General Erection Thread Two: Let's Get Johnson Out (Of Number 10)

[Leo2112]

It's happening, the Momentum ground game is working.  Send them some money here if you can, there's no time to lose -

https://momentum.nationbuilder.com/50k_in_48_hours

[chveik]

what a piece of shit

https://twitter.com/Aiannucci/status/1199237644435234816

[Kelvin]

I want to make another donation, but I don't know what the best place is to make it. Direct to Labour? Direct to Momentum? This "digital election" site: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/realchangelab  ?

[Leo2112]

I want to make another donation, but I don't know what the best place is to make it. Direct to Labour? Direct to Momentum? This "digital election" site: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/realchangelab  ?

That digital one's almost reached its goal.  I'd say Momentum - could make all the difference in being able to send more campaigners across the country.   I understand that they have plenty of volunteers in the 'glamorous' campaign spots around London, but need to be able to send more up north to those crucial red wall constituencies.

[Urinal Cake]

what a piece of shit

https://twitter.com/Aiannucci/status/1199237644435234816

Even if you believe Corbyn is anti-Semitic he should've been more honest and compared apples with apples. It's worse to be solely anti-Semitic than be a combined Islamophobic, sexist, homophobic and racist to black and brown people cunt.

Getting an OBE was the first real sign.

[Piggyoioi]

genuinely think Corbyn would of done better in the media if he dressed up in a nazi uniform last year. something the general cuntulation would probably agree with

[New folder]

what a piece of shit

https://twitter.com/Aiannucci/status/1199237644435234816

oh poor cunt suffering just as much as a dying child on a cold street fucking universe brain of intelligence

[Kelvin]

That digital one's almost reached its goal.  I'd say Momentum - could make all the difference in being able to send more campaigners across the country.   I understand that they have plenty of volunteers in the 'glamorous' campaign spots around London, but need to be able to send more up north to those crucial red wall constituencies.

Yeah, I'd been leaning towards Momentum this time. Thanks.

[ajsmith2]

what a piece of shit

https://twitter.com/Aiannucci/status/1199237644435234816

The amount of replies getting him telt and their likes ratio are pretty encouraging though. On the other hand, seriously cannot believe the man who writes all thon erudite nuanced funny stuff we all know and love so much tweets such Wile E Coyote-falling-for-a-painted-on-doorway one note idiot rubbish. It's not that he doesn't go for Corbyn or even that he believes AS is a genuine issue, (If he had appropriately thought through takes on either I'd at least listen) it's that there's no analysis or critical thought about events whatsoever, he's just swallowing the press approved talking points without question or consideration. Fucking unbelievable. Twitter really is the annihilator of minds.

[Kryton]

https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-said-britain-poorest-chavs-losers-criminals-addicts-burglars-2019-11?r=US&IR=T

Johnson, who was a Conservative MP and editor of the Spectator magazine at the time, wrote in the Telegraph in 2005 that poorer voters who live on "run-down estates," only continued to vote for Labour due to the "deluded hope of bigger hand-outs."

He added that this "bottom" one-fifth of British citizens "supplies us with the chavs, the losers, the burglars, the drug addicts and the 70,000 people who are lost in our prisons and learning nothing except how to become more effective criminals."

[pancreas]

The amount of replies getting him telt and their likes ratio are pretty encouraging though. On the other hand, seriously cannot believe the man who writes all thon erudite nuanced funny stuff we all know and love so much tweets such Wile E Coyote-falling-for-a-painted-on-doorway one note idiot rubbish. It's not that he doesn't go for Corbyn or even that he believes AS is a genuine issue, (If he had appropriately thought through takes on either I'd at least listen) it's that there's no analysis or critical thought about events whatsoever, he's just swallowing the press approved talking points without question or consideration. Fucking unbelievable. Twitter really is the annihilator of minds.

Right. It's just incompetent. He's gone from iconoclast to paltry member of blue tick hive mind.

[Urinal Cake]

The amount of replies getting him telt and their likes ratio are pretty encouraging though. On the other hand, seriously cannot believe the man who writes all thon erudite nuanced funny stuff we all know and love so much tweets such Wile E Coyote-falling-for-a-painted-on-doorway one note idiot rubbish. It's not that he doesn't go for Corbyn or even that he believes AS is a genuine issue, (If he had appropriately thought through takes on either I'd at least listen) it's that there's no analysis or critical thought about events whatsoever, he's just swallowing the press approved talking points without question or consideration. Fucking unbelievable. Twitter really is the annihilator of minds.

In Iannucci's defense I think he is deferring to Jewish opinion about Corbyn and Labour probably from people in his life. It's a sort of Liberal squeamishness not to upset people you know. I mean he could of considered the hundreds of other Jewish opinions but no listen to your bubble.

It's just a shame he doesn't seem to know or doesn't regard as highly any gay, Muslim, BAME people in his life about the Johnson and the Tories.

[Piggyoioi]

In Iannucci's defense I think he is deferring to Jewish opinion about Corbyn and Labour probably from people in his life. It's a sort of Liberal squeamishness not to upset people you know. I mean he could of considered the hundreds of other Jewish opinions but no listen to your bubble.

It's just a shame he doesn't seem to know or doesn't regard as highly any gay, Muslim, BAME people in his life about the Johnson and the Tories.

All of this is how much a group identity can sell their paranoia (whether justified or not). I've no idea about the rise of anti-semitism in Europe ( i hear its getting bad), maybe their right to be worried, but Corbyn isn't the one to be worried about, that'd be the Rightwing and Muslims.

Obviously muslim, gays and 'BAME' (cringe) people have less money and weight to swing their dicks and disproportionally effect the discourse.

[jenna appleseed]

That digital one's almost reached its goal.  I'd say Momentum - could make all the difference in being able to send more campaigners across the country.   I understand that they have plenty of volunteers in the 'glamorous' campaign spots around London, but need to be able to send more up north to those crucial red wall constituencies.

just donated. Panicked for a second they'd auto signed me up to a recurring monthly donation.

That thanks for donating gif you get is the best thing ever. Can't stop watching it and giving the thumbs up back.
https://momentum.nationbuilder.com/50k_in_48_hours

[jenna appleseed]

just re-donated in a futile attempt to counteract my mentally ill, dependent on regular medication & the NHS, living in a non-purchased Council house, mum, using her postal vote "voting for Boris". She say's she's voted for him "for all the right reasons not the wrong ones", so he can make Brexit happen,  - was slightly annoyed about not actually leaving when he said we would on Oct 31st,
and if he doesn't this time she'll "get very cross" and "send him an angry letter".

She got confused after I called her a turkey voting for Christmas (she's not a turkey because she's not having turkey).
She also thinks voting Green won't get you very far at having a real vote (she might be right there, tbh), Labour don't know what they want and he (Jeremy)'s a silly moo.
"like off that programme we used to watch, the funny one".

Fucks sake mum, you were supposed to be laughing at Alf Garnett, not voting alongside him.

fuck it, post

[greencalx]

really? quick google seems to indicate it's only party leaders who ever lost their seat

before 1900 it was much much easier to maintain your seat because you didnt have as many pesky poor people voting so I cant imagine it ever happened to the prime minster before that

Ah sorry. I had misremembered this article as referring to PMs, not LOTO.

[confettiinmyhair]

just re-donated in a futile attempt to counteract my mentally ill, dependent on regular medication & the NHS, living in a non-purchased Council house, mum, using her postal vote "voting for Boris". She say's she's voted for him "for all the right reasons not the wrong ones", so he can make Brexit happen,  - was slightly annoyed about not actually leaving when he said we would on Oct 31st,
and if he doesn't this time she'll "get very cross" and "send him an angry letter".

She got confused after I called her a turkey voting for Christmas (she's not a turkey because she's not having turkey).
She also thinks voting Green won't get you very far at having a real vote (she might be right there, tbh), Labour don't know what they want and he (Jeremy)'s a silly moo.
"like off that programme we used to watch, the funny one".

Fucks sake mum, you were supposed to be laughing at Alf Garnett, not voting alongside him.

fuck it, post

These are the voters Corbyn isn't connecting to. There are hundreds of thousands of others. In some ways he missed a trick not investing more on PR and an image consultant.

[greenman]

what a piece of shit

https://twitter.com/Aiannucci/status/1199237644435234816

Don't bother with Death of Stalin, get the original instead.

https://arrowfilms.com/product-detail/khrustalyov--my-car--blu-ray/FCD1835

[Dr Rock]

Another factor the polls aren't reflecting is the hundreds of thousands of UK citizens living in the EU. They have mobilised to vote tactically to keep the Tories out and avert Brexit, and could swing quite a few marginals.

That YouGov poll, I'd take off the usual 5 points from their Tory score, so reckon the gap could be less than 5 points right now. Anyone know how small the gap was at this point in 2017?

[DrGreggles]

One of the polls had the Tories at +16 on election day in 2017, so I'm not sure any of them can be looked at for guidance.

[Thursday]

I'm genuinely staggered at what these people who've fallen for all the anti-semitism smears think would happen under a Corbyn government. People seriously acting like it's going to be a 2nd holocaust or something. Absolutely fucking insane.

[Twit 2]

what a piece of shit

https://twitter.com/Aiannucci/status/1199237644435234816

That's the final nail in the coffin for me.

[buttgammon]

The message I take from the centrist hand-wringing is basically "we're not as gravely upset by the status quo as we should be because we do quite well in this world and we don't really want it to change that much, so we'll morally abstain by voting Lib Dem and letting the bastards stay in power." The Iannucci position is such a false one that (assuming people like that don't end up voting Labour in the end), it is tantamount to voting for more child poverty. Cunts.

[BlodwynPig]

Even satan didnt fall as far as Iannucci

[Replies From View]

Can't be arsed with him anymore.  I'm glad that his good output occurred while I didn't know his political opinions, as I can pretend to myself that his younger self is a different person.

The cut-off point can be the OBE.  He's an establishment pudding now.

[greencalx]

That YouGov poll, I'd take off the usual 5 points from their Tory score, so reckon the gap could be less than 5 points right now. Anyone know how small the gap was at this point in 2017?

This page is useful for that sort of information: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2017_United_Kingdom_general_election

The equivalent date in 2017 was 28th May, at which point the most recent YouGov had a 7% gap, so slightly narrower than now. Around that time polling was running with gaps between 5 and 14%; currently we have 6 to 15, so it seems systematically very slightly wider now. However, all of these polls can be wrong in completely new ways... but as ever, I think it's changes rather than the headline numbers that are more reliable.

And on that note, we are finally seeing the kind of movements I had hoped to see a week or two ago. No room for complacency, but I think we're now at the point where there a roughly equal chance of Tory majority and a hung parliament, and I get a sense that this view is held more widely (although the odds still favour a Tory majority at around 2/5 - I'd expect this to shorten). So hopefully people will be aware that their vote can have quite a big impact, and will think twice before throwing it away on a no-hoper. The LDs seem to be holding out a bit more than the narrative around them implies - I think there's room for their vote to drop by a couple of points in Labour's favour. Add in a shift of just 1 point from Tory to Labour and things start to look precarious for Johnson.

At the outset I thought we were most likely to see a re-run of 2017, and so far this looks to be about right. Both the Tory and Labour campaigns have followed similar strategies. The Labour campaign is perhaps a bit more professional this time round - I guess because 2017 came out of the blue, but this has been brewing for a while and there's been more time to prepare.

The Tories have surprised me by literally following the same script as in 2017. "Get Brexit done" is the new "Brexit means Brexit", and it turns out (if polls are to be believed) that people care more about health than Brexit. Johnson has tried to park his tanks on this lawn, but it seems that "50,000 more nurses" - and particularly the Nicky Morgan defence of this figure - has become the dementia tax of the current campaign. To the extent that one can judge the reception of the public at large from the narrow window of social media, it seems people understand that this epitomises the Tory's approach to this election. The most surprising thing for me is that I had assumed that Johnson would be more at ease in public and not be squirrelled away like May was during her campaign. He seems to be having the same set of stage-managed meets-and-greets with a carefully chosen subset of the public, as well as ducking from scrutiny. Again I think people understand the basic unfairness of Johnson jibbing out of a showdown with Andrew Neil, even if these interviews themselves don't fundamentally change anyone's minds about who to vote for. Given that Johnson's main weakness is trust, it seems a brave campaign decision to do everything possible to promote an image of untrustworthiness (see eg the Fact Check stunt).

The big differences this time round relate to the smaller parties. Let's take the SNP first. The Tories have tried the whole "Corbyn in Sturgeon's pocket" thing, but it looks hollow given May's capitulation to the DUP. Also gives Corbyn-skeptic Remainers perhaps a bit of comfort: having the pro-Remain SNP holding Labour's feet to the fire might be quite attractive to them. Another subtlety is that Sturgeon has effectively endorsed Labour's manifesto by saying that Corbyn's not going to jack it all in simply to refuse IndyRef2. With Sturgeon commanding a far bit of respect in centrist circles, this may have an impact.

The LibDems have been for me the most fascinating part of this campaign. They have made at least four absolutely massive errors - errors that a child of three could have anticipated. First, in making their campaign presidential. Swinson's been leader for only four months before the election was called, and consequently hasn't had been able to build up much of a following before the campaign. Thus it was her first big test, and her inexperience as a politician shows (especially against veterans like Corbyn, Sturgeon and Johnson). Relying on a leader's popularity surge in a GE is a hell of a gamble - perhaps they were hoping for a Cleggmania phenomenon, but even then, they should have exercised caution given how that turned out. Too many eggs in one basket.

The second mistake was mistaking the Euro election result as anything other than a protest vote. Again, historical precedent should have warned them there: people vote differently in different types of elections. Governments tend to do badly in mid-term locals during periods where they smash it home in the general election. There was even a local election in the middle of the 2017 campaign which had "the worst results for an opposition party since before the big bang" which was seen as a predictor for a complete wipeout at the general (actual result: 2.5% gap, and a 10-point increase in vote share on 2015). The much better strategists who run the Brexit party (and actually polled higher than the LDs in the Euros) made the correspondingly wiser decision to step back from the GE to maximise the probability of the outcome they actually want. Turns out the public are wiser than the LDs too, and treated Swinson's preposterous claim that she could be PM with the contempt it deserves.

Mistake the third. Unilateral Revoke policy. Been listening to centrist blue ticks too much, methinks. Presumably done to have something that sets them apart from the Labour 2nd ref position. Seems to be a larger body of opinion that unilaterally ignoring an election result because you don't like it isn't cricket. This has had the inadvertent effect of making the Labour 2nd ref position more credible. Whoops.

The final mistake (for now!) is their refusal to work with Corbyn in the event of a hung parliament. It should be a no-brainer: Corbyn is offering them what they apparently want (a chance to vote to remain) while Johnson is not. The LDs can play the line that they can act as a moderating force, so people who are scared by the more social democratic (aka "Marxist") parts of the Labour manifesto can have some reassurance at the ballot box when tactically voting for Labour against their instincts. They seem again to be adopting the incredible position that they will somehow be able to force a change of leadership in an election where a party has gained enough support from the electorate to be in a position to form a coalition government. Another illiberal, anti-democratic "let's shit on your vote" position.

I detect the hands of TINGE all over this. The Labour defectors to the Lib Dems seem to be anti-Corbyn over all else, including Brexit, and I think this has probably had a disproportionate impact on their election strategy.

As I said, I'm surprised that the LDs are still polling reasonably well, 13%. Though, that's exactly what they got in 2017, so maybe it's not so surprising after all. However, it's particularly hard to extrapolate to seats, because in seats where Labour are a non-starter you might get the LDs cutting through. Unfortunately, I think these will be cancelled out by the defectors who are just splitting the anti-Tory vote elsewhere.

[Sorry for length, felt the need for a bit of mid-campaign catharsis]

[BlodwynPig]

Can't be arsed with him anymore.  I'm glad that his good output occurred while I didn't know his political opinions, as I can pretend to myself that his younger self is a different person.

The cut-off point can be the OBE.  He's an establishment pudding now.

Do you think he was a state asset hired to fool people like us? Create a generation of free-thinkers who only think they think freely?

[imitationleather]

https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnson-said-britain-poorest-chavs-losers-criminals-addicts-burglars-2019-11?r=US&IR=T

ONE NATION CONSERVATIVE

[Replies From View]

Do you think he was a state asset hired to fool people like us? Create a generation of free-thinkers who only think they think freely?

Just think he's got a soothing voice so tricked me into liking him.

[greenman]

Honestly though I think Oxbridge cynicism is being exposed for what it always was, something that was actually quiet cosy with the establishment.