(I know, the law was broken)

But was it though? parhaps we should await the police decision over issuing a FPN?… 😀

What’s the tally of fines Sad sack and his wretched hive of cronies up to now? I think it’s 30+?

I’m not entirely sure, but I am sure the number of resignations over this issue in the tory party is zero.

What’s the tally of fines Sad sack and his wretched hive of cronies up to now? I think it’s 30+?

It’s more like 50, with just 2? parties investigated so far, final total will be in the 100s

Labour saying they can show starmer worked until 1am

The evidence that starmer did break the law presented by the RW press so far is pretty flimsy- perhaps that’s why all the client journos that have been pushing this have suddenly gone into meltdown –

Also it turns out the person that filmed through the window is the son of antilockdown, covidiot and RWvhack James Delingpole

The future could be grim for KS. Johnson will lash out like this, if cornered.

Is it a “beyond reasonable doubt” measure for a fixed penalty – if so it’s unlikely that he will be found guilty.

And the electorate will lap it up. That is how we got here in the first place.

Lap what up, starmer and rayner being absolute that they broke no rules with no FPN’s, or the conservatives that have 30 to 50 FPN’s all uncontested as presumably they are as guilty as sin?

It’s clearly a massive attempt of whataboutery and mud slinging from the blue corner, that’s all they know.

Johnson will lash out like this, if cornered.

He’s no master strategist, just a chancer with an eye for a good headline

Starmer has snookered him on this one, he’s neutered attacks and questions while the investigations run, but now every press conference Johnson faces will be derailed by these questions.

I know the Daily Telegraph slipped into the gutter a long time ago under the guidance of Conrad Black, but there are times when it actually makes the Daily Mail look moderate.

Obviously I don’t subscribe to it but here’s a choice rabble-rousing tabloid headline from them:

The Telegraph: Desperate Keir Starmer plays the High Priest of Politics to mask his ‘beergate’ hypocrisy.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/05/09/desperate-keir-starmer-plays-high-priest-politics-mask-beergate/

“Labour leader pretends to be holier than thou, but the public just sees the posturing of a man failing to practise what he preaches”.

FFS

I know the Daily Telegraph slipped into the gutter

I was hoping the Barclays clan internal feuding would mean it would get sold and go back to being a proper tory paper (not one I would agree with most of the opinions but could respect why they came up with them) but sadly it seems overly optimistic.

The Tory press are absolutely hating the trap they’ve sprung on themselves & Johnson

They really didn’t think this through

If you had to pick just one, which of the following incidents would you say is worse?

Partygate: 65%
Beergate: 17%

via @SavantaComRes, 6-8 May

— Opros Politics 🇺🇦 (@OprosUK) May 9, 2022

“Labour leader pretends to be holier than thou, but the public just sees the posturing of a man failing to practise what he preaches”.

Just heard the same line repeated on Newsnight by a Conservative MP.

The Tory press are absolutely hating the trap they’ve sprung on themselves & Johnson

Some are trying hard to suggest that it’s Starmer that’s spring the trap by… er… answering the hypothetical question they’ve been complaining he won’t answer.

Mail tomorrow have gone for “MPs say it’s a cynical ploy to influence outcome of the investigation” and “Starmer was accused of putting ‘deeply inappropriate’ pressure on Beergate police last night”. Where as, only this morning it was “he is under intense pressure to say if would resign if he was fined”.

At the end of the week, it’ll be well worth looking back at what the government announced while the Daily Mail manufactured non-scandal surrounding Starmer was all everyone was talking about… this one was from Friday…

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/06/labour-question-tories-cronyism-row-donors-public-health-jobs-nhs

…Oluwole Kolade is well worth looking into… not just his large donations, but his private equity interests as regards healthcare. A very Javid friendly appointment.

Lap what up?

mud slinging from the blue corner

Answered your own question there. Although it isn’t so much a blue corner any more as a red and white one.

Ingerland, ingerland, la-la, oi-oi.

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

At the end of the week, it’ll be well worth looking back at what the government announced while the Daily Mail manufactured non-scandal surrounding Starmer was all everyone was talking about…

Indeed. It’s the queens speech today and the main element will be a further crackdown on the right to peaceful protest and a further erosion of democracy.

Boris Johnson to force through new anti-protest curbs in Queen’s speech

You can tell that Lynton Crosby is well and truly back in control at number ten and his minions at the Mail/Express/Times/telegraph are only too eager to do his bidding

It would be ironic if Starmer, whose leadership campaign was one big lie, lost his job over a very small lie.

Stangely I can’t seem to raise any excitement about the prospect of Starmer and Rayner resigning and the thought of the tories/RW press ‘winning’ again.

I am one of those bastard centralists who spoils everything though.

It would be ironic if Starmer, whose leadership campaign was one big lie, lost his job over a very small lie.

Would it?

Perhaps if Durham Police do find him guilty he’s just going to have to fall on his sword now. It would make the contrast between Labour and the Tories even more stark.

Integrity is, unfortunately, something a leader has to demonstrate not just talk about.

I still don’t think the Leftwing head bangers would sieze control if the worst does happen, but finding a replacement could well be tough. I’d love to see Raynor in charge, but I don’t think it would happen.

I am one of those bastard centralists who spoils everything though.

It never ceases to amaze me how much some people dislike reasonableness and consensus.

It never ceases to amaze me how much some people dislike reasonableness and consensus

Yeah, for sure but you came into the Johnson thread accusing me of being a Brexit supporter before knowing anything about my position.

If you’re talking about Centrism then you haven’t understood what Centrism is just like you didn’t do your research on inflation and made inaccurate comparisons.

I still don’t think the Leftwing head bangers would sieze control if the worst does happen

Don’t you just hate when the left-wing headbangers try to take control of a left-wing party? As opposed the right-wing headbangers that have taken control of a left-wing party.

Stick with your position the ‘right’ are doing a grand job of the country as a whole.

Left wing headbangers take over party, they lose
Right wing headbangers take over party, they lose

Tories forever.

It would be ironic if Starmer, whose leadership campaign was one big lie, lost his job over a very small lie.

I hope he does shuffle off.

I’ve had enough of him – this scenario is all born out of wasting so much time not pushing the Tories on their biggest weakness – being Tories.

Left wing headbangers take over party, they lose
Right wing headbangers take over party, they lose

Tories forever.

No solution then?

Just have right-wing parties?

No such thing as an opposition?

As I understood it with Brexit and Corbyn out of the way then a left wing party currently might make hay in the face of the current economic conditions? Tories forever?

Do we really need to toxify what we have to say with playground name-calling like ‘headbangers’?

Again, how is the current Labour party ‘right’ wing, or even centrist when you review the 10 pledges they have given, almost all of those pledges are aimed at the left, and are pretty much set out well and actually sound achievable if labour were to get in, or even get in and set up a coalition with others.

I can see an argument that it is right compared to say Marxism, but against socialist democracy, it looks like it maps pretty well.

Again, how is the current Labour party ‘right’ wing, or even centrist when you review the 10 pledges they have given

The pledges Starmer made for his leadership campaign? He’s on record saying that he won’t be delivering those. Hence my point about him buying votes from the left with a pack of lies.

Stangely I can’t seem to raise any excitement about the prospect of Starmer and Rayner resigning and the thought of the tories/RW press ‘winning’ again.

It looks much more that it would a case of the right-wing press shooting themselves in the foot to me.

It is hard to imagine that they could possibly have a more compliant Labour Party leader. Last week the Daily Express, which isn’t noted for having the Labour Party’s interests at heart, was urging Starmer to go further and be more decisive and expell Corbyn and Abbott, two Labour MPs with huge majorities, from the party.

It is hard to imagine another Labour leader more likely to do that. In fact for the sake of party unity and to focus the fight on the Tories I think it is highly likely that any Starmer replacement would reinstate the Labour whip to Corbyn.

I have no idea why the Tory press are gunning for Starmer right now, they had been giving him an extraordinarily easy time up until the local elections.

I would certainly expect them to behave like that come the general election, no doubt about that, but doing it now and creating the likelihood of Starmer being replaced by a more effective Labour leader that fully exploits the daily open goals provided by Johnson seems particularly daft.

Perhaps they simply can’t help themselves. I guess you can’t always expect the right-wing press to be responsible for clever joined-up thinking.

I have no idea why the Tory press are gunning for Starmer right now, they had been giving him an extraordinarily easy time up until the local elections.

For Rothermere the hint about cracking down on nondoms might have been enough.
Remember the owner of the great British patriotic paper is actually French for tax purposes.

Yeah I guess that might be worried that he might stick to his promise, although I’m not sure why.

Or why another Labour leader would be more sympathetic towards non dom.

They would be better off sticking with the leader least likely to form a Labour majority government.

Yeah I guess that might be worried that he might stick to his promise, although I’m not sure why.

It might have ended up being more effective than planned.
Ultimately they want someone like Blair who wont mess with their interests and so attacking Starmer now might encourage any future candidates to toe the line.

For Rothermere the hint about cracking down on nondoms might have been enough.

He’s lived in the UK for yonks, he will already be treated as domiciled here under the 2017 legislation

already be treated as domiciled here

Fake news.

Fake news.

The 2017 legislation is clearly on the statute book, sorry it defeats the latest weirdo conspiracy theory about the Daily Mail.

Don’t you just hate when the left-wing headbangers try to take control of a left-wing party? As opposed the right-wing headbangers that have taken control of a left-wing party.

Stick with your position the ‘right’ are doing a grand job of the country as a whole.

Is Labour a “Left-wing” party anymore though?
I thought it was a party founded by and for the workers, who seem to be backing an old Etonian that wants to remove their right to protest and flog the NHS.

Lets be honest UK politics is much more of a “centrist” game under far more scrutiny from a (mainly RW biased) press these days. The easy Left/Right definitions just don’t fit a large swathe of those with a vote. The Torys have demonstrated that headbangers (whichever end of the spectrum) can take control of a main party and co-opt a few fringe issues to get people to vote against their own best interests.
How do you fight such apparent dissonance?

Personally I had no huge issue with Corbyn in policy or personality terms, but the Tory propaganda machine had a field day with him, and proudly wearing the ‘further left than most’ badge just helped them with that.
He was never going to win in a country that has all but written off far left politics and recoils from anything that looks a bit too “lefty” as if it’s one step short of voting for Starlin…

As mundane as it might be I now find myself preferring a rather vanilla, but more electable centre-left Labour to the Further Right Tory party we currently live under, or some even a further to the Left version of Labour.
I don’t want Blair-ism or Corbynism TBH; I want “anyone but Boris(-ism)” and so do a lot of people.

It seems that if the Great Unwashed Majority are going to vote for anything other than a corrupt bastard with fluffy hair it’s going to be a “sensible” centrist offering from Labour. Present them easily derided “hard-left” policies, fronted by a renegade geography teacher and they’ll just choose the Tory Clown again.

Those determined to drag a “moderate” “Centrist” labour back towards the left are just going to help create a split and in doing so gift the next GE to to the Torys.

If you want a harder left party, you might just need to start your own.

2017 legislation is clearly on the statute book

And hasn’t impacted on his non-dom status.

sorry it defeats the latest weirdo conspiracy theory about the Daily Mail.

Aside from he still continues to decline to answer whether he is or not and as any weirdo could notice that law still had plenty of loopholes.

As mundane as it might be I now find myself preferring a rather vanilla, but more electable centre-left Labour to the Further Right Tory party we currently live under

The problem with this is we tried the experiment and had the centre dragged hard to the right so that even moderate leftwing policies are portrayed as far left.
So why would it be different this time?
It is curious how effortlessly you repeat the hard right press propaganda.

It looks much more that it would a case of the right-wing press shooting themselves in the foot to me.

I was thinking about this last night and realised I’d overlooked the perfect interim replacement for Starmer while some of the younger crowd get a bit more experience: Ed Miliband. He has a new found confidence which he didn’t have in 2015, has a history of taking on the RW press and his credibility and integrity is untouched by covid parties or whatever else. Maybe I’m grasping at straws but I’m struggling to find many negatives for a Miliband leadership going into the next election. Probably irrelevant in any case as it’s bound to be Reeves if Starmer goes.

Stand back everyone, the Tories are wheeling out the intellectual big guns

After declaring that he will stand down if fined by Durham police, when he knows full well they don’t issue fines for first offences, Sir Keir is the sort of 'honourable' man who would challenge you to a duel, but ensure your pistol was not loaded whilst his was fully charged.

— Andrew Bridgen (@ABridgen) May 10, 2022

Promising to resign if fined isn’t an act of honour by Starmer it’s a byproduct of him braking rules he demanded go further and last longer, kept changing his story, demanded others resign for less, and suffered leaks by his own team.

Painted himself into a corner more like.

— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) May 10, 2022

find many negatives for a Miliband leadership going into the next election

Miliband mk2 is head and shoulders above the mk1 version from the 2010 and 2015 general election campaigns. He’d be my number one choice now if he didn’t have previous as leader (and before that as a key player in the 2010 manifesto and campaign team). He does seem to genuinely understand how “green issues” weave in with economic and social issues going forward, and can communicate that clearly and passionately. But he’s too easily painted as “a man of the past” for his time in the Brown cabinet, and his previous stint as leader.