Namtab posted:

I do not believe for a nanosecond that pissflaps is working class

quote:

SENIOR Labour MPs believe they have persuaded party grandee Dame Margaret Hodge to stand against Jeremy Corbyn to spark a leadership contest.
They want the veteran Labour MP to be the stalking horse who begins the toppling of the hard-Left leader.
The plotters are also close to signing up 50 Labour MPs to publicly back her potential challenge this summer.
A fifth of the Parliamentary Labour Party must support her to make it formal and start a full-blown contest.
Under the plan, Mrs Hodge would then drop out and, having soaked up a furious backlash from Corbynistas, allow other challengers to come forward without blood on their hands. The former minister, 71, is seen by moderates as a highly credible figure who could inflict serious damage on Mr Corbyn.
Any Labour MP who tries to oust him is likely to face a bitter deselection battle. But Dame Margaret will be 75 at the 2020 General Election and may be ready to stand down.
She is respected party-wide and Jewish — which allows her to make a stand on Labour’s anti-semitism crisis.
One MP who is part of the plotting told The Sun: “Margaret is our perfect candidate – she has a lot of gravitas but is also expendable.
“She is weighing it all up now but we think she sees it as her duty and will do it.”
Mrs Hodge has known Mr Corbyn since the 1970s as Left-wingers on North London’s Islington Council.
Former Home Secretary Alan Johnson has also been approached to be a stalking horse but refused because “he prefers an easier life”, another Labour MP plotter claimed.
Senior figures within the party plan a media blitz to attack Mr Corbyn 66, after Thursday’s local elections, when Labour is expected to suffer humiliating losses of 150 councillors.
They will hold back from launching a coup until after June 23 so as not to hurt the pro-EU referendum effort.
But Mr Corbyn has vowed to stay on as leader even if the party gets a mauling at the ballot box on Thursday.
He acknowledged he could face a challenge but said he was “not having sleepless nights” about it and would “carry on” no matter what.
Corbyn loyalist Diane Abbott admits he “may well” face a challenge in July.
But the Shadow International Development Secretary claimed he would defeat it if his name was on a fresh ballot due to his popularity among ordinary members.
It also emerged yesterday that Labour frontbenchers are threatening to quit in the anti-Semitism row.

quote:

Lending from parents to help their children get on the UK property ladder will amount to £5bn in 2016, according to data from Legal & General (L&G).
L&G says it means the so-called Bank of Mum and Dad will help to finance 25% of all UK mortgage transactions this year - at an average amount of £17,500.
If this lending prowess was combined into a formal business, it would be a top 10 UK mortgage lender, adds L&G.
But it warns this method of lending is coming under increasing pressure.
"The Bank of Mum and Dad plays a vital role in helping young people to take their early steps on to the housing ladder," said Legal and General chief executive Nigel Wilson.
But he said it highlighted a number of important issues, including house prices being "out of sync with wages".
...
In London, Mr Wilson said this funding method was reaching "tipping point", with more than half of average household net wealth (excluding property assets) going towards helping their offspring on to the housing ladder.
Mr Wilson also said that not all young people were able to access parental support, while many who could were still unable to afford a home.
He added: "We need to fix the housing market by revolutionising the supply side - if we build more houses, demand can be met at a sensible level and prices will stabilise relative to wages."
Research from L&G and economics consultancy Cebr suggests the Bank of Mum and Dad will provide deposits for more than 300,000 mortgages, purchasing homes worth £77bn this year.
The Bank of Mum and Dad's average financial contribution is £17,500 or 7% of the average purchase price, it says.

Spangly A posted:

Dan Jarvis' career is dead because he's about to get shitcanned for the labour antisemitism inquiry

Dabir posted:

quote:

David Cameron is prepared to meet Donald Trump if the US Presidential candidate visits Britain this Summer but has "no intention" of apologising for calling him "stupid and wrong".
Mr Trump yesterday became the only candidate for the Republican presidential nomination after John Kasich, his last remaining opponent, announced that he was leaving the contest.
The Prime Minister now faces the difficult task of rebuilding relations with Mr Trump after launching a scathing personal attack on the billionaire for proposing that Muslims should be barred from the US.
Sources close to Mr Cameron have privately suggested that their sympathies lie with Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democrats, but suggested they are now keen to build bridges with Mr Trump.
The Daily Telegraph understands that Mr Trump is likely to visit the UK in August for a Republican fundraising drive in London, when he is also expected to meet Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader.

ShaneMacGowansTeeth posted:

So it seems as if I have misplaced my passport, and I'm due to fly to the USA in 29 days. What are the honest chances of my actually receiving my passport back before I fly out if I can have the countersigned form and photos sent back super duper recorded delivery first thing on Monday morning?

V. Illych L. posted:

how strong were the tories in this ward to begin with?

ukip progress isn't strange, but the tories really should be bleeding as well here

Robot Mil posted:

How are the Tories doing? As well/badly as expected?

forkboy84 posted:

There is no official opposition in Holyrood. They are the largest opposition party.

Lord of the Llamas posted:

So Bristol UKMTers, was the Labour victory for mayor seen as a foregone conclusion or was it a bit surprising?

Dead Goon posted:

It has probably been asked before, but what is NOC?

jabby posted:

https://twitter.com/johnmcdonnellMP/status/729348214177009664

Looks like someone is getting a bit sick of ignoring the snipes from Blairites.

Spangly A posted:

Does this count as good news that a bunch of tories are outed as institutional cheats, or bad news because gently caress all will happen?

jabby posted:

However in reality there seems to be something a bit suspect going on with the authors of this paper. Freemantle, the first author, was on the news tonight basically saying his paper is correct and the new one is wrong. Which scientifically speaking is shady as gently caress, since any researcher worth their salt should welcome challenges to their conclusions and should understand that they are always open to revision with new data.

quote:

The BBC’s founding mission statement, “to inform, educate and entertain”, is to be rewritten by ministers for the first time, The Telegraph has learnt.
The principles, established by the BBC’s founding director-general Lord Reith nearly 100 years ago, will be adapted to add that the broadcaster must be distinct and impartial.
John Whittingdale, the Culture Secretary, will announce tomorrow that the BBC’s historic remit will change, after fears that the broadcaster’s output has become too similar to commercial competitors.

Lord Reith adopted the statement in 1922 and it has served as a guiding principle for the corporation’s programmes and services ever since.
However, a White Paper on the BBC’s future size and scope, published tomorrow, will make it clear that ministers believe the mission statement is not tightly drawn enough to compel the broadcaster to make high-quality programmes.
It will be rewritten to say that the corporation should make “impartial, distinctive content” that informs, educates and entertains.

A postscript will also be added, containing more detail about how programmes should be clearly delineated from those offered by the commercial sector.
The corporation has faced criticism for buying in US formats, such as The Voice, and Mr Whittingdale has published research suggesting that BBC One has become more similar to commercial rivals over the past few years.
However, he is likely to make it clear that he does not believe that any of the BBC’s flagship entertainment shows, such as Strictly Come Dancing or The Great British Bake Off, would fall foul of the new statement.

After complaints from Tory MPs that the broadcaster has a Left-wing bias, a requirement to be impartial will also be written into the mission statement. Ofcom, the media regulator, will be given powers to investigate impartiality complaints for the first time.
The BBC Trust, the corporation’s governing body, is to be abolished and Mr Whittingdale will establish a powerful unitary board to run it.

quote:

Neil Hamilton, whose career was in ruins after one of the major post-war political scandals, has made a dramatic comeback by defeating Ukip Wales leader Nathan Gill to become leader of the party’s National Assembly group.
The first consequence of Mr Hamilton’s victory by four votes to three has seen the party campaign team that masterminded the election of seven AMs told their services are no longer required.
Mr Hamilton, a regional AM for Mid and West Wales, defeated Mr Gill, elected as an AM for North Wales, by four votes to three.
Mr Hamilton was backed by North Wales AM Michelle Brown, South Wales Central AM Gareth Bennett and South Wales West AM Caroline Jones, while Mr Gill had the support of the two South Wales East AMs, Mark Reckless and David Rowlands.
...
As Ukip group leader, Mr Hamilton will gain an extra £20,000 a year to take his salary to £84,000 and he will have control of a publicly-funded group budget of around £200,000.
In addition, each of the seven Ukip AMs is entitled to employ three full-time members of staff.
Llyr Powell, a senior member of Ukip Wales’ national campaign team, said: “Six of us have been told we won’t be employed in future because we are Farage loyalists. A new team will be brought in.

goddamnedtwisto posted:

And it still wouldn't have worked because the Tories are over the 325 mark. You can't have a minority government if there's actually a majority party.

The talk of minority government and rainbow coalitions came up when projections had the Tory/Lib Dem coalition around the 310-320 mark. If the Tories alone were below 300 with Labour within 10 or so seats of them, which wasn't inconceivable given the polling in the run-up to the election, Labour could have probably pieced together 325 seats in a confidence and supply agreement (coalition would have been inconceivable with that many members) to form a government but it would have been even more doomed than the last time they tried that.

Phoon posted:

just lol if you think the tories would back any plaid policies

quote:

Conservatives are fearful that a simmering row over alleged breaches of election spending rules by up to 30 MPs at the last election could lead to some losing their seats or even being sent to jail.
The involvement of the police has elevated an apparently technical issue over whether the Tories correctly recorded their election expenses into a matter of great concern among the parliamentary party.
The claims are that between 20 and 30 Conservative MPs had help from “battle buses” that brought in hundreds of volunteers to fight local seats. Police are starting to investigate whether this spending should have been declared locally.
If it should, the cost would have smashed election expenses rules. David Cameron has argued it was right to include the buses as part of the national campaign’s expenses.
Breaching spending limits in a local constituency is a criminal offence for which the candidate and agent are liable, with the possibility of fines or imprisonment. There would also be demands for a by-election.
“There are quite a few of us who are very worried,” said one Tory MP. “We did everything we could to stay within the rules, but this is very unsettling.”
The MP said Conservative HQ told him that the battle bus operation would count as national spending but added: “If they are wrong, then I’m the one who is legally responsible.”
...
While the police are responsible for investigating allegations of electoral fraud by candidates, the Electoral Commission has opened a separate probe into the way the Conservatives accounted for their campaign at a national level.
On Thursday, the party produced documents about its general election spending after the commission — which is investigating allegations relating to accommodation costs for activists on the battle bus — took court action.
The Conservatives have already acknowledged that an “administrative error” led to the fact that some hotel costs had not been properly registered, following an investigation by Channel 4.
Tory MPs admit they needed the support of flying squads of party activists from around the country to help win their seats because some local parties are not up to the task. The battle bus operation was deemed by Conservative headquarters to be part of the national campaign and its costs would therefore not breach national election spending limits.

quote:

Boris Johnson: The EU wants a superstate, just as Hitler did
The European Union is pursuing a similar goal to Hitler in trying to create a powerful superstate, Boris Johnson says.
In a dramatic interview with the Telegraph, he warns that while bureaucrats in Brussels are using “different methods” from the Nazi dictator, they share the aim of unifying Europe under one “authority”.
But the EU’s “disastrous” failures have fuelled tensions between member states and allowed Germany to grow in power, “take over” the Italian economy and “destroy” Greece, he warns.
Mr Johnson invokes Winston Churchill’s war-time defiance, urging the British people to be “the heroes of Europe” again, set the country free and save the EU from itself by voting to leave in the referendum next month.
The former mayor of London, who is a keen classical scholar, argues that the past 2,000 years of European history have been characterised by repeated attempts to unify Europe under a single government in order to recover the continent’s lost “golden age” under the Romans.
“Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically,” he says.
“The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods.

Pissflaps posted:

I didn't know how many EU member states there are.

Renaissance Robot posted:

Is she the one that was all "any organisation I join I'm always aiming for the top spot just because and I literally can't imagine why anyone wouldn't"?

OvineYeast posted:

And sadly I think the Liverpool experience in the 80s has put them off properly resisting the top-down cuts imposed. My ideal lefty council would be setting illegal budgets at this stage but they just don't have it in them.