[mattomac]

It’s now turned into some random soviet satellite policy where the penalty seems to be being barred from any government job.

[AOB]

I hope students back home for the summer have sorted their place of voting and not left it being their uni town. Hopefully yesterday has focussed a fair few to sort it.

[Yug]

.

[Tubby Isaacs]

[Abernathy]

Richard Osman on HIGNFY this week said that Sunak really looks like he SO wants to lose, and I think I agree with that.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I'm trying to think how long election campaigns used to last. I recall 6 weeks in 1997 was considered rather long at the time, but it seems like it's fairly standard now. That feels too long to me. But I'm reassured it'll feel longer to Sunak.

[satnav]

I suppose what is different with recent elections is that we now have wall to wall news coverage of elections and election stuff is all over social media. Whilst in the past it was relatively easy to avoid election campaigns it is now almost impossible to avoid election coverage.

[Tubby Isaacs]

What the flying fuck?!

Do they want anybody under 60 to vote for them? This is the Plan, is it?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Good God.

[AOB]

I'm half expecting a workhouses being brought back announcement this week. Then a few days after that bringing back hanging. Actually I wouldn't put it past the Tories just to float that second one to make things as divisive as possible.

[Watchman]

Bring back the rope? Reform are already there, especially for suicide bombers

[Crabcakes]

The way things are going, we are potentially mere days away from monkey tennis being an official conservative manifesto policy.

[Andy McDandy]

Bring back the rope? Reform are already there, especially for suicide bombers

Shades of Stewart Lee on American reactions to Bin Laden's death - "We should have hanged him in Times Square so he could see how it felt!".

[Tubby Isaacs]

You may be less than surprised to hear this, given the latest policies. Are Con-Reform switchers even Tories, really? Or are they people who once voted Lib Dem, UKIP and only switched to May and Bozo to get Brexit done and keep out Jez?

[Youngian]

Are Con-Reform switchers even Tories, really? Or are they people who once voted Lib Dem, UKIP and only switched to May and Bozo to get Brexit done and keep out Jez?

Reform/Brexit Party still stood in some seats in GE2019 as part of their deal with the Cons. Presumably because many would rather switch to another party other the Tories if there was no BXP candidate.
If only 40-50% of Reform voters would switch to the Tories with more reactionary policies, that’s not to be sniffed at in a tight race.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That would be very handy, but I don't think there's much chance. Is National Service a big thing for Reform voters? I don't think Reform themselves have bothered with it much, though maybe it's one of their lower profile policies which nobody reads.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I thought "more Maths" was just Sunak jamming. But apparently it's an actual policy.

[Youngian]

Also the Greens are the rising dustbin vote in leafier Tory seats. Sunak could appoint George Monbiot to do ‘the green crap’ but I doubt it would make a difference to their implosion.

[Bones McCoy]

I thought "more Maths" was just Sunak jamming. But apparently it's an actual policy.

You'll know Mister Sugden* from PE class.
Now he'll be taking you through differential calculus, trigonometry and geometric series.

* From film Kes - played by the great Brian Glover.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Tories are more confident about defence in Scotland than anywhere else.

Confidence evidently based on having someone else to front the campaign. Not that Douglas Ross is very popular.

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader, has launched his party’s general election campaign with a speech where he barely mentioned Westminster or Tory policies, and never once said Rishi Sunak’s name.

In another mark of how the Tories are focusing heavily on local campaigns and not their record, Ross devoted his speech to attacking the Scottish National party government in Edinburgh and the SNP’s sleaze row over Michael Matheson’s iPad expenses claim.

He failed to mention Sunak’s new pledge not to tax pensions, or the cuts to national insurance rates, or the tens of millions spent by the UK in Scottish regions, until those policies were raised by newspaper reporters.