Let's Get Political!

[pauld]

Looks like Johnson's outlived his usefulness then and Murdoch, Rothermere and the Tufton St Mafia are lining up Gove or one of the other hard right psychopaths to take over after the local elections

[Audrey]

Tbf, he was as good as his word. The bodies did, indeed, pile up in their thousands.

[horlock07]

Looks like Johnson's outlived his usefulness then and Murdoch, Rothermere and the Tufton St Mafia are lining up Gove or one of the other hard right psychopaths to take over after the local elections

Note Gove's mention in the penultimate para on the front page, he is the chosen one!

[pauld]

Tbf, he was as good as his word. The bodies did, indeed, pile up in their thousands.

Tens of thousands in fact.

[normy]

What amazes me is that the Tories are six points ahead of Labour after all that has been fucked up by Boris and mates.

[4D]

What does that say about labour?

[Nemo]

I think it says plenty about how much any of this stuff cuts through. For the very politically interested, sure. For the masses, the vaccination programme is going well and we're getting out of lockdown and that's broadly speaking all anyone cares about. You can blame the press/people/Starmer/lizards for that, but for most people corruption and nastiness is always going to rank behind life and liberty in priorities.

Fundamentally I think the pandemic makes it very hard to judge the "success" of either party, as so much of what determines people's judgement of political parties is pretty much out of their hands - infections, deaths, vaccinations and so on. Yes, there are political elements to all those things, but a) a lot of it is luck and b) we have no real parallel universe where people can easily see whether a decision was actually good or bad relative to the alternative.

So what you get instead is everyone insisting that limited, selected evidence just happens to prove they were right all along and Starmer is useless/Corbyn's still a big problem/Johnson is magic/it's all the BBC's fault.

[horlock07]

So what you get instead is everyone insisting that limited, selected evidence just happens to prove they were right all along and Starmer is useless/Corbyn's still a big problem/Johnson is magic/it's all the BBC's fault.

[Bob's Orange]

I think it says plenty about how much any of this stuff cuts through. For the very politically interested, sure. For the masses, the vaccination programme is going well and we're getting out of lockdown and that's broadly speaking all anyone cares about. You can blame the press/people/Starmer/lizards for that, but for most people corruption and nastiness is always going to rank behind life and liberty in priorities.

Fundamentally I think the pandemic makes it very hard to judge the "success" of either party, as so much of what determines people's judgement of political parties is pretty much out of their hands - infections, deaths, vaccinations and so on. Yes, there are political elements to all those things, but a) a lot of it is luck and b) we have no real parallel universe where people can easily see whether a decision was actually good or bad relative to the alternative.

So what you get instead is everyone insisting that limited, selected evidence just happens to prove they were right all along and Starmer is useless/Corbyn's still a big problem/Johnson is magic/it's all the BBC's fault.

I think you've pretty much nailed it nemo. Let's be fair, the vaccination program in this country has been a massive success and so this is going to be a huge green tick for the govt, and rightly so. That means for a lot of people that Boris and co basically get a free ride now.

There does seem to be a large cupboard of skeletons in number 10, it will be interesting to see just how many of these will make an impact on the electorate.

[pauld]

I think it says plenty about how much any of this stuff cuts through. For the very politically interested, sure. For the masses, the vaccination programme is going well and we're getting out of lockdown and that's broadly speaking all anyone cares about. You can blame the press/people/Starmer/lizards for that, but for most people corruption and nastiness is always going to rank behind life and liberty in priorities.

Fundamentally I think the pandemic makes it very hard to judge the "success" of either party, as so much of what determines people's judgement of political parties is pretty much out of their hands - infections, deaths, vaccinations and so on. Yes, there are political elements to all those things, but a) a lot of it is luck and b) we have no real parallel universe where people can easily see whether a decision was actually good or bad relative to the alternative.

So what you get instead is everyone insisting that limited, selected evidence just happens to prove they were right all along and Starmer is useless/Corbyn's still a big problem/Johnson is magic/it's all the BBC's fault.

TBF I suspect that kind of headline in the Mail will "cut through". What I was more interested in is why and why now? The knives are clearly out for Johnson, he's served his purpose and outlived his time, he was supposed to fall on his sword in January. Certainly the Murdoch press are lining up behind Gove as are the Mail, but will the party wear that? The whole shapeshifting lizard thing with Gove doesn't seem immediately electable but I guess they're depending on the electorate doing as it's told as usual. Late charge by Patel/Sunak for the latest unelected Prime Minister to be imposed on the country?

[Batch]

another year for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Poor women, bargaining/political pawn. She must be mentally destroyed

[pauld]

Looks like Johnson's outlived his usefulness then and Murdoch, Rothermere and the Tufton St Mafia are lining up Gove or one of the other hard right psychopaths to take over after the local elections

Interesting. I'd initially assumed this was just Cummings/Gove trying to stitch the corrupt fraud up, but it seems there may actually be some truth in this, he apparently did actually say "Let the bodies pile high in their thousands"

https://www.itv.com/news/2021-04-26/robert-peston-boris-johnson-did-make-bodies-pile-high-in-their-thousands-comment

[horlock07]

Interesting. I'd initially assumed this was just Cummings/Gove trying to stitch the corrupt fraud up, but it seems there may actually be some truth in this, he apparently did actually say "Let the bodies pile high in their thousands"

https://www.itv.com/news/2021-04-26/robert-peston-boris-johnson-did-make-bodies-pile-high-in-their-thousands-comment

I understand that Gove is supposed to be answering a question in the commons about it later so who knows what he will do....

[horlock07]

another year for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Poor women, bargaining/political pawn. She must be mentally destroyed

It's bloody awful and stinks, but what we going to do when its a question of Raab or god forbid Johnson who is responsible for sorting it out, remember last time Johnson got involved his words/intervention were used as evidence against her in court.

[horlock07]

The more I see of this Binface chap, the more I like him.