[Bones McCoy]

Totally normal.

Remind me, was he one of the ones wanting to monitor academics with pro-EU views.
Or was he too busy top-slicing the sweetheart deals he brokered with property developers.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I think that was Chris Heston-Harris, also now in the government.

[Samanfur]

Yes, that was Heaton-Harris. He got the Chief Whip's job.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Straight talking Red Wall populism here from Miriam Cates.

[Crabcakes]

I mean, technically she’s correct. But that’s reducing the entirety of human civilisation down to the mentality of a virus, which is a bit on the nose even for a Tory.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Selfish Gene had a bit of a rightwing following back in the day. I think she’s just “traditionalist”.

[Youngian]

What a patronising nasty piece of work. People who see families as a luxury don’t have much money to tax in the first place, you stupid wombat. She’s worried about the decline of the Aryan race, isn’t she?

[Tubby Isaacs]

How would that work? Is there some IDS pamphlet behind this stuff? Or Victor Orban?

[Youngian]

Household tax was a thing until radical woke Nigel Lawson introduced individual taxation for the ladies.

[Yug]

I think the Tories are losing the country

The UK has become one of the world’s most accepting places for foreign workers, according to a survey in 24 nations revealing a sharp increase in British acceptance of economic migration.

People in the UK emerged as less likely to think that when jobs are scarce employers should give priority to people of their own country than those in Norway, Canada, France, Spain, the US, Australia and Japan. Only Germany and Sweden were more open on that question.

In what the study’s authors described as “an extraordinary shift”, only 29% of people in the UK in 2022 said priority over jobs should go to local people, compared with 65% when the same question was asked in 2009.

The findings come as employers call for more migration to help fill more than 1m vacancies, and after the prime minister appointed the anti-immigration firebrand Lee Anderson as deputy chair of the Conservative party...

https://amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... rvey-finds

“It was unthinkable a decade ago that the UK would top any international league table for positive views of immigration,” said Prof Bobby Duffy, the director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, who shared the findings from the latest round of the survey exclusively with the Guardian and the BBC. “But that’s where we are now, with the UK the least likely, from a wide range of countries, to say we should place strict limits on immigration or prohibit it entirely.”

People in the UK are now the least likely of the 24 countries that participate in the World Values Survey study to think immigration increases unemployment, and second from top in thinking that immigrants fill important job vacancies.

They are very likely to say immigration boosts cultural diversity, and very unlikely to think immigration comes with crime and safety risks.

In my opinion, by constantly playing up to the knuckle-dragging minority, the Tories are sealing their own political death warrant.

[Youngian]

In my opinion, by constantly playing up to the knuckle-dragging minority, the Tories are sealing their own political death warrant.

We’ve all been dragged down by this bile but if you listen to the vox pop gammon ranters, even they often caveat their diatribes with: ‘I don’t mind if they’re coming over here to work but..’

And why aren’t the government challenging the court ruling that means EU citizens don’t have to reapply to live here? Those EU citizens know from their Leave voting work colleagues why this isn’t a hot potato; “Oh but we didn’t mean you.”

[Youngian]

People in the UK are now the least likely of the 24 countries that participate in the World Values Survey study to think immigration increases unemployment, and second from top in thinking that immigrants fill important job vacancies.

There’s only practical studies at the University of Life and their students have been very busy learning what the rest of us predicted would happen seven years ago.

In what the study’s authors described as “an extraordinary shift”, only 29% of people in the UK in 2022 said priority over jobs should go to local people, compared with 65% when the same question was asked in 2009.

I’d be in favour of first dibs for locals in low income wards. Just as long the anti-immigrant mob STFU when no one turns up to pack carrots on the early shift,

[Andy McDandy]

I can see this being seized upon by the Tories as "evidence" that their party and policies aren't racist. Because if the country thinks this and we're leading the country, then surely....

[Yug]

Which, of course, would completely overlook the inconvenient fact that many of their policies are at odds with what this report says the public thinks.

It's like they've learned how to judge popularity from the Corbynites. And we all know how that ended up.

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... diot-pills

Without coming over all Littlejohn (which I bet he'd secretly love), I wasn't sure where to file this - here, or in the SNP threads.

Rebecca Pow, the junior environment minister who seems to overdose daily on idiot pills. In a crowded field, Pow consistently excels as one of the least able members of the government frontbench. Speaking in joined up sentences is a major struggle for her. Not even her family can understand a word she says.

Pow was standing in for Thérèse Coffey – the secretary of state who spends most days unconscious in her office; at least that’s the only plausible explanation for her invisibility both in the Commons and the outside world – to answer an urgent question on the performance of the water companies. It didn’t go well. Mostly because Pow seems to think it is an inalienable right of the British to pump shit into their rivers. And to impose massive fines on water companies before every stream is awash in sewage would be a betrayal of Brexit.

Rebecca was determined to go down fighting. “It’s so easy to stand up with no facts,” she said. It was the closest to self-awareness that she got. You don’t just have to pump shit. You can talk it too.

Junior levelling up minister, Lee Rowley, was also keen to prove his moron credentials when he came to answer a second urgent question on voter ID. It was a massive problem, he insisted, so the Tories were safeguarding democracy. Except it isn’t. There are more Tory MPs facing allegations of sexual misconduct than there have been prosecutions for voter fraud.

And on it goes...

The stupidity was contagious up in Birmingham where the National Farmers’ Union was holding its annual conference. Starting with Rishi Sunak, who couldn’t even be bothered to attend. As if he imagines that the rural vote could be taken for granted. His two-minute video in which he tried to portray himself as a farmer – “Hi, I’m Rish! I once did some milking in my Gucci wellies up in my Yorkshire constituency. Did I mention my Yorkshire roots?” – went down like a cup of wet sick.

As did the farming minister, Mark Spencer, who at least showed up in person. Not that it did him any good. His announcement of money that had already been announced left everyone decidedly unimpressed. And his declaration that the Australia trade deal had been a thing of wonder was met with open laughter. He had to be reminded by the NFU president, Minette Batters, that a previous environment secretary, George Eustice, had publicly rubbished the deal.

All of which left Keir Starmer facing an open goal. And he didn’t miss.

[Tubby Isaacs]

A sighting of my MP.

Following the news that the Three Counties Hotel in Hereford is going to be used to house asylum seekers, Sir Bill Wiggin, Member of Parliament for North Herefordshire, has called on the Government to remove the Permanent Secretary at the Home Office.

“Filling hotels in England with illegal migrants is encouraging extreme right-wing groups and putting police officers at risk.

“I will not accept it in Herefordshire.

Great work, Bill. Not at all encouraging far right groups by saying that asylum seekers in hotels in unacceptable in Hereford. Which by the way isn't in his constituency.

[Youngian]

Did Therese Coffey come into politics to take the piss? Brexit turnips it is from now on.

[Yug]

68 in a 40 zone

Home Office minister Robert Jenrick has “sincerely apologised” to a court after racking up his second speeding conviction in the space of a year.

Jenrick, 41, faces a possible driving ban after pleading guilty to flouting a 40mph limit during a late-night drive along the M1, shortly after his appearance on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions at Wakefield Cathedral...

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/h ... 62498.html

It's getting like these wankers can't see a law without feeling the urge to break it.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Real or parody? You decide...

[Yug]

Well, it's the right level of juvenile humour...