General Election 2019

There are memes

Rumour has it his wife forbid him from working beyond 31st because of his health.

I posted about this before, the operation is supposed to release some of the pressure from his massive swollen egg head. As he thinks harder and harder, blood drains from the rest of his body, so you can see why his wife is so concerned. A man can only plot much before he pays the ultimate price.

(The first bit, about him being forbidden from working beyond 31st, is true)

The list of party achievements is more complicated than you might think. For example joining the EEC (EU) was begun by the Tories, second application was by Labour, third application was begun by Labour and completed by Tories under Heath.

"Surge in young people registering to vote in general election
Almost a third of 316,264 registrations in two days have been from those aged under 25" (The Guardian)

Surely you'd expect a lot of new registrations to be from people who were too young to register last time.

I'd be more interested in the proportion of newly eligible voters who are actually signing up, and would bet my second best hat that its no different from any other election cycle.

Now Telegraph says Dom has postponed surgery again and is staying on as No10 advisor while the campaign is being run by Isaac Levido. Just one big happy family.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/10/30/dominic-cummings-remain-boris-johnsons-side-election-campaign/

Meanwhile in a letter to the Guardian

As parliament breaks up, I will miss reading about Classic Dom (Sketch, 30 October). Here in Welsh-speaking Wales “dom” is what my horses produce and I have been spreading on my kitchen garden ready for the next growing season (dictionary definition: pentwr o dom = heap of dung). I hope to see Classic Dom consigned to history by Christmas, but will be reminded of his exploits as I eat my leeks. Thank you, John Crace.
Judith Wainwright
Pontfaen, Pembrokeshire

Not sure if this is election or brexit but Boris accused of holding off publishing report in to Russian interference in UK politics before election:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/31/boris-johnson-accused-report-russia-dominic-grieve

Brexit Party campaign launch and Nigel is threatening Boris to drop the deal or he'll put up 500 candidates

Is anyone else experiencing some lovely Schadenfreude at seeing Boris having to deal with the shitstorm of actual implementation problems with the course that he so opportunistically proposed.

That is good news. Johnson can't drop his deal so BXP will be fully running and the deal will be attacked as being both too hard and not brexity enough. Will be very interesting to see the polls in the next couple of weeks.

I'm not sure I understand Farage's game. The deal is terrible, but he'll work with the Tories to ensure they get a majority if they ask. Reading his q&a I'm not sure he knows.

He seems to have a such a craving to be taken seriously as an establishment player ... to be an actual party leader, making real life deals with real life politicians.

But no-one ever does, except for Trump.

The middle-aged are the new swing voters...

And a good reason for lowering the voting age to balance the electorate against an aging population.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/01/middle-aged-swing-voters-age-class-political

can anyone explain the BXP strategy to me?

"How do we get Nigel front and centre of all the newspapers today?"

If you start from the point that the Brexit Party is Farage's vanity project (with him as the unelected leader who cannot be deposed) rather than an actual political party it all makes sense.

yes - the only halfway-sensible strategy that I can discern is that he only has power and political valency as long as brexit has not been delivered. given that this move seems very likely to split the conservative vote and thus risks jeopardising the delivery of brexit, it will keep farage in the spotlight for longer. presume he hopes to leverage this to walk away with a knighthood

his offer is designed to be rejected so there's not going to be a pact

1. BJ is not going to drop the WAB;
   
2. the more he goes on like this the likelier it is he will cause fissures in the conservative party's very brittle unity
   

Once we've brexited, Farage has no point. And his extremely well-funded lifestyle will disappear.
See how quiet he has been while the latest deal was live.
I suppose he would continue moaning about how whatever brexit has been wrecked by remainer elites and that's why we're not in the sunlit uplands, but I reckon he is personally better off with the continued non-brexit.

I'm not sure I understand Farage's game. The deal is terrible, but he'll work with the Tories to ensure they get a majority if they ask. Reading his q&a I'm not sure he knows.

my thoughts exactly - he just loves the oxygen of any platform he's given

Mark Francois on Nigel's offer:

...That’s why I and my fellow so-called Spartans...

Have I missed something? So called by whom?

Themselves. Literally. They decided to call themselves that.

I bet they had a meeting about that. I'd love to see the list of names they came up with and rejected.

I bet 'Musketeers' was on it.

Edit: the more I think about this, and recall more about Spartan life and Gerrard Butler in the film, the more surreal this seems as a suitable nickname for these numpties to choose for themselves...

They should've gone with the strength and courage of the Griffins.

Ha - very good

.

I personally don't think Farage cares about the publicity that much. I think he was convinced we were going to get No Deal, which he prefers above all else, and thinks if a deal passes we're going to end up with a close relationship with the EU and no chance of a terrible standards-reducing US trade deal and US-style deregulated economy.