As political analysis, this is bananas. But imagine if it were true: comfortably the longest period of Labour government in history. Imagine what that could achieve, and what effective campaigning could make them do, *even if* it didn’t have the leaders you would have chosen.
“A big Starmer win will destroy the Tories as a viable political force for literally a generation, as lefties we think this is bad, don’t vote for it.”
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I’ve seen the Joe Lycett bit on the Kuenssberg show and I - quite genuinely - don’t understand what he’s supposed to have done wrong, or what they expected him to do, or why it was damaging for the programme. It was fine.
Instead of saying “I think thing is bad” he said “I think thing is good” in a sarcastic way, in the context of everyone knowing that he is a comedian being asked to talk about thing. That’s… fine.
This sets out what he said and completely fails to explain why it’s bad for anyone.
Oh no everyone is reading my “Boris Johnson should resign but not for this” thread as if it’s a “Boris Johnson shouldn’t resign and in fact he is brilliant” thread.
Also it appears to be being retweeted by actual Tories who don’t want Boris Johnson to resign, and I have to say I really don’t think it’s going to fly lads.
Boris Johnson’s defence against misleading the House here is that the “No” relates to the “Can the PM tell us?” bit of the question rather than to the “Was there a party?” bit of the question. I - genuinely - believe this defence, but I suspect I am in a minority.
A couple of people have responded to this that it's still a lie, because he *did* know whether there was a party on that date, because he was there. But that doesn't mean he knew it off the top of his head in response to a question he didn't know was coming.
For what it's worth, I also think he should obviously resign - just that treating this parliamentary answer as the smoking gun is a distraction.
THREAD: The tendency to cover PMQs as a straight who won/who lost contest is understandable, but it can understate its strategic value. Keir Starmer has done a decent job on the win/loss front in his first weeks, but he’s also been able to *use* PMQs effectively.
That’s partly using it to demonstrate that he can ask the right questions and respond well and look like he’s in command of his brief and all that, which is useful in establishing himself as a leader. But PMQs can push politics and policy along too, because of what’s said there.
So far I can think of three ways in which the Starmer-Johnson PMQs clash has had real-world consequences. On 6 May, Johnson committed to 200,000 tests a day by the end of May, which he is now accountable for.
This thread from @berniekeavy is worth reading. I have my own story of being a Labour staffer witnessing a Ken Livingstone scandal unfolding, which might serve as an instructive contrast (another thread, I’m afraid, sorry).
I was with Corbyn and some other advisers (it must have been a PMQs prep session) in late 2015 when the news emerged that Ken Livingstone had said that shadow minister Kevan Jones, who had criticised him, needed “psychiatric help”. More on that here: bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-po…
As I remember it, I was the one who read the comments out to him, but I may be wrong. Anyway, Jeremy was instantly, and clearly, horrified. He could see the comments were offensive and that Ken shouldn’t have made them. He very quickly said to us that Ken would have to apologise.
It’s important, every Christmas, to take a moment to think about how completely bonkers this method of conducting a census is.
Look at the state of it: every man travels, with his immediate family, to his ancestral home, to be registered. This. Is. Mad. It gives you almost no useful data on which to base public policy, while also creating infrastructure chaos.
If you were so bothered about recording male ancestry (why though?) you could have let people stay where they live and just put an extra question on the form. This stuff isn’t hard.