UKMT General Elextravaganza 2017: Lord Buckethead would have won

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT General Elextravaganza 2017: Lord Buckethead would have won

«‹›4 »

What is the best flav... you all know what this question is: This poll is closed.
Labour	907	49.92%
Theresa May Team (Conservative)	48	2.64%
Liberal Democrats	31	1.71%
UKIP	13	0.72%
Plaid Cymru	25	1.38%
Green	22	1.21%
Scottish Socialist Party	12	0.66%
Scottish Conservative Party	1	0.06%
Scottish National Party	59	3.25%
Some Kind of Irish Unionist	4	0.22%
Alliance / Irish Nonsectarian	3	0.17%
Some Kind of Irish Nationalist	36	1.98%
Misc. Far Left Trots	35	1.93%
Misc. Far Right Fash	8	0.44%
Monster Raving Loony	49	2.70%
Space Navies Party	39	2.15%
Independent / Single Issue	2	0.11%
Can't Vote	188	10.35%
Won't Vote	8	0.44%
Spoiled Ballot	15	0.83%
Pissflaps	312	17.17%
Total:	1817 votes

[Edit Poll (moderators only)]

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

ISeeCuckedPeople posted:

I assumed the SNP was much like Sinn Fein; Left Wing Anti-UK Nationalists.

Fewer explosions in their past, more centrist politics with a greater tolerance for the status quo.

The two are undoubtedly connected.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2017 03:08

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 6, 2024 19:31

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Just going to post this excellent profile on Theresa May again, including a section on why she and Osborne hate each other:

quote:

There has been much speculation about whether May, who nominally campaigned for Remain, was secretly a Leaver all along. The evidence for her supposed duplicity lies not just in the way she has behaved since the vote but also in the very muted way she conducted herself during the campaign, to the point where she became known inside Downing Street as �submarine May�. But there is a more straightforward explanation. In 2013 May was slapped down by Cameron�s team for straying outside her remit by delivering a speech entitled �Vision for Britain�, which was seen as a transparent leadership pitch. She responded with a self-denying ordinance pledging she would never again as home secretary stray beyond her brief. She stuck to it during the EU referendum, limiting herself to a few half-hearted remarks about the security implications, where the case for Remain was always going to be a little muddy. If Cameron had wanted more from her then he should have allowed more from her earlier on. Whether or not May believes in Brexit is really a secondary issue. For her politics is all about following through.

The other thing that became immediately apparent once she supplanted Cameron is how little her former colleagues appear to have appreciated this. Within twenty minutes of her arrival in Number Ten, May had summoned Osborne to sack him. Accounts of this meeting differ. Osborne�s people say it was cordial. But May�s people, who include Fiona Hill, now safely back in the fold, let it be known that the new prime minister gave him a severe dressing-down, telling him he had overpromised and underdelivered on the economy. What is clear is that Osborne had little idea how much she loathed him. He had thought that their previous disputes were just part of the cut and thrust of high politics and easily put behind them. That�s precisely what she loathed about him. She hates the idea that politics is just a game, which is what she suspects the Cameroons have always believed. She dispatched Gove with equal relish, telling him she couldn�t stomach his betrayal of Boris Johnson in the leadership contest. In truth, this was the least of it: what she really despised was Gove�s long-standing habit of making it up as he went along. Many observers were surprised when she brought Johnson back as foreign secretary, given that they too had previous from his time as mayor of London, when they had fallen out over his attempt to usurp her authority by purchasing three water cannon from Germany to help keep public order in the capital. The difference is that Johnson never tried to put her in her place; if anything, it was the other way round, after she blocked the use of the water cannon and then told him off about it in the Commons, where he couldn�t answer back. The public tends to see Johnson as the ultimate clown politician, all stunts and no substance. That�s not the way May sees it. For her it was Cameron, Osborne and Gove who were fundamentally unserious, because they were the ones who made promises they couldn�t keep. Johnson had the advantage of never having his promises believed in the first place.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2017 12:47

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

jBrereton posted:

The writers of The Economist aren't experts, they're gobshites.

Word. This twenty-six-year-old article will never stop being accurate and relevant.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2017 12:53

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Macarius Wrench posted:

Seriously mate you are in danger of a nosebleed. Calm yourself down.

You're asking people to calm down after comparing several posters in this thread to animals. Can you explain to the class why this is neither a reasonable nor sensible request?

# ¿ Jun 1, 2017 14:44

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

North-East Somerset hustings have wrapped up - in a typical case of contrarianism, Rees-Mogg showed up for this one after avoiding all the others, though judging by the Twitter response, he may have wished he hadn't.

Did some leafleting, and interestingly, it looks like there's an informal deal between Labour and the Lib Dems - the Dems campaign for Bath, Labour goes for North-East Somerset, and they each stay the hell out of each other's way. Wera Hobhouse is the Bath Dem MP candidate, which is probably a reflection of their priorities - I met her in 2015, when she was going for North-East Somerset, and she was impressively competent.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 00:19

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

The Mail is dunking on May for not speaking out enough on behalf of the environment.

Goddamn.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 00:35

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

The closing paragraphs of that LRB article I linked earlier are getting funnier by the day:

quote:

At the same time, her domestic advantages remain formidable. She has qualities that will make her very hard to dislodge as prime minister. One is that, as Liam Fox puts it, �she knows and likes the Conservative Party.� Cameron didn�t, however hard he tried to conceal it. What�s more, May gives a strong impression of liking her wider electorate, or at least having no desire to judge them by any standards other than their own. It is often said of democratic politics that the question voters ask of any leader is: �Do I like this person?� But it seems more likely that the question at the back of their minds is: �Would this person like me?� Cameron did OK on that score � better than Ed Miliband � because many voters suspected he would at least be polite and try to conceal any awkwardness he felt. But May is a natural. Weirdly, she has this in common with Trump, with whom she perhaps shares more than meets the eye. Trump too, for all his manifold unpleasantness, does a good job of seeming to be non-judgmental when it comes to his voting public. He is unspeakable to his fellow politicians, to the press, to his employees, to immigrants and to the women who are unfortunate enough to appear to him worth coveting. But to anyone who doesn�t fall into those categories, he might seem like a good person to hang out with. Hillary never managed to pass that test. Nor does Corbyn. Prince sees the contrast between the characters of the new leaders of Britain and the United States as �almost comical�. But she wrote that before they met. They seemed to get along fine. And now that May has invited Trump over, heaven help anyone who tries to get her to break her promise.

Of course, May has plenty of other qualities that distinguish her from Trump, and from the politician with whom she is most often compared, Thatcher. Anne Jenkin, who helped set up Women2Win with May, says of the two: �Thatcher was the outsider. She was a man�s woman, and that was the secret of her success. She liked men; she liked men more than she liked women. And I don�t think that�s the case with Theresa.� Women2Win has turned out to be anything but a PR exercise. All the women in May�s current cabinet, barring the leader of the Lords, Baroness Evans, were helped to enter Parliament by May�s organisation. As well as being excellent advocacy, that is powerful patronage. May is also, as far as one can tell, strikingly uncorrupt. She emerged not just unscathed but enhanced from the expenses scandal, when it was revealed that she had claimed well under her allowance and was one of the most frugal members of the Commons. In the words of one of her colleagues, she was �an expenses saint�. Above all, she has staying power, which is a priceless asset in politics. Time can turn anything around if you�re still in a position to benefit. Has there ever been a joke that�s waited longer for its punchline than the one she delivered at last year�s party conference, a moment of perfectly judged political malice to set against the rabble-rousing that preceded it? After she had described Labour under Corbyn � �not just divided but divisive, determined to pursue vendettas and settle scores � fighting among themselves, abusing their own MPs� � she told her audience: �You know what some people call them? The nasty party.� Europe may yet destroy May as prime minister, as it destroyed her three Conservative predecessors. But in the meantime, it is the Labour Party that should be feeling haunted.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 01:00

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

jBrereton posted:

Does Diane Abbott not count as an establishment PLP big hitter?

Depends how you're defining 'establishment'. She was a junior minister for three years under Miliband, I guess, but compared to Hilary Benn, who was parked in the Cabinet and Shadiw Cabinet from 2003 onwards, she's a bit of an outsider who's firmly in Corbyn's very outsidery clique.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 02:04

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

ThomasPaine posted:

Tbf invasive species are totally a thing with regards ecosystems and grey squirrels will almost certainly push reds into extinction sooner or later. I guess I can see why people would want to prevent that. I mean I kind of get people obsessing over pandas and whatever even though it seems a waste of time to me. I agree though in this case I'm sure red squirrels can easily become symbolic of good old blighty and there's obviously going to be some pretty sketchy rhetoric around that.

Mind you, pandas being doomed is kind of our fault, given that (a) we're encroaching on their territory, where they've managed to sustain a pretty stable population for a pretty long time, and (b) life in captivity is entirely antithetical to their needs, especially where breeding is concerned - their heat season is so short because all the pandas in an area will converge in one place for a giant panda orgy, in the hopes that a few viable pairings will emerge from it all, and one-on-one coupling just doesn't work for them.

It's not that pandas are doomed by their biology, it's that we have neither the tools to fix what we break nor the inclination to develop them.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 11:22

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

ThomasPaine posted:

I just don't much care about preserving species for their own sake (unless they're vital to an ecosystem). Always felt that the resources would be better spent ensuring more sustainable future development. Learning from our mistakes is important but I see no point in holding two or three massively endangered creatures in captivity obsessing over getting them to breed.

This is where you generally start looking at the ecological importance of bamboo forests, and giant pandas' role in maintaining them.

See also, sea turtles - if they go, then a whole bunch of important fish are going to lose their breeding grounds in sea-grass fields.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 11:30

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Jose posted:

what did ipso mori have labour polling at before the election got called?

26%..

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 12:11

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Lord of the Llamas posted:

As has been pointed out already 30% a month before and 26% the week after. So They have Labour up around 10%-14% over the campaign.

I'm excited.

They usually ask if you've postal voted.

They do, but '40% of old people who haven't postal-voted' may be a significantly smaller number.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 12:19

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Pissflaps posted:

The SNP wouldn't hold the balance of power. What's the snp going to do - vote with the Tories ?

Depends on the issue, I guess - it's not like they've never done it before. If Labour goes into either a coalition or confidence and supply, I assume they'd have to tailor their policies to make them more SNP-friendly in order to get through.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 12:27

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Al-Saqr posted:

are all small business owners in Britain assholes?

Funnily enough, that's another demographic the Tories have lost.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 21:28

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Another reminder (from the Telegraph, no less) that actual small business owners would quite like the Tories to git tae gently caress.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2017 22:58

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

minema posted:

None of tomorrows papers are running anything about the debate, I suppose it finished too late to get anything out in time?

That means that if Labour are smart and lucky, they can bury it altogether. Especially since it's being treated as a draw, and those are boring.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2017 00:07

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

jabby posted:

In all the furore over the debate, has anyone noticed that Michael Fallon has apparently promised that 'higher earners' won't face a tax rise under a Tory government?

https://twitter.com/hendopolis/status/870751698238803972

This just seems like another obviously bad move, unless all Tory voters consider themselves to be high earners. I mean how much intelligence do you need to figure out Tory plans if they will pledge not to raise taxes on high earners but they won't simply pledge not to raise taxes?

Bear in mind that the Telegraph did a front page a couple of days ago about the terrible injustice of top-rate tax payers now making up a whole 0.6% of the population.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2017 01:35

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

jBrereton posted:

what do we reckon, then, 370 tory seats?

A high guess, but not an implausible one. Depends how the vote balances filter through the mad sorcery of FPTP.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2017 20:48

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Extreme0 posted:

Never underestimate the stupidity of British People.

So 420 Tory seats then.

Man, I heard skunk could gently caress you up, but not that hard.

# ¿ Jun 3, 2017 20:53

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

FYI, that Atlantic article on ISIS that was being passed around in this thread is pretty thorough bullshit.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 02:21

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Intrinsic Field Marshal posted:

Was the seventies the golden age of the nonces?

Don't worry, I'm sure we'll hear about our present batch in forty years' time when they all start dying.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 03:00

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

jabby posted:

Lol apparently he's 'changing his will on Monday' to leave �50k to the person who kills him. Not really sure how you'd collect without also going to prison for life, but I'm sure these are minor details.

Actually, if someone invites you to a duel to the death, what severity of murder does that count as?

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 10:31

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

dispatch_async posted:

I assume you are talking about this:
https://twitter.com/EL4JC/status/871334312221736960

On a similar theme there was this interview on LBC yesterday: http://www.lbc.co.uk/radio/presenters/ian-payne/striking-interview-with-former-police-inspector/

Who is that guy - just a spokesman, or a senior officer?

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 13:34

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Just checked, and that's Peter Kirkham, an ex-Met Chief Inspector/Senior Investigating Kfficer who called Theresa Nay a 'fuckwit' three years ago.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 13:41

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

jBrereton posted:

what's wrong with barry gardiner

Been a bit greedy with his expenses, and had some shady financial connections with China that may have affected his stance towards the country.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 13:50

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Jose posted:

https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/st...%3D2194%23pti13

Just to clarify, yes, this is a dark little dig at America's awful healthcare system.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 13:52

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

jBrereton posted:

I don't think the opposition's front bench is going to have very much to say about shady financial connections or expenses, to be honest.

When has a bit of naked hypocrisy ever stopped them before? Plus, if he is actually compromised, then that could be a real problem rather than just 'bad optics'.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 13:53

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Pollyanna posted:

What healthcare system?

Be fair, they have a sophisticated network of services that can get you a wide variety of excellent medical treatments.

If you're a moderately healthy billionaire.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 14:01

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Seaside Loafer posted:

Explain please?

Check the Twitter links on the last page.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 14:10

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Jeb! Repetition posted:

Wait how many attacks were there? Was the van hit and run guy coordinating with others?

Three guys burst out of a van and started stabbing people. Also, there may have been the more conventional kind of Saturday night stabbing elsewhere in London, which got people confused for a bit.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 17:11

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

The Insect Court posted:

They buy tanks that go to sit in a warehouse out in a desert and rust, and warplanes that actually get used because it's harder to stage a coup with an air force.

It's not that I disagree with this stance but I do find it an amusing irony that the thread consensus has moved from "It's the fault of our foreign policy, innit?" to "They're apocalyptic genocidal cultists who can't be reasoned with, only destroyed!" . Doesn't seem as if you can have both be true.

You're doing that thing where you claim that a couple of posts by a couple of posters is the thread consensus, TIC. We already looked at how that Atlantic article is misleading, poorly-sourced bullshit.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 20:22

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Autonomous Monster posted:

Do you have a reference for this? I'd like to be able to tell people this and back it up.

Here you go.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 20:29

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

jBrereton posted:

It was Very GBS

The appropriate response:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv5h-5b4QHk

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 21:28

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Interesting fact about autism - apparently Gordon Brown is indeed on the spectrum. Source: a medical professional of my acquaintance who specialised in autism. Apparently, her daughter used to do volunteer work for him, and they got to know each other fairly well.

Also, apparently he's a pretty great guy to work for. Very conscientious.

# ¿ Jun 4, 2017 21:43

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

mediadave posted:

https://twitter.com/SteveHiltonx/status/871611939310379008

Anyone found the original article?

# ¿ Jun 5, 2017 09:47

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

forkboy84 posted:

Who'd you have to replace her? Best odds you can get on Boris, the bookies favourite, is 6/1. Amber Rudd the 2nd favourite, then Philip Hammond. Not sure Rudd would stand much chance in the light of the past few days though.

The Saudi Arabia thing is bad for Rudd, but the right-wing papers have been laying the groundwork to cast her as a heroic martyr to May's cowardice, so I don't think she's dead and gone yet.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2017 13:32

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

namesake posted:

He's ranked 588 out of 648 on the sexiness scale.

But then Jez is only 544....

Now I want to see the Corbyn version of the 'exudes erotic appeal' article.

# ¿ Jun 5, 2017 20:58

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

Remember that Abbott initially had a total nothing job in Corbyn's cabinet, and slowly fell upwards thanks to all the resignations. If a good GE performance gets more of the PLP back on-side, I can see a reshuffle in the works.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2017 14:23

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

hakimashou posted:

Internet media is worse, look at the American election.

That seems to be more down to a difference in media culture between here and America.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2017 00:21

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 6, 2024 19:31

Darth Walrus: Feb 13, 2012

It's at least better than the Republican approach of immediately asking the person with dementia to run the entire country for them.

And then doing it again a few decades later.

Seriously, though, at sixty-three, Abbott really is in the danger zone for dementia, and while the phone arguments she reportedly had with the rest of the Labour leadership suggest a compelling alternative explanation for her time away from the cameras, those could equally plausibly have thrown up some significant medical red flags.

Darth Walrus fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Jun 7, 2017

# ¿ Jun 7, 2017 09:40

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT General Elextravaganza 2017: Lord Buckethead would have won

«‹›4 »