[Crabcakes]

I’m assuming May as well on the basis that they can only make promises about cuts rather than actual cuts, then when Labour don’t make them can continue to claim they would have in opposition and hope to convince a few imbeciles that this was true rather than a very obvious fabrication.

Plus Sunak will want to lose a GE so he can ‘resign with dignity’ rather than be ousted like Johnson or Truss and replaced by someone who couldn’t even get enough support to be the loser last time.

But the main reason being, I think they all know the game is absolutely up, and any delay is just risking the wipeout getting bigger. The recent v. minor Labour hiccup is literally the best thing that has happened to the Tories in the best part of a year, and nothing Sunak has done has shifted the needle. In fact, if anything the more he tries to do the worse it gets. So strike while the iron is a few degrees or so above absolute zero and all that and who knows? They may even retain just enough MPs to remain the official opposition. The sky’s* the limit.

*’Sky’ in this case being the dripping, stained roof of the cramped, dank, fetid cave that is the Tory party.

[Oboogie]

I've always assumed May, the Tories are far too active for it to be November and the impact of their budget won't be apparent in May.
Plus, remember their key battle ground of "stopping the boats", the Tories got lucky last year as the poor summer weather restricted the number of crossings, what are the chances of that happening two years on the trot?

[davidjay]

Is an MP's severance pay like normal redundancy and increases with every completed twelve months? If so, they'll hang on until the last minute.

[Abernathy]

No. They do get a great big sack of cash, however, which has recently been doubled to 19 grand.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66612463

[Abernathy]

.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Love it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Another Tory MP being investigated.

[Bones McCoy]

For £160,000 he could print the dead sea bleedin' scrolls.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

VIP lane printers?

[Andy McDandy]

I know printer ink is expensive but...

[Malcolm Armsteen]

"You gotta let me wet my beak..."

[Killer Whale]

A couple of issues of one of those fake local newspapers politicians love so much when an election starts to loom, delivered to every address in the constituency?
No idea how much that would cost.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

'Who Targets Me?' has pointed out that Lee Anderson is the biggest individual spender on Meta.

This is because Ashfield (90th Labour Target) is a must-win if the Tories are to remain in power. So they are unlikely to censure him or do anything to rock his little boat.

[Yug]

"it's an absolute must-hold for the party if they're to hsve any chance at the election..."

What bollocks is this? To have any chance of staying in power they have to win enough seats. Which seats is irrelevant. If they have enough bodies in parliamrnt they can form a government. If they haven't, they can't.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Great effort here from the Minister for Common Sense.

You know who ruined the economy? It was us!

[Bones McCoy]

The comments - you'd need a heart of stone etc etc.

David Gauke: We cannot ignore the Islamist threat to democratic politics – but must confront it responsibly

https://conservativehome.com/2024/02/26 ... sponsibly/

Gary (the bedwetter) launches discussion with

If ever you wanted evidence of the parasitic Left getting into institutions and messing everything up you only need to look at the comments on Conservative Home.

It's all unbelievably Left Wing.

The rest of Europe is moving to the Right and the numpties at the head of the Conservative Party have gone Left killing the Tory Party from within.

An there's plenty more where that came from.
But also signs that the few sane people are losing patience with the Faragist interlopers.

If this heralds yet another Tory civil war, I'm all for it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Fair play to Rehman Christi here.

[Watchman]

I think it’s pretty clear to one and all that this is all they have left, and the GE campaign will be very unpleasant

[Killer Whale]

I think it’s pretty clear to one and all that this is all they have left, and the GE campaign will be very unpleasant

But they must know that they're only appealing to a rump. They'll struggle to get 30% of voters on side with blatant cuntery. Are they hoping that in the privacy of the polling booth, the reticence of the majority of UK voters to look like bastards will fall away?

[Andy McDandy]

I suspect it goes back to the idea that the Brexit vote was a) fucking terrifying in the sense of "that's what they actually want", and b) a mandate to act the cunt, using the "52% BIGGIST VOAT EVAH!" justification for anything.

Thing is, as discussed ad nauseum here and elsewhere, much of the appeal of outsider parties (including the various Fargle vehicles) and Brexit was a protest vote. UKIP gets a lot of people voting for them, once. Their re-election rates (aside from EU elections) was always pretty shit.

I wonder in fact if that's their strategy - enable a massive Labour majority, possibly with a SNP/LD main opposition party (but still too small to be effective), so that it utterly dominates the political sphere for the next few years, and people think "Politics = Labour". Then get back in via the outsider protest vote route?