Who gets to visit the Queen on Friday to ask permission to form a government? If Hugh Grant has anything to say about it, it won’t be Boris Johnson. From The New Yorker:
The actor, who is best known for rendering exquisitely the many stages of a diffident British person in the process of making up his mind and then, fuck it all, following his heart, has decided to get involved. Grant is fifty-nine years old and turning silver. Since the election was called, in late October, Grant has been lively on social media—he’s a mite over half a million Twitter followers—tweeting about the National Health Service and describing Johnson as a “weak little Narcissus.” For the past few weeks, Grant has lent his support to campaigns in a half-dozen tight parliamentary races, hoping to prevent the Conservatives from winning a majority and finally delivering Brexit…
It hasn’t taken long—at all—for Grant’s presence to have an influence on the election. Politicians seem to have decided that a sprinkle of abashed romance wouldn’t hurt the British electorate. A few weeks ago, Rosena Allin-Khan, a Labour M.P. running in Tooting, in South London, made an election video in the style of “Love Actually,” in which she knocked on a voter’s door and enacted a version of the scene in which Andrew Lincoln, playing the lovelorn friend of Keira Knightley, silently declares his feelings to her on a series of large, hand-drawn signs.
On Monday, with the election three days off, the fourth wall—or maybe the last supporting wall—of British politics collapsed, when Johnson and the Conservatives decided to rip off the idea for their final election broadcast. You can watch the scene, if you have the strength, here… On Tuesday morning, Grant was asked about the ad on “Today,” the BBC’s flagship political show. He praised the production values but noted that one of the more affecting cards from “Love Actually” was missing from Johnson’s hands. It reads “Because at Christmas you tell the truth.”
My attention, consternation and horror have been focused closer to home as the American version of a ridiculously thatched, lying shit-goblin and his mendacious, moronic, shrieking enablers swing hammers and pickaxes at democracy. The few snippets of British election news and commentary I’ve seen recently all suggest the Tories have this in the bag.
Here’s hoping the pollsters and pundits are wrong. Even though my ancestors fled the British Isles centuries ago, I feel like I have a personal stake. The Brexit vote was a precursor to the Trump catastrophuck, and it was driven by the same malign international, domestic and cyber forces.
May this day herald the retreat of Putin-adjacent xenophobia, plutocracy and thuggery in the Old Country, to be followed by its complete and utter obliteration next year in the former colonies. Open thread!
Baud
So say we all.
germy
Jeremy Corbyn
✔
@jeremycorbyn
I have been informed that personal images from my past have been sent to some media outlets and are set to be released today.
Here’s the truth: https://bit.ly/34R4kry
germy
https://wnyt.com/politics/trump-criticizes-teen-climate-activist-after-magazine-honor/5576689/?cat=666
Kathleen
Everything you said, except my grandfather came from Ireland.
germy
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/12/its-happening-declares-jeremy-corbyn-early-uk-election-reports-suggest-longest
Walker
As bad as Trump is, I still believe we can recover. Unfortunately, I gave up feeling that about the UK a while ago.
Kathleen
@Kathleen: Forgot to add I love Hugh Grant.
R-Jud
I don’t get to vote here (I never seem to have a spare £2K to finish the citizenship process; go figure), but I passed two polling locations this morning and each had lines at least 30 people deep in spite of cold, hard rain falling. I’ve lived here (Birmingham) for 15 years and never seen that before.
The Guardian is also reporting queues up and down the country, from London to small Scottish villages.
Let’s hope it bodes well for a hung parliament, at least.
R-Jud
EDIT: Yes, it would appear this is the first time I’ve commented on the new site. Hi.
germy
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/12/trump-adviser-trump-dazed-ukraine-led-to-impeachment.html
Eolirin
We really need to do something about our media organizations.
I’m honestly not sure how either of our countries can survive, regardless of outcome in any election, when the media environment that the right exists in is so effective at radicalizing their base in a way that precludes peaceful coexistence. We have to figure out how to stop that.
geg6
My grandparents on my dad’s side were both immigrants from Britain. I, too, feel I have a stake in the outcome there. Too bad Corbyn is such a poor standard bearer. I think it wouldn’t be anything close to the Tories winning if, instead of Corbyn, Labour could have recruited Hugh Grant as leader. ;-)
Sloane Ranger
Like I said in an earlier thread, my polling station usually looks like the Marie Celeste, today when I voted it wasn’t exactly crowded but everyone who left seemed to be replaced by someone arriving.
Talking to my fellow museum volunteers and AmDrammers, people seem to be preparing for another hung Parliament. Denying Johnson an overall majority is probably the best we can hope for, so fingers crossed. Will stay up tonight until Michael Curtis speaks. His projections have been right ever since the BBC brought him on board.
R-Jud
@Sloane Ranger: I have friends who are political science academics and they are all betting on a hung parliament, too.
I wish Labour had gone with Keir Starmer or someone instead.
Joey Maloney
@Sloane Ranger: When do the polls close and when are the first results expected?
JMG
If the Conservatives win, it will be solely due to Corbyn’s amazing twittishness. Refusing for years to take a position on the most important issue for the country is beyond folly.
mrmoshpotato
@Sloane Ranger: How does a hung parliament affect the Brexit vote?
mrmoshpotato
<a href=”#comment-7510285″>@Sloane Ranger</a>: How does a hung parliament affect the Brexit vote?
PaulWartenberg
I’ve seen online reports of a rush of last-minute voter registrations of millions of under-25 voters, who are expected to lean Labour/Remain. So there’s that.
The exposure of Tory planning to destroy the British Health Care system has to count for a number of voters to switch away from Conservatives and voting either Lib Dem or Labour.
Still, the reality that the Winner-Take-All district method of electing means any split voting between Labour and Libs favors the Tories. The UK is working with an electoral system about as broken as the one we have. >:(
I will be biting my nails until tomorrow morning.
Gods help us
PaulWartenberg
@mrmoshpotato:
A hung parliament – where no one party can form even a coalition – Makes it harder for Boris/Tories to force a No-Deal vote or even a Hard Brexit vote. If Labour secures a plurality it’s likely to try and push a Second Referendum… with their own Leave plans that may not generate enough majority support anyway.
the whole damn thing is a mess.
Gin & Tonic
@germy: Those of us who’ve had significant interests in Ukraine for many years are pretty surprised too.
Gin & Tonic
Anyway, since this is a B-Crack post, I immediately thought of her on reading this.
Robert Sneddon
@R-Jud: We (well, not me personally, I just voted SNP in my Liberal Democrat marginal constituency) tried running with a right-wing conservative Labour leader a while back, Tony Blair was his name. The result was endless wars in the Middle East, privatisation of the NHS and other hate-the-poors policies of NEW!!! Labour. He’s still not forgiven or forgotten hence the distaste for Blair Mk 2 types like Starmer and Creasey who keep popping their heads up over the horizon.
Robert Sneddon
@Sloane Ranger: A hung Parliament brings us the exciting prospect of Jo Swinson helping out her old friends and colleagues in the Conservatives Party in yet another Coalition “for the good of the nation”.
Mnemosyne
@germy:
Narcissists are always surprised when they get caught and they can’t bullshit their way out of trouble like they always have before.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Ugh, what an abomination! Not saying I wouldn’t eat it, but… I loved this sentence:
Jesus, what is the world coming to? At the very least, a crust should be thick enough to support the damned toppings!
mrmoshpotato
@PaulWartenberg: Thanks Paul.
Elizabelle
If there is a hung Parliament — and may there be, if not an outright Labour win — I wish Labour would go with someone other than Corbyn. Tony Jay aside, he seems not suited to the task before him.
I was shocked there was not a clear Remain alternative in the running.
@Eolirin: Yes. That is going to be my work, even in a voluntary fashion, from here on out. Democracy cannot survive a purposely misinformed and radicalized broadcast/online environment. It is working, and very well.
NobodySpecial
The big thing I remember as a Midwesterner when exposed to New York pizza was how many reviews emphasized how thick the crust was – as measured by the number of playing cards thick it was.
I mean, I get it, it’s relatively cheap because there’s not a lot of ingredients there, but it’s not anything I’d call pizza with a straight face. More like something I’d have found in the school cafeteria twice a month, a big pile of overly greasy cheese on super thin bread.
Betty Cracker
@NobodySpecial: It’s weird, but I still miss public school lunch pizza, as awful as it was. Maybe because the other menu items were so uniformly terrible? So a pile of greasy crap on a thin sheet of bread qualified as a treat? Anyhoo, decades later, I still recall that crappy lunchroom pizza fondly! :)
schrodingers_cat
I don’t know much about British politics but according to a British friend who is sympathetic to Labour said that Corbyn just seems uninterested about Brexit. Labour is divided about Brexit according to this person who comes from a coal mining town in the north IIRC.
schrodingers_cat
@NobodySpecial: Pizza is NY is delicious, deep dish pizza is pie not pizza. Crust should be crusty and melt in your mouth.
BC in Illinois
My paternal g’g’g’parents came from Scotland. (If they hadn’t, I would be “BC in Lochaber.”]
The Scottish National Party is pleading with Scottish voters not to split the anti-Tory vote between SNP and Labour. The SNP will win the vast majority of seats, but there are some Parliamentary Seats where, if (for example) the non-Tories split their 60% of the vote 30/30, then the Tories will win with 40%. We’ll see what today will bring.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: I used to go home to eat lunch starting from grade 7. Our school was 9 to 4. With short recess at 11 for 20 min and a longer recess at 12.30 for an hour.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: Not saying you’re doing this, but it seems like a lot of Bernie haters put Corbyn in the Sanders bucket and are perhaps therefore more dismissive of him than he deserves. I don’t know enough about UK politics to have an informed opinion, but Tony does make a strong case for media bias, and having seen how that shit works here, I find it credible.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Corbyn seems like a real problem. Not the leader needed for these times, although infinitely preferable to BoJo. Whole thing is tragic.
schrodingers_cat
Meanwhile in India the ruling party is bent on destroying India for the sake of their ideology.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker:
Lieutenant Mitch Kellaway: Somebody STOLE your pajamas?
Stanley Ipkiss: [seeing Milo jump at the closet door where the stolen money is] Milo, no! I mean, uh, what is this world coming to when a man’s… *pajama drawer* is no longer safe?
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Yes, good point about media bias. You can absolutely see that. And the anti-semitism smear campaign. I think the FTFNYT might have some of that up today.
But there seems to be so much Brexit remorse, and better to go down fighting on behalf of that than … what?
I don’t believe much written in the political press. I think it’s clickbait and spin and just something to throw up on the site, a great deal of it. You can see it in US and UK outlets.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: BBC certainly has a Tory bias, but Tony Jay is not objective about Corbyn.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Yeah, news is bad. Frankly, a lot of places in the world are making the U.S. situation look fairly pleasant right now.
Tony Jay
If Labour had come out as a ‘Remain’ Party in the last Election it would have lost a good 1/4 to a 1/3 of its support across vital constituencies where many Labour voters were sucked into the Leave camp. May would have got her majority, a huge one, and we’d have already been out of the EU. Brexit would already have happened.
I’m of the opinion that would not have been very good for the country.
mrmoshpotato
@schrodingers_cat: Narrator: And that was how the Balloon Juice Pizza War began.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Entire northeast is in flames. Punjab and Kerala have said that won’t implementing the new citizenship bill. Students in UP have started mass silent protests. .
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Corbyn isn’t Bernie in that he actually was elected to lead his party. That said, this will be the second election (at least) under his leadership. I don’t know enough about British parties to know how Labour will react if they are still out of power.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
UP is a bright spot. Isn’t that the BJP heartland?
Elizabelle
@Tony Jay: And that’s an excellent point. Definitely picked up that Labour is conflicted WRT Brexit, too.
But that was that election, and this is now. I dunno. I think what’s happening to the UK is tragic. I am sorry for us all.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: It is but I don’t trust the BJP state government. And most of the students protesting are Muslim. Deoband (the school that inspired the Taliban ) and Aligarh Muslim University which was founded by one of the founders of the Muslim League, Syed Ahmed Khan. So the protests will be easy for the BJP to demagogue.
Robert Sneddon
@Elizabelle: There are several parties which are clearly Remain as in cancel article 50, not even bothering with yet another bloody Referendum. The SNP and the Lib Dems are two such parties.
The bad news is that Leave still has a lot of support in the country including in areas which are traditionally majority Labour or Lib Dem (north east England for Labour, the West Country for the Lib Dems). Boris and the Conservatives have gone full-tilt for that Leave constituency offering them their their sparkly unicorn Brexit and the true believers have rallied to his cause.
The SNP will do well in Scotland but can’t get a majority in Westminster. The Lib Dems are led by a donkey, Quisling Jo Swinson who hasn’t met a Tory she didn’t like or was willing to work under which has tended to depress their expected vote even though the party is steadfastly Remain.
Jeremy Corbyn has been threading a needle, trying to hold onto Labour Leavers and prevent them voting Brexit Party or even for the Tories. He’s mostly succeeded at this despite the calls by Fantasy Football onlookers for him to gut the Labour Party vote by going solidly Remain.
The reality is that, generally, Britain is generally small-c conservative. Voters have homes and mortgages and lifestyle expenses to pay for and don’t like paying taxes for dole scroungers and immigrants and such and they will vote their pocketbook and prejudices for Boris for that reason.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat: Gotcha. I misread your comment as saying the student protest is broad based.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: I’m so sorry about the situation in India (which am not following at all, but trust you there).
We live in interesting times. On steroids.
Gin & Tonic
@NobodySpecial: Well, I certainly wouldn’t call your tomato casserole “pizza.”
JPL
@R-Jud: Hello and welcome to the new and improved BJ.
Immanentize
@Kathleen: I hope you have maintained/gotten your Irish citizenship? You would probably be eligible. It might come in handy….
Betty Cracker
@Tony Jay: Many years ago, I remember thinking parliamentary systems were superior to the rickety two-party system in the US because factions were better represented and forced to compromise in the open. Boy, was I ever wrong. A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: The worst part of it all is learning the extent of the bigotry that exists within one’s own family and friends. Makes me feel lonely.
But my woes are nothing compared to the Muslims in India. I am afraid for them.
Elizabelle
@Robert Sneddon:
All the policies that enshrine income inequality bear fruit. People are desperate to hold on to what they had, and in many countries, wish they had the chances their parents’ generation did.
How big a role is National Health Service playing in all of this?
It’s incredible to me to learn that the volcano “survivors” in New Zealand are receiving extensive medical care that is free of charge to them. Different and smaller country, yes, but heartening to see that other countries have medical establishments and protocol that do not exist to bleed the patient — literally — dry of resources.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: I hear you. It’s awful, and sounds like much more so for you.
I would love not to know what I now know about a lot of family and friends. Social media my ass.
Tony Jay
@schrodingers_cat:
Sigh. We doing this again?
I’m pretty objective about Corbyn. His double leadership victory reinvigorated a moribund Party that had been shedding voters and members all the way through the Blair/Brown years. The policies his leadership have made possible are what the country desperately needs. But he’s not a natural knife-fighter of a politician, is far too consensual for my aggressive tastes and regardless of tonight’s result he should eventually move on to a Party Grandee position once there’s a nice, secure bench of genuine centre-left Ministers and the rest of the Blairite dross has been scraped off the Party’s shoes.
That said, “He’s just like Bernie!”, “He’s an anti-Semite!”, “He loves terrorists!”, “He should have stopped Brexit!”, ect, etc, isn’t even vaguely objective, and when people say it I’m not going to keep my mouth shut. Why should I? It’s all from the same poisoned well as the “Hilary should have gone to Wisconsin!”, “Hilary was a warmonger!”, and “Hilary stole Bernie’s nomination!” smears and I don’t see anyone here being told they’re ‘not objective’ when they push back at that.
YMMV
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: I am thinking I would take my chances with a parliamentary system.
Israel has not been able to install Bibi for a term; he’s still scrambling. Whereas we got stuck with Trump, who lost the popular vote by millions.
The GOP shows the flaw in the Founders’ system, and between the GOP and Fox News/rightwing brainwashing, we face risks they never envisioned. Oh, and money as free speech. Cuz they didn’t hear enough from the King George III coalition.
Immanentize
@Tony Jay: You go! T.J. I think of Corbyn as much more Hillary than Bernie. Trying to plan big for all the people while holding a very broad coalition together.
Couldn’t Labour have just driven around trucks in coal country with big pictures of Thatcher with Johnson to remind old Labour of their potential future?
Sloane Ranger
@Joey Maloney: Polls close at 10PM. The 1st results will probably be in about an hour later but these will be 2 or 3 safe seats who race to be first to declare every election.
We probably won’t see any results that will tell us anything useful until 1AM at the earliest.
Immanentize
@Elizabelle: Third election for Israel, I read this morning. I think Bibi’s megalomania slip is showing enough to change some votes this time. I hope.
Brachiator
@Sloane Ranger:
About what time should he be speaking?
schrodingers_cat
Whether Corbyn has been a blessing for Labor will be seen shortly. We will know soon how many seats they manage to win and if they better their tally from the last time elections were held.
Betty Cracker
@Sloane Ranger: So around 8 PM for us East Coast yanks. I’ll be watching and hoping!
VeniceRiley
This is the government I’ll be living under next year, so. Here’s hoping! What the UK needs, and what we need here, is ranked choice voting.
schrodingers_cat
I have not said any of the above.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: Great points.
Elizabelle
I don’t know enough about UK politics to understand why Labour has such a heavy lift to begin with.
People taking their National Health Service too much for granted?
And, FWIW, the Tories always seem far better than our reactionary far right Republicans. I guess that’s the UKIP part of the electorate?
UK and US politics are not equivalent; that’s the only takeaway I feel comfortable with.
Also, FWIW: remember the recent Canadian elections and how the FTF NYTimes assured us that Trudeau was so doomed, doomed, doomed. His party did lose seats, but still retains power.
Peeps: what’s a good source that’s knowledgeable about politics and that is not corrupted like the FTF NYTimes (and I find The Guardian laughable on their columnists’ views of US politics)?
We’re politics hounds, and it’s hard. Easy to see how social media can step in and poison us all.
Immanentize
@Elizabelle:
@Betty Cracker:
I would go with a parliamentary style government if only to get rid of the Senate. Which, together with the 3/5 property vote, was designed for slave holding states and now just serves the interests of low population states which are overwhelmingly white. Funny how that worked out.
And yes, popular national vote for President.
Tony Jay
@Elizabelle:
Between 2017 and 2019 the venom of Brexit really had time to work it’s way into the national bloodstream in a way that (sort of) mirrors the effect Civil Rights had on the US in the 60s, ripping up old certainties and bringing the vileness of racism to the surface.
If Labour has gone into this Election as a purely Remain party we’d be looking at a guaranteed Tory majority as the Remain majority split between Labour and the Lib Dems and Leave voters run from Labour in droves. Which is partly why the centre-right in the Party and their Media allies have been playing the “Oh, he’s such a Lexiteer, so disappointing, unlike little old plum-face me!” card. They want Corbyn out because of his Centre-left policies, not because of Brexit, but it’s an easy stick to beat him with when they don’t want to argue policy.
The consensus policy he’s followed has been all about keeping everyone under the same tent and voting the right way despite their major disagreements. It’s all going to blow up at some point, but I’d much rather it happened after we’ve actually got Brexit consigned to the scrap heap and have had time to show how our policies can and will improve British life on all levels.
Brachiator
@Tony Jay:
Parliament should have stopped BREXIT. Parliament should have dumped Johnson when it had a chance. Instead, he knifed some of his own MPs to instill fear and to eliminate potential opponents. But none of this was Corbyn’s responsibility.
Good luck in this election. Weird to know that the outcome will happen on Friday the 13th.
Robert Sneddon
@Elizabelle: The big media conglomerates are generally hard against Labour which is a bad start for them. Another factor is that the Conservative lies about Labour and especially Corbyn are carefully targetted to fit into the prejudices of the majority of small-c conservative types. The fact that Boris is an adulterous incompetent buffoon desn’t matter to them, he’s not a baby-eating demon in human skin like ultra-Marxist Jeremy Corbyn.
The NHS is a bedrock “don’t touch” part of British political society but its foundations can be nibbled away if the pols are careful enough. Tony Blair’s New Labour which Corbyn and most of his supporters detest was part of that problem, introducing private-public investment (PPI) funding for NHS infrastructure as well as leading offensives against waste and inefficiency, like there could be too many nurses or doctors on duty or too many functioning operating theatres at any given hospital and this had to be prevented to cut costs — pity about the waiting periods for treatment going up and units serving smaller communities closing.
Boris and co. know that they can’t simply privatise the NHS or sell it off to American insurance companies but they can carve off chunks of the “no fee at point of use” principle for treatment if they do it deftly enough. Jeremy Corbyn is dead set against that, the Lib Dems, well Jo Swinson was part of the coalition that gutted NHS funding for “austerity” reasons between 2010 and 2015 so any claims that the NHS is safe in her hands is questionable.
The data’s quite clear, historically Labour governments spend more on the NHS than Conservatives do. In part that’s to fix the mess the Tories leave behind them when they are kicked out of government but it’s generally that the Tories don’t like spending money on stuff that mostly benefits poor people since they don’t tend to vote Tory. Saying that, no party can spend enough on the NHS in the eyes of the opposition — it’s a bit like the US War Department’s budget, saying you want to spend more on it is virtue signalling, saying you’re going to cut its budget would be electoral suicide.
Tony Jay
@schrodingers_cat:
You described me as being ‘not objective’ about Corbyn, which would certainly suggest that you’ve read what I’ve written on the topic. I’ve put forward some of the nonsense I’ve pushed back to show the kind of thing I won’t let slide.
Did I claim this was all coming from you? No. This is, I think, the second time we’ve exchanged words on the topic. The first was when you pulled out the Bernie analogy in a post where you again said I wasn’t objective.
I’m happy to own what I say, here. If you don’t want me getting snippy with you, please don’t snipe at me.
Elizabelle
@Tony Jay: thank you, Tony. Much clearer.
catclub
That will be huge. It will say there really is not a majority for leave. Again.
Whether Johnson could wrangle an actual Conservative majority into lockstep voting for the Irish Sea customs barrier,… remains to be seen.
Elizabelle
@Immanentize: The Senate and the Electoral College are poison, and Citizens United and gerrymandering only poison the well that much more. Not to mention gutting Voting Rights. John Roberts should go to hell for that alone, and he has so much more on his scorecard.
And we cannot have an honest discussion about any of it, because of all the lies told by rightwing media and our timid, profit-driven, corporately owned media. Look — shiny object!
I don’t believe at all that politicians would totally foresake the flyover states without the EC. That’s self-serving shit from the same crowd that can’t leave home without a gun.
It’s all too much. I have stepped away for a while, for sanity’s sake.
schrodingers_cat
@Tony Jay: Get snippy, I did invoke you by name so you have every right to push back.
BTW I did not compare Corbyn to Bernie the last time we had this conversation what I said was that the people who support BS on Twitter also support Corbyn, which is a fact. Rose Twitter is pro Corbyn. You can go on Twitter and look for yourself. That doesn’t make Corbyn, Bernie.
JaySinWA
@NobodySpecial:
Are you suggesting that NYers are not playing with a full deck?
Ladyraxterinok
@Eolirin: Evangelical preachers and televangelists in US are especially troubling and dangerous. They constantly tell congregations that those who oppose Trump/gang/GOP are enemies of God, out to kill Christian pastors and church members. Some claim the opponents have been taken over by demons.
This means opponents can be totally eliminated by any means necessary. See references at rightwingwatch , new ones added daily. Also watch a bit of the JimBakker show videos on utube
I don’t think any previous political fight in US history had one side claiming the other was literally made up of demons
JimBakker and guests and others are calling for a literal HolyWar, not against Muslims but against fellow US citizens who have become literal demons
Y
Momentary
@R-Jud: here in deepest rural Wales, I have never seen another voter at the polling place before. Today there was a (small) queue.
Citizen Alan
@schrodingers_cat:
When you put it like that, it is telling that the rose Twitter crowd that mindlessly supports Bernie Sanders instinctively compares him to a Center left British politician. A testament to how far the Overton window has moved to the right in this country compare to Great Britain.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: Do you know the Jonathan Colton song “Pizza Day”?
J R in WV
@schrodingers_cat:
One of our first “contract” hires back in the 1990s was a wonderful and expert guy from India, Piyush who came to America because his wife was Muslim, and if they had married in their home province they would have been killed. We actually also hired her too after getting to know them. He led us from the IBM COBOL mainframe world into Windows and Oracle networked systems. Now in So California.
I too fear for the people of India, nothing good ever comes of religious fanatics taking power. They always seem obliged to exercise everything through a veil of hatred for anyone not part of their cult.
Best of luck to your former home! They need it badly.
Ksmiami
@Elizabelle: it feels like there will be a breaking point-perhaps driven by inequality or global warming but certainly we are under a tyrannical minority deadset against progress and it cannot hold up forever
norepli
I would love to see Hugh Grant in parliament as an MP instead of playing one on Netflix.
Boris like Cameron is a [email protected] – and will destroy the UK should the Tories get a working majority.
The Labor vote would have done better with someone like Keir Starmer as the leader, but a high turnout (long queues at polling stations reported ) is a good sign. Labor have committed to another referendum which may be the fairest way to resolve Brexit.
Elizabelle
Dogs are going to the polls in the UK. Per the WaPost, they’re trending.
Dogs at polling stations are always big in Britain. This election also brought horses and reindeer.
“By Thursday afternoon, the #dogsatpollingstations hashtag had been used more than 45,000 times on Twitter.” And cats are going to the polls. And tortoises and horses, too.
First point ever in favor of Boris Johnson: man has a dog. Energetic terrier (long-haired Jack Russell?) named Dilyn that is energetic and better groomed than he.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s dog Luna advises “Vote Labour.” Per her owner, who handles her social media.
Betty Cracker
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Nope, don’t recall ever hearing that before. It’s kind of sad! We should have a pizza thread someday. Seems like pizza throw-downs occur spontaneously, but has it ever had its very own thread, just for discussion rather than recipes/delivery recs?
There are so many controversial opinions on pizza. Here’s mine: bad pizza — even shitty forms that don’t fully merit the dignity of the name “pizza” (I’m looking at YOU Totino’s and Red Baron) — is better than no pizza at all.
J R in WV
@Momentary:
To learn that we have a reader and commentor from rural Wales is such an uplifting thing! Truly Balloon Juice is just the best, but for the trolls. Thanks for letting us know about your experience voting today.
We live in rural WV, and have only experienced a queue for voting once. The poll workers at our voting station are in a middle school gym, and we got to wait in line, seated on the lowest bleacher seats, scooting over a bit as the next person got up to vote.
There were 3 or 4 dozen people sitting calmly and chatting about everything but politics. Which was polite and typical of the local folks.
R-Jud
@Momentary: That is heartening!
Sloane Ranger
@Brachiator: That will depend on a number of factors including what the exit polling data shows and how quickly the returns start coming in. This will depend on how many recounts are needed, particularly in key marginals and traditional Labour constituencies that voted Leave.
In the US, results (even State wide ones) seem to trickle in a Ward here, a Ward there. In the UK, nothing is released until the Returning Officer announces the result for the entire Constituency.
Robert Sneddon
@Elizabelle: There is a ban on reporting the voting in detail and publishing poll results on the day of the election so the press has to scramble to fill the pages with stuff like the “Dogs at Polling Places” articles and the like. Note there are (or should not be) any pictures of people waiting to vote outside polling places, just the pets.
There’s no electioneering going on at the polling places, the only permitted options are the deployment of limited signboards outside. The Electoral Commission takes a dim view of breaches of the rules.
Brachiator
@Sloane Ranger:
Very interesting. Thanks for this info.
Sloane Ranger
CORRECTION – All references to Michael Curtis should read as John Curtice.
I blame my cold for the mistake!
Elizabelle
@Robert Sneddon: Yes. I saw pets, some in lovely dog coats. And it was mentioned that only service dogs could be inside the polling place.
Interesting about the no photographing voters waiting in line. That’s good for privacy, no?
Sloane Ranger
@Robert Sneddon: But, Party workers are allowed to loiter outside and ask people for their voting card number.
For US readers, Party’s keep records of people who say they will, or are likely to vote for them. If you let them know you have already voted, they will leave you alone, otherwise you may find them hammering on your door when you’re in the middle of your tea or sitting down to watch Eastenders.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker:
But only one correct one.
Sloane Ranger
@Robert Sneddon: But, Party workers are allowed to loiter outside and ask people for their voting card number.
For US readers, Party’s keep records of people who say they will, or are likely to vote for them. If you let them know you have already voted, they will leave you alone, otherwise you may find them hammering on your door when you’re in the middle of your tea or sitting down to watch Eastenders.
H-Bob
@germy:
Yeah, why wasn’t it the Trump Organization getting a $500 million loan from China and the next day Trump removes sanctions from a Chinese company that had violated U.S. national security standards ?
Bill Arnold
Concise, tightly written Brexit thread by Charlie Stross (writer) that covers a lot of key details:
(Full thread here)
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker:
Betty Cracker, ladies and gentlemen, has just written the epitaph for the age.
Miss Bianca
@Tony Jay:
Gee, this all sounds depressingly similar to our own Democratic Party’s situation.
MB, Still steaming about the fact that I had to call the editor of my *own fucking paper that I write for* to bawl him out about using the term “Democrat Party”.
Elizabelle
@Miss Bianca: Meanwhile, Lachlan Murdoch just paid a California record $150 million for the Chartwell mansion in Los Angeles. The “Beverly Hillbillies” mansion featured in the show’s credits. Purchase includes the former home of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, at the back side of property, which the previous owner rolled into his holdings. (See more, with links, in the Green Eggs/Ham post ahead.)
Destroying democracies on three continents and owning major media is a profitable enterprise. Sadly.
Nina
He can’t campaign in St. Andrews, he is banned from going near any of the dorms while school is in session according to my Scots relative.
Robert Sneddon
@Sloane Ranger: They can’t electioneer, push leaflets into your hands, downtalk the opposition etc. Not cricket, what?
Polling organisations will be outside a lot of polling places, asking people how they voted to provide numbers for the close-of-poll estimates of the winners and losers. Voters are, of course, under no obligation to tell them anything, or if they do say anything to reply truthfully. It has been my habit, if questioned thusly to reply Monster Raving Loony Party.
Another Scott
A little over 2 hours to go (5 PM ET) until the polls close and the BBC reports their exit poll results.
Get out and vote if you folks haven’t done so already!!
Fingers crossed.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sab
@Robert Sneddon: Before Swinson, didn’t Nick Clegg lead the Liberal Dems to sign up with Cameron’s Tories and get absolutely nothing in return except for that five year PM term where the government won’t fall even if it loses a major vote?
Why would anyone vote for Lib Dems? Do they even have positions on anythimg?
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: That should be a rotating tag. If you don’t nominate it, I will. :-)
edit: form is in the sidebar if you want to use it.
Robert Sneddon
@Sab: Just about. There were a couple of other things on the Lib Dem wishlist and in exchange they went along with the immigrant-hating, austerity budget squeezing pro-Referendum Tory program. Jo Swinson was a junior Cabinet minister for part of the Coalition government and when the 2015 election came along she lost her seat in Parliament to an SNP candidate hence her hatred and detestation of the SNP.
patroclus
@Sab: Yeah, unlike Labour, the Lib Dems actually opposed the Iraq War, which caused many deaths and hundreds of thousands of refugees. And they are the only national party that actually opposes Brexit while Corbyn doesn’t. I’m certainly hoping for a hung Parliament, but the polls have been terrible and the likely outcome is probably a Tory majority because the Brexit Party folded its tent and isn’t challenging Tory incumbents.
Jay
@patroclus:
https://www.greenparty.org.uk/files/reports/2004/1LibDems%20and%20Iraq.htm
Sab
@patroclus: Yeah, but then they signed on with the Tories, who also favored the war. If you were pro-austerity, anti-immigrant, and didn’t much care about Brexit or the NHS, why not just be a Tory?
germy
germy
patroclus
@Sab: The war was over when the coalition was formed and it was Labour that was in power when Blair helped Bush start the war based on bald-faced whoppers; resulting in deaths and refugees and the massive de-stabilization of the Mid-East. I don’t know about you, but I think killing massive amounts of people based on lies is far worse in a historical context than raising student fees. Moreover, all Corbyn has done is waffle on Brexit, which is the main issue of this campaign – the Labour manifesto now says that they will negotiate a Brexit and then submit it to the voters in a referendum on which they will not even take a position. Voting for that is voting for meaningless sophistry.
Voters should be voting tactically – the Lib Dems, the SNP, the Alliance or even the Green are far better options than either of the major parties who support Brexit. as between the Tories and Labour in a marginal swing seat between only those two, Labour is preferable.
PaulWartenberg
@mrmoshpotato:
I can bridge the divide between New York and Chicago style pizza. Bring me both, I AM NOT AFRAID.
PaulWartenberg
@Sab:
They’ve changed the Lib Dem leadership since then, and I would think the current Libs know well enough to not deal with Tories – especially Boris – anytime soon. Libs are also overwhelmingly Remain, which makes them a safe alternative to any Tory-leaning voter who’s terrified of a No-Deal Brexit and yet not a fan of Labour.
The problem is the Winner-Take-All system that could end up splitting votes between Labour and Libs and gift Tories a plurality to win enough districts. The word currently on Twitter has been reports of targeted (just not widespread) vote-flipping to guarantee Labour wins in some places while Libs win in others. The objective is shared: get Boris out.
patroclus
@PaulWartenberg: Yeah, the Guardian helpfully published a very useful tool, listing 50 constituencies where tactical voting could really matter. Most of the recommendations were for voting Lib Dem or SNP, but yes, there were many Labour recommendations as well, primarily for Labour MP’s or candidates that aren’t nearly as wobbly on Brexit as is Corbyn.
Tony Jay
@schrodingers_cat:
That’s absolutely fair. Snippyness withdrawn. 8-)
Tony Jay
@patroclus:
The Labour Party membership elected the Chairman of the Stop the War Coalition as their leader. Twice.
The Liberal-Democrats elected a minister in the Cameron Coalition who defended raising student fees until about a week and a half ago as theirs.
Damned right there’s no comparison.
patroclus
@Tony Jay: The Labour Party leader was the PM at the time and he enabled and ordered the participation of UK forces in a brutal unnecessary war based on bald-faced whoppers (including the DSM and the Dodgy Dossier) which resulted in countless deaths and refugees and massively de-stabilized the Mid-East for generations. That Labour party leader was selected as Labour Party leader by the Labour membership multiple times The horrific Iraq War is a matter of historical record. Its inhuman devastation will long be remembered in the annals of human history – all of it perpetrated under a Labour government and a Labour leader.
The Lib Dems joined a post-war coalition and raised student fees once.
Damned right there is no comparison.
patroclus
The exit polls project a massive Tory majority of 368, with the Corbyn-led Labour party on 191. If accurate, this is a terrible result for the UK, for Scotland, for Wales, for Northern Ireland and for England. As well as the EU and the U.S. (not to mention the rest of the world). Hopefully, Corbyn will now gracefully retire and let someone else deal with the post-Brexit detritus.
Robert Sneddon
@patroclus: Britain was still fighting in Afghanistan all the time the Lib Dems were in coalition with (actually subservient to) the Tories and keeping them in power during the Windrush scandal, the austerity cuts to police services, the NHS, the Disability Living Allowance scandals etc. Indeed when PM Cameron announced in 2013 he was planning to hold the Brexit Referendum the Lib Dems didn’t immediately abandon their Tory friends.
Jeremy Corbyn detests Tony Blair and his Tory-lite NuLab policies, his sucking up to the Americans, his privatisations and so on. It’s one reason he gets attacked so relentlessly by the old Blairites in Parliament. I recall one ex-Labour MP who moved to the thinktank Change group who called Corbyn a Socialist, spitting the term out like it was foul language. The MP probably forgot the many times at the Labour Conference where they all stood up, linked hands and sang the Red Flag.
Sab
@PaulWartenberg: Isn’t their new leader Swinson? She seems worse than Clegg (Is that possible? ) Apparently yes. Same issue. What are their issues. Clegg, I never figured out. Perhaps anti-tax.
Swinson is anti SNP? Is that even an issue? So she is angry she lost. Next time be better on the issues. Don’t hate half of Scotland. That doesn’t seem to be a winning issue.
Of course, I am an American, born in the South. All I can say is “Bless her heart.”
Sab
@Robert Sneddon: I voted for Clinton twice ( did you see the alternative?) I really came to dislike him in the second term. Hlilary restored my faith in the brand, but that was her, not him.
Sloane Ranger
@patroclus: Heard this on the BBC. Trying hard not to be depressed. Hoping people were deliberately misleading the pollsters.
Waiting to see some actual results.
Robert Sneddon
@Sab: If the exit polls are correct the SNP just swept Scotland, with 55 seats out of a total of 59. It’s entirely possible Jo Swinson just lost her East Dunbartonshire seat (near Glasgow) which would probably disqualify her from continuing to be Party leader.
The SNP sweep coupled with a working Tory majority of 30 or so and the resulting Brexit to come will mean a hard drive for Indyref2. Interesting times.
patroclus
@Robert Sneddon: Jeremy Corbyn has now lost two elections in a row – the most recent massively. His inability for years to take a credible position on the most important issue – Brexit – is obviously a gargantuan failure from which his replacement will now have to deal. Hopefully, rather than go after the smaller parties, Labour allies, the media and everyone else, the new leadership will actually criticize the Tories and their Brexit policy. Which is likely to have major unintended and detrimental consequences for the whole world.
Robert Sneddon
@patroclus: Criticising Tory policies… Jeremy Corbyn has been doing that in Parliament and in Government for the past forty years or so. Without a working majority from voters he can criticise as much as he likes but it will mean nothing in real terms.
Super-Remainer and ex-Coalition Cabinet minister Lib Dem party leader Jo Swinson is predicted to lose her seat in Parliament to the SNP according to the BBC exit poll data, confidence 95%. My own constituency is predicted to go SNP from Lib Dem, confidence 99% apparently. Campaigning for a hard Remain doesn’t seem to have done the Lib Dems much good while the Labour Party still survives.
Personally I expect Corbyn to stand down as Party leader in the next few days. I hope we don’t get Blair Mk II (or even Blair Mk 1 back again — he is unfortunately still around) but I’m not copacetic about it since the grandees will see a centre-right Labour party as more electable after this result.
Brad Trent
I never took that photo of Hugh Grant…..?