BS: Conservative Leadership Contest

Subject: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 10:34 AM

Well three of the ten candidates have been eliminated and Johnson has a resounding lead at the first ballot.

I cannot help but be cynical and suggest that as the Tory leader to take us out of the EU, he and he alone, will be held responsible when all the **** hits the fan in future years.

In other words he is dispensable to the Tory party, a sacrificial lamb.

The rest of them will claim they had nothing to do with any of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 12:00 PM

Early days yet,but I do admire Boris and his threat to prorogue Parliament.
With an impartial speaker such an extreme step would probably    not arise. No deal has to be kept as a bargaining position otherwise we might as well roll over and accept vassalage. Career politicians have no business sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 12:17 PM

Iains - you'd probably also accept a coup d'etat to get yer own way...???

A lot of rabid brexiteers are quite keen on an armed revolution - fact...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 12:40 PM

Where on earth do you get that bizarre idea from? A majority democratic vote decided to leave the EU. Certain members of Parliament have decided to frustrate that process, exemplified most recently by 10 tory mps defying the whip and voting with the opposition. We made a decision to leave the EU not to sign up to Brino or a revocation of article 50. If proroguing Parliament is required to frustrate the partisan speaker, certain labour MPs and quisling tories then so be it.
Her Majesties government is the legal entity to rule, not an upstart rabble.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 12:54 PM

Iains - where...???

Internet social media, where I spend too much time 'having a laugh' with the looniest brexiteers..
Some dangerouly unhinged, many with military training, ex coppers, etc...

Obviously a lot of it is fantasy banter,
but amongst them are people who should definitely be on a security services watch list...

We've already had one feminist labour MP assassinated... just saying...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 01:05 PM

but amongst them are people who should definitely be on a security services watch list...

Like Corbyn then!
"UNSAFE LEADER? Ex-MI6 boss thinks Jeremy Corbyn could be a security risk as PM due to past ‘terrorist ties’

The Labour leader has associations with militant Islamist groups Hezbollah and Hamas and took part in Irish Republican events while IRA terrorists were active"

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 01:12 PM

I spoke to a couple of Tory members today. One liked Boris because he had the charisma and face recognition to beat Farage and Corbyn. The other didn't like that Rory Stewart 'looked too odd to be a leader.'

Neither mentioned whether they thought they would be any good at running the country.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 01:28 PM

RS - he looks a bit the middle one of the BeeGees.

Its a bit like, who's got the ugliest dog competition.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 01:38 PM

Iains - Corbyn may not have a spotless political back history,
but somehow I can't quite see him storming a conservative social club Bridge evening
with an AK-47 and a bomb belt...???

Your lot let their imaginations run away with them
when it comes to falsely accusing and demonising lefty politicians...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 01:44 PM

He comes the closest I've seen for a long time to being that phenomenon that's as rare as rocking horse shit, a decent Tory.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 01:45 PM

I meant Rory Stewart.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 01:52 PM

Yeah - Stewart looks like an interesting and sincere bloke...
A man with genuine substance perhaps..???

Unlike that clump of arse fluff Boris...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 02:10 PM

Your lot let their imaginations run away with them
when it comes to falsely accusing and demonising lefty politicians...

Back when Wilson was PM the story was that Tories were planning a coup.
NYT "There is clear evidence that, with varying degrees of seriousness, there were at least two plots against the Labour Party leader Harold Wilson during his two terms as prime minister (from 1964 to 1970, and from 1974 to 1976). In 1968, the press baron Cecil King proposed a coup to replace Wilson’s elected government with a regime headed by Lord Mountbatten, a war hero and second cousin to the queen.

There is a lunatic fringe in any society and probably exist in all political parties. That is why allowing Jo Brand speaking on Radio 4 about hurling acid at politicians without any censure is totally wrong.
It is also wrong that the police have taken no action. Some have short memories.
On 16 June 2016, Jo Cox, the British Labour Party Member of Parliament for Batley and Spen, died after being shot and stabbed multiple times in Birstall, West Yorkshire.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 02:25 PM

By a white supremacist, a person just one step away from Staines and Farage, and no steps away from "Tommy Robinson." Heroes to some around here.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 02:41 PM

"By a white supremacist, a person just one step away from Staines and Farage, and no steps away from "Tommy Robinson." Heroes to some around here."

You are either betraying your own gross ignorance or abject stupidity by making such a deeply offensive remark. Care to clarify which?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 03:07 PM

”Your lot let their imaginations run away with them
when it comes to falsely accusing and demonising lefty politicians...”

Of course they do pfr - it’s all they’ve got.

And Steve, you’re doing it again! He’s not satisfied with trying to provoke Jim into a row on a 13 year-old zombie-thread about MacColl (and succeeding) - for gawd’s sake don’t fall for his school-playground games here too.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 04:17 PM

And Steve, you’re doing it again! He’s not satisfied with trying to provoke Jim into a row on a 13 year-old zombie-thread about MacColl (and succeeding) - for gawd’s sake don’t fall for his school-playground games here too.
I can only assume from the timing that the post is aimed at me.

You are making totally unfounded allegations without any scrap of proof.

Why on earth would I post as a guest, I have no need to hide my identity? Unlike the former muskets.
Why are you dragging your false assumptions from one thread simply to stir up trouble on another?

Can the moderators please deal with this.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 04:27 PM

Tories in disarray

Oh look. Corbyn the terrorist

Brexit is a shambles

Oh look. Corbyn the antisemite.

Social care is going down the pan

Oh look. Corbyn the security threat

For heaven's sake. How long do the right wing press and their rabid readers think this can go on?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 04:28 PM

“...Simply to stir up trouble...”

Thus spake the biggest trouble-maker on the forum - the real one the Mods should be dealing with. Everyone knows you by your constant bad behaviour on the forum, you’re fooling no-one, the only person you are fooling by your protestations of innocence is yourself.

Thou dost protest too loud, methinks.

And what have ‘the former muskets’ got to do with anything?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 05:05 PM

Perhaps when you guys stop bickering you may return to the subject matter of the thread.

The latest "whisper" is that his "rivals" are discussing an alliance to ensure his defeat in the leadership contest.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Jun 19 - 10:45 PM

Last time Parliament was prorogued in this kind of manoeuvre was back in Charles I's time. And that didn't end too well, for the country or for Charles...

Can't be done without the Queen's consent, and that would put her right in the middle of a political firefight. It would set off a process that would very probably ultimately mean the end of the monarchy - as it did last time. I reckon she'd insist it couldn't be done without the agreement of the Privy Council and probably the Speakers of both the Commons and Lords.

Rory Stewart is by a long long way the best candidate to be Prime Minister, which is why he hasn't a hope of winning.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: The Sandman
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 12:44 AM

the dark horse is Javid, just the person they might want to win asian votesand strike free trad deals with the middle east, not as accident prone as boris and a nasty bit of work imo

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 01:55 AM

Not really sure what you expect The Daily Mail to say - Corbyn is a super guy - its not going to happen, is it?

Anyway, what's it got to do with tory party leadership?

The Mail would support a kangaroo as PM, if it were tory.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 01:56 AM

Skippy for PM!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 03:10 AM

What's that Skipy? Corbyn has fallen down a well?

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 03:29 AM

I can't see that Javid's dreadful decision to strip Shamima Begum of her citizenship is exactly going to help him to win "Asian votes," Dick.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 04:58 AM

Just a reminder of BoJo's views on people becoming PM without being elected

Boris Johnson blasted leaders becoming PM without election


I hope he meant it when he said he was asking the public to vote at once on him, on the new EU treaty, and on the implications of the devolutionary settlement. Let’s have an election without delay

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jos
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 04:59 AM

All I hear, at least on BBC radio, from Javid is complaints that he was not invited to the Trump banquet.

If I was organising a banquet for someone and knew that that person and one of the possible guests had been exchanging insults in public - guess who wouldn't be invited.

But perhaps Javid is annoyed because he was denied the chance of boycotting the event.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 06:54 AM

The latest "whisper" is that his "rivals" are discussing an alliance to ensure his defeat in the leadership contest.
Interesting 'whisper', but a little lacking in achievability. As long as Boris doesn't lose any of his existing supporters he is already in line to be in the final two to be put to the membership.
He had 114 of the 313 available votes. That is more than 1/3 so (if unchanged) would guarantee being in the last two.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 07:07 AM

The BBC summary if the papers says "But the Spectator website says with Mr Johnson looking increasingly unassailable among both MPs and the wider Tory membership, the second place candidate will come under pressure to step aside before the grassroots get a say."

That strikes me as very unwise. The last few Tory leader 'coronations' have not gone well, and it would, I suspect, hand yet another card to Farage about "Parliament rigging." If they are confident Boris would win in amongst the ordinary members, it is safer for even his supporters in the party to do so.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 07:08 AM

(Seek the wider remit, that is.)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 07:33 AM

The final two candidates have to stump up £150,000 each to pay for the vote amongst the membership.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 08:49 AM

DMcG wrote: The last few Tory leader 'coronations' have not gone well,

Would you care to expand on this?

Mrs May won all the votes barring the last one and that was avoided only because her opponent, who was trailing, made a bit of a gaff and withdrew. She went on to fight a general election and, despite having a reduced majority, did actually win.

So, with regard to your 'few' Tory leaders, who are the others?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 08:59 AM

So you think May did a brilliant job?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 09:18 AM

DMcG wrote: So you think May did a brilliant job?

I think she was rubbish!

I was asking about your 'few' Tory leaders.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 09:37 AM

You can find out who was elected unopposed as easily as I can, stanron. And also have an opinion on how well the country and/or party did while they were leader.

I won't argue, as this is all the past. The interesting question is whether the leader is to be picked based on what are perceived to be the best interests of the party or the country. Boris for example is highly popular amongst the Tory faithful, we are told, but has a long history of gaffes and errors, including on the international stage. Will these just be ignored, I wonder?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 10:20 AM

I have already pointed out that Mrs May was not elected unopposed. I think that the last Tory leader who was appointed unopposed was Sir Alec Douglas-Home. If you had watched yesterday's Politics Live you might have noticed Andrew Neill filling in the wait for the leadership vote result by reviewing past Tory leadership contests. Your claim was that

" The last few Tory leader 'coronations' have not gone well,"

The last time that happened was forty of fifty years ago or more. The line I quoted was a slur and it has absolutely no basis in fact. I presume that now you move the goal posts?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 10:32 AM

It all depends on the who is defining 'not gone well'. If it is couldn't give a shit about anyone but themselves Tories, things have gone swimmingly. For the remaining compassionate and caring population who believe that social care is important, nothing the Tories have done has gone well.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 11:17 AM

It is a coronation in my book if the ordinary members are not offered the choice between the two candidates because at that point the candidate is unopposed. You may choose to use a different definition if you wish: that is mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 11:39 AM

"The final two candidates have to stump up £150,000 each to pay for the vote amongst the membership."

Democracy in action...

You can't become Leader of the tory party,
and by default standing PM,
unless you or your donors are rich enough...


All that bollocks they brainwashed us with at Grammar school in the early 1970s
about meritocracy and social mobility... Ha.. ha..ha...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mr Red
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 12:21 PM

Boris is a survivor. Without the "interesting times" we live in it would be a foregone conclusion that he wold be PM shoe-in.
Goddamit he has admitted drugs & adultery, and his campaign suffers no ill. Gove admits it and his campaign dips.

And I have come to the annoying conclusion it will run to prediction.

Despite: the Corbyn debacle
Trump surprise
& Brexshit.

Or Syrian status quo remaining, although with hindsight .....................

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 12:30 PM

Now Stewart has gained atention, he'd be better off aiming for leadership
in the next contest after brexit a few years down the line..

Boris will win so he tick off the box on his CV,
then f@ck up, and f@ck off...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 01:52 PM

May didn't win with a reduced majority, Stanron. She lost her majority. And one reason why a "coronation" would ostensibly suit the Tories is that it could be done quickly so that the new leader would have far more time (ha ha) to "negotiate" with the EU. A late-July victory would leave hardly any useful time, what with holidays, recesses, etc, before that much-vaunted Oct 31 deadline. Well, I've heard it said anyway... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 02:04 PM

So will the tories remember to reprint their offical party calendars and diaries for next year...

That'll be hilarious if come next year they realise they forgot to...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: peteglasgow
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 07:15 PM

is there any forum on the internet where rational and caring patriotic people can discuss the awful events that are happening in our country? who is disgusted and upset by what the likes of the tories and their supporters are doing to our country? why is donald trump or guy verhofstadt even a question? anyone remember the picture of our country that danny boyle showed to the world at the opening olympic ceremony in london? anyone recall the incredible string band, viv stanshall, billy connolly, specials, ivor cutler, michael marra , bonzos, stones, clash, richard thompson and many more - folk who offered a decent and open vision of our world. nowt wrong with all that stuff - hate and greed is going nowhere - it's people and love that matter. life can be brutish and short - our purpose is to help each other through it. come on everyone, get real.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 07:15 PM

Boris could always implode. He looked decidedly shifty in the two public events this week when his minders allowed him out, more like a hostage, or perhaps someone in a police interview trying to avoid saying the wrong thing.

His unambiguous statement in an interview today that the only time he ever tried cocaine was on one occasion when he was 19 could prove dangerous. It doesn't sound too plausible to me, and if it isn't and someone grasses him up it could cause pretty serious problems for him.

It looks pretty certain he'll be one of the two finalists, and on the face of it that should ensure he's home and dry. Unless he blows it.

The thing a lot of the MPs backing him are relying on is his dishonesty and lack of principle. Just because he promises something disastrous to get elected doesn't mean he'll stick to his words.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: peteglasgow
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 07:34 PM

indeed. what the fuck is going on here - these people are really horrible and we are considering them seriously as potential leaders.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Jun 19 - 07:38 PM

If human civilisation is predicted to end within the next 30 years,
this is where it really starts to lose all hope....

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: BobL
Date: 15 Jun 19 - 02:38 AM

I think she[May]was rubbish!

I dunno, she managed to stave off the Brexit disaster, which nobody including its supporters seems to know how to handle, and hand over the poisoned chalice without spilling it over all and sundry.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 15 Jun 19 - 03:20 AM

There is a TV show called 'The Last Leg', which has an audience that I suspect is very much the younger, left-leaning part of the population. Last night they asked people to tweet for their preferred PM.

SO let me stress again that this is completely biased (in the technical sense) type of survey: it is of twitter users (who tend to be younger), it is self selecting, and they did not report actual numbers of responders, just the percentages. And the sample is not representative of the entire population.

With all those caveats in mind, Rory Stewart got 70% and Boris 13%. We can put no value on the actual numbers because of all the caveats. But there is enough there, I think, to not quite rule Stewart out yet. I do not expect him to get the 33 votes for the next stage, but even so I would not be entirely surprised if he got a sliver over the threshold.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 15 Jun 19 - 03:37 AM

I suspect that whoever is elected is taking a poisoned chalice and will take the blame for the impending General Election. Of more interest is the question as to whether they will garner further support for the Tories or Brexit party during their brief reign.
I could be wrong of course= we shall see.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Jun 19 - 04:12 AM

Watching one of those pointless ‘Vox Pop’ things on BBC News yesterday, where they were asking (I think) a London pub crowd who they thought should be the new PM. One bright spark, asked why he’d proposed Bozo, replied “Well, he’s a larrff, innee?”.

We’re fucked.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mr Red
Date: 16 Jun 19 - 03:58 AM

poisoned chalice without spilling it over all and sundry.

Yup, King Bozo will be happy to do that.

And we are the ones to be showered.


I'll get my sow'ester............

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 16 Jun 19 - 11:28 AM

That BWM is a perfect example of why a universal franchise is a bad thing.

Actually we don't have a universal franchise. Prisoners can't vote. Not sure why when numptys can.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mossback
Date: 16 Jun 19 - 11:52 AM

why he’d proposed Bozo, replied “Well, he’s a larrff, innee?”

Now THAT'S the spirit that put Trumpshit in the White House! - and keeps him there.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 16 Jun 19 - 11:56 AM

Prisoners can't vote...???

Don't give the tory bounders such ideas..

They already sneakily prevented thousands of EU citizens living here, and Brits living in Europe,
from voting in the last elections..

Next there'll be mass round ups, hurried sentencing and imprisonment of Labour voters
for any far fetched false allegations,
just in time for the oncoming general election...!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 16 Jun 19 - 12:13 PM

I would incarcerate all Corbyn supporters, in order to ensure they all received adequate counseling.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 16 Jun 19 - 12:15 PM

I am sure that was a joke (of sorts) but every totalitarian state is keen to imprison all its opponents.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 16 Jun 19 - 07:42 PM

There is a TV show called 'The Last Leg', which has an audience that I suspect is very much the younger, left-leaning part of the population. Last night they asked people to tweet for their preferred PM.

SO let me stress again that this is completely biased (in the technical sense) type of survey: it is of twitter users (who tend to be younger), it is self selecting, and they did not report actual numbers of responders, just the percentages. And the sample is not representative of the entire population.

With all those caveats in mind, Rory Stewart got 70% and Boris 13%. We can put no value on the actual numbers because of all the caveats. But there is enough there, I think, to not quite rule Stewart out yet. I do not expect him to get the 33 votes for the next stage, but even so I would not be entirely surprised if he got a sliver over the threshold.

In view of the stated demographic I'm surprised that Jeremy Corbyn didn't get a look in "Last night they asked people to tweet for their preferred PM."

There again, the premise may have been miss-stated.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 16 Jun 19 - 08:27 PM

Tory leadership contest...

For any British citizen who is not a tory supporter,
it's like asking which would you prefer out of these 6 STDs...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 02:10 AM

Oh dear, Nigel, you cannot resist can you?

The question was as asked, as best I remember. But the context was that of the prospective tory leadership candidates. So voting consisted of using one of a fixed set of tags in Twitter, one assigned for each of the prospective candidates. People could have made up a tag for Corbyn, Boaty McBoatface or Edward the Confessor if they liked but only ones they issued would be counted.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 02:27 AM

Jeremy Corbyn clearly isn't going to be the next PM. The next but one possibly, although I would prefer Keir Starmer, and for whoever is going to be the next, I hope their tenure is short. Preferably no longer than is needed for Parliament to pass a vote of no confidence in them.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 03:02 AM

Quite so, David C. It would be deceitful to pretend this is ONLY about the next Tory Leader when it is simultaneously and inevitably about who will be next Prime Minister.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: The Sandman
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 03:05 AM

i have had two wagers stewart or javid

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 04:46 AM

If a General Election occurs in the near future will the electorate be given any clarification on the Brexit position of Labour? Either Corbyn or Watson speak with forked tongue. Or is the official stance on Brexit both in and out?

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/104608/tom-watson-piles-pressure-jeremy-corbyn-and-says
Labour's antics are akin to Home and Away, but I cannot decide if more they are accurately a soap or a farce?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 07:11 AM

BrexShit is the Tories’ mess, they were shifting their boxers over UKIP, they created it with their fatally-flawed Referendum, they’ve made it infinitely worse by refusing to create a cross party team to execute the Leave process (until, of course, The Praying Mantis realised she was completely fucked and started to panic back in April, so she turned to Labour hoping to land the blame for her total shit-show on them) - it’s their problem to sort out, fuck-all to do with Labour, Lib-Dems, or any other party.

The Tories’ shit-show, the Tories’ problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 07:14 AM

Shifting?? Bloody iPad predictive text - shitting!

Just thought I’d put the correction in before Nitpicking Nigs showed up.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 07:29 AM

All these brexiteers whinging about democracy being betrayed by remainers,
yet not saying a word about the tories ruthlessly excluding oposition parties from the process...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 05:31 PM

Even more surprising is that we are expected to accept leaving the EU without knowing the consequences AND now except a new PM (if Johnson gets the position) without him telling us his plans.

Apart from giving already fairly well off people a tax break.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mr Red
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 06:01 PM

fuck-all to do with Labour You mean the mess has nothing to do with parliament and all the MP's therein?

When you are in the deep dodo do you keep digging? Can't smell the dung? The next PM (aka Boris) still has to carry parliament. And he won't be PM after the next general election. Unless it is as a lame duck PM brooding over a hung parliament. If you want to see how that pans out look to Italy. Or the Belgian "no gov for a year" episode.

Fer fucks sake, we see newspapers declaring that key workers (nurses, firemen etc) in big cities can't afford to buy houses. Average house prices more than 5 times** average salaries, Brexshit will only make that worse. King Boris has to address that in less than 3 years and Brexshit pay-back won't even look like starting in that time. More like never IMNSHO.
You know - I don't think his drug taking has worn off yet!

**it was such a statistic we had in 2007/8 that made me predict a recession, if I could have predicted the speed, depth, and timing I would have bet against it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 07:24 PM

Mr Red wrote: Fer fucks sake, we see newspapers declaring that key workers (nurses, firemen etc) in big cities can't afford to buy houses.

There is a reason behind people no longer being able to buy houses. It's to do with interest rates. When interest rates were high people with money could get income from invested cash as a result of high interest rates. Interest rates are now very low. Invested cash yields very little income. Use that previously invested cash to buy rental property and you get a lot more financial return. Invested cash gets maybe 1% interest. Investment in property gets maybe 8% interest. All ambitious money has gone into rental housing. It's not surprising that housing stock for purchase is reduced. So you choose. Do we have cheap houses with high interest rates or higher priced housing with lower interest rates?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 07:40 PM

and thousands of bad greedy landlords...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 08:08 PM

John Seymour, he of the self-sufficiency books and all that, was a great man whose rather right-wing attitudes could stick in the craw somewhat. But he was a vehement opponent of what he called landlordism. He sarcastically said that he was so in favour of landlords that he wanted to see tens of millions of them. He wanted every "landlord" to own the bit of land his house was on and perhaps a couple of acres more. Over and above that, he was an advocate of a graduated land tax, so steeply set that he wanted to see landlords in their panic offloading their holdings at cut price to the millions. I like it!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 08:09 PM

punkfolkrocker wrote: and thousands of bad greedy landlords...

That is one side of the arguement PFR. What is the other?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 17 Jun 19 - 09:42 PM

Good quality Social housing for fair rents...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 02:10 AM

”Good quality Social housing for fair rents...”

...the kind of housing we used to have before that shitbag Thatcher decided to sell it off, with the expectation that many, perhaps the majority, of properties thus sold would, within a few years, fall into the hands of private landlords - natural Tory voters..

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 02:54 AM

There is a reason behind people no longer being able to buy houses

Nice explanation but it doesn't alter the fact that when lenders were falling over themselves to sell "finance" (aka toxic debt) to out-of-work people on interest rates that were higher (Northern Rock 110% mortgages) what did we see in 2008?
Now with low interest rates and investing in property on such interest rates and what do we see? Watch this space!

And we have seen it all before, every 15 years or so, because that is a generation that eschews old wisdom because they didn't experience the problem last time. "It is different now" is the cry. Yea, but the hurt that ensues is painfully similar. Watch this space.

Boris will have to sort it out or his party will be toast. Er - it will anyway. The personal greed in his party and its policies will ensure Boris will be unable to head-off the next recession. He has turned his coat, and he has no other colours to change into.
Watch this space.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 04:13 AM

I don't always agree with Stanron, but on interest rates I do. Interest rates have now been sub-inflation for years, which has unbalanced the economy, discouraging saving, encouraging reckless spending, and distorting the housing market. A return to base rate of 3-5% is what we have needed for years.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 05:08 AM

I'm 72 years old. I don't remember there ever being a base rate of 3.5%. I do remember there being an interest rate of 20+ something %. I wonder who was in government when this happened and who was in government when it came down again. I suppose it must have hit 3.5% on the way down but I'm guessing it didn't stay there for long.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 07:19 AM

I’ll give you a clue Stan....the Prime Minister when the interest rate hit seventeen percent was a foul hag from Grantham.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mr Red
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 08:59 AM

If you can't beat 'em, Grantham

And just to complete the humour

Isn't King Boris highly wired?

Snigger,, snort, snort.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 09:13 AM

17% was considerably lower than the, I think it was, 21% it had been earlier. During Maggie's tenure the economy gradually improved. By 1993 the base interest rate was down to single figures.

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/1485/interest-rates/historical-real-interest-rate/

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 09:29 AM

Improved who for? Spivs? Yuppies?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 09:34 AM

"During Maggie's tenure the economy gradually improved"

Tell that to the factory workers on the council estate I grew up on..
One year they were seduced into buying their council homes,
the next the factory suddenly closed down,
and they were made redundant - unable to pay their mortgages..

When many of these homes went to auction,
guess who the likely buyers snapping them up were...???

My dad would not buy his home on principle,
which at least kept a roof over our heads when he lost his job.
My mum still rents that house, her stable home for over 50 years...

Soon enough the house will go back to the local authority.
I hope it remains social housing for a new young family.
But what's the chances the council instead sells it off to asset strippers...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 09:34 AM

I'm sure teachers didn't suffer.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 09:41 AM

Not a sensible answer.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 10:01 AM

It wasn't made to a sensible point.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 10:18 AM

<>”17% was considerably lower than the, I think it was, 21% it had been earlier. During Maggie's tenure the economy gradually improved. By 1993 the base interest rate was down to single figures.”

Nope. 17% was the highest base-rate during the 20th century, through to 2003.
But hey, let’s not let facts get in the way of your Tory-bullshit brainwashing, eh?

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/1485/interest-rates/historical-real-interest-rate/

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 10:21 AM

Try again.....

”17% was considerably lower than the, I think it was, 21% it had been earlier. During Maggie's tenure the economy gradually improved. By 1993 the base interest rate was down to single figures.”

Nope. 17% was the highest base-rate during the 20th century, through to 2003.
But hey, let’s not let facts get in the way of your Tory-bullshit brainwashing, eh?

https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/1485/interest-rates/historical-real-interest-rate/

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 10:35 AM

"I'm sure teachers didn't suffer."

Well.. I'm sure teachers are most definitely suffering now...!!!

Particularly in households where a teacher is the primary, or only, earner...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jack Campin
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 11:15 AM

Comparison I read somewhere yesterday:

"it's like regaining consciousness tied up in a basement to overhear a gang of incompetent kidnappers discussing how they're going to dispose of your body".

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 11:27 AM

Yes, you are right that base rate peaked at 17%. It was inflation that peaked at, or just under 25%. That was in the seventies. The three day week and all of that.

Look at the third diagram. That shows quite clearly that the interest rate peaked at 17% in 1979. It was right at the beginning of Mrs Thatchers long period as Prime Minister. No doubt you will want to attribute the peak to her policies but I attribute it to the previous four or five years of Labour government under Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. Maggie got it down to just over 8% in 1993 and hit a lower peak of 15% when she retired. John Major got it down to about 5% before the ERM debacle. Then we got Labour back and they spent all the money!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 11:32 AM

Bricktop reckons you need 16 pigs!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3qy4Zv4snI

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 11:32 AM

Labour builds the nation back up
Tories sell it off again..
Labour builds the nation back up
Tories sell it off again..
Labour builds the nation back up
Tories sell it off again..
Labour builds the nation back up
Tories sell it off again..

The cycle of life...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 01:31 PM

It is quite striking that, leaving Boris to one side because he is saying different things to different people, it is the hardest Brexiteers that are being eliminated: Leadsom, McVey and now Raab.

Make of that what you will.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 01:41 PM

From 2001 to 2008 Stanron the rate occasionally spiked above 5%, but was usually between 3 and 5. I think we can agree that 17% is too high. And I hope that we can agree that 1% is too low. Interest rates should be high enough to offer a real return on savings.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 01:45 PM

I asked you to support your assertion that the economy improved under Thatcher. I suggested two groups who definitely did benefit. You haven't come up with anyone else. Perhaps we should ask the hundreds of thousands of perfectly healthy industrial workers and miners who were thrown by Thatcher on to a scrapheap called incapacity benefit (a handy way of avoiding calling them "unemployed"). I can assure you that teachers didn't do particularly well under Thatcher and were comprehensively shat on via the imposition of brainless initiatives such as a content-stuffed national curriculum and a brainless Ofsted whose inspectors received three days' training. Let alone a severe worsening of our working conditions. Tory ideology writ large just about wrecked the profession and we are still suffering. Incidentally, a very accomplished primary teacher of my acquaintance has been using a food bank for years.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 01:50 PM

David Carter (UK) wrote: From 2001 to 2008 Stanron the rate occasionally spiked above 5%, but was usually between 3 and 5. I think we can agree that 17% is too high. And I hope that we can agree that 1% is too low. Interest rates should be high enough to offer a real return on savings.

I agree with that. I also think that there is a link between interest rates and inflation. When one is high both are high. The people who gain from high interest rates are not the people who suffer most from inflation.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 04:20 PM

Well, having watched the debate, if that’s the best they’ve got, we’re completely fucked. What a bunch of cock-wombles.

Time for a General Election.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 04:20 PM

A-a-and.....100! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 04:31 PM

Terrible shouty show. I couldn't pick out a "winner." Johnson got away with murder. Gove was obsessed with Corbyn. He excoriated him three times but no-one else mentioned him. Shades of the 2017 Tory election campaign. Javid, what a bloody lightweight. Stewart tried so hard to be different and honest that he came across as a dishonest Tory. God help us.

Mind you, the questioners were a breath of fresh air. Someone tell Boris to try to remember their names. Especially if they're Muslims.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 04:42 PM

Agreed. The only interesting moment was when Javid forced everyone to agree to an independent investigation into Tory party Islamophobia. But no doubt that will be quickly forgotten.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 04:46 PM

My complaint is that I could not download the programme to watch in HD, I don't do ordinary quality from youtube if it can be avoided!!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 06:00 PM

You didn't miss much. Watch a couple of episodes of Fawlty Towers instead.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 06:51 PM

Good idea!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 06:54 PM

My preferences are Johnson first and Gove second. I was surprised to find that Mr Hunt showed better than I had expected and, if Mr Scott remains a Tory, he might well be a leader in the future. Opinions I've heard suggest that Boris is poor on detail but good on delegation. Not a bad profile for PM. Gove is smart but not a Karisma King.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 07:07 PM

Johnson is going to win and is going to have an extremely short career at the top.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 07:24 PM

That's an interesting suggestion. Should Jeremy Corbyn initiate a Vote of Confidence and win there would be a general election.

Jeremy Corbyn is a pro Brexit leader of an anti Brexit party. Boris is a pro Brexit leader of a pro Brexit party. They are both charismatic. Can't you see that the odds are against Labour?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 07:25 PM

Jeremy Corbyn voted remain.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 07:27 PM

"Boris is a pro Brexit leader of a pro Brexit party"

I'm not at all sure of that statement Stanron. The past three years have not lent themselves to that viewpoint.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 07:38 PM

From wiki on Corbyn and the EU.

...in September 2015, Corbyn said that Labour would campaign for Britain to stay in the EU regardless of the result of Cameron's negotiations, and instead pledged "to reverse any changes" if Cameron reduced the rights of workers or citizens... He also believed that Britain should play a crucial role in Europe by making demands about working arrangements across the continent, the levels of corporation taxation and in forming an agreement on environmental regulation...

...Corbyn made a speech on April 14, 2016, in which he supported staying in the EU...He summarised his stance as being "for 'Remain – and Reform' in Europe....

...In June 2016, in the run-up to the EU referendum, Corbyn said that there was an "overwhelming case" for staying in the EU. In a speech in London, Corbyn said "We, the Labour Party, are overwhelmingly for staying in, because we believe the European Union has brought investment, jobs and protection for workers, consumers and the environment".

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 07:40 PM

Johnson isn't currently the leader of anything. And he started off as a remainer, lest we forget.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 07:41 PM

Was that a free for all contest scrapping it out to establish who has the biggest dick,
or who is the biggest dick...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 07:42 PM

Both. And it was a five-way tie.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 07:45 PM

Well let's let the echo chamber continue. It wont alter election results.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 19 - 08:07 PM

Neither will your factual inaccuracies. Though I suppose you're merely taking a leaf out of your hero's book there.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 01:22 AM

I think we need a general election, or a second referendum

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: The Sandman
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 02:22 AM

A precedent has already happened for a second referndum ,ireland and the lisbon treaty

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mr Red
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 03:19 AM

"Boris is a pro Brexit leader of a pro Brexit party"

King Boris is a turncoat. Or floating voter if you prefer?

It wont alter election results. It already has. He already has. They already have.

Corbyn with charisma? He is hiding it very well IMNSHO.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 03:43 AM

Gove in particular has forgotten the lesson for the Tories from the 2017 election that obsessing over Corbyn instead of telling the electorate how you plan to address the issues faced by the country loses you your majority.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 05:22 AM

Standard Tory deflection tactic, practised almost non-stop by The Praying Mantis and, apparently, to be continued by The Lying Scottish Viper in the unlikely event he's elected as leader...

Q. "How will you effect our Leaving the EU with a deal?"
A. "Look over there - Jeremy Corbyn!".

As I said earlier, a Grade A cockwomble amongst cockwombles.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 09:23 AM

I'm reluctant to say but as much as I dislike* him
Baldy Bonce seemed to be the most normal bloke with any real substance to be a leader...


[* but then, none of 'em are what could be called likeable...]


If we are doomed to a tory govt for at least another 5 years
then Rory might be the most sensible and humane,
..so he don't stand a chance being selected...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 09:31 AM

A bit I found interesting was that Gove said on TV today that the Conservative party did have racists within it's ranks and that they needed to be rooted out and dismissed from the party.

I wonder if he was referring to Piccaninny, Watermelon, Letterbox Johnson.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 09:47 AM

It's like trying to chose between Darth Vader and Lex Luther

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 10:37 AM

Gove's awkward attempt to compete, impress, and win against the bigger boys
made himself look even more pathetic than usual..

"me.. me..me.. me..me.. me..
I thought of all the cleverest things first
and done it better than all the other boys..
Pick me.. pick me.. pick me...
I'm the bestest at everything...!!!!!

.. and that Corbyn is a very nasty smelly oik...
..pleeeaaase bully him instead of me.."

Can the precocious little pipsqueak ever reach puberty...???


The fascinating undercurrent in tory governments
is that as they mostly all went to the same top public schools;
the kids that were bullies, their victims,
the ones that sexually abused the smaller boys in dorms when they could get away with it..
The rugger thugs and the scared emotionally scarred little boys..

That's all carried with them as adults into parliament..
Those old school relationships still underly their interactions as politicians
crammed in the hothouse of the Commons...

Weird to think about.. innit...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 11:04 AM

"I wonder if he was referring to Piccaninny, Watermelon, Letterbox Johnson."

Then there's his homophobia ("tank-topped bum boys") and his sexism ("voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts" and, at the 2012 Olympics, when Mayor of London, "the magnificent experience of watching semi-naked women playing beach volleyball ... glistening like wet otters.")

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 12:22 PM

Not allowing for him allowing a poem to be published in his magazine that called for the elimination of all Scots.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 12:34 PM

Come on lads.. we might detest the tory buggers,
but let's not get too puritanical and lose our sense of humour...

That just gives even more ammunition to the hard right
in their propaganda war on humourless snow flake control freak lefty 'fascists'...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 12:50 PM

Steve Shaw: Mind you, the questioners were a breath of fresh air. Someone tell Boris to try to remember their names. Especially if they're Muslims.
That last sentence looks to me like discrimination. "Positive discrimination" is considered permissible in certain, restricted, circumstances. Otherwise "positive discrimination" is just discrimination with a different target.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 12:54 PM

Please God, make it stop....

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 01:03 PM

Yeah.. right wing nutters really don't like positive discrimination...

Obviously it can be applied in a clumsy flawed manner..
It's not perfect..

but sadly still necessary...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 01:17 PM

So Rory Stewart gone now. I am surprised he got this far, and it was going to be a matter of whether he was knocked out this round or next, but I think he finished things at the debate last night, by not being very distinctive on one hand, and telling too many uncomfortable truths on the other.

A battle of the fantasists from now on.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 01:21 PM

Well Nigel I would have thought Steve's comment was more in regard of Johnson's unwillingness or inability to pronounce unusual (in his sphere) names.

The Spanish have a word for the likes of Johnson .. Mansanarsehole.


With apologies to Les Barker.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 01:51 PM

Well, Nigel, let me explain. Bozza couldn't bring up the name of the questioner, very remiss of him and bad form in debates of this type. The questioner happened to be a Muslim. Bozza happens to have offended the Muslim community recently by referring to some Muslim women as letterboxes. My comment was a suggestion that Johnson should have been far more careful in the circumstances. Not hard, is it?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 04:36 PM

I don't think I am aware of anyone who waffles as much drivel as Johnson.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 04:40 PM

Ye Gods Bonzo, we are agreed upon something !!!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 04:48 PM

Well there you go!!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 05:15 PM

Gove waffles quite a lot of drivel, but not as much as Bozo.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 06:45 PM

60,000 or so Tories will vote for whoever will meet their self-serving interests, and who ever wins will spout that those 60,000 represent the will of the 68,000,000 people, and therefore feel justified in ****ing up the rest of us.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 02:58 AM

it is like watching a country disappear in an economic quick sand

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 05:29 AM

Wonder what's happened to our Resident Brainwashed Right-Wing Extremist and his tiny band of equally-brainwashed cohorts? Obviously they must be too ashamed and embarrassed by the performance of the new boy-band, 'No Direction', in the TV debate on Tuesday evening. ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 06:06 AM

I thought they were called "Take Twat"?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 09:25 AM

So until 3.30 we are down to which of these three flavours of shit
would you prefer the taste of...???

After 3.30 they'll be reduced to the top two favourite shites...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 10:39 AM

Gove waffles drivel, with Johnson its more bollocks.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 10:50 AM

Well the token ethnic chappie served his purpose long enough
to try to establish tory party credibility
as a no longer completely racist by default party...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 01:11 PM

So it's Bozza versus Gift to cockney rhyming slang...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 01:13 PM

Two cunts then?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 01:27 PM

Hunt has a narrow face that looks like it would fit in easily in the gap between two bum cheeks..

Perhaps how he's got so far up in the tory party...?????

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 03:13 PM

Backwoods man .............. please let the opposition use the foul language.

I like to think those of us on this side are made of better stuff

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: robomatic
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 04:23 PM

I heard Boris discussed by BBC reporters as if he is the most Trump-like of the lot, and also the most likely to wind up in power.

I've got nothing but confidence in how this is going to turn out!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 05:10 PM

There are wealthy vultures all around the world
eying up British assets they can buy up for a bargain after brexit...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 05:50 PM

And there are plenty of greedy bastards in the UK very happy to sell those assets off to them...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 08:28 PM

From: Raggytash - PM
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 03:13 PM
Backwoods man .............. please let the opposition use the foul language.
I like to think those of us on this side are made of better stuff


It's much too late to try to stop him now. Unfortunately it seems to be a common characteristic for one side of the argument to use those sort of terms.

"You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses . . ."

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 09:21 PM

"It's much too late to try to stop him now. Unfortunately it seems to be a common characteristic for one side of the argument to use those sort of terms."

..absolute bollocks...

Swearing is a robust much enjoyed Great British tradition creatively practised by all types of folks,
from all social classes,
and all political persuasions...

So eff off killjoy moralistic puritans...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 09:27 PM

BWM has been teetotal for years because of medical issues unrelated to alcohol. It ill behoves you to make snide remarks of the sort you made in your last post, Nigel. Incredibly unfunny even by your standards.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 09:40 PM

..and I've been mostly teetotal for over a decade through my own free choice,
and because I'm too skint after the tory austerity for most of that decade...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 11:27 PM

And I couldn’t care less what a po-faced, holier-than-thou, nit-picking nitwit thinks (or even what ‘those of us on this side’ think) about the way I express myself. When someone chooses to attack my use of language rather than address the issue I raise, I’m happy because it demonstrates they have no counter-argument.

From my experience of many years of working and socialising with people from pretty much every layer of society, I can inform The Nitpicker that use of ‘bad language’ is universal and not in any way an indication of an individual’s social ‘class’. His excoriation of my choice of words is, of course, an example of attempting to occupy the ‘high moral ground’ in order to gain advantage. As a tactic, that only works when the adversary it’s used against has even a scintilla of respect for his critic, or his critic’s opinions. Where The Nitpicker is concerned, I have none.

And, AFAIC, an occasional expletive is as nothing when compared with some of the racist, fascistic opinions expressed on this forum by the R-WE element and, if those people are ‘offended’ by a swear-word, that’s their problem, not mine - it’s not something I have any intention of eating shit over.

I refer my critics to Rhett Butler’s final words to Scarlett O’Hara in the Margaret Mitchell classic.

So, back to the thread topic, the Conservative Leadership Contest. Anything constructive, instructive, or informative to say, Nigs?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 12:29 AM

And, although it’s none of The Nitpicker’s business, I can confirm that Steve is correct - serious medical issues unconnected to alcohol consumption, which necessitated two major open abdominal surgeries, multiple spells in hospital, and very careful adjustment to my diet, have necessitated my abstinence from alcohol since late 2005.

So The Nitpicker can take his clever-shit ‘man what boozes’ comment, roll it up carefully, and shove it up his big, fat, hairy arse.

Nit-pick that.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 01:37 AM

There are times when an argument or point is so ludicrous, trivial or extreme that the only sensible answer is "Fuck Off".

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 02:02 AM

Final round (20/6):

    Boris: 160
    Hunt: 77
    Gove: 75 ELIMINATED

Fourth round (20/6):

    Boris: 157
    Gove: 61
    Hunt: 59
    Saj: 34 ELIMINATED

Third round (19/6):

    Boris: 143 (126)
    Hunt: 54 (46)
    Gove: 51 (41)
    Saj: 38 (33)
    Rory: 27 (37) ELIMINATED

Second round (18/6):

    Boris: 126
    Hunt: 46
    Gove: 41
    Rory: 37
    Saj: 33
    Raab: 30 ELIMINATED

First round (13/6):

    Boris: 114
    Hunt: 43
    Gove: 37
    Raab: 27
    Saj: 23
    Hancock: 20 (WITHDREW 14/6)
    Stewart: 19
    Leadsom: 11 ELIMINATED
    Harper: 10 ELIMINATED
    McVey: 9 ELIMINATED

Over to the Tory members, in five weeks we should have a new Prime Minister…to wipe the floor with compo corbyn.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 03:30 AM

See my previous post :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 04:48 AM

Best summary I have seen (from a QC so used to incisive summaries)

Soon, a leader who wasn't elected of a government without a majority will promise an outcome that can't be delivered to a group that isn't representative then impose it on a public that doesn't want it

Makes you proud to be British...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 05:06 AM

No Dave, it makes me ashamed that the majority of the electorate who didn't vote Leave are being railroaded by the minority who did, into something that will prove to be of little or no benefit to them, but which will benefit those behind the scenes who brainwashed them with a series of lies and racist, xenophobic tropes enormously.

Never have so many been led down the road to disaster by so few.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 07:49 AM

A By-Election just announced in Brecon & Radnorshire to replace the thieving Tory scrote who has been convicted of stealing from decent tax-paying citizens by falsifying his expenses claims.

Just what a new, unelected PM doesn't need! Pass the popcorn!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 10:37 AM

Mister 'unt
THe well known politician

or


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvFuUaCe8eY

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 10:48 AM

Al - you're surely the man to give us a rewrite for our times...

The obvious substitute lyric is "the wanker" or "the shyster"...

But we're happy to leave it up to you...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 11:16 AM

The Brecon & Radnorshire seat was held by the Liberal Democrats from 1997 until 2015, when Davies won it. He increased his majority in 2017.

So the Conservatives will be under significant pressure from the Lib Dems on one side and the Brexit Party on the other. In that situation all the party leaders often go to great lengths to visit the seat to try to boost the vote.

My feeling is that Boris will not, or only as rarely as he can get away with, as he will not want to be associated with a failure to win the seat at that stage in the game.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 12:01 PM

Boris can send Mark Field instead. By all accounts he is very strong on law and order!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 12:13 PM

Did he cop a good feel,
or are even inebriated lascivious tories too aware there are phone cams
everywhere these days...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 12:56 PM

Did he cop a good feel,

Security was obviously breached. Having someone storn in the room must be perceived as a threat especially in the light of lunatic comedians threatening to throw battery acid over people. The one protestor was collared heading straight towards the chancellor, and this three years after an MP was assassinated.

And of course there is the lefty John McDonnell who has been busy retweeting his outrage today at Mark Field’s response, while carefully overlooking his speech to a Unison audience:
    “I’m getting worse. I sit in Parliament opposite a group of multi-millionaires, who are cutting these services with alacrity. My problem is I’m beginning to feel physical towards them. These people need a good slapping.

    My McAliskey moment is coming to me, and I’ve already been thrown out for grabbing the mace once.”

With idiots on the loose encouraged by leftards it is no surprise the valiant Mr. Smith leapt to the defence of the chancellor by restraining the aberrant creature. After all it was in the best traditions of the SAS- Who Dares wins.

Not at all like the leftards- all mouth and no trousers. The man deserves a knighthood.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mr Red
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 01:08 PM

a new Prime Minister…to wipe the floor with compo corbyn.

and that is all he will be able to do - aim low.

There will be little on the table for him to bargain with.

Now answer me this - how is the man who claimed wouldn't allow Twitler to grace the Capital going to do a deal with him?

Without eating shit first that is.............

It was a foregone conclusion from the start, the whole race for PM is a sideshow to distract people from being constantly reminded of their inability to agree in parliament or even in their own party!

Rule 1 in warfare is to create a side issue and make it look bigger than the real problem (theat you can't handle).

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 01:26 PM

The Tory bully boy should be charged with common assault if nothing else. It is a good measure of these people that the only ones they stand up to are those they perceive as defenceless. The lady in question had far more courage than he had. At least he has been suspended and shown the world the true Tory colours. She has, up to now, shown true integrity and says she will not press charges. I hope she changes her mind.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 01:36 PM

Iains - you've had all this afternoon, is that the best you can contrive...

Taking some obvious lighted hearted jokey comments so literally..

The hoarde of loony right zealots on youtube are far more potentially dangerous in the real world,

But it's so convenient for you to ignore their 'fantasist' threats of extreme violence to lefties and liberals...

You'd be better advised taking them seriously.
Not all will be jokey banter and empty threats...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 01:49 PM

She could easily have been an ISIS terrorist in drag.

How easily the left conveniently forget the Brighton Bombing where 5 were killed and 31 injured,
Airey Neave blown up in his car
The attemted mortar attack on downing street
Jo Cox murdered

The foolwoman was very lucky no one broke a chair over her head.
She was hardly there to offer benediction now was she?

It is time the Charity Commissioners pulled the plug on greenpeace, they are nothing but eco-terrorists these days.

Why MR Field apologised escapes me. THere must be a raft of charges that could be thrown at her. Only swivel eyed loons with rose tinted specs can think the creature is innocent of any offense. A threat is a threat and must be dealt with accordingly. Bombs do not shower the participants with rose petals or confetti. Anyone breaking into a dinner of the great and the good in order to disrupt it must expect a response.
In many countries it would be a bullet.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 02:10 PM

Iain's - crikey.. talk about making a meal of it...!!!

All that says is that you are running on the fumes...


Even the teenage wannabe far right thug fanatics
on YouTube could scrape together a stronger retaliation with a firmer grounding in reality...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 02:26 PM

Iains - btw.. it's 2019...

As much as you're desperate enough to delve even further back in history..

The only atrocity on your list recent and relevent enough to our modern era
was perpertrated against a Labour politician by a right wing extremist..

Just in case you needed reminding sufficiently to regain a proper perspective...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 02:39 PM

Pfr you must have led a sheltered life in sheltered places. The real world can be brutal at times.


Incidentally The murder of Jo Cox
77-year-old Bernard Carter-Kenny intervened in that attack, and got hurt.

He was awarded the George Medal for bravery, because intervening to defend another person is bravery.

Today's crying snowflakes, including Theresa May, should remember that

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 02:53 PM

Iains.. what...!!!???

I passed through a London station merely hours before it was bombed..

I was sat on the bog and felt the pressure wave when Canary Wharf bomb detonated..

Our home was that close...

But all that was a half a lifetime ago...
Our old Irish enemies are now becoming elderly men
trying to come to terms with peace in a changing modern world...
Any that are still clinging on to those troubles with hope of continuing their brutal conflict
are useles fukwits who deserve what they get...

Now is the present...


Bernard Carter-Kenny - that bloke's a hero.. so wtf is your point bringing him into it..???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 02:55 PM

Of course had it been Jezza it would have been a right hook and game over.
Or if 80 years old and calling Jacj Straw a liar:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1499466/Heckler-82-who-dared-called-Straw-a-liar-is-held-under-terrorist-law.html

A different story for labour?

The fact remains the lunatic made a forced entry, she was clutching a handbag. She posed a threat. The Mansion House Banquet is a collection of high level targets.
. What was in her bag? Hand grenade? Was the pin pulled as she ran towards the top table? That it was a woman sadly now means nothing. Would the Chancellor's Protection Officer have shot her if she had got closer, with the bag? In other, not so different circumstances, the media would have been acclaiming a hero.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 03:05 PM

Iains - your 'what ifs' and 'what about thems' are usually stretching reality to absurdity,
but today you have pushed yourself over the edge into hysteria...

Take a breather, and try to relocate the plot...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 04:44 PM

Smoke without fire is an expression I have read recently on here in relation to Labour party politicians.

Does it also apply to conservatives I ask myself?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/21/police-called-to-loud-altercation-at-boris-johnsons-home

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 04:45 PM

Difficult to know whether Iains has lost it more than Johnson. Police now called to an altercation at the flat that Johnson shares with his latest piece of fluff. "Get off me and get out of my flat". Domestic abuse unit need to look into this. With him and Field, there should be a lot of work here for anger management counsellors.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 05:01 PM

Johnson is terrified he is going to win this contest. He may have decided that a night or two in the police cells may be preferable.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 05:15 PM

And in the Guardian article in the link, it states that the lady in question, one Carrie Symonds "has been credited with revitalising his appearance". What??? Then just look at the picture attached to the article. if that appearance is revitalised, he must have looked like Herman Munster before.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 05:27 PM

From the sacred Daily Mash, which usually manages to inject a grain of truth...

THE Conservative MP accused of assaulting a Greenpeace protester has apologised to fellow dinner guests for not using lethal force.

Mark Field protected fellow diners from the risk of a person who they may not have agreed with by removing her safely by the neck, but admitted he was criminally negligent for not bringing a weapon with him.

He continued: “I should never have gone to the annual Merchants and Bankers Dinner at Mansion House without being tooled up. What was I thinking?


“I’ve got a whole arsenal at home – pull the Thatcher memoir from the shelves, the wall opens up, 31 guns and 18 edged weapons, backlit – but I had to use my hands, and Parliament’s made me soft.

“What I should have done? Backwards out of the chair, tuck and roll, two warning shots into the torso, tuck and roll into cover, blindfire six rounds, tuck and roll, double-tap to the head.

“Bish bosh. Job done. Round of applause.”

When informed that he may be charged with assault, Field said: “But she’s a lefty.”

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 05:39 PM

I would just draw your attention to my post of 21 Jun 19 - 01:37 AM

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 05:55 PM

Yup. And now the silly sod has shat in his own bed via a stupid little drunken domestic. I have a feeling that we're going to get Jeremy C*unt...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 05:58 PM

A complete knobwhoppit (aka Tory) on TV has just said BoJo is a man of the people because he acts just like most people do. What sort of circles do these arseholes move in?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 07:06 PM

Eton pigshead fu*ck*ing bubbles, that's what, Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 11:17 PM

What an entertaining larf to celebrate summer solstice..
what is he like...

So if he is forced to quit the leadership contest for being a loud abusive pisshead chav,
does that make Hunt the winner..
or do they bring back Gove...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 01:16 AM

Good question. I would assumed Hunt would then go through unopposed, so the vote of the membership would be cancelled.

Of course, we could add to the jollity of the game if the electorate of both Boris's and Hunt's constituencies decided to initiate recall petitions...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 01:29 AM

Before Nigel leaps in, I realise the electorate do not initiate the recall. It was a joke, of sorts. I was thinking what could possibly make things worse, and with recall petitions in the air, it seemed to me they would do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 02:46 AM

Well the altercation reports in the Gaurdian are just an extension** of what is going on in Westminster. I am sure the Blairs had their moment like all couples, but this does appear to be a little more momentous and more of a concern when looking into the barrel of the Brexshit gun, right now.

** yea, yea. Ex-tension is an unfortunate contra-punning description. But it is early and I left it there because it goes with the whole shitty, messy subject.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 04:52 AM

There is something of concern that is likely to be overlooked as the Boris Spat Story evolves. The Guardian said:


When contacted by the Guardian on Friday, police initially said they had no record of a domestic incident at the address. But when given the case number and reference number, as well as identification markings of the vehicles that were called out, police issued a statement saying: “At 00:24hrs on Friday, 21 June, police responded to a call from a local resident in [south London]. The caller was concerned for the welfare of a female neighbour.


There might be any number of good reasons the police initially denied it: rights to privacy, for example, or that the person who answered the phone did not have the information at the time. But there are also good reasons why anyone standing as PM may not have that privacy as an automatic right, given they seek a very public position.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 05:25 AM

I do not remember deputy Labour PM Prescott being referred to anger management courses, more likely he was influenced by Olivia Newton John's hit "Lets get Physical"


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UhME8dcOqc

Was Prescott a man of the people as well? and he was caught in glorious technicolour!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 05:36 AM

An egg was thrown at Prescott and he reacted to it. Badly, I agree, but he was responding to an assault.

Field reacted to a woman walking past him without paying him any attention ("storming" in your prejorative term) and based on no evidence whatever, he attacked her.

So compare the two: who physically attacked first in each case?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 05:40 AM

Careful DMcG it's another case of "oh look over there", studiously avoiding the real issue.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 06:05 AM

Isn't it always?

You are waiting for Iains to respond to your question of a few days ago. I am still waiting for Nigel - he who insists on absolute precision - to say what he means by 'short term' in the context of possible 'short term' downsides to a no deal. I've been waiting months for an answer, which I want expressed in days, weeks, month, years or decades rather than vague handwaving. And I am happy to have this broken down by issue if it helps, since it is only reasonable that some problems will be resolved faster than others. At least one Brexit Party candidate for the EU elections had the honesty to say she thought it would take thirty years to resolve all the issues.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 06:22 AM

My last post was off topic, I am afraid. It would be better on the Brexit thread.

Sticking to the Conservative leader questions, while Brexit understandably looms large, we at least have some idea of what they intend to do apart from magically resolve Brexit, since we have had comments about taxation, for example. I think Boris' plan for raising the higher rate tax boundary to £80,000 will disappear into the far distance: it was useful for persuading MPs who all get just under that as a salary to vote for him. Now those votes are pocketed the "ambition" can be downgraded further - a "long term aim", perhaps.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 07:01 AM

I was about to say that he could emulate the Maybot, who, as Home Secretary, downgraded her promises on immigration to "aspirations"...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 07:21 AM

Prescott also mixed it with a man as large as himself. He did not attack a woman.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 07:59 AM

If Labour still had old fashioned working class politicians like basher Presott,
so many supporters might not have departed for ukip,
or now not bothering to vote at all...

To be honest, I was wondering why it took Iains so long to do a 'what about him' about him...????

Iains - are you alright mate...???

You don't seem quite all there this weekend...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 08:10 AM

It's all getting rather boring don't you think!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 08:38 AM

The Labour loves Labour love-in on this forum has always been boring.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 08:47 AM

When it comes to bread and circuses, I am on the side of bread. The primary purpose of politics is not to stop people being bored.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 10:51 AM

So the inevitable tory defence tactic...

Blaming the couple who recorded evidence and called the police as 'lefties with a grudge'...

How soon now before they start receiving death threats from tory trolls...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 11:15 AM

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/boris-johnson-police-altercation-home-carrie-symonds-tory-leader-a8969996.html


Good luck if this link opens in your computer.
Might be a subscription / pay wall...???

But it opened with no problems on my phone.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 11:46 AM

Ok.. so it seems the problem here is that the Idiotpendent don't like my ad-blocker,
so clumsily crashed Chrome browser and froze my PC for over 10 minutes..

But it works no problems in Chrome on my android phone...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 12:24 PM

Hunt has got mad eyes.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 01:23 PM

Damage limitation control in full swing..

AS if Boz's support camp weren't already pre-prepared and drilled to cope with a full list of his potential eff ups...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 02:44 PM

It was ever thus, PFR. The mainstay of the brexitaliban is that Europe is "the enemy". We beat the Germans in two world wars, therefore we can never be partners with them. Never mind that we were allied with the French and Belgians and Dutch for those conflicts. We have always been at war with part of Europe (except maybe Portugal?) so it must be their fault. Sick, sick, sick puppies.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 02:49 PM

Anyway, we're just waiting in line for our turn
for Trump to declare war on us,
in his crusade to eliminate anywhere not the USA......

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 03:31 PM

Being the reasonable objective chap I am..
I'll back-track a little..

Trump would probably restrain from threatening to eliminate us..
He'd only want to dominate us - as a prize posession in his empire...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 03:33 PM

Boris would be the equivalent of a tame tribal Briton cheiftain, loyal to Caesar...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 06:37 PM

If J Hunt becomes PM I will never vote Tory again. Look at the body language. He looks like a guilty child.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 07:59 PM

Is it too late for tories to offer Farage or Tommy Robinson the job...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 05:31 AM

To be a little more precise, the EU is ending the secondment arrangements for 14 military bureaucrats, just as you'd expect post-brexit. Just sayin'. If anyone else here wants to delude themselves, just keep reading the Daily Express.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 05:52 AM

Even those 14 will be reviewed on a case by case basis. However that is at the bottom of the page perhaps someone didn't read that far down.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 06:31 AM

It didn't surprise me at all that the concerned neighbour was a lefty. That was my first suspicion.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 06:39 AM

What on earth has a person's political leanings got to do with reporting anti-social behaviour or being concerned for the safety of a neighbour? Unless you are saying you suspected it was a "lefty" because you know that you Tories couldn't give a toss about anyone but yourselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 07:49 AM

When Boris has got a policemann standing at the door, no 11 won't need to call the cops out.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 09:38 AM

Time to learn survivalist skills, stock up, and go off grid...???

In escalating crisis times like this I regret not joining the army when I was younger
and learning how to kill with my bare hands..

How long before the late night knock at the door...

"We have reason to believe you voted remain, please come quietly with us, now..."

Brexiteer Militias are already prepping to take control...


What we need now is a space alien invasion
to bring us all back together on the same side
against a more immediately theatening common enemy...

"who do you think you are kidding mr space alien.. etc..."

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 10:22 AM

Actually,, now I think about it, I've not read Viz comic for nearly 20 years..
I wonder what their current prevailing politics are this last 3 or 4 years...???


[i've momentarily forgotten the big word for a media publication's overall political position..??? bugger it..}

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 10:34 AM

I read the Guardian (and watch the telly and listen to the wireless and go on news websites, etc) to find out wot's 'appenin', that's all. Some of the columnists get on my nerves, but at least the paper invites comment from a wide spectrum of contributors. If you choose not to try to find out wot's 'appenin' from lots of sources you won't properly find out wot's 'appenin' at all.The Express piece linked to earlier displayed a classic piece of tabloid spin to make it look like the EU was booting the whole army out of Europe. The tabloids and the quasi-criminal who runs Guido Fawkes merely tell already-believers what they want to hear.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 10:54 AM

A fair bit above now, sorry, I meant Boris (after he tossed his coin or suchlike) is for leaving the EU/the "enemy" of those who wish to stay. No nation is my enemy - I strongly believe in the English nation AND the United Nations with travel and fair trade (not conquest and immigration) between them.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 12:07 PM

Time wasted writing here.. and big gaps that make no sense..
We Brits are made of sterner stuff and can cope with robust disagreements and antagonistic banter..
But mollycoddling mods knows best...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 12:08 PM

Rather, PFR, I'll add a bit: apart from their local government, all any citizen of our world needs is their own nation and the United Nations - no G7, Commonwealth, African Union, European Union or other such clubs. All nations sitting around a United Nations table is surely the best possible way.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 01:07 PM

Walkabout - well there's at least a case to be made for cutting back on the exhorbitant expanding costs
of parasitic self serving international beaurocracy...

Few would disagree on that...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 01:20 PM

...and I also question the argument of some Remainers that we need the EU to counter American influence: as I suggested in this poem - "There Is A UN" - it could not get much worse in terms of the US acting like the UN, and the BBC and other media here going along with that...who is the Leader of the UN just now..?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 01:32 PM

I disagree, PFR. There are robust disagreements and antagonistic banter and then again there is out and out trolling. The moderation team know the difference and do a stalwart job of eliminating the latter. Let's make their job easier by not responding to the trolls eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 01:44 PM

Walkabout

All nations sitting around a United Nations table is surely the best possible way

I agree wholeheartedly but while the big 5 have the UN by the short and curlies it can never work. Absolutely FA to do with the topic though and a good example of how the trolls can derail a discussion.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 01:44 PM

Seconded, Dave.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 01:51 PM

DtG - but that don't make me any happier that I wasted hours carfully constructing and writing posts
to positively counter said trolling;
which have also been arbitrarily deleted...

I'm not a fast over prolific writer like others here..
My posts take up too much time commiting to typing..


Now ok, I learnt to give up moaning about mod deletions years ago..

But today's censorship has just pissed me off...
That was time wasted on a weekend, I could have been doing something more useful with the mrs...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 01:54 PM

DtG/BWM - ..and you can call whoever you like a 'troll',
but I'll decide for myself who I respond to, thank you...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 01:58 PM

I have my own views on the effectiveness of 'safe spacing',
and an opinion on mudcatters, left or right, who petition mods to delete posts...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 02:10 PM

”DtG/BWM - ..and you can call whoever you like a 'troll',
but I'll decide for myself who I respond to, thank you...”

That’s fine by me pfr, it’s your right to choose to ignore good, sensible advice.

Just don’t waste bandwidth and disk-space on the Mudcat servers by pissing, moaning, and bellyaching when the Mods delete Troll’s posts together with those by people who encourage the Trolls by responding to them.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 02:13 PM

Iains - now don't start thinking we are forming an alliance..

but there are alternative voices on the left
getting fed up with
our more control freak and censorship inclined comrades...

That's why YOU need to understand the left is not just the one dimensional cartoon figures
of your [and the tory/brexit/ukip/ etc party's] paranoid prejudices...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 02:15 PM

BWM - I'll let that slip, but it's best not to patronise me...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 02:17 PM

but I'll decide for myself who I respond to, thank you

Of course you will, PFR. That is your right. But I would draw your attention to the recommendations from the Mudcat faq and newcomers guide

I've said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it many times more: the best way to deal with both flamers and trolls is to ignore them. Give them silence, and they'll go away. They feed on attention - don't give it to them.

Now, it is entirely up to you whether you heed that advice but may I suggest that having a go at those that do is not a good idea. Nor is having a go at the mods for doing their (unpaid and unappreciated) job. I am as much a rebel as you and agree that bars do need to be rattled at times. But, when in Rome etc. We are all guests in Mac's house here. Let us respect him.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 02:26 PM

I will break a personal rule and respond to Iains's nonsense to highlight that his pointing out that my post that he refers to:

From: Dave the Gnome - PM
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 02:44 PM

no longer exists. I have no idea what it said but if it had been deleted, then fair enough. The premise is that only right wing posts are removed. He has proved that this is patently unrue.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 02:43 PM

DtG - In my obvious pissed offedness..
that is also what I am making clear to him,
and anyone else daft enought to be reading this thread...

Fom now on I should only post comments about fluffy kitttens and baby bunnies...???

Anyway, I'm off for fish n chips and good after dinner kip during a movie..

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 02:46 PM

”BWM - I'll let that slip, but it's best not to patronise me...”

But I don’t let threats slip, pfr - not in real life, and definitely not on an Internet forum. My advice is to cool it, get back in bed, and get out on the right side.

By turning on those who are your friends, you’re giving the Right-Wing Extremist Troll precisely what he’s looking for.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 02:50 PM

I should only post comments about fluffy kitttens and baby bunnies

No, no and a thousand times no. Post interesting, decisive and even offensive stuff. Just remember that there are people on here who are just pulling your strings and getting off on it. Don't let them!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 02:50 PM

oh.. before i go.. just off topic...

I recieved a surprise PM from a much loved and respected good guy mudcatter
asking if I knew anything about Jim.
Apparently he's disapeared from mudcat...???
A sugestion arose one of us could start a discreet thread
inquiring if anyone knows if there's any problems...

Fingers crossed Jim's ok...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 02:52 PM

DtG - nobody pulls mine unless I let 'em for my own enjoyment...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 02:56 PM

BWM - I certainly don't want any fallings out..
we've all been cooped up here together for too long...
I never threatened anyone, I merely said don't patronise me...
that rubs me up the wrong way...

You seem too certain your position is right and mine is wrong...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 03:09 PM

I hope you are right, PFR, but it is sometimes difficult to see when someone is just winding you up.

As to Jim, he is pissed off that Muscat and its members are, in his opinion, ruining English Folk music. I disagree with him but, like you, it is his prerogative to react in the way he deems fit. Feel free to start a "discreet thread" but I don't think he will thank you for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 03:23 PM

Btw - check your PMs

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 03:25 PM

Not at all. As I said, you are free to do as you wish and respond to anyone you choose, but don’t complain when Troll posts, and those of people who respond to Troll posts, are removed by the Mods. It’s their forum, not yours or mine.

As regards your claim that you ‘never threatened anyone’...

“Thank you for your well-meant advice, but I prefer to follow my own course...” would have been a perfectly acceptable, non-challenging response, which I would accept without demur.

“I’ll let that slip, but it’s best not to patronise me...” suggests consequences, therefore it’s a threat.

I’m happy to disagree with anyone, and I don’t wish to fall out with those whose contributions here I enjoy and who I generally feel a kinship with, but I don’t threaten people - not even Right-Wing Extremists - and I won’t accept threats. Not from anyone.

Now...shall we resume Normal Service? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 03:26 PM

DtG - That sounds more like it..
As long as he's keeping well...

I definitely don't think I'm the right person to open such a thread..
I'm guessing the mudcatter who PMd me doesn't think he should start the thread either..


Jim's most recent post was about a fortnight ago..
Maybe a more diplomatic catter who knows him in real life could give him a call..

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 03:30 PM

BWM - of course.. the disruption was a momentary blip..

I'm not in a good mood this weekend - a summer cough choking me awake all night..

Anyway, 'slip' should have been 'slide'..
but either way I typed too quickly and clumsily
under duress of the mrs nagging me to get back in the kitchen..

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 04:12 PM

Good to hear, pfr. On with the motley.... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Jun 19 - 06:10 PM

Come along, chaps. Don't let Iains wreck a worthwhile thread by splitting us up. After all, today we have Jeremy-his-own-Cockney-rhyming-slang attacking Bozza for evasion. It's Tories for sure but it could be an oasis of fun in this brexitaceous vale of tears...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 07:49 AM

https://uk.video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=youtube+joe+loss+march+of+the+mods#id=51&vid=3758ccc1a5ea79d3bcffde87

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 08:10 AM

I see that Johnson is refusing to publicly discuss his tilt for the leadership of the Tory party.

I think it is called the Mushroom system.

























Keep them in the dark and feed them horsehit.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 08:18 AM

I'm sure the arrogant spolied rich posh boy believes he's already won
because the leadership is his by right of birth,
so doesn't need to bother with the boring chores of competing with an oik...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 08:22 AM

BoJo's brexit could be in the same category as Trump's wall. An easy soundbite that is far from easy to achieve. Trouble is they are both telling people what they want to hear and many keep falling for it :-(

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 08:27 AM

Apologies, on 2nd thoughts I shouldn't have called our next PM an "arrogant spolied rich posh boy"...

I realise I made made a mistake..


When he is in fact an arrogant spoiled rich fat bully posh boy...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 08:28 AM

Well, he proved during the BrexShit campaign how easy it is to bamboozle the brainless with a few sound bites and meaningless slogans. I’m sure they’ll be thick enough to fall for his horse-shit again.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 08:34 AM

Proof that turkeys can actually be seduced into voting for xmas...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 09:42 AM

It isn't so much about Johnson bamboozling the electorate, but him dangling carrots in front of the tory faithful to line their own pockets without a thought to the greater impact on society.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 10:10 AM

So....Bozo the Cowardly, running away again, exactly as he did on the morning after the referendum.

To call him a Piece of Shit would be an insult to pieces of shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 10:24 AM

So what's the difference between dodgy posh twat Johnson blatantly evading questions,
and a guilty scumbag street rat chav
who persistently answers police questioning
with "No comment"...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 10:25 AM

... Eton...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 10:40 AM

Precisely!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 11:21 AM

Full credit to my mrs for working the following out...
[she's a Welsh valleys girl - that figures...]



Johnson is a slang term for male genitalia..

Hunt is rhyming slang for the corresponding female parts...

An uncanny omen for the inevitability of the tories
continuing to f@ck the nation...!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mr Red
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 11:50 AM

You know, the way things have not been going to prediction of late - it may just end up 52/48% and not the one you thought!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 11:52 AM

Are we likely to get a spate of jokes about sticking a Boris in a Jeremy? I do hope so! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 12:07 PM

It seems that today’s Evening Standard editorial claims that Sir Mark Sedwill, the cabinet secretary, has told Theresa May that she should only advise the Queen to appoint Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt as her successor if she is confident that they can command a majority in the Commons.

It would be quite in keeping with the chaos of the last few years if after all the MP votes and the votes of the Tory party members it was decided nether Johnson or Hunt could become PM after all.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 03:42 PM

An utterly damning indictment of Johnson by Max Hastings in todays Guardian.

Whilst no great fan of Hastings he really doesn't pull any punches in his complete and frankly ruthless condemnation of the darling of the Tory party.

I do hope that those who have the opportunity to vote in the forthcoming selection take it on board.

Link

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 04:45 PM

Jeremy Hunt is certainly a lot more conservative the Boris Johnson, one feels.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 05:29 PM

The two of 'em couple together so well by names, a job share could be a solution...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 08:44 PM

Hunt is blethering on about another set of discussions with the EU. So basically - he's a remainer - offering more of the same.

I think if you're a remainer - he's probably the best choice. I think - if he wins and you want to stay in Europe - vote tory.

Corbyn or liberal democrat - they're talking another referendum, which I think your side would lose.

Hunt is a convinced reaminer. I think he's your boy.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 09:09 PM

Another pie-in-the-sky, cloud cuckoo land showing from Johnson tonight. I love you, Laura, but you were too soft on him. So he's going back to Brussels to get "a deal" and he's well, sort of got easy answers for the backstop and why don't we all just shut up about tariffs. Unfortunately, when he gets there he'll find that all those negotiators have disbanded, padlocked their briefcases and gone off on their hols. Poor Boris. Poor us.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 24 Jun 19 - 10:37 PM

I think at some point, someone is going to have the bollocks to say - well referendums are only there to provide advice. We've listened to your advice - but we don't agree.

We'll just forget Brexit - we can't get it through parliament. so thats the end of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: The Sandman
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 02:25 AM

alternatively parpiament comes to a decision and we have a second one. however how will it be worded?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: peteglasgow
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 03:28 AM

perhaps the EU could say to us that you can have as long an extension as you want- 'retournez to us when your peoples and your parliament have agreed what you would like and we will consider it. of course, this may take some time' They could be confident that in time we would just forget the whole daft idea. particularly once we have launched an enquiry into why we havn't left yet.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 03:31 AM

Extremely sensible Pete, which is why our politicians will never go for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mr Red
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 04:23 AM

We'll just forget Brexit - we can't get it through parliament. so thats the end of it.

Well think what would you do if confronted with a dilemma?

I and most people would look to the consequences of doing nothing and what unknowns were going to floor us if we "do".

And in the context of Brexshit doing nothing would cost us what it costs us now, any change will cost in ways we haven't winkled out yet.

The PM hopefuls just want the job, the solutions to the mess will be tried and changed on the hoof. And that hoof will kick us, not the well heeled (sic) who want the job. And at least one of the remaining (ha) candidates has a history of being a turncoat!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 04:43 AM

Tory membership: 70% are men, 97% white, 60% southern, 86% higher social classes, average age 57, a high proportion no longer in work. Six out of 10 want the death penalty back.

That's who's choosing the prime minister who is supposed to take us through a process that will ruin the country. Ruin it except for most of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 05:37 AM

If you do not like it you could always join the conservative party. But I believe you need membership to be held for a period before having voting rights.

What does your party rely on to make decisions, Unite and Unison?
The national policy forum only has 204 members. How representative is that?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 05:53 AM

I believe you need membership to be held for a period before having voting rights.
Three months, according to This page, so too late now to join for the current vote. But possibly in time to affect future elections, and who is selected locally.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 05:57 AM

You may remember I posted several months ago that I was seriously considering joining so I could influence the vote. But when I did the research and found I would be limited to a choice of two, neither of whom I suspected I would think suitable, I decided against.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 05:59 AM

Hmm ..........

According to the Democratic Audit UK report conservative members have less influence on policy than other political party.

http://www.democraticaudit.com/2013/10/02/the-influence-of-party-members-on-policy-varies-across-the-major-parties/

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 06:27 AM

Which party would have the higher percentage of voters with dementia,
who are so confused they could not be relied on to put their cross in the right box at elections...???

This factor may have even more ramifications by the time of the next general election...

It all adds to the unpredicatability of election results...

I'll definitely get my mum a postal vote if [fingers crossed] she's still around...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 06:30 AM

On the presumption most care home owners are tories,
what checks are in place on their control of all resident's postal votes...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 06:38 AM

I think you need to be realistic.... weare talking about leadership of the tory party. They never were going to choose someone most of us would approve of to be leader.

You may not like the fact that millions of people vote for the buggers - but that's the way it is.

I doubt we'll notice the difference whichever one of these guys they choose.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 06:55 AM

Sigh... I doubt if we'd even notice much difference if Labour ever get back in..

..except it wouldn't get as much worse for us as anticipated under a continued tory government...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 07:02 AM

I'm not sure I want Labour to win the next General Election if we have left the EU by then.

In the next few years the country will get to hell in that handcart. I would like the Conservatives to be in power throughout that period and the blame will, rightly, be apportioned to them.

Following that hopefully Labour can return to power and start to rebuild the crippled economy, NHS, trust etc etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 08:33 AM

The only immediate concern is will we be worse off under boris or hunt...

If this was a WW2 prisoner of war camp,
which one them would be the ruthless cruel SS Kommandant,
and which one the softer hearted corporal guarding the huts
who smuggles in contraband and accepts bribes for turning a blind eye to escape attempts...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 08:43 AM

Following that hopefully Labour can return to power and start to rebuild the crippled economy, NHS, trust etc etc.

NO CHANCE!!


Not wanting to be left out as Theresa May succeeded in hobbling the UK economy yesterday with a trillion pound hit without MPs even voting on it, John McDonnell doubled down with an even more aggressive green assault on business last night. McDonnell told an incredulous City audience last night about his plans for legislation to de-list any company from the London Stock Exchange that failed to meet his environmental criteria. It’s hard to overstate just how insane this plan is…

One City financier branded it “financial totalitarianism” and said it would be a “catastrophe” for Britain’s economy if it was ever carried out. May’s desperate attempt to carve out some sort of meagre legacy for herself has started a bidding war with Labour over who can inflict more damage on the economy in the name of the “environment” which Corbyn and McDonnell are only too happy to go along with.

Mad as hatters!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 08:43 AM

"who smuggles in contraband and accepts bribes for turning a blind eye to escape attempts...???"

Hmmm ................ whom might be the corrupt one!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 09:41 AM

Labour's main task after getting back in to power would be to rejoin the EU, and do it properly this time. Schengen, the Euro, the lot, though its a bit late to join the Euro as the buy in rate will be much worse than if we had joined at the start.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 09:48 AM

So *that* photo. God, I'm enjoying this. The Mail sez it was taken on Sunday and it was in the rag on Monday. Well whaddya know. Nick Ferrari in the LBC interview earlier today pointed out that Boris's hair couldn't have been like that on Sunday (he's been relatively tidy lately) and that the photo was weeks old. Maybe six weeks. Well I think it's even older than that. A few weeks ago, say in mid- to late May, the grasses round their picnic table would have been nothing like as rank as they are in that photo, and there's not a scrap of blossom in the hedges around. I reckon that's a late summer pic from last year. Boris utterly refused to confirm when the photo was taken, who by, and how it got into the papers so quickly, but, in spite of his claim that he doesn't want his "loved ones" in the public eye he clearly wasn't at all bothered He had no reason on earth to not answer those questions. He was very shifty about his hair too. We are about to see one of the most dishonest and disreputable people in our politics taking the top job, aren't we? And oh yes, we knew that already!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 09:56 AM

Absolutely right Steve, its last year or earlier. Wouldn't surprise me if it was the year before when he was still nominally with Marina. Possibly its a photo he was offered at the time, and bought it out to stop it getting into the public domain.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 11:12 AM

Yes, it's a given boris is an unreliable dishonest tosser with low integrity,
but could hunt actually turn out to be the worst option as PM...???

Is hunt a relatively ok bloke for a tory,
or a proper mean spirited ruthless uncaring bastard...???

Such questions about his character seem to have got lost
in our gratuitious though justifiable enjoyment at taking the piss out of mop-top muppet..

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: peteglasgow
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 11:44 AM

it seems odd and worrying to me that BJ's partner has not been seen or heard of at all since friday night. i'm sure hers would be the more interesting, more truthful, story. surely, if all is well then they should be seen out and about and have a brief, jokey exchange with some journalists. the odd picture is clearly a fake - is it even BJ? looks like a pub beer garden at the back of a closed down pub.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 11:54 AM

Nick Ferrari even asked him if it was Ed Sheeran... :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 01:12 PM

Ed Sheeran knows how a capo works on a guitar... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 01:22 PM

Mass hysteria.. tories are seeing demons everywhere...

This is the 21st century, medical science has advanced since the middle ages..
It is safer now to seek treatment for your cronic fears that other people are devils...


..Though, it's not unproven Corbyn might actually be Santa...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: peteglasgow
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 02:57 PM

obviously, bj has always been a dodgy character but the last few days have been totally bizarre. really, is he well? and where is his partner?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 03:22 PM

In pieces under the floorboards? :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 03:32 PM

Back in the olden days boris is so fond of,
didn't difficult women who might prove an embarrassment to a gentleman's social standing,
get locked up in remote asylums...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 03:38 PM

.. or get sold to white slavers and secretly transported to the far distant mysterious orient...??

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 04:15 PM

Santaish or no, I agree with Jeremy Corbyn's criticisms of capitalism and championing of renationalisation BUT not his support, as with many on the Left, for economic/CAPITALIST immigration; and, for what it is worth, I have thought this way for many years now - "On the 2001 Election"

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 04:16 PM

It's late, dark, dank smog, and feeble gaslight..

can anyone else imagine Boris as Jack the Ripper or Jekyll and Mr Hyde...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 06:56 PM

Jack the Ripper...not really.

Benny from Crossroads maybe.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 06:59 PM

Yeah,.. that Benny looked like he might have hidden a few women's bodies in hedgerows...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: peteglasgow
Date: 25 Jun 19 - 07:04 PM

that's so unfair....though miss diane may have been at risk

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jun 19 - 05:47 AM

It's a bit sad that a topic as serious as who will lead the UK into disaster takes the wrong turn at the Crossroads...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 27 Jun 19 - 05:51 AM

Only if you take the Labour darkside and act like Bennies.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jun 19 - 08:15 AM

I've just thought of something that BoJo the clown is good at. He is probably the only person in the country who can make people want to vote for Hunt...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: peteglasgow
Date: 27 Jun 19 - 01:50 PM

i wouldn't. one of the most maddening aspects of all this nonsense is that a decades-old squabble between tory eejits has developed to involve all of us who want nothing to do with their squalid, little-englander bigotry. i found myself wanting rory stewart to do well- and he's a tory ffs!

we don't have to choose between them, they are all evil.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Jun 19 - 01:56 PM

I had to keep telling the mrs..

"yes.. but remember.. rory is still a tory..."...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 27 Jun 19 - 02:38 PM

Is like asking someone if they want typhoid or cholera.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 27 Jun 19 - 05:11 PM

While some among us still have a fixation on Bennie from crossroads,
here is a ben page from ipsosmori
Ben Page, Ipsos MORIVerified account
@benatipsosmori

Chief Exec at Ipsos MORI, Visiting Professor at Kings College London https://www.ipsos-mori.com . Trustee at @centreforlondon and @Ageing_Better
London, England
Here's the worst rating for every Leader of the Opposition since 1978 - new record broken this week.
Corbyn in JUne2019 had a net satisfaction rating of -58%, exceeding Foot in 1982 on -56%
This bit of news runs in tandem with Over 60 Labour MPs and 30 peers including deputy leader Tom Watson have issued a statement calling for Jeremy Corbyn to remove the whip from Chris Williamson “immediately”. Despite a highly irregular Labour NEC panel overturning his suspension as a member of the Labour Party, it is still up to Corbyn whether he retains the Labour whip in Parliament.
Seeing as the EHCR is undertaking a formal investigation into antisemitism allegations within the Labour party the irregular reinstatement of Mr Williamson rather cocks a snoot at the investigation and makes it appear an irrelevance.
This is hardly the behaviour expected of Her Majesties loyal Opposition party.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 27 Jun 19 - 05:31 PM

Cocks a snoot?

FFS, it’s ‘cocks a snook! I knew Nigs won’t want to nitpick his crony, so I thought I’d help him out.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Jun 19 - 05:45 PM

Tories would snort a cock...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 27 Jun 19 - 05:48 PM

Note: "cock" may be code for "coke"...

Though it could be taken literally...

..and some tories would definitely snort coke off a cock - but that's Eton education for you...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 04:14 AM

To attempt to be a pedant one needs to learn how to use a dictionary and study the etymology of words and expressions.viz.

Snoot - Idioms by The Free Dictionary
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/snoot

cock a snoot. To regard someone or something with disrespect.

In a written sense the snoot is cocked by using language that is too subtle for the pretensious literati to understand leaving the boor in confusion and those in the know to smile quietly to themselves knowing that something unpleasant has been identified and neutralised. Again this must be done in the presence of the pretentious or there is no point in being subtle.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 04:33 AM

Yaa-a-a-awn...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 04:35 AM

Yet another fine example of remainiacs attacking the messenger because the argument cannot be refuted.
Good to see the Question time audience have a good laugh when a former Labour Advisor said they had more positions on Brexit than the Kama Sutra (I guess she must have read my contribution to Guido some weeks back)
I would have thought there would be some comment on how resoundingly unpopular Corbyn is,
or the cavalier approach Labour takes to allegations of anti semitism.
or the lack of a coherant brexit policy.

One cannot even be sure if they support brexit or remain.

What sort of opposition party is that?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 05:14 AM

Funny how every source listed on Google has it as cock a snook apart from the idiots free dictionary. Mind you that one also spells idiots as idioms...

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 05:53 AM

http://www.sherv.net/cock.snoot-emoticon-2869.html

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 06:57 AM

Google search results

"Cock a snoot" = About 3,930 results (0.41 seconds)

"Cock a snook" = About 674,000 results (0.41 seconds)

Isn't it someone on here that says that the majority should be heeded?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 07:22 AM

Not when talking bollocks. Time the kiddies grew up.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 07:24 AM

You first...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 07:27 AM

I quite liked that one though, BWM. The majority need not be heeded bollocks are spoken. I wonder what else it can be applied to? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 07:30 AM

EG.

Truth: There are 200 times more instances of 'snook' than 'snoot' found when using Google

Bollocks: We will be able to spend £350 million pounds a week on the NHS.

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 07:42 AM

Bollocks: I'm going back to Brussels and coming back with a deal.

Bollocks: there'll be no tariffs because we will operate under article 24 of GATT (or something).

Truth: whichever of these two dorks is undemocratically appointed PM, we will be up shit creek without a paddle.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 09:38 AM

Will Iains now insist that it is actually "shit creet"...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 09:58 AM

ROTFLMAO!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 10:28 AM

Heheh!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 10:52 AM

Will Iains now insist that it is actually "shit creet"...???

My Grammar school taught me how to spell.

Shit creek is where corbyn will be if he supports Brexit and betrays the labour heartlands.
What joy that will be to watch. The laddie is dammed whatever side of the fence he falls off. You could not make it up!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 10:58 AM

Isn't it fun watching someone desperately trying to divert attention away from their own shit storm :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 11:06 AM

”or the lack of a coherant brexit policy.”

In best Nigs the Nitpicker tradition, and as he hasn’t the balls to nitpick his R-WE cohort, I’ll point out that it’s ‘coherent’. Jeeeezus, it’s a real turkey shoot in here, isn’t it?

”One cannot even be sure if they support brexit or remain.”

When will you get it into that chunk of solid bone between your ears - Brexit is the project of the Tory party, it’s not Labour’s problem? The Tories started it because they were soiling their shreddies that Spew-kip would nick votes from them in a GE, and they tried to keep it all to themselves for three years until even The Praying Mantis had to admit her single, very bad dea wouldn’t work, so she asked JC to help her out but ignored everything he and his team had to say. They wanted it, they can have it. Their problem, and theirs alone

”What sort of opposition party is that?”

A sensible one, that’s keeping out of the shit-pile The Tories have dropped themselves into and, with a little bit of luck and a fair wind, letting them render themselves unelectable for many years to come.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 11:06 AM

Your grammar school appears not to have taught you when and when not to use capital letters, however.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 12:45 PM

Corbyn and labour do not deserve capitals. I see one third of labour mps want chris williamson expelled from the party and the whip withdrawn.
From this one can conclude that the remaining two thirds are more than happy to support anti semitism.
" More than 60 Labour MPs have signed a motion formally seeking to have the whip removed from Chris Williamson in a renewed attempt to put pressure on Jeremy Corbyn over the decision to readmit the MP to the party. The move came a day after more than 120 Labour MPs and peers led by the deputy leader, Tom Watson, demanded Williamson be ejected for suggesting the party was “too apologetic” about antisemitism. It also followed the submission of a separate letter signed by nearly 70 Labour staff members expressing their anger at the readmission."

To claim the party was too apologetic about the allegation, while being investigated by the Equality and Human Rights Commission is definitely cocking a snoot at the investigation. Guido is producing a list of labour mps who voted and more to the point, a list of those that did not. I am sure the local constituency parties will be paying close attention when it comes to reselection/deselection.
Labour is in a bit of a tiz these days - call yourselves an opposition party? more of a mad hatters tea party with compo as the white rabbit!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 01:10 PM

Iains - The very fact you are so desperate to resort so much to accusing Labour of antisemitism,
indicates there are serious grounds for suspecting the origins and truth of much of these accusations...???

If anyone should be expelled from the party, it's that bitter vindictive hateful excessively wealthy Margaret Hodge...

What is she.. jealous and spiteful that she never became leader...?????

She would be a perfect tory ...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 01:18 PM

AS FAR AS I CAN SEE, THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF ATTACKS ON THE JEWISH PEOPLE HERE
It is antisemitic by definition to describe criticism of Israel as "antisemitic"
A reminder - these attacks on The Labour Party began within three weeks of a visit to Israel by Israel's Voice in the British Parliament 'The Friends of Israel'
Coincidence...... !!!!

Labour has no history whatever of antisemitic 'Jew-hating'.
ON THE OTHER HAND   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 01:31 PM

Williamson is only 2 years older than me.
We were near same age and cultural contemporaries back in the 1970s and 80s.
We both share the same strong life long influences
from being active participants in that era's defining anti n@zi league and rock against racism youth movement.

From his TV interviews, I am fully inclined to believe he is sincere and genuinely not a jew hater.
It is far more reasonable to see him as more likely the victim
of trumped up politically motivated weaponised accusations of antisemitism...

Of course, me merely suggesting that opens me up to the same attacks from zealots and tory oportunists...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 02:08 PM

Until somebody produces evidence of Labour attacking Jews there is no grounds for claiming antisemitism
Israel has manipulated and re-defined the term to include criticism of Israeli policy and even gone as far as accusing Jewish criticism of Israel as "Jewish self-hatred"
That says everything than needs to be said about these accusations
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 02:32 PM

I agree here, Williamson seems to be asked to prove that he is not antisemitic, rather than his accusers being asked to prove that he is. And, for avoidance of doubt, criticism of Israel is not antisemitic. Meanwhile the tories are trying to bury the much more real issue of Islamophobia within their party.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 02:46 PM

Well I think we can wait for the Equality and Human Rights Commission to rule on whether or not Labour is antisemitic. There must be grounds for intiating an enquiry, these things do not happen wily nilly. Furthermore for fully one third of Labour MPs are calling for the removal of the whip from Mr Williamson leads one to believe they feel there are some grounds for the accusation.(which is simply one of many) And let us not forget that compo has put himself in some rather exposed positions for him to be whiter than white.
1)May 17, 2019 - Hamas, the militant Palestinian terror group, praised Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn for his support of an anti-Israel rally last Sunday in central London
2)The British Labour Party faced fresh accusations of anti-Semitism amid reports that leader Jeremy Corbyn accused Britain of “conceding to Zionist forces” in allowing the creation of the State of Israel.

Corbyn allegedly made the comments in a 2011 pamphlet, written by Labour MPs Sir Gerald Kaufman and Michael Connarty, after a trip to Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.

The chucklebutty report was a farcical whitewash, hence the case being taken up by the EHRC (one hack describes the report as a cynical disgrace

Jeremy Corbyn is more than just a dimwit over antisemitism
"The Labour leader’s political prejudices – against American ‘imperialism’, Nato as an ‘occupying force’, about international finance capitalism, for Hezbollah and Hamas – are just fanning out, or feeding into, one unifying theme: an unacknowledged antisemitism"

Poor old compo has also been labelled a security risk and has wargamed for a total collapse of sterling should he ever become PM. That you could not make up!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 02:46 PM

This has never been about the Jewish people - always about Israel
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 03:06 PM

Iains - word for word the expected prefab propaganda-pack response we expect from you...

Is there a mudcat tool, like an old fashioned rubber stamper,
we can use to print over Iains more blatant posts,
in big bold red letters ...

"REJECTED - MORE OF THE SAME OLD ANTI LABOUR PROPAGANDA BOLLOCKS !!!"...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 03:06 PM

And fuck all to do with the debacle over choosing between BoJo the clown or Hunt the ****. Typical right wing smoke and mirrors and once again everyone is falling for it.

Ignore him. It's the only way.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 03:23 PM

Hamas are a political party, their designation as a terrorist organisation is still the subject of ongoing legal proceedings.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 28 Jun 19 - 03:29 PM

"There must be grounds for intiating an enquiry, these things do not happen wily nilly."

Iains - your big smarmy smear implying "no smoke without fire..."

Yeah right.. like it's not that obvious who the likely arsonists might be...

The masked suspect was seen fleeing from the scene of the fire
wearing an "I'm a Labour Party member" Tee shirt and humming the red flag...
Positive proof the culprits are Labour supporters, confirmed a passing tory witness who smelled of smoke
and had singed eyebrows...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 02:18 AM

Any news on the Conservative Leadership Contest - the thread topic?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 04:26 AM

Al, who the fuck is going to vote for Labour?

I refer you to the last general election when Labour wiped out the Tory majority. You are letting the gutter press assassination of Corbyn get to you. They are running scared which is why they are doing it. I thought you would have been wise to that.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 05:34 AM

dave, I could refer you to Euro elections when themassed bands of Farage's bonkers bastards trounced everyone.

The situation is not good.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 05:41 AM

"Funny that nowhere do the lefties congratulate compo corbyn for his sterling efforts on the brexit question."
Unlike the magnificent job the Tories have made of dividing the country, tearing their own party to shreds making the Government unable to govern and driving out major industries...... !!!!
Labour has the prioblem of still having the residue of New Labour Tories to contend with who are happy to allow a foreign power to malign their Party in order to get rid of a large majority elected leadership
Given that, he's kept his hands relatively clean regarding Brexit
He doesn't have to do too much - the governing opposition is doing too good a job of destroying their own party for him t have to do much more than allow them to
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 06:04 AM

BBC News this morning

Complaints this morning about the BBC Panorama programme last night which apparently was about King Boris's spat with his girlfriend.

Mutterings about an intrusion too far.

WTF, - we see pictures of him and the GF (who is a/his publicist!) visiting a tourist attraction hand in hand a week before. If they want their private life splashed over the newspapers to re-assure the skeptics they is a settled couple - for cynical political purposes .............

Why must the agitprop public complain about their favourite's treatment, when the media comply in the way the media inevitably do? Goddamit, the content of the row that is the subject is far more relevant to the berk's qualities suitable in a PM. Or not! As we all suspect anyway.

Loose cannon is the politest description.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 06:39 AM

I could refer you to Euro elections when themassed bands of Farage's bonkers bastards trounced everyone.

If you look at the actual figures rather than the headlines, Al, the remain parties (LibDem, Green, SNP) polled more votes and gained more seats between them than Farage's swivel eyed loons.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 07:15 AM

Reports from the international summit say that Tump is now sucking up to Russia and Saudi Arabia and virtually ignoring the views of Britain and the more moderate ones
He made a joke about Russia hacking the US elections and refused to comment on US security accusations that the Saudi Royal family engineered the murder of Khashoggi
Will be interesting to see if this has any bearing on the election of the new PM in order to keep Donald the Dickhead sweet
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 07:42 AM

well yes - but that's not how elections work. as well you knoww. its the one who wins the most seats who decides who we're doing the rhumba with.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 07:49 AM

Not for the conservative leadership election, Al. Which is what we are talking about. It's the one who can convince most old, middle class, male, white Tory party members that gets the top job.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 07:51 AM

That'll be the billionaire bully who's destroyed Scottish sand dunes of bio habitat importance
and been allowed to get away with it...

Where next on our tiny island of USA arse licking tories with grand delusions of independent sovreignty...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 08:01 AM

52nd state of the Union perhaps?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 09:53 AM

Al - the labour party is f@cked while it tolerates wealthy old personal power base builders like Margaret Hodge..

She seems far more concerned about clinging onto her empire within the party at all costs,
than actually winning a general election.

She's firmly convinced she's untouchable.

Hodge has completely lost sight of the reason and purpose of the labour party.

Being as far removed from the working class, and as much use, as any tory grandee...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 10:08 AM

"Margaret Hodge"
NOT THE ONLY ONE, OF COURSE
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: The Sandman
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 11:49 AM

ok, what happens if Farage is the next prime minister ?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 01:57 PM

Doubt it - nobody world be that stupid.......... mind you !!!!
If the Brexit Party gain more ground that will split the Tory Parliamentary numbers right down the middle and they will no longer have significance as a major party
Brexit has a snowball's chance in hell of becoming a major Party - the fiasco that was Ukip has proved that beyond any doubt
It was predicted that Brexit would destroy Britain - it looks set fait ro destroying Parliamentary Democracy
Hopefully the very depressing 'Years and Years' was just someone's wet dream
im Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 02:18 PM

Question.

Is the Brexit party even considering fighting a general election and if so are they going to find 600 plus candidates.....











of any quality

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 03:46 PM

ok, what happens if Farage is the next prime minister ?

Doubt it - nobody world be that stupid..........

History is not on our side.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 05:29 PM

I suppose we could get Hamas to chain David Carter to a radiator for three years - dunno what else, see if they can convince him that they are terrorists.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 05:50 PM

Margaret Hodge is one of the most dishonest and despicable people it's been my misfortune to encounter. Her record In public life (do look it up) is more than disreputable, to the point of being downright scurrilous. A disgusting woman and a disgrace to the Labour Party.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mr Red
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 06:14 PM

Jeremy Corbyn will not be our next PM, or even the one after that. If the Tory & Labour parties want credibility that will win an election they must first wind back the clock, and unmake a decisive decision each.

1) Don't give a back-bencher who holds polarised views on other countries politics as a substitute for visible views on his own bloody country, the job of leader.

2) Take Cameroon's dick out of the pig's head and inject the the simple truth into his tiny brain - "don't go to the public to find a solution for your own divided party".

King Boorish will be PM and a bad one at that. Hunt the cunt will be an almost reasonable PM, in the context of a total mess, anyone but Boorish would. But in these interesting times prediction is useless. I hedge my bets. They both will serve one after the other.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 06:17 PM

By all means condemn Hamas and Hezbollah. They suck. I'm the first to admit it. They are not very nice. But do be aware of why these organisations came into being in the first place. A time when nobody was standing up for the Palestinians in the face of repeated Israeli regimes' repression, including those massacres at Sabra and Shatila. Their original raison d'être was protection of Palestinians. The fact that the so-called peace process, for decades, has been a total sham, thanks to racist regimes in the US and Israel, supported by lackey governments in the UK and elsewhere who help to bankroll Israel's military and who unconditionally support Israeli regime outrages, has alienated the factions that support the Palestinians, should be taken into account before you resort to ideological condemnation.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 12:55 AM

To be fair to all parties. You have to have something to negotiate with. And Israel is surrounded by countries whose leaderships have gone from Soviet Imperialist (in Nasser's day) to Islamic fundamentalism, Arab tribalism, and arrogant Monarchy. These are not easy people to deal with.

I dislike the sneering at Israel. I'm not Jewish. I don't see attempt to understand their predicament. I hear a lot of resentment of Israel's very existence.

And frankly I see a lot of the denial of antisemitism as disingenuous. It cames from a far left faction who see it as their duty to dis anything they see as American Imperialism.

The State of Israel happened because of what happened in Europe, because of the attitudes much in evidence in Russia. Perhaps crude surgery but highly necessary.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 01:17 AM

May be nowt but internet rumour...???

brutal criminal fanatical Russian Jewish mafia are now infiltrating & influencing Israel govt
and turning it even nastier...?????










//

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 04:00 AM

"Jeremy Corbyn will not be our next PM, or even the one after that"
It's hard to see who will be (in the long term) if he isn't
He is the only politician on the scene today with a desire and th makings of a policy offering a genuine alternative to what has gone before

Cynisism and distrust have always been a part of the electorate's attitude towards those they vote for - Brexit has driven that to new highs with parties that can't even agree with each other in Parliament
The latest to come out of Westminster is a plan to immediately oust the new PM if he/she attempts to drive through an unfavourable Brexit - a built in vote of no confidence
When has that ever happened ?

Corby was elected leader by a grass-roots majority who wanted genuine change - a return to the principles that created the Labour Party   
If he follows through on that one, he deserved to be PM

He's not charismatic (TBTG) - political charisma sent millions to the extermination camps during my life time (just) - the nearest we ever got to that was watching our PM climb into bed with a mass-murdering South American Dictator.
Politics desperately needs policies based on principles and humanity which represents all the people and not just the privileged and successful - not superstars
The present and growing imbalance in society is not just unfair - it's a waste of talent and potential
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 04:04 AM

Or put Big Al in a hotel someone blows up. The past is the past, and many groups who used to be considered terrorists now form governments, which we, often reluctantly, regard as legitimate.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 04:09 AM

Time perhaps to remind everyone that this thread is about the Conservative Leadership Contest.

An article in todays on-line Guardian suggests that even if Johnson were to be voted in a leader of the Conservative party that does not necessarily mean he would enter number 10 as a small number of Conservative MP's not supporting him would mean he did not command a majority in the House of Commons and therefore could not form a government.

Interesting times.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/30/boris-johnson-might-never-enter-no-10-if-mps-withdraw-support

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Mr Red
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 04:28 AM

The only safe prediction we can make, about current politics, in the world, in the UK, in either two erstwhile (sic) significant parties, or even the leaders thereof, is:


Expect the unpredictable.


And FWIW Theresa May will be judged by political analysts in 100 years time as "the sane one", "the one that delayed the lunatics taking over the asylum". I just wish I could be around then to gloat about being right.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 05:31 AM

The present and growing imbalance in society is not just unfair - it's a waste of talent and potential
Jim Carroll

couldn't agree more.

Strangely enough, Boris might be the key to Jeremy's ultimate success. People tend to like someone with gravitas as PM.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 05:38 AM

A new ‘Get Corbyn’ fake-news story has emerged over the weekend, put out by the Murdoch Lie-Machine, that JC is becoming mentally and physically fragile.

They’re absolutely terrified of him, aren’t they?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 06:00 AM

"They’re absolutely terrified of him, aren’t they?"
Petrified
I get the Times (for Codeword) Murdoch's minions have produced what counts as an obsessive hate campaign against Corbyn since he appeared on the scene
Their cartoons out-grotesque those of Punch aimed at the starving Irish by miles
Amazing what progressive policies evoke when the status quo is genuinely challenged
"People tend to like someone with gravitas as PM."
Brits tend to, I think - can't help both the physical and mental similarities between Boris the Braindead and Trump the Thug - wonder if Boris likes golf !!!

I was lucky enough to have seen both Michael Foot and Tony Benn speak publicly on several occasions; (shared a platform with Benn once)
Neither could be described as 'personalities', but the passion and trustworthiness of both left you walking on air
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 07:23 AM

Rather than benefiting from the Tory meltdown, Labour has put its own dysfunction on full display. It too is deeply split on Brexit.

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/editorial/the-irish-times-view-on-british-labour-s-troubles-the-jeremy-corbyn-effect-1.379801

" His lack of intellectual curiosity, his intolerance of dissent and his doctrinaire faith in ideas he formed in the 1970s leave him ill-equipped to lead a major party, let alone a broad church like Labour. Time and again, on big issues – Venezuela, Russia, Syria, and many more – Corbyn has got it wrong. Most damning of all, however, is his mishandling of the Brexit debacle. Labour members hate Brexit and want a second referendum. Yet the leader who made a virtue of obeying the membership on all matters studiously ignores them on the biggest issue of all. That is because he, a eurosceptic, wants the UK to leave the EU."

Just not what the hard left labour mudcat luvvies wanted to hear, and just look who is saying it!

Luvvin it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 07:36 AM

"Luvvin it."
A quote from an unnamed article which studiously ignores all the other views in response to the article
Unlike the majority of the British Press, the IT gives space to a spectrum of views, from left to right and its letter pages echo that democratic approach to media access
Quiting one writer because he/she corresponds to your rightist vies is harking back to your total reliance on the criminal blogger Paul Staines - just as meaningless
One of these days you'll learn to put together your own thoughts (if they exist) rather than trawling the web to find somebody to speak for you

Far from "ignoring the membership" Corbyn has fought desperately to cater for all the membership. including the New Labour ullage
If he didn't, Labour would end up like the now totally divided Tories with its backbiting, in-fighting and clandestine coup-planning
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 07:53 AM

Tories knackered and BrexShit a complete debacle? “Look over there - Corbyn, Labour!”

Distraction tactics from clueless Right-Wing dimwits.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 08:03 AM

Of course Corbyn has been one of your despised Brexshitters - long before Boris or 'unt.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 08:14 AM

Interesting interviews with the leaders of the two main Unions underling the problems Corbyun is facing
McDonald says he is frustrated at Labour's Brexit approach, McClusky says Corbyn is doing his best to unite all the views in the country into a workable policy
Given the circumstances, the latter makes sense to me
JIm Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Iains
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 09:00 AM

The quote is from the Irish Times article. Do try to get the facts right before disparaging it. Guido never makes elementary mistakes like that!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 10:33 AM

well Thatcher wasn't firing on all cylinders. several of the top chambers missing.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 10:41 AM

Mr Jeremy C Hunt now says he is prepared to tell business owners whose businesses go bust because of his mad no-deal brexit plan that its all worth it. Easy to say when your fortune is already made and stashed away safely overseas. I am beginning to think that Boris is actually the lesser of two evils here. Hunt is just playing the hard man with other people's lives as collateral.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 11:17 AM

"well Thatcher wasn't firing on all cylinders. several of the top chambers missing."
She certainly would have made up a winning hand in any card game alongside this pair of jokers
JIm Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 11:41 AM

”Of course Corbyn has been one of your despised Brexshitters - long before Boris or 'unt.”

Doesn’t change the fact that it’s a diversion-tactic used by the Right whenever they’re in the doo-doos. So your point is...??

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 12:00 PM

wiki: "He [Hunt] is a distant relation of.. Sir Oswald Mosley."...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 04:12 PM

From: Raggytash - PM
Date: 29 Jun 19 - 08:01 AM

52nd state of the Union perhaps?

Where is the 51st state?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Stanron
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 04:22 PM

Wasn't the 51st state in Liverpool?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 04:31 PM

Some sources would have it - incorrectly, of course - that there are already 52 states in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 04:48 PM

The point is of course that Corbyn would have made a far more fearsome negotiator than anyone the tories can field.

He believes in Brexit.

Not what the Corbynistas want to hear....but I think think he could look Junkers and Tusk in the face and say, no deal - and they'd know he meant it.


And they wouldn't want that - no other country in Europe will be daft enough to pay their wages.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 11:00 PM

So what does that have to do with my point, which was that the rabidly-Tory, pro-Brexshit media are, once again, attempting to draw attention away from the Tory Party’s civil war and the impending disaster of BrexShit by impugning Jeremy Corbyn’s mental and physical health?

SFA, as far as I can see.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 30 Jun 19 - 11:10 PM

Apologies - should have been “And the impending disaster, for ordinary people, of BrexShit...”

For the media-barons behind the peddling of this diversionary fake-news will of course, being amongst the tiny cadre of immensely-wealthy, largely non-dom tax-dodgers, who dreamed up the BrexShit project for their own benefit and have controlled it at every step, it will be anything but a disaster - it will be of immense financial benefit to them, whilst the ordinary people, whom they have brainwashed with their mendacious anti-EU propaganda, will be left to pay the bill.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 02:28 AM

"He believes in Brexit."
No he doesn't Al - that implies he has thrown in his lot with Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage
He doesn't trust organisations of Capitalist states like the E.U. - different thing altogether
I don't trust them either - not after the way they attempted to manipulate internal Greek politics during their crisis, but until something better comes along they're the best thing on offer as far as I can see.

"Wasn't the 51st state in Liverpool?"
According to Robert Carlyle and Samuel L Jackson, it was !
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 04:52 AM

He voted remain. I don't know how many times I have to say it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 05:03 AM

From Nigel "Where is the 51st state?"

Question just for you Nigel.

Have you ever actually contributed anything regarding the actual subject to any of these debates.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 05:35 AM

Of course he has, Raggy - he’s given us plenty of bloody good laughs! :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: DMcG
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 05:39 AM

I see according to the Guardian "Brexit: both Tory sides play down no-deal risk after business alarm". It is a difficult trick to balance 'we leave Do or die' with there is only one chance in a million of no deal, isn't it.

However, I see both sides are simply asserting the EU will give us what we want, so not much sign of reality impinging on the candidate's thoughts.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 05:45 AM

Au contaire BWM.

He may have given you a laugh, sorry not my sort of humour, but I cannot recall one contribution on the actual subject matter.

Anyway back to the leadership contest. It would seem that both Hunt and Johnson are back-pedaling on their previous comments about a no-deal outcome after business leaders expressed disquiet about it.

It would seem they will say absolutely anything to get a grip on the power ............ except tell the truth that is.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 08:00 AM

I've said it before...

The tories are the party pro business that don't give a shit about British businesses...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 08:21 AM

I've said it before...

.. and I'll say it again..
this time in the right order that reads a bit better...

The tories are the pro business party that don't give a shit about British businesses...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 08:31 AM

...except their own.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 11:43 AM

Do you think the late Tony Benn would have thrown in his lot with Boris Johnson.

Believing that membership of the EEC is bad for England doesn't make you a tory.

To say the media is pro Brexit is delusional. The media are middle class remainers to a man.

Its just yuou BWM who is intolerant of any view other than your own.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 12:03 PM

Al, I’m not sure where that came from, but I’ll answer the two points that are intelligible...

”To say the media is pro Brexit is delusional. The media are middle class remainers to a man”

Not according to this article....

”it’s just you BWM who is intolerant of any view other than your own”

No, I’m intolerant of those who propagate misinformation and make claims about the United Kingdom and European Union that do not, in any way, represent the UK and EU that I’ve lived in since 1947 and since we joined the ECM. The picture you paint is unrecognisable to me.

It’s just you, Al, who has a chip on his shoulder because you feel that life gave you a bad deal, and you’ve chosen to scapegoat the EU for the issues that were/are the responsibility of our own successive governments.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 12:18 PM

I'll just add..
.. there are loads of other valid reasons to always detest the tories..

brexit is just for the moment sneakily masking all the others,
in order to persuading otherwise sensible old working class labour supporters
to seriously consider voting for right pernicious wing parties...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 12:22 PM

[errmm.. obviously the edited draft after that should have been the one that got posted...]


I'll just add..
.. there are loads of other valid reasons to always detest the tories..

brexit is just for the moment sneakily masking all the others,
in order to persuade otherwise sensible old working class labour supporters
to seriously consider voting for pernicious right wing parties instead...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 12:44 PM

"Do you think the late Tony Benn would have thrown in his lot with Boris Johnson."
Sigh.....!
I've told you why not wishing to stay in Europe at present is neither supporting Europe nor "Throwing your lot in with Boris Johnson"
When Benn argued against joining the EU, Britain still had an industry and the means for Britain to stand on its own feet - it no longer does and the shreds of an industry we have left is rapidly dwindling away
Benn was a Socialist but he was also a pragmatist perfectly capable of working out why this decision to leave was taken for all the wrong reasons - it was based on getting rid of immigrants, which Benn would have walked over hot coals before he'd have supported that, for starters
Feel free to disagree with my arguents al, but please don't distort them
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 01:16 PM

If this makes me ‘intolerant of any view other than my own, I’m in very good company, and I cheerfully plead guilty...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 03:47 PM

Hunt's comments were absolutely disgusting. Playing the hardman by throwing away the livelihoods of others. Simply to placate the hard right of the tory party. Utter, utter disgrace. I think now that Johnson, unbelivably, is the lesser of the evils, he might well plan to throw us all under a bus, but he might well stuff it up.

Also "the way to deal with the brexit party is to brexit". Not it isn't, the way to deal with the brexit party is to relentlessly expose their lies and repeat over and over what a despicable charlatan Farage is.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: The Sandman
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 05:10 PM

backwoodsman your attack on Al is a personal attack , all this stuff about chip on shoulder is unnecessary

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative LeadershipContest
From: Raggytash
Date: 01 Jul 19 - 05:23 PM

With respect Dick I think you will find that it was Al who started the personal stuff with an unfounded allegation.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 02:04 AM

Sandman, you’re not a Moderator,you don’t have any authority here, but you are a notorious trouble-maker. Al is a big boy who is perfectly capable of fighting his own corner (as he has proved here and in other threads).

Your attack on me is also personal, so I recommend you to mind your own damn business.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 04:46 AM

David,
Trouble is leavers are so entrenched that if Farage and his cronies announced that the cost of 'delivering Brexit' was the loss of their first-born they would consider it a price worth paying. They have already shown that they don't give a toss about their children and grandchildren losing the opportunities that enjoyed themselves for the last 3-4 decades.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 04:52 AM

So folks, who will lead us into oblivion - the incompetent egomaniac or the nasty piece of work? Of course as far as the tories are concerned, the consequences will be a democratic decision by 'the people' which means that everyone else, including myself are sub-human scum.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 06:44 AM

Remember the tories are the pro dog eat dog, survival of the fittest, nature tooth and claw party..

So if your business fails because of brexit,
or any of their other ideological policies,
that's hardly likely to score high on their why-should-we-give-a-shit-o-meter...

They amply demonstrated their minimal concern for factory and mining communities back in the 1980's...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 07:00 AM

Tories even aspire to send their own small children to expensive elite boarding schools,
to be processed into conceited callous sociopath bullies and perverts...
traditional leadership skill for the next generation of tory politicians...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 02 Jul 19 - 07:06 AM

”They amply demonstrated their minimal concern for factory and mining communities back in the 1980's...”

Nah...it was that nasty EU bunch wot dun it! {{insert ‘blowing a raspberry’ emoji here}}?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: peteglasgow
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 03:57 AM

i'm very encouraged - no matter who wins, at last an end to austerity and loads of money promised to areas that badly need it. 2 open-hearted, generous and sincere tories. rejoice!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 04:43 AM

Pete - :-D

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 06:21 AM

Also two serial-liars. Watch the promises disappear once one of them is ensconced...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 11:06 AM

hows life given me a bad deal.
i'm alive. i live in a democratic , reasonably affluent country. i'm a one hit wonder as a musician - its better than having no hits.

i've been happily married nearly 50 years.
my car will probably pass the MOT.

I'm allowed to disagree with you about Brexit. I'm allowed to express my displeasure at being labelled a Brexshitter by you BWM.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 11:36 AM

Don’t take it personally Al, it’s genuinely not meant personally - you just choose to take it that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 12:02 PM

The tories want old mates to be bickering and falling out with each other...

Simple old fashioned divide and rule...

Don't give in to the sneaky bastards...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 12:13 PM

Well I've never called anyone a brexshitter, Al, brexiteer being my favoured term. Perhaps we'll see you kicking up when those of your brexit persuasion insult us with such charming terms as remoaners, remainiacs, leftards and so on. But I'm not that bothered.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 12:28 PM

For a long time I tried to resist using the term Brexiteer, because in my view there is a distinction to be made between those who thought long and hard before coming to their decision to vote leave, using their best understanding of the facts available (and are probably well aware that what is on offer now bears no relationship to what was promised) and those who demanded to leave without any serious thought whether it was good for the citizens of the country or not (and care not a jot that what is on offer now has no resemblance to what was promised, beyond empty slogans.) The former I always tried to refer to as Leavers, and the latter Brexiteers.

However, it was a losing battle, and I think those who still support Brexit seem to be Brexiteers, based on my experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 12:46 PM

If someone who voted for BrexShit doesn’t like being called a BrexShitter, I find it impossible to feel any sympathy. Remainers certainly don’t have a monopoly on abuse - I’ve been called a Remoaner, a Remainiac, a Leftard, a Fucktard, a Snowflake, and a ‘Traitor who should be arrested, marched out, and shot for treason’ by BrexShitters.

Whilst I may have hurt one or two people’s feelings, I’ve never, ever resorted to death-threats the way BrexShitters have, on a significant number of occasions, against me (and on a forum where my true identity is public).

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 12:54 PM

Al, have you ever been called a traitor for the way you voted? Have you ever been told you should be taken out and shot? Have you ever been told that you should fuck off and live elsewhere if you don't like it? Brexshiteer is not a term I use either but I think you are getting off lightly. I have used the term brexitaliban but only to describe those who tell me if I do not like it I am a traitor, should be shot etc. You are not one of those are you? As those you support are so fond of saying. Get over it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 12:59 PM

well that's it exactly Steve.

The insults and abuse just obscure what is a really difficult subject to comprehend.

I don't much like a lot of the brexit gang, but I'm deeply dissatisfied with the EU. I don't think its its capable of reform - I'm not sure it was ever the right place for England.

20/20 hindsight is a wonderful thing, but even so - i think many of us had grave doubts and felt we were abandoning firm allies in the commonwealth back in '74, for people who were frankly dubious.

Back in the 1960's, there was a forum on our projected possible membership of the EEC in Encounter magazine, which was THE intellectual forum for debate at the time. I remember John Osborne, the playwright putting it very succinctly. He said, the EEC may start out as an economic project - but it will of necessity turn first into a legislative body and then devolve into an international power bloc like Russia and America And this will mean Germany having a nucleat deterrent. And that will be the seeds of the WW3.

Osborne may have got the particulars wrong. But the emerging of the pacific markets show that the world is not developing as anyone predicted. The sheer unpredictability of the world make this EEC totally impractical. We have no right to tell Europe how to deal with their problems, and they don't care sufficiently about our very specific problems.

you may not understand my concerns, but they are real and they are sincerely held.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 01:25 PM

Extreme remainers turned on me,
when I once expressed a little understanding for folks who voted for brexit
because they were conned into believing there would be genuinely positive benefits for all of us;
though had later reconsidered and regretted voting leave...

But more usually I see tirades of hostile abuse aimed at anyone who didn't vote leave..

It's all gone to shit.. it really has...

The richest tories don't care who they sell off our sovereignty to,
even if it destroys their own party...

They can afford to bugger off to any exclusive gated resort they like anywhere else in the world...

That's how loyal they are to GB / UK...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 02:13 PM

Anyway back to serious issues. Boris is still the leading favourite to become PM 57% and Hunt on 29%.

I notice the new EU leaders have been appointed. Can anyone explain in what way their appointments were blindingly clear, transparent and truly democratic? Convince me and I will become a remainer

Boris has struck on a winner with free ports. It could transform the NE. I wonder why the EU insisted on scrapping them in April? Seems a win win to me. Cock a snoot at the EU and bring prosperity to the north east. Magic!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 02:19 PM

"Boris has struck on a winner with free ports."

I don't drink port...

I gulped down a bottle on an empty stomach on my 25th birthday,
fell down the stairs,
and ended my celebrations bent retching over the bog...

No more tory port for me.. ever again...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 02:21 PM

I suppose the election of a prime minister by 160,000 mostly white, mostly old, mostly rich, mostly men in an electorate of forty-odd million is the epitome of democracy then, is it?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 02:27 PM

From the BBC website:

====
Reality Check verdict: It is not true to say you can't have free ports or tax-free zones if you are a member state of the EU. There are more than 80 such zones across the Union. It would be easier to take advantage of potential benefits outside the EU.

====
Can you give a link to an EU or other official document showing the EU - not, for example, May's Chequers proposal - banned these in April?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 03:33 PM

they're both really posh boys.

its a funny political party that ends up with a choice like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 03:39 PM

What if they did a job share as a double act...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 05:16 PM

Can you give a link to an EU or other official document showing the EU - not, for example, May's Chequers proposal - banned these in April?

My words were I wonder why the EU insisted on scrapping them in April?

The EU words were: European Parliament resolution of 26March 2019 on financial crimes, tax evasion and tax avoidance (2018/212
Calls on the Commission to bring forward a proposal for the urgent phasing out of the system of free ports in the EU.


http://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/162244/P8_TA-PROV(2019)0240.pdf

Section 2-11

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 06:20 PM

So the EU did not insist on scrapping free ports, then. A call for a proposal is many steps away from that. And as to why, the very paper you refers to answers that: concerns about fraud and other financial malpractice.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 05 Jul 19 - 06:46 PM

Interesting interview with John Major on BBC News Hardtalk...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 02:47 AM

From BBC:
Some Conservative members have been issued with more than one ballot paper to vote for the next party leader and prime minister, the BBC has learned.
One party insider estimated that more than a thousand voters could be affected.
Members are warned that voting twice will mean they are expelled, the Conservatives said.

One example given was when a person lives and works in different areas and joins the membership in both areas.    I have my doubts that, having failed to identify these in the first place, they will now identify them if two ballots are received. If there is a great difference between the votes for the two candidates it may not matter, but if they are within the estimated 1000 potential duplicates the result could be challenged, and the appointing of the new PM further delayed as a result.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 11:18 AM

Vote early and vote often, eh? But Tories can, of course, be trusted not to vote twice, sez Central Office. Sure. At least in Peterborough when the Tories were kicking up about postal votes it was just an MP being elected. This is the bloody prime minister of the whole country...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 11:18 AM

Some crueler folks might say..
the tories couldn't get even more f@cked up if somehow they accidently voted
Jeremy Corbyn to became their leader...

what a bunch of spivs and incompetents...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 11:46 AM

if you were a conservative, i wonder what you would make of the choice.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 11:56 AM

John Major's interview on the BBC Hardtalk is well worth a listen. I cannot recall ever seeing him so passionate about a subject, or so honest.

Nor can I ever remember agreeing with so much of what he has to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 11:56 AM

Al - check out the John Major interview I mentioned a couple of posts back...


https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0006yxz/hardtalk-sir-john-major-former-british-prime-minister

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 12:16 PM

I can't get it to work. Its not downloading.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 12:19 PM

You will be able to get it on 'catch-up' television Al.

It is worth the effort.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 02:20 PM

”You will be able to get it on 'catch-up' television Al.
It is worth the effort.”

The link worked fine for me, and it is indeed worth watching.

It’s very rarely that I find myself admiring and wholeheartedly agreeing with a Conservative but, having watched it, this is one such occasion. A thoroughly decent man, speaking the absolute truth.

Just a shame that so many are so brainwashed, or stupid, or both, to follow him.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 02:26 PM

I honestly don't remember much about him as PM..
But it's a shame he's not now...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 02:37 PM

Sorry Big Al, "if I were a conservative". If I were a conservative, I would hope that my relatives would be kind enough to have me committed to the nearest psychiatric hospital.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 02:44 PM

well he had a rough time of it as Chancellor and then PM.

it was a poison chalice. Thatch had spent nearly ten years indulging her beliefs about monetarism. all the money from north sea oil had been squandered on phoney medical retrement packages for minners, etc. as had the money saved by stopping subsidising industries.

the same old story - tax breaks for the rich, no investment in new industry or infra structure.

its unlikely anything he did would have counterracted the stupidity of the previous ten years. However what he did do was a disaster - a little adventure called the Exchange Rate Mechanism. Apparently a bloke called George Sorros did well on the deal.

Major's not a bloke with faultless instincts. Apparently Thatcher pleaded with him not to do the ERM thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 03:00 PM

Wow! That was not they grey man from Spitting Image! I agree with everything said above about the John Major interview. You really do need to watch it for yourselves but if there are a couple of messages that come across they are, the good of the country should always come above the good of the party and you cannot totally ignore the views of 48% of your electorate. Powerful stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 03:47 PM

Go on then Al, tell us all you know about 'phoney medical retirement packages for miners'. Tell us the numbers of miners involved, tell us how much money they received. Tell us all you know.









Then I'll tell you about shattered communities, local amenities shut down, shops closing, empty pubs and thousands of people with no hope, no prospects, no futures, two or three generations sold down the river with **** all help from the government.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 03:54 PM

No point, Raggytash. Al believes that the working class, such as him, are all anti-EU. It is only the rich intelligentsia such as you and I that want to stay. He has a well balanced view. Having a chip on each shoulder ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 04:04 PM

"Big Al's Chips" sounds like a great brand name...

I'd buy 'em.. and if they did potato wedges as well...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 04:20 PM

Me rich !!!!

Chance would be a fine thing.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 04:31 PM

Well I lived in Nottinghamshire. Gigging Notts, Derbyshire, Yorkshire. Country and western gigs. A lot of the places I gigged were miners welfares - most of which had a country and wesren night. My roadie was a miner whohad a heart attack down the pit. A lot of the other folkies/ musos were semi pro miners you were pretty much living cheek by jowl wuth their community. I lived in a mining village.

THeres not much to tell. Thatch was determined to close the pits after Scargill/Saltley.

She sweetened the deal for the miners by offering disability pensions. In South Wales - it was said you were bound to be disabled if you'd worked down a pit. The miners were in a rough spot (kinnock was like Corbyn now - quite unpopular and unlikely to be elected). So it was a question of getting what they could out of a dofficult situation.

As you say, shattered communities. The dodgy disability deals were part of the general chatter - like the green jackets policing the picket lines. I doubt its in any history of the period.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 04:57 PM

You should have gone to Specsavers, Al.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 05:01 PM

That's not good enough Al. If you are going to make such statements it is expected that you can back them up with solid facts.

Merely saying my cousins, mothers friend knew someone ....... etc etc.

Facts, please, facts.



Having said that I fully anticipate that you will not provide such because basically it is a fallacy.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 05:18 PM

They were not on "disability pensions." They were put on incapacity benefit in their tens of thousands (or more) for the simple reason that they wouldn't thereby appear in the unemployment statistics. A decade or two later, when they were all ageing men and women, huge numbers of them were thrown off that benefit, or its successor ESA, by Iain Duncan-Smith's resort to the French company ATOS, who pretended to employ "health professionals" whose only brief was to kick people off the benefit that had baled Thatcher out. Thousands per annum are still dying of severe illness even though they have been deemed fit for work. Do recognise Tory Britain for what it really is.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 07:30 PM

I can't see substantially that's much different from what I said. Skullduggery. A way of bribing and thinning out her enemies.

You're beginning to sound like dear old Keith. Prove that the 1st world war generals weren't a gang of homicidal maniacs. You can't! THey were skilled military commanders....


Never did ptove it to him...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 06 Jul 19 - 08:29 PM

Incapacity benefit was not a disability pension. Nothing like it. I know this because I was on both at the same time. Your post is seriously unfocused. When you want to make serious points you should choose your words reasonably carefully. Making offensive and cheap-shot remarks relating to Keith says quite a lot about you. I suggest that you try again in the morning when you're fresh.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 03:41 AM

Whats a "semi pro miner" Big Al?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 05:25 AM

David, I got what Al meant. He meant ‘miners who were, in their spare-time, paid musicians’ - ‘semi-pro’ because music wasn’t their main paid occupation.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 06:12 AM

the point is that loot changed hands under dubious circumstances so that Thatch could isolate and subborn the ranks of miners unions massed against her. And as you say, as soon as the battle was won, she stopped the payments.

As a recipient of benefits for my long term disabled wife, I have no interest in what they call the money as long as it arrives. Sometimes it doesn't - but I've never been fastidious enough to turn it down, whatever they call it.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 06:36 AM

Well for tens of thousands of people, or more, it stopped arriving. A large number died as a result. A pension never stops arriving.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 02:03 PM

You've obviously never heard of Robert Maxwell.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 02:31 PM

The exception that proves the rule: even Sir Philip Green can't manage it these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 07:00 PM

From: Steve Shaw - PM
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 06:36 AM
Well for tens of thousands of people, or more, it stopped arriving. A large number died as a result. A pension never stops arriving.

Following the numerous benefits/payments discussed in this thread, would you care to state what "it" refers to?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 07 Jul 19 - 09:01 PM

Try not to be daft. Just read the post before mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 02:32 AM

The Pension Protection Fund was set up after the Maxwell scandal to stop that kind of thing ever happening again.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 02:05 PM

Back to the thread title. A resounding summary from Boris the Blessed, the scourge of the left, darling of the right. He is the man to reclaim our sovereignty. The federalisation of Europe can continue without us.

https://brexitcentral.com/no-more-fake-brexit-deadlines-we-must-leave-the-eu-on-31st-october-come-what-may/

None of the wishy washy will we won't we of kama sutra corbyn, the only man in Christendom that can find fifty ways of straddling a fence. Hopefully it is topped with thorny wire.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 02:11 PM

I wonder how that post will look by the end of the year.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 03:11 PM

DMcG IT seems compo corbyn has been dragged off the fence by his union paymasters. Is that how democracy works for labour? The biggest checquebook dictates policy? Oh Dear!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 08 Jul 19 - 08:50 PM

whereas the the tories disinterest in material wealth is legendary.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 09 Jul 19 - 02:11 AM

Comments about Labour's Brexit policy belong on the Brexit thread, not the Conservative Leadership Contest thread. I will respond there.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 09 Jul 19 - 01:33 PM

I will direct my colleague to the answer previously given.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Jul 19 - 01:50 PM

This is the piece of work who will almost certainly be our next PM.

What a talentless, charmless, graceless, useless twat. The Tory party will get what they deserve.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 10 Jul 19 - 02:21 PM

Johnson has shown that he is totally unfit to be appointed as Prime Minister, and hopefully May, as a small way perhaps of repairing her legacy, will advise the Queen accordingly. Meanwhile the traitor who leaked the ambassador's confidential comments needs to be identified, and banged up or more. Isabel Oakeshott presumably knows, so the first step should be to put her in a darkened room with half a dozen burly WPCs, and ask her nicely to name the miscreant.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 10 Jul 19 - 02:31 PM

Jeeeeeee-zus! The last thing I’d want is to be locked in a room, darkened or otherwise, with that foul harridan!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 10 Jul 19 - 05:50 PM

The obnoxious Oakeshott should be dispatched immediately to a bloody vivisectionist.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 02:11 PM

The obnoxious Oakeshott should be dispatched immediately to a bloody vivisectionist.

She published a story that any journalist would have drooled over. Had the government caught wind of it they would have slapped a "D" notice on it faster than you could say Tommy Robinson. She was the political editor of The Sunday Times for a period.

I wonder if you would have the same faux outrage had the Guardian broken the story?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 02:18 PM

I've just realised that the thread would be more aptly titled "Conservative leadership circus". Full of clowns and political acrobats. Shame no one will put their heads in a lion's mouth.

Oh, hang on, didn't Cameron put part of his anatomy in an animals mouth? Maybe he should be reconsidered...

:D

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 02:49 PM

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. H. L. Mencken
Labour is still trying to find a way in!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 03:14 PM

Iains - must be the tories hogging the cage and brazenly playing with themselves,
whilst lobbing their poo out
at anyone else at risk of getting too near...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 03:47 PM

If the Guardian hired Oakeshott I would stop even reading their website. Its annoying enough when the publish columns from John Bolton and Mahmoud Ahmadinijad, but Oakeshott would be a step too far.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 04:40 PM

Could you express that in a form I can understand Iains. I really haven't a clue what you are talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 04:44 PM

.. but only a right **** would say that...


ie.. my arguments are flimsy and rubbish, folks can see right through them, and me..
So I'll strike back with smug textbook definitions in as big a quote as I can,
in the hope it'll make me look much cleverer than them......
Then they'll be the biggest losers, not me...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 05:38 PM

All I'll say is that I wouldn't climb over you to get at Isobel Oakeshott, pfr...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 06:13 PM

Once again Iains ............

You fail to use quotation marks. Are they your words (somehow doubt it) or are they the words of someone else.

If, as it appears, they are the words of someone else you fail to name the person or your source.

It is VERY easy to take a part of a speech and bend it to your own agenda ............ and I have to say I won't put that past you.


................. upon reflection I doubt if you ........

Nough said!!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 06:14 PM

do what...???

I've just googled her photos.. nah.. looks too Aryan master-racey for my tastes...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 12:28 PM

DtG - imagine Johnny Depp, Jim Morrison, Tony Curtis, Vinnie Jones, Sid James,
at least two famous boy bands, a grizzly bear, and a male Thunderbirds puppet,
were crammed in the back of a small van that was suddenly hit by a high speed train...

After the result was scooped up and bagged, and specialists tried to reconstruct at least one complete face..

That might be what I look like..???

Of course I'm being modest...

But there was no more room in the van for Brad Pitt, Clark Gable, and Kirk Douglas, and Cary Grant...

..and Yul Brynner was too busy at the time getting his head waxed...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 12:32 PM

DtG's matey banter post, that I just replied to, enquiring what I look like,
has been suddenly disappeared...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 12:54 PM

Aye. I think there are server problems but I knew what you meant so I'll not bother reposting

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 01:00 PM

Oh, and my van contained John Rhys-Davies, Karl Malden and Groucho Marx :-D

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 01:07 PM

...and a bit of Shania Twain but I'm not saying which bit

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 02:23 PM

THE CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES OF AARON BANKS

The police are now considering making whistle-blowing such as that concerning teh Ambassador a criminal offence
Soon we'll be as FREE AS AMERICA
"Orwellian" as our own Tommy Robinsonite would say
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 04:11 PM

"Oakeshott is suing the Guardian for defamation of character"

What character?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 05:02 PM

Punkfolkrocker, Fawkes deals entirely in soundbites and gosssip.

He is careful however to say so little that it would be difficult to nail any of salicious gossip as libelous.

It should be remembered that he is only a blogger. One that appeals to people who seem incapable of forming their own considered stance based on all information available.

Quell surprise!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 05:58 PM

Raggy - I long ago read up on enough about him to form a considered objective opinion on that blog and it's fans...

It's the most visible tip of a very nasty fermenting dung heap...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 14 Jul 19 - 03:13 AM

There are plenty of blogs and bloggers. Here's one about Staines which I suspect certain people will not like. Even though it is all true ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: peteglasgow
Date: 14 Jul 19 - 03:33 AM

i just watched a commentary on the tory leadership contest by jonathan pie on facebook. splendid and splendidly angry. apologies, i lack the competence to provide a link here and ask if anyone else could...cheers

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Jul 19 - 10:41 AM

HE'S VERY GOOD PETER
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: peteglasgow
Date: 14 Jul 19 - 12:32 PM

thanks for that, Jim - but it isn't the film i was on about. a more recent one focuses on just BJ and Hunt.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Jul 19 - 12:50 PM

Easy solution, put a good half an hour aside
and enjoy working your way through his most recent videos..

The best laugh, and the most sound sense on UK politics at the moment...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Jul 19 - 12:53 PM

Pie

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 11:44 AM

Has everyone given up on who will captain the sinking ship SS Brexit then? I would have thought our resident right singers at least would show a bit of intetest!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 11:49 AM

Boris and the Brexiteers (great name for a 1950s group, I think) seem to me to be inspired by "The Bellman's speech in "The haunting of the Snark".

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 11:49 AM

a right singer...???

that'll probably be Morrisey...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 11:52 AM

The Hunting of the Snark, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 12:32 PM

I had not read it before DMcG but that speech sums up his plans and leadership skills perfectly :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 01:57 PM

a right singer...???

that'll probably be Morrisey...

Well it sure as hell will not be Bono!

Meanwhile the swamp is draining. The posturing pompadored popinjay Duncan has resigned. Remarkably, Duncan wanted Bercow to hold an emergency debate on the “merits of the newly chosen Leader of the Conservative Party” and whether he can form a Government.
Strange behaviour to resign as foreign minister in the middle of one of the biggest British foreign policy crises in recent times. No doubt his husband will console him.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 22 Jul 19 - 05:23 PM

What a surprise. Homophobia to add to the list.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 03:28 AM

Even for you Iains, thats a low post.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 04:02 AM

"Even for you Iains, thats a low post."
A level that will continue while people respond to his string-jerking
He has little else to offer - certainly not intelligent argument
It takes a special level of mindset to be gleeful over a crumbling administration at a time when the country needs leadership and it looks like the patients look like taking over the asylum
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 04:26 AM

Getting back to the leadership: Alan Duncan's request for an emergency confidence vote to determine whether the chosen leader is acceptable is interesting. Granted, it is without precident and probably mischievous. But there is still a case for it. When someone is leader of a party and that party is then elected the public and hence the house can be assumed to back that leader in some general sense. That is not there when a party leader changes during a sitting. So there is a reasonable case for a confirmatory vote. When a party has a clear majority in the house that would be symbolic rather than of practical significance, but when the party has a thin majority or is a minority, it is be no means so clear. Certainly it would be a boost for the new leader if they had the backing of the house as PM not just their own party as party leader.

So the debate won't happen, but I think there is a good case that it should always happen on a change of leader mid session.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 05:25 AM

In deference to Mr Duncan's wishes I will call James Dunseath his civil partner rather than husband. (Elton John has no such problem with his husband John Furnish)
"Alan Duncan does not like using the language of marriage to describe his forthcoming civil partnership ceremony. For example, he makes clear that he is 'committed" to his partner, James Dunseath, rather than 'engaged" to him.

"This is not a 'wedding'," he says. "You really just go into the register office and sign. There will be no Elton John-style stuff: no white suits, no John Inman, no flouncing about."
He reserved his flouncing of his pampered pompadour to Parliamentary occasions no doubt.

Judging by the way some here jump allover the non distinction between partner and husband, I get the impression some here are uncomfortable with same sex partnerships, they are homophobic in fact.
I have no such qualms. A person's sexuality is something that is as much a part of them as their skin colour or eye colour and equally as outside of their control. To put it bluntly, they are born with it. Until society is more accepting gays have enough problems to contend without a minority here making an issue of it. You should be ashamed.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 05:35 AM

Gender issues have no place here
It is of little surprise that homophobia is one of the badges of identification of this troll
Ae the Mods asleep at their post ?
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 06:48 AM

The Tory chap on Newsnight last night parroted out five or six times that Johnson, if and when in post, will "have a mandate" to see brexit through. He forgot to mention that the "mandate" will be provided by a few tens of thousands of mostly white mostly rich mostly men. Or that he will be in charge of a party that failed to achieve an overall majority last time out. I don't suppose we'll notice his premiership being informed by the humility that those uncomfortable facts should provoke.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 06:50 AM

We could either say....

a] The tories have always had the most gay MPs,
whilst being at the same time the most homophobic of all UK major parties.

or..

b] Is it a plausible possibility the tories have always had the most gay MPs,
whilst being at the same time the most homophobic of all UK major parties ?

spot the difference...???

At least one mudcatter here, persistently willfully states opinions and wildly untrue accusations as fact...
Why...??

Because it works so effectively for role models such as Donald and Boris...???

The rest of us here take more care never to do this,
having more respect for objective reality, truth, and the intelligence of the mudcat community.

Though on ocasions it may be fun and justified to resort to such blatantly dishonest cynical tactics,
when fighting fire with fire.
As long as it is done tongue in cheek for a laugh;
and there is more than a grain of truth in such widely sweeping statements of opinion as fact...

Ie.. the tories have always been a secretively closeted very gay party,
and make it as difficult as possible for their members to come out in public...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 07:16 AM

The Blond Buffoon got it, as expected. Anyone fancy running a book on how long he’ll last?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 07:20 AM

Many congratulations to @BorisJohnson on being elected leader of Conservatives - we now need to work together to deliver a Brexit that works for the whole UK and to keep Jeremy Corbyn out of government.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 07:22 AM

And what pray has happened to hackney abbott???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 07:28 AM

There is no such thing as a ‘Brexit that works for the whole UK’. Brexit is about one thing, and one thing only - enabling a tiny cadre of immensely wealthy, largely non-dom, partly non-British individuals to continue their tax-avoidance rackets without scrutiny under the new EU anti-tax-avoidance regulations. They give not one jot how it will affect the rest of us and, as always, it will be us picking up the bill.

You, like the other Tory-servants and BrexShitter nut-jobs on here and elsewhere have been well and truly had.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 07:31 AM

Funny the tory obsession with demonising one frail looking old man.

It's almost as if some of them actually forget there are many thousands of other very diverse folks in the Labour party,
not just him...

..reminder/hint.. It's not called the "Jeremy Corbyn Party"...

Are your lot called the "Boris the Buffoon Party"...???

Though, sadly that's how the rest of the world will now regard the entire UK...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 07:38 AM

And in the words of Jesse Winchester, now that he's there he will find out - "nobody told me about this part" actually being PM is a far cry from just wanting to be PM!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 07:45 AM

Bonz - he just wants to tick it off his wish list, and have it on his CV...

How long do you give him in the job...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 07:51 AM

I don't know, no doubt his cabinet will consist of bores who will not take their jackets off in hot weather!!! I went to our mp's garden party on Sunday and pissed off a couple of tories by announcing that I would like to see Hilary Benn as PM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 10:36 AM

Well no surprises. All hail King Bojo.
What sort of brexit will he deliver I wonder?
or
will he play dangerously? enable a general election? prorogue parliament?

There will be enough hot air expended to quadruple global warming before anything sensible transpires.
I see an abject failure to deliver brexit and a general election sooner rather than later. Not that Labour would welcome such a gift, it would be more a Trojan horse for them. This is a shame because they have an Augean stable already prepared.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 10:41 AM

..and the award for smug middlebrow clichés of the day goes to...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 10:49 AM

Nice summing up from Haaretz just now
"Analysis Boris Johnson Will Be the Weakest British Leader Ever
The Conservative politician may be the most pro-Israel prime minister in history, but the U.K. has never wielded less power on the world stage"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 11:19 AM

but the U.K. has never wielded less power on the world stage"
You (and Haaretz) could be right. But that is the position that he finds himself in, following on from Theresa May. Whether he will be able to turn that position around, or will allow it to deteriorate, is another matter, and remains to be seen.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 11:21 AM

Just like Trump, those who were able to vote knew what his weaknesses are (many and varied) and voted for him anyway. It's time for a song. How about The World Turned Upside Down.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 11:28 AM

Trump and Johnson: two cheeks of the same unwashed arse...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 11:41 AM

..as long as both topple over into the dark abyss of the arse crack..

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 11:50 AM

As for Boris being a leader to live with.. not yet...

There's still a fair possibility he may celebrate too hard tonight
and end up being arrested, or suffering a bizarre inebriated accident...

He should definitely stay away from binbags and oranges - that old posh tory favourite peccadillo...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 11:54 AM

but the U.K. has never wielded less power on the world stage"
You (and Haaretz) could be right. But that is the position that he finds himself in, following on from Theresa May. Whether he will be able to turn that position around, or will allow it to deteriorate, is another matter, and remains to be seen.

That does sound rather like an attempt to blame Teresa May for everything that may go wrong. But it is certainly not the case for Brexit, because we have heard many times "Nothing is agreed until everything is agreed." So if there is an agreement, it will be Johnson who agrees to it, however much May was involved in drafting it. It is his responsibility for whatever arises from any deal he accepts. not hers.

No deal is marginally less clear, because part of the problems that "may" arise (to use Nigel's formulation) are due to our being woefully under prepared. May does take some blame for this, but since Boris Johnson assures yet again how low the level of pain will be, he would not be able to blame her for lack of preparation with any credibility, in my opinion.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 01:14 PM

There is an element of karma in the fact that the Bollock-Brain whose meaningless ‘Take Back Control’ and £350 million lie on the red bus dropped us into the Brexit Shit-pile will finally have to grow a pair of balls and take responsibility for making it happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 01:37 PM

‘Take Back Control’
Not unlike 'Make America Great Again' and pretty much out of the same stable
Murdoch's Tory bum-wipe Times predicted Johnson's winning this morning as a pair of clown' feet entering Number Ten and in the clips half an hour ago he comes over as a fast-talking stand up comedian
The next few weeks will be interesting
At least Maggie could hat a new haird and a makeover
Hard to know what a leader whose nickname (BoJo) screams "clown", can do to be taken seriously
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: robomatic
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 04:38 PM

We get BBC through the Alaska night and sometimes I wake up with her Majesty's radio service moaning in my ears. This morning they were trying to capture the announcement of the 'election' live, but it came a few minutes too late. And, a few minutes later I did hear Boris cheerfully addressing his party and asking if they were even 'remotely' daunted. I can't see y'all on the eastern side of the pond, but I'm going ahead and saying I think many of you ARE 'remotely daunted'.

GOOD LUCK. The ocean has a bookend of buffoons.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 04:52 PM

Oh dear, it doesn’t seem to be starting very well for The Downing Street Clown.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 04:58 PM

Boris Johnson certainly wants the position and the prestige, but based on the evidence over the years, he is far happier as a performer than actually doing anything. He is often said to be uninterested in detail, so he will leave that to his underlings.

So I think we need to be rather more concerned with where Priti Patel , Liz Truss, Raab and one or two others end up, rather than Boris as PM as such.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: robomatic
Date: 23 Jul 19 - 08:31 PM

Hey guys, want to borrow our Constitution. Ours is written down but we don't seem to be doing much with it nowadays!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Mossback
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 09:12 AM

God save the United Kingston.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 09:30 AM

Now Boris is in control.. it'll more likely be the United Kinkdom...

Fetish gear shops will thrive under a new old etonian tory regime...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 09:32 AM

BORIS TAKES OFFICE
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 09:32 AM

BORIS TAKES OFFICE
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 11:05 AM

BORIS TAKES OFFICE.

Most of us understood that yesterday. Did you miss the party?

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Raggytash
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 11:08 AM

Fact: He didn't take office until today.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 24 Jul 19 - 01:47 PM

"Did you miss the party?"
Didn't say when the link was from - wouldn't have gone yo the party for fear of sitting on spilt wine and beaten-up girlfriends (seems his style)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 02:52 AM

"Iron Ladies"
Lady's - surely - as you consider typos so important
Rule number one - never post after closing time

Bojo the Clown and Mad Maggie - a dream team made in the deepest reaches of Hell, when you recal her particular deadly take on democracy

NICE SUMMING UP OF TORY DEMOCRACY HERE though I have little doubt it will be met by the stream of bully abuse that is ususally the Tory responce to such home truths, which only serves to underline their accuracy, of course.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 03:00 AM

A lengthy, but very interesting piece from The New Statesman sums up the entire Bozo the Buffoon debacle very well.

We live in dangerous times, very dangerous indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Stanron
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 03:21 AM

Jim Carroll wrote: "Iron Ladies"
Lady's - surely - as you consider typos so important
Rule number one - never post after closing time

Joy of all joys. Jim Carrol criticises some one else's typos!

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 03:38 AM

Not a practice that I usually indulge in Stanley (I am totally aware of my own failings)- but in the case of this particularly unpleasant individual, I am happy to make an exception
He uses typos as you have just used my comments on them - to avoid having to respond to the totally undemocratic and dangerous minefield that you and have turned Britain into with your extremist shenanigans
Thank you for living up to my expectations - I have little doubt that there is more to come
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 05:03 AM

"Thankfully, it won't last."
Johnson's purging of the moderates inn his party is being compared to OPERATION HUMMINGBIRD in this morning's press
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 05:47 AM

From Mike Harding on FaceBook today...

”The Circus is coming to a town near you very, very soon. Bannon is the Ring Meister and The Clown is his best boy - at present filling his cabinet with "useful idiots". Don't be fooled - this is a right wing coup. Your NHS will go, the schools, (but not the public schools) already part privatised will be completely turned into "academies" and "free schools" over which you no longer have any say or control. The Clown will spend more on the police - but only so The Circus can keep you well under control. And from across the pond, The Trumpster smiles down at his new best friend. 3 yrs ago I said Brexit was a coup and now the ring is almost closed, the lights are going on in the tent and soon the show will begin.”

Dangerous times, very dangerous indeed...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Stanron
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 06:23 AM

Steve Shaw wrote: Yet you still managed to misspell his surname. And "someone" is one word, not two. Gosh, I love this stuff...

Once again, in pursuit of petty point scoring, Steve Shaw misses, or avoids, the point of the posting.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 06:30 AM

"Once again, in pursuit of petty point scoring, "
As you did with your taking up my typos - which I did in response to Iaian's doing so - and so ad infinitum
And once again you refuse to acknoledge, let along explain the appalling mess your party is making to the Disunited Kingdom
Don't you care what a laughing stock you are making of Britain and its people?
One presumes not
You ought to be ashamed of yourselves - the whole sorry pack of you
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 07:30 AM

"Tory the party with clear leadership, clear goals and incisive government,"
In your dreams
HORSE'S MOUTH DESCRIPTION
Clear ledaership - Parliamentary dictatorship by a clown-like moron who isn't even taken seriously by his own supporters

Work and Pensions Secretary
Ms Rudd is remaining in the same job after the reshuffle. During the 2016 EU referendum she famously declared that now Prime Minister Mr Johnson might be great fun at a party, but she wouldn’t want him driving her home at the end of the night.

BRITAIN'S GLORIOUS NEW LEADER - SCREW BRITANNIA

The Tories didn't have a Brexit policy before the referendum - the decisions was made on a 'ducking for apples' basis
Common sense would be to ask the electorate to confirm their decision now they have seen the consequences
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 07:42 AM

Unlike yours, however, Stanron, mine had content.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 09:34 AM

"What is old compo offering?"

In the face of this unsurprising and long anticipated right wing coup,
it is time for Corbyn to transform the Labour Party into a real united strength in opposition
by disciplining or expelling
the most divisive, disruptive, and destabilising MPs and oficials
within the party...

This necessary exertion of authority is exasperatingly overdue,
and will be a test of Corbyn's ability to lead
a truly effective fight back against the gloating and entrenched hard right in UK politics..

.. before it's too late for all of us...

Basically, Corbyn must get tough on his enemies within the Labour party,
before he can even try to beat the tories..
His successor must learn from Corbyn's mistakes of being too soft on the malignant detractors inside Labour...

There are plenty enough good positive grass roots activists ready and able to replace
the old guard of hack self serving politicians clinging onto power in the Labour party.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 12:21 PM

Well today at PM's question time poor compo was owned bigtime.
I must thank Guido Fawkes for bringing it to my attention. 'twas a joy to behold.

https://order-order.com/2019/07/25/boris-destroys-corbyn-seven-minutes/
all in glorious technicolour so even the most diehard remainiacs cannot deny it,
The sunny uplands are a positive cornucopia of joy! I might even forgo the popcorn.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 01:45 PM

What's the record so far for the fewest days as PM...???

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 02:00 PM

"What's the record so far for the fewest days as PM...???"
I suspect it my be one for the shortest Government
The fact that our resident unimaginative blog repeater can only come up with the same old-same-old criminal paid propagandist and his slightly more intelligent pair of fellow Tories do runners whenever you ask them to justify this sick-joke of a Government is indicative enough that there ain't too much good news to be had on the Brexit front
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 02:06 PM

Johnson demolished by

LBC Listener

A 16 year old

Andrew Neil

His own party


You have to love the guy. The buffoon that keeps on giving...

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 05:03 PM

" it's become obvious that you're a plant."
He certainly has the IQ of a cabbage
Can't really imagine anybody as stupid as to pay him for doing what he does
Mind you - with the right wingers, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 25 Jul 19 - 05:23 PM

With BoJo the clown, the Orange idiot and the nicotine stained man-frog as heroes, he has enough problems. Best just left alone.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 03:34 AM

For someone who claims to be well versed in technology I find it surprising that they believe that their IP address is tied to their device. Then again, this is also someone who thinks BoJo is a good leader, Farage could be PM and that threatening the moderation team is a good idea.

I think most people have sussed him already, Steve. If he is the best that the right can offer we would have nothing to worry about. Unfortunately his puppet masters are somewhat more cunning.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 04:48 AM

The phone that can do all that dredging for bias-confirming bilge then post the bilge here over thousands of posts, do all the other things wot he does online wot are unconnected to Mudcat, yet survive five years, has yet to be invented. More bullshite.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: peteglasgow
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 05:21 AM

as there are usually just 2/3 UK 'political' threads going on on this site, would it be possible for the mods to block any poster from contributing to one of them? Or two? they would be free to post on other sites, of course, but it would be a pleasure for the rest of us if there were at least one place where we could have a reasonable conversation without frequent objectionable posts.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Iains
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 05:59 AM

I think there are many posting here that have a problem accepting:
the referendum result where leave won
where an overwhelming majority of MPs voted for article 50
Where both major parties fought an election on a leave ticket
This has meant that those people trying to carry out the democratic will of the majority are castigated, insulted and belittled by the majority posting here.
Sure you can ban people that do not toe YOUR line but the underlying reality does not alter.
It seems the leftards here would prefer to hide the truth and rely on escapism in their socialist bubble.
You are not interested in discussion,
All you want to do is sit in a circle and slap each other on the back in a mutual appreciation society.

More of the same - no debate, just torrents of mindless propaganda
Everything I post is factual, backed by links that can be checked. Would that the same could be said for many posting here!

propaganda.
    information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view.
Fact
A fact is a thing that is known to be consistent with objective reality and can be proven to be true with evidence.

I look forward to being provided with examples of my propaganda

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 06:17 AM

I tend to agree with Peter
These arguments are unnecessarily spread over a number of threads which are related
It has happend with US politics whan the situations have risen, but it might be a good idea to put more eggs in one basket
Gook luck with your trying to reason with that one Steve - pissing against a mindless hurricane, I would have thought
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 07:00 AM

I and many others know you are correct, Steve. No need to pander to the nonsense put up to derail the arguments. For what it is worth, it is very simple to get someone's IP address by inviting them to click a link. But anyone clever enough to lick Farage's arse, hero worship a convicted criminal or pick fights with site admins would be too clever to do that. Wouldn't they? ;-)

Of course they may not have a static IP or they may go via a VPN. We don't know which method is being used in this case but either is indicative of someone covering their tracks.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: DMcG
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 07:10 AM

I wrote a long spiel about IP addresses, DHCP leasing, and NAT (which means the IP address as seen by that link may not match the one your phone claims it is) but abandoned on the grounds it has nothing to do with the leadership contest.

But surely this thread should have reached the end because the contest is over? We should be either on the Brexit thread or some new one about life after the contest.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 07:48 AM

”But surely this thread should have reached the end because the contest is over? We should be either on the Brexit thread or some new one about life after the contest.”

Seconded.

Subject: RE: BS: Conservative Leadership Contest
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Jul 19 - 08:23 AM

Thirded
Jim