[Andy McDandy]

Power for the sake of power. No real plans to do anything with it, just to deny it to others.

[Tubby Isaacs]

She doesn't need any plans. She'll take them off the shelf from whichever cranktank provided her spads.

[satnav]

I think that Braverman knows that she has very little chance of winning a leadership contest this side of the general election. If there was to be a vote of no confidence in Sunak the mostly likely winner would be Penny Mordaunt who is seen as a safe pair of hands. If the Tories lose heavily at the general election Braverman might get the leadership gig just like Iain Duncan-Smith got the leadership gig in 2001.

Being the leader of the opposition when the government has a big majority is a pretty thankless task but Braverman might be thick enough to go for it.

[Bones McCoy]

Even the Spectator recon she's shat the bed.

Suella Braverman has made herself look silly

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sue ... ook-silly/


I'd argue that genetics should take a lot of the blame.

But you'd have to be very silly to launch a Charisma war.
Without first checking if you've any bullets in the armoury.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Is that guy the token sane one that Fraser Nelson points to in his "variety of viewpoints" bullshit?

This is comically dreadful.

‘From the south coast to the Midlands or London,’ she declares (bathos: it’s not exactly from sea to shining sea, is it?), ‘wherever I knocked on doors and spoke to our voters, the message was too often: “We’re lifelong Conservatives but you’re not a Conservative party anymore. We can’t vote for you. Show some backbone.”’ That categorical ‘wherever’ is deflated by the limp ‘too often’. The quotation, even as paraphrase, is at once implausible and too specific. Donald Trump’s habit of meeting never-named voters who call him ‘Sir’ and say exactly what he’d like them to say comes to mind. Funny that she didn’t seem to meet the voters many of her colleagues met on the doorstep, who said they won’t vote Conservative because they’re fed up with the childish infighting.

[Yug]

She may actually be telling the truth for once. I have heard Tory voters saying that they're not Conservatives any more. We've said it on here that they're not Conservatives.

I think we are broadly in agreement with tory voters on that. Every time the Tories take another lurch to the right they're getting further away from British Conservative values and closer to GOP Tea Party fuckwittery, which a lot of British Conservative voters don't want, and it puts a lot of their natural voter base off voting for them.

Long may they continue lurching rightwards.

[Youngian]

We’re lifelong Conservatives but you’re not a Conservative party anymore. We can’t vote for you.

These mysterious voters are using Conservative in the US sense (hardline nationalist) rather than fans of Major and Heseltine. This is just people who attend meetings with Braverman present.

[slilley]

I think that Braverman knows that she has very little chance of winning a leadership contest this side of the general election. If there was to be a vote of no confidence in Sunak the mostly likely winner would be Penny Mordaunt who is seen as a safe pair of hands. If the Tories lose heavily at the general election Braverman might get the leadership gig just like Iain Duncan-Smith got the leadership gig in 2001.

Being the leader of the opposition when the government has a big majority is a pretty thankless task but Braverman might be thick enough to go for it.

If after the next election there is a Labour government with a large majority and a rejuvenated Liberal Democrat presence as well, any new Conservative leader is going to struggle to win back power in one Parliament. Parties these days are not keen on a two innings match a la Neil Kinnock. He got two bites of the cherry because people realised the scale of the task warranted it. Being LOTO when the prospect of power is distant is a grim place, just ask William Hague or better still watch on YouTube the Michael Cockerill documentary How to be Leader of the Opposition. A salutary watch for future wannabe Conservative leaders.

[Bones McCoy]

She may actually be telling the truth for once. I have heard Tory voters saying that they're not Conservatives any more. We've said it on here that they're not Conservatives.

I think we are broadly in agreement with tory voters on that. Every time the Tories take another lurch to the right they're getting further away from British Conservative values and closer to GOP Tea Party fuckwittery, which a lot of British Conservative voters don't want, and it puts a lot of their natural voter base off voting for them.

Long may they continue lurching rightwards.

The difference being; Conservatives bemoaning "not conservative any more" consider Sunak a socialist (or at least say so) and believe the party needs to move to or beyond reform.

I don't believe they really consider Sunak a socialist.
If they did, they'd use the clever and original diss phrase "Champagne Socialist".


I'll also call bullshit on "Lifelong conservative voters" sating the party is too left wing now.
These will have voted for Nicer Kinder Cameron, Rational Major, and many will be old enough to have voted for Wet sailor boy Heath.

[Yug]

@Bones McCoy

Yes. The people I've been chatting with are moaning that they've shifted too far to the right. Braverman & Co are coming at it from the wrong end. Soon, the only people they'll actually appeal to will be the Kipperati and Tommeh ten-names and his fellow knuckle-draggers, and the latter are the demographic who don't bother going out to vote.

It's lovely to see the current crop of self-servatives doing Labour and the Lib Dems work for them.

[Watchman]

Richie Rich, a socialist? I think we know the real reason he doesn't "fit in", in the eyes of a True Blue

[RandomElement]

@Bones McCoy

Yes. The people I've been chatting with are moaning that they've shifted too far to the right. Braverman & Co are coming at it from the wrong end. Soon, the only people they'll actually appeal to will be the Kipperati and Tommeh ten-names and his fellow knuckle-draggers, and the latter are the demographic who don't bother going out to vote.

It's lovely to see the current crop of self-servatives doing Labour and the Lib Dems work for them.

That's true for my parents, who have been Tory and occasionally Lib Dem, as well as pro-Brexit. They are feeling quite deflated for been told lies about Brexit and the Torys moving off further rightward. They aren't going to vote at all, and wished they'd have voted remain.

[Abernathy]

Have you tried persuading them to vote Labour ?

[Tubby Isaacs]

About all we're missing here is Suella Partridge asking a microphone if it disagreed with her brilliant analysis of the conflict. "Your silence speaks volumes, militant left wing Cambridge students". But even Partridge wouldn't have gone as far as to blame universities for the fact the students don't want to talk to her and GB News.

[satnav]

Nobody was going to talk to Braverman when she was stood with a GBNews camera crew because they knew that GB News would carefully edit any footage to show the protesters in a bad light.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The students didn't talk to them because they weren't worth talking to.

I think debating is a massively overrated thing, but having seen Braverman be reduced to talking about tofu by Yvette Cooper, I think most of them could have handled her.

[Youngian]

Where will it all end, Hugh Grant not talking to the Sun, Angela Rayner blanking top investigative journalist Dan Hodges?

[davidjay]

The (to my mind at least) tweely-irritating Marsh family chip in.

https://x.com/MarshSongs/status/1791947802316001384

[Andy McDandy]

When Colin Kapernick took a knee, the point was that the gesture could not be misinterpreted. It didn't inconvenience anybody, or cut into game time. There were no words that could be misunderstood or edited. It was all rather polite. No wonder people hated it.

Same thing here. Note the protestors are off the pavement. No obstructions, no noise, no asking people for signatures, no hassle. Nothing that triggers Braverman's bill.

And she's reduced to pathetic edgelord "ha ha, triggered!" nonsense in what was once a serious newspaper. What exciting times we live in.

[slilley]

I believe in free speech. In this case I also think people have the right not to engage with someone, free silence if you like. You are perfectly at liberty not to talk to someone. Besides if they had spoken to her she might have felt alarm or distress at what they said and under current protest laws could have been liable for arrest.