That Starmer fella...

Lewis Goodall speculating Starmer has the receipts and set the trap:
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1387370076840644610

Lewis Goodall speculating Starmer has the receipts and set the trap:

He definitely insinuated something after the first(?) question with his "this won't be the last of this, trust me" remark.

Would be great if he did.

I am still firm on Sunak will be the next PM

Yup

"this won't be the last of this, trust me"

This was my takeaway today also.

Same. That intake of breath when Starmer mentioned resignations was not business as usual. Those admissions from Johnson were not business as usual. If they were, he would not have ended it in red faced fury:

I wonder what categorical evidence of the "bodies piled high" comment would consist of though? Seems difficult to not end up in a he said, she said situation unless there's a recording or minutes (which seems unlikely).

He really fucked him up didn't he?

Naive question on PMQs; how do they trickle down to better election or poll results?

They don't. Some clips might make it into the news/Facebook if they're particularly spicy. Only the most hardcore nerds actually watch it.

PMQs is too boring even for me and I watched that House of Lords filibuster for 4 hours when Brexit was going on

BJ's done the red face thing before, during the Brexit Proroguing stuff. I think it plays well with his audience.

unless there's a recording

Mutterings earlier in the week that Dom has tapes of some stuff. Could be fun.

Maybe Kuensberg's source has something too... Oh wait.

Meanwhile in the real world

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BJ's done the red face thing before, during the Brexit Proroguing stuff. I think it plays well with his audience.

When he's red-faced against parliamentary red tape, I agree with you. For the kind of voters Labour lost, it's like them getting to watch the schoolteacher have a go at a bully - one in the eye of the metropolitians who've spent the last few years trying to rob them of their Brexit vote.

But red-faced against people asking if he took a bung to do up his kitchen? That is a very different proposition. The voters we lost might take a bit of bullshit from a PM who's sticking it to their enemies, but as soon as that PM takes them for a mug the power balance changes. It's the people who want answers on this who are the target of that fury, and Johnson has never looked more like an entitled old Etonian, railing against the ordinary people trying to hold him to account, than he did during that last answer. And - the killer - it's a reasonable question, one which Johnson did not answer satisfactorily. It's not the most likely outcome - he's not called teflon for nothing - but there's a decent chance this'll land.

EDIT: the key point about both the above situations is that they're both about 'fair play', but Johnson is on the other side of the ledger on each one. I didn't make this clear earlier so wanted to call it out.

Incidentally the last thing I'd define the Daily Mail comments section as is 'the real world'.

The mindset you find there is what got us Brexit and Johnson so actual real world events.

ha ha.

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That's excellent

Yeah - the red face should be reserved for 'common-sense', 'Will-of-the-people' or 'Political-Correctness-gone-mad' type rants. Using it to explaining why you absolutely had to have that particular shade / pattern of wallpaper really isn't a good look.

isn't a good look

Unless it perfectly matches the red wallpaper, of course. It's not far off...

https://metro.co.uk/2021/04/29/keir-starmer-turns-up-at-john-lewis-to-shop-for-gold-wallpaper-14495329/

Well this is much better than his last walkabout...

(unless the heavies chucked the store manager out of the shop)

Yes, it's cheap points scoring. But f*ck it. Johnson deserves all he gets.

Gotta say I did stifle a lol at that.

Something I also think is really positive is that there's been a recent split (i.e. this week) between two groups who've been critical of Starmer. There's the group which will always hate the guy for not being Corbyn and would rather see the Tories in power than Starmer's Labour in power, and there're those who've been underwhelmed or disappointed in Starmer but still would prefer a Labour government. Starmer will never please the first group, but I'm glad to see the second is giving credit where it's due. He's had a good week.

That said if it doesn't translate into better results in the local elections than last time, we all need to admit we have a problem. But I'd be surprised if it goes down like that.

There's the group which will always hate the guy for not being Corbyn and would rather see the Tories in power than Starmer's Labour in power

I don't get this - baby steps is better than no steps? (or massive backwards leaps)

It’s always been a problem on the left side of politics - it’s just human nature to a certain extent I think. As you say it’s not logical and totally fails to see the bigger picture, but it’s the whole ideological purity thing- satirised so wonderfully in the Life of Brian with the judean people’s front / pfj / popular front etc.

Yeah exactly, it's the same old hard left vs soft left argument that we've been having since the days of Tony Benn and the Tribune Group, isn't it.

The hard left argument goes 'principle is everything and if you compromise on your principles then you might as well have not done anything at all, because you lose your moral authority'. The soft left argument goes 'impact is everything, and if we need to compromise to gain power and improve lives, then we have a moral imperative to do so'. The actual politics of both groups might be identical, it's just the relative weight they give to principle vs impact.

The reason it's such a toxic debate is each position is a value-based position. People feel personally attacked when someone attacks their values. It's almost impossible to talk about without pissing someone off.

I used to be all about moral purity, but after eleven years of the Tories, I'm much more pragmatic. One of the things I do find inspiring is McDonnell's journey to the soft left. I just want the Tories out, and experience tells me that the soft left position is more likely to do that. McDonnell clearly came to the same conclusion, and if he can do it, so can others.

Let's not pretend some on the right in Labour didn't actively work to damage Corbyn when he was leader. Let's also not pretend ideological purity doesn't play a role in other parties. The ERG was happy to fuck over May for the purity of Brexit. The CRG is trying to do it with Johnson to satisfy their libertarian fever dreams.

Well. Apart from making BJ unhappy at PMQ, what's happened?

Let's also not pretend ideological purity doesn't play a role in other parties. The ERG was happy to fuck over May for the purity of Brexit. The CRG is trying to do it with Johnson to satisfy their libertarian fever dreams.

Oh definitely. That wasn't being glossed over. But they seem to be able to seize power in spite of it, rather than dismantling themselves from whichever direction when right on the cusp. Admittedly, media bias plays a huge role here.