AsboJo got the police called to his girlfriend's flat, over a sofa-ruining drunken altercation last night
EDITED: 22 Jun 2019 15:53 by DSMITHHFX
New series Rise of the Nazis on the BBC starting 2 September. Apparently Germany was a Liberal Democracy and yet 4 years later was in the hands of a dictator with a government of murderers. Seems that it was as much about ruthless personal ambition and a desire to hold onto power by more moderate politicians as it was about extreme ideology. Just saying.
What's happening is scary.
I could see Irritable Duncan Syndrome filling Joseph Goebbels' shoes.
Fuck me if it hasn't all gone sideways. In a good way.
I'm not counting chickens yet. My rule of thumb is to ask "what would a bunch of spoilt, entitled, schoolboys do now?" It won't necessarily be clever, but it's likely to be vicious.
I just tweeted along these lines this morning:
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There will be many more twists before Brexit is resolved (inasmuch as it ever will be), but today I am enjoying the apoplectic rage of the Tory cabinet at parliament refusing to comply with their crude attempts at manipulation. It says so much about their sense of entitlement.
The vicious is getting old, beginning to look more like helpless thrashing about and self-harming. What chances do you give the "people vs parliament" shtick?
It's a hard one to call. H L Mencken wrote "No one in this world, so far as I know ... has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people." The point is that this has moved far from a question of rational argument about what is best for the UK and when we're talking about how individual psychology translates into mass action and choices then who really knows?
I think Johnson has probably lost it for many Tories, but then again, there are a lot of them that emerge into the light when an election is called. And for most of them voting Tory is a religious matter. For many more, they will simply be unaware of events and as long as the Sun and the Daily Mail bray at them that BoJo is good, they'll support him. I mean, who can believe the insanity of Jacob Rees Mogg being portrayed as a Man of the People? A multi-millionaire member of the landed-gentry whose every move and utterance displays contempt for the people.
The key problem with a pre 31 October election for Johnson's government is that the Brexit Party (so-called) will threaten to stand against them unless they adopt a no-deal Brexit policy; but if they do adopt such a policy, they will lose a small, but significant chunk of the pro-Brexit, anti-no-deal constituency. Either way they lose votes. Furthermore, nobody believes that a no-deal crash-out will be without substantial collateral damage, including damage to business, to jobs and to health & life, which will be a long term electoral liability.
Best bets for the Tories might be either to re-introduce the Withdrawal Agreement, ideally with cosmetic tweaks, but failing that, as-is, and hope that sufficient MPs are now bricking it that the balance of voting changes: or, to lose a vote of no confidence and hand the whole sorry mess over to a GNU which will be just as hamstrung as any one-party government.
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nobody believes that a no-deal crash-out will be without substantial collateral damage
I wish I shared your faith in our electorate.
It's not even just that, they think it's worth it (and presumably that it won't affect them personally so much) somehow. To "get it over with" as though No Deal wouldn't be just the beginning of a colossal fucking mess for the next several decades.
Tories helping a lot by being impressively incompetent but labour played a blinder yesterday and today. I have a tiny sliver of optimism.
I dare say that if you were a fund manager with a business in, I dunno, Ireland, there's a great deal of money to be made by short-selling shares in UK industries that rely on the EU.
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Seems like lots happened/happening - where can I find a good (but concise) summary of everything?
Depends how granular you want it. Guardian politics live is pretty good moment to moment.
Ideally I'd like Neo Kung Fu format...
I don't suppose there's an option I'm missing to view that Guardian info all on one page and in proper chronological order?
It's neater on the mobile app, where the Live button brings up all posts in chronological order and as you scroll down you can select a number of sub-categories including UK Politics Live. With the www site you have to wait until the Live categories pop up on the front page or section pages. The Live posts are again chronological, but in pages so you have to click on at the bottom of each one. It would be easy to rationalise in the same fashion as the app, but they haven't.
Looks like it's in the bag, but WWBD?