[Youngian]

Is there a military word for luring the enemy to the wrong battlefield so you can take your real targets?
The more the Tories have to defend its prize Red Wall gains by indulging Metric Martyrs and Brexit fantasists, the weirder and more out of touch they sound in key suburban and Blue wall marginals. So retaining Stoke costs three Eshers.

[Andy McDandy]

Kansas City shuffle. They know something is up, but you've got them looking the wrong one way.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Red Wall seems to have gone off the government faster than the rest of the country. See how it goes in Wakefield.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Is there a military word for luring the enemy to the wrong battlefield so you can take your real targets?
The more the Tories have to defend its prize Red Wall gains by indulging Metric Martyrs and Brexit fantasists, the weirder and more out of touch they sound in key suburban and Blue wall marginals. So retaining Stoke costs three Eshers.

It would be nice if the next election was one long "Wantage- Lib Dem Gain", but it's hard to know how far the antipathy in this blue wall thing is driven by people agreeing with Tim Farron (except on gay sex theology) and how much it's down to "Tories want to concrete our nice area over". Gove's addressed the latter, with some poundshop Ruskin talk and I expect a policy will follow to shut down this Lib Dem opportunity.

The Lib Dem vote has changed a fair bit since 2010, when it included a bunch of people who fucked off to UKIP, but I'm still a bit cautious in doubting whether it'll show up properly v Johnson's Tories in a a general election.

[mattomac]

I know I sit in Ed Davey’s area but even an issue over the local leisure centre did nothing to stunt their growth.

The Tories are now a runt in a place they held councils and were MPs in 2015, I don’t think it’s vital for Labour to take red wall seats like Hartlepool, because I do think it will take seats elsewhere, the problem with the red wall narrative is that it’s a narrative, same goes for the blue wall, plenty locally suggested Labour was at least back on track in these seats though the likes of Hartlepool were lost for a generation where Wakefield would probably have returned without the current situation. See Wigan is smack bang in the middle, has no university and yet Nandy and the council don’t seem to have any issues.

I’m not sure in the slightest why Johnson went down to Cornwall yesterday, it’s miles from Tiverton. The informal pact will make more of a difference than in general, I guess we will see, Thomas in St Ives has only really held on due to the Labour vote turning out strongly for Labour for Labour under Corbyn, it might not actually do so under Starmer in that area. Labour will in my view take Falmouth and Truro, maybe there are concerns down there, doesn’t make much sense otherwise.

[Andy McDandy]

I guess that Labour winning in the south, and giving up on Barnsley would feed into the "metropolitan smartarses, bunch of social workers and lecturers" narrative. Meanwhile the red wall becomes the political equivalent of football's wet Tuesday night in Stoke.

[The Weeping Angel]

Is there a military word for luring the enemy to the wrong battlefield so you can take your real targets?
The more the Tories have to defend its prize Red Wall gains by indulging Metric Martyrs and Brexit fantasists, the weirder and more out of touch they sound in key suburban and Blue wall marginals. So retaining Stoke costs three Eshers.

It would be nice if the next election was one long "Wantage- Lib Dem Gain", but it's hard to know how far the antipathy in this blue wall thing is driven by people agreeing with Tim Farron (except on gay sex theology) and how much it's down to "Tories want to concrete our nice area over". Gove's addressed the latter, with some poundshop Ruskin talk and I expect a policy will follow to shut down this Lib Dem opportunity.

The Lib Dem vote has changed a fair bit since 2010, when it included a bunch of people who fucked off to UKIP, but I'm still a bit cautious in doubting whether it'll show up properly v Johnson's Tories in a a general election.

I recall the Lib Dems in Chesham and Amersham were quite happy to pander to NIMBYs.

[davidjay]

I guess that Labour winning in the south, and giving up on Barnsley would feed into the "metropolitan smartarses, bunch of social workers and lecturers" narrative. Meanwhile the red wall becomes the political equivalent of football's wet Tuesday night in Stoke.

We can't be too sniffy about who votes for us. A win's a win whether it's Barnsley or Basildon.

[mattomac]

Point I’m making is some seats will go back to Labour others won’t however some seats are up for grabs in the south, Cornwall is one of the most deprived areas in the country. They can paint it whatever way they like.

[Boiler]

In which Fenton has a dig at Streeting. Was it deserved?

https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2022/0 ... lying.html

“I just find it extraordinary that we’ve gone through an enormous economic upheaval in this country. Every single private sector business is having to restructure, is having to do things differently [no citation] and yes, is having to find places to save costs” opined Harwood as he set up his false equivalence.

On he went. “And yet we expect that the public sector, almost uniquely, doesn’t have to make any of those same decisions [no citation]. That every single public sector employee in the railways can expect that their lives can continue completely uninterrupted compared to anyone in the private sector. I think [good to hear] that’s an extraordinary position to find ourselves in”.

Was there a point on the way? “Listening to the Prime Minister speaking today, some of the reforms that are needing to be made to the railways, there are some ticket booths around the country that sell about one ticket a week [this is total crap, uninformed bullshit, it’s not true, it’s a flat out lie]”.

There was more in the same vein. “These need to be manned all the time”. Name one. He won’t. He can’t. He’s making it up. HE IS LYING. And he is getting away with it. “Any rational business would think it would be rational to modernise, to update [the railways DID - decades ago] and move forward. And yet the RMT doesn’t want to anything like that”. Cos they did it already.

The lying continued unchallenged. “They want to freeze the railways in time [they never did, and they don’t], not make any new changes”. This lengthy and wholly dishonest tirade was heard in reverential silence not only by host Fiona Bruce (who probably also doesn’t know very much about the subject), but also by Wes Streeting. Which brings us to the Neil Kinnock moment.

We had a senior Labour MP - A Senior Labour MP - seemingly unable or unwilling to challenge a stream of malicious misinformation. Those citing Streeting as a future party leader should watch that performance - or the lack of it - and stop and think. Leadership material he is not.

Hang on - the railways are in the public sector? I know bits are (hello, LNER) but I thought Great British Railways hadn't happened yet?

[Andy McDandy]

For most people, the takeaway from that episode of QT was Streeting and Rory Stewart tag-teaming Johnson's reputation into the ground, while Chris Felch, sorry, Philp, and Harwood looked on in silent shame.

Not for Fenton though. For him, anyone he has a grudge against, doing something slightly not to his satisfaction, is the burning issueof our times.

[Oboogie]

Wes Streeting was excellent and clips of him from that show have gone viral, it's only the 'anyone but Labour' crowd who are complaining.

[Arrowhead]

This has been an intriguing story in recent days - the party leadership have seemingly intervened to prevent the Labour leader of Stroud district council from being shortlisted as a prospective parliamentary candidate.

LabourList are reporting the party cited concerns regarding her "historic social media activity". Aaron Bastani has also been fuming about the move ("the vote is rigged to install a former MEP!" apparently), which quite frankly only makes me conclude the party leadership have become much better at spotting candidacy issues before they become a massive problem. Anyone remember the shambles in 2018 surrounding the original choice of candidate to fight the key marginal seat of Worcester?

EDIT: just noticed the rejected candidate, Doina Cornell, has subsequently released a statement rejecting claims that she is ‘anti-Semitic'..........

Doina Cornell refutes claim she is anti-Semitic
Founder of left-wing site Novara Media Aaron Bastani was quick to defend the SDC leader on social media
10th June
https://www.stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk/ ... i-semitic/

[The Weeping Angel]

What a surprise.

[Tubby Isaacs]

This has been an intriguing story in recent days - the party leadership have seemingly intervened to prevent the Labour leader of Stroud district council from being shortlisted as a prospective parliamentary candidate.

LabourList are reporting the party cited concerns regarding her "historic social media activity". Aaron Bastani has also been fuming about the move ("the vote is rigged to install a former MEP!" apparently), which quite frankly only makes me conclude the party leadership have become much better at spotting candidacy issues before they become a massive problem. Anyone remember the shambles in 2018 surrounding the original choice of candidate to fight the key marginal seat of Worcester?

EDIT: just noticed the rejected candidate, Doina Cornell, has subsequently released a statement rejecting claims that she is ‘anti-Semitic'..........

Doina Cornell refutes claim she is anti-Semitic
Founder of left-wing site Novara Media Aaron Bastani was quick to defend the SDC leader on social media
10th June
https://www.stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk/ ... i-semitic/

The MEP candidate, Clare Moody, was close to David Drew, the previous MP who was in the Campaign Group, so doesn't look like the classic leadership fix candidate. Having said that, Stroud isn't really the place to muck around with candidates too much if you can avoid. The Greens, who ran an MEP in 2019 v Drew bizarrely, are waiting in the wings to capitalize. It's not like a Red Wall seat, with little historic Green Party support.

[Tubby Isaacs]

More from Tower Hamlets. Sounds pretty dreadful.

Lloyd Russell-Moyle alleges that the people doing this are connected to Begum's ex-husband, so perhaps the letter gives slightly the wrong impression. But I don't doubt Begum gets a ton of racist shit generally, and it's hard to see why Anneliese Dodds hasn't at the very least said somthing general on the subject.

[Youngian]

Peterborough’s MPs have been so bad they’re going to promote the drummer. Tssch.

[Dalem Lake]

Dave Rowntree's been a proper full on Labour supporter for donkey's years, hasn't he? I'm sure I heard it mentioned in an interview back in the nineties when I was a massive indie fan.

[Youngian]

Rowntree’s been a Labour councillor for some time.

[Andy McDandy]

Head of the musicians union at one time.