wrong end of institutional wrath.

Yes, it's "have you stopped being a spanner?" stuff.

It’s going be funny when one starts to realise it’s going nowhere and decides to quit. And apparently Labour are the worst government ever and yet seem to lead in some of the better pollsters by a decent margin on the Tories.

Kemi's admitting errors by the Government she was in for nearly 5 years. One of these is "didn't have a plan for growth outside the EU". As always the point with this stuff isn't to admit faults, but to dump on other people and make herself sound different by telling her base what they want to hear.

What faults does Kemi think she has? Too much of a perfectionist? Would be like David Brent in those Microsoft videos.

Ah, but she doesn't talk about the past. She's all about the future, not dredging up old stuff.

Particularly her past, her future, and her old stuff.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Jan 16, 2025 10:40 am Kemi's admitting errors by the Government she was in for nearly 5 years. One of these is "didn't have a plan for growth outside the EU". As always the point with this stuff isn't to admit faults, but to dump on other people and make herself sound different by telling her base what they want to hear.

What faults does Kemi think she has? Too much of a perfectionist? Would be like David Brent in those Microsoft videos.

What it looks like: tentative steps towards the Tories admitting Brexit was a mistake

What it actually is: Badenoch setting up to say Brexit is only a failure because it hasn’t been done right, then proceeding to give precisely zero detail on what she would do differently because none of them want to do any hard work, and the Tory plan has always been “hope the EU just let everything slide” and blame them for anything that comes up.

Same as it ever was.

"didn't have a plan for growth outside the EU".

That's not what I recall from all Leave campaigners. We were shackled to a protectionist Europe and weren't allowed to trade with the rest of the world. Leaving the Single Market would set the economy free. That's rhetoric but Leavers would insist that was a plan. And they won so that must be what it is, a plan. Bare in mind these advocates were mainly old gammons who haven't been to supermarket for 40 years so they could say this with a straight face. But that hardly begins to explain their ignorance and stupidity.

Yeah, that part was sketchy, with the World Trade Organization being transformed into the equivalent of the EU Commission, except worldwide, and not involving any ceding of sovereignty.

I thought Kemi and Liz doing their globetrotting was part of the plan (and Anne Marie Trevelyan, though in fairness to her she did the job in a suitably low key).

Just like Labour, the Liberal Democrats are looking to undo a democratic vote.
Our divorce from the EU was finalised and politicians in this country should be focused on delivering for the British people. If they think overturning the democratic will of this country, and damaging the special relationship we have with one of our closest allies, is a good approach then it is clear they are even more unfit for government than we thought.

From Priti Patel, though Kemi would say the same. Insane logic on Brexit and on the Lib Dems, who aren't the Government or the Opposition. Ed Davey's power to deliver for the British people amounts to 2 questions at PMWs. And that sovereign hawk Priti should imply it's the business of the US.

I'm not quite sure how a customs union is supposed to work for a non-EU member. Norway and Switzerland aren't in it, even though they make the (you'd think) much bigger compromise on being in the Single Market. Does it make that much difference? Turkey is in it, but is that a suitable model for the UK?

Remember when the UK's role was to bridge the gap between the US and EU? Now we're at "If we're too nice to them, Trump will get mad!".

Ha ha ha. This is terrible.

This has to stop because the dream of every generation, that our children can have a better future than we did, is slowly dying. It’s dying because as our problems have got more urgent, our politics has got less serious.
Since July, there has been more discussion in parliament on Oasis tickets than on our 2.7 trillion pound debt pile. That has to stop.

The Budget had a fair bit of discussion, I seem to recall. Say what you like about Sir Keir, the idea he is less serious than Badenoch is pretty ridiculous. How much discussion on our "debt pile" was there before July. Was there more of it than discussion of gender neutral toilets?

Bloody Parliament, making it easier to get tickets for concerts without being ripped off.

This speech is absolute shit which would struggle to pass muster at a university Conservative association.

Q: [From Hugy Gye from the i] What is your assessment of the state of the economy?

Badenoch says Labour has a fundamental misunderstanding of the economy. It is “not government that creates growth, it is business that creates growth”, she says.

Part of the problem is that Labour ministers don’t have business experience, she says.

Unlike business heavyweights Boris Johnson and George Osborne, perhaps. Not quite sure what her experience is. Some IT? That's not really business decision making, is it? Not really that different to Sir Keir doing Law.

Q: You talked a moment ago, in relation to Rachel Reeves, about Keir Starmer’s women problem. What is the relevance of her gender.

Badenoch says she was referring to the fact that Reeves boasted about being the first woman chancellor.

Me neither. Sir Keir has a problem with women, but he appointed one to Chancellor, and it's bad because Reeves noted she was the first female chancellor a couple of times?

On Brexit, I think there is a lot more that we could have and should have done. I did what I could as business secretary, I removed the supremacy of the European court of justice. We removed about 4,000 EU laws. But what we need to start doing is looking at where we have competitive advantage with countries around the world, and use our regulatory system to exploit that competitive advantage.

Weren't you the Business Secretary? You're saying you didn't even look at this? You removed all those laws with no idea what to put in their place?

The ECJ thing was Bozo-Sunak policy anyway. This wasn't anything you came up with.