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Baphornet
23 May 20 16:00
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Date Joined: 02 Nov 18
| Topic/replies: 14,569 | Blogger: Baphornet's blog
Excited
Pause Switch to Standard View Schnapps us up in the firing line
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Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:01 PM BST
Jennie in a mini
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:04 PM BST
his hair is in a worserer state than edy's
Report sofiakenny May 23, 2020 4:06 PM BST
Where is Boris?..I need to be inspired enthused and energised!!..this Shapps guy is dull dull dull.Sad
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:06 PM BST
railways ??
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:07 PM BST
apparently he's summat to do with Transport MM
Report jollyswagman May 23, 2020 4:08 PM BST
we have a question from dominic in east london, are the roads to durham clear?
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:08 PM BST
its more like a party political
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:08 PM BST
joyous news for the Pennines. WTF has this got to do with anything now????
Report nineteen points May 23, 2020 4:09 PM BST
it is
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:10 PM BST
:Take the bike" metinks i've heard that before
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:11 PM BST
slide nurse
Report Angoose May 23, 2020 4:12 PM BST
A mobility slide a week out of date
Report eyeball May 23, 2020 4:13 PM BST
Absolutely pointless slides yet again . Why don't they stop it ?
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:14 PM BST
i wonder if some of the "big journo hitters" will appear?

like feck they will
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:14 PM BST
questions are censored anyway so nothing untoward will get asked. answers pre-prepared.
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:16 PM BST
i'm expecting a gloves off free for all
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:16 PM BST
with Jennie that is
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:18 PM BST
thats bollox
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:18 PM BST
of ffs
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:18 PM BST
re questions from public
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:19 PM BST
even i knew that MM
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:20 PM BST
20 mins of total bollox
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:21 PM BST
palming it off Laugh
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:22 PM BST
a double edgsd attack forom the journo; with a flannel
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:23 PM BST
& not even a wet one
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:23 PM BST
go on , stick the boot in
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:24 PM BST
met with a forward defensive
Report eyeball May 23, 2020 4:24 PM BST
Bobby Box in a lot of trouble
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:25 PM BST
journo getting an itchy arse & fuming
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:25 PM BST
its official, you can do anything you want
Report salmon spray May 23, 2020 4:29 PM BST
It was "safeguarding" as defined by Dom so that's alright then.
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:31 PM BST
johnson the coward should be answering these, not some patsy.
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:32 PM BST
Bozo will be getting a rim job just about now
Report eyeball May 23, 2020 4:32 PM BST
Now becoming embarrassing
Report salmon spray May 23, 2020 4:33 PM BST
Quite right mm.
Where IS the fat clown ?
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:33 PM BST
i dont like schapps but dont think this is fair on him. harries is embarassing and just toeing line
Report foxy May 23, 2020 4:34 PM BST
When will one of these journalists ask about Cummings?
Report InsiderTrader May 23, 2020 4:35 PM BST
Journos absolute morons.
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:35 PM BST
must be bad, torygraph sticking boot in
Report InsiderTrader May 23, 2020 4:36 PM BST
No one cares about this issue.

What is important is getting schools back and pubs open and end the furlough nonsense.

Good way for the government to avoid tough questions on why we are even in lockdown.
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:36 PM BST
plod telling fibsShocked
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:37 PM BST
lefties care about it
Report foxy May 23, 2020 4:37 PM BST
What a bunch of tw.ts these are ,I honestly believe the journalists would be suited if this pandemic lasts forever.
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:38 PM BST
a lot like Brexit
Report foxy May 23, 2020 4:38 PM BST
Absolutely trader those are the important issues.
Report foxy May 23, 2020 4:40 PM BST
Baphornet

Plod telling fibs

Has this ever happened before?
Report InsiderTrader May 23, 2020 4:41 PM BST
I want to know what the advise is on shielding the extremely vulnerable after the end of June and when hospitals will be back to normal services.

Could not care less about while Cummings goes to isolate.
Report eyeball May 23, 2020 4:41 PM BST
It's not whether you are left or right , white or black , male or female . The fact is he did not abide by the rules laid down by the government that he advises . He was wrong but is beyond reproach .
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:41 PM BST
oh ffs
Report 1st time poster May 23, 2020 4:42 PM BST
journo,s asking questions 99% of public want asking,if your in the other !% you may want to look in the mirror,while looking in it ,you can educate yourself on the cummings story, LaughLaughLaughLaughLaugh
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:43 PM BST

May 23, 2020 -- 4:38PM, foxy wrote:


Absolutely trader those are the important issues.


is this not an important issue ? government act with impunity , joe public thinks fk it, i'll do same, leads to more spreading of disease. bank holiday coming up, 25 degrees in south east, all cockernees heading to coast with their fizzy lager for a cultural day out

Report foxy May 23, 2020 4:44 PM BST
99% of the public don’t give a f,,k about cummings
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 4:44 PM BST
including Bozo
Report foxy May 23, 2020 4:45 PM BST
Mm

Not almost every question
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:47 PM BST
maybe foxy, but you  knew press would be like a dog with a bone
Report foxy May 23, 2020 4:50 PM BST
Correct mm I think your earlier post was a very fair point it should have been boris answering questions on this issue.

Throughout all this crisis I think the press have been very poor ,quite often the public ask more appropriate questions
Report 1st time poster May 23, 2020 4:50 PM BST
at present the right don't want to talk about
63,000 deaths
priti,s I meet and greet service on kent coast,
priti,buisness class flights for fruitpicker,s
doris, border in irish sea
free trade deal with china
billions of public borrowing
pay rises for public workers,
free money for all

what do the right want to talk about these days,we do miss your sharp wit and repartee Laugh
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 4:51 PM BST
thats true foxy,  peston likes sound of his own voice, and takes about 10 mins to ask
Report foxy May 23, 2020 4:55 PM BST
Poor lad announces much improvement to the dreadful a66 and it never gets a mention.
Report 1st time poster May 23, 2020 4:55 PM BST
the right wing knuckledragger,s want journo,s to ask shapps about £50 bicycle  voucher,s , amidst a political scandal LaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaughLaugh
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 5:08 PM BST
who is this daily mail journo ??Shocked
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 5:19 PM BST
Sonja Sodher
Report lapsy pa May 23, 2020 5:21 PM BST
Dan hodges?
Report sofiakenny May 23, 2020 5:25 PM BST
MailonSunday.lapsy.
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 5:25 PM BST
ffs Lapsy i had im then
Report lapsy pa May 23, 2020 5:45 PM BST
Grin,tbf Bap MM was a great contributer to the thread and in recognition of that couldn't leave him walk into that one.
Report morpteh mackem May 23, 2020 5:50 PM BST
Grin
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 5:57 PM BST
Cry he was like a pike in Lough Oughter sniffing a hot dog
Report lapsy pa May 23, 2020 6:06 PM BST
I was lucky i only saw his name flash up in the caption underneath with my lazy eye,i won't have known that right wing scribe meself, sure MM was only sniffing anyway, Sonia needed a denny sausage rather than hot dog.
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 6:17 PM BST
i would offer her my pepperami whilst Isabel Oakeshott was pouring my stout. Got a bit fruity that convo between them; a lot more exciting than the borefest at No10 anyhoos. Hodges used to be a Labour man, & talking of eyes; he lost his left one in a bar scrap some years ago

i shall cast again MM my good man[:wink:
Report 1st time poster May 23, 2020 6:20 PM BST
NEW LABOUR not LABOUR
Report Baphornet May 23, 2020 7:04 PM BST
David Miliband has won, says Dan Hodges.

This Saturday David Miliband will become leader of the Labour party. He will have won a majority of his Parliamentary colleagues and the wider membership, along with sufficient support from unions and other affiliates to secure not just victory but  an overwhelming mandate. The New Labour era will be over.

A few months ago I wrote that this leadership contest would tell us more about ourselves as a party than it did the candidates contesting it. It has. Less an election, more an exercise in psychoanalysis, we’ve delved into the deepest recesses of a party’s soul. Remorse, guilt, envy, hatred, love, fear, hope. Above all, hope.

We wept for the supporters abandoned to the government’s tender mercies. Felt shame for the crimes we committed in our own ruthless pursuit of  power. Looked jealously upon those who wrested it from us.

We’ve hurled ourselves at the Tories, and honed our contempt for the Liberals. Dreamt of their precarious alliance splintering. Woken trembling from the nightmare it may not.

Throughout, we’ve looked longingly toward the horizon, straining eye and ear for the clattering of hoof or glint of sun on armour heralding the approach of a new champion.

All breathless stuff. But, as it turned out, champions were in short supply. Jon Cruddas judged the crown would lay too heavy. Harriet Harman opted not to relinquish her role as loyal deputy. Old soldiers Jack Straw, Alastair Darling and Alan Johnson sheathed their swords.

In the end, four contenders emerged, with a fifth drafted in at the last minute. And at that moment, the parameters of the campaign should have been set. With all the serious candidates coming from the centre-right of the party, the process was geared to managerial selection, rather than ideological confrontation. That it became infinitely more complex was down to a fateful strategic choice made by one of the candidates, and the emotional status of a party experiencing the political equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder.

In retrospect, the contest can be divided into three distinct periods. The Fight For Definition, David’s Consolidation and Ed’s Dash To The Left.

At the start, the size of the field meant lots of jostling, cursing and confusion. And that was just from the people  trying to cover it. Paul Routledge can legitimately claim loyalty as the basis for his prediction of an Ed Balls victory. Paul Richards’ and James Macintyre’s argument that Diane Abbott would prevail is more difficult to rationalise. The Daily Mail’s can be filed under wishful thinking.

But during this early period each of the candidates took decisions that ultimately shaped the outcome of the race. Diane Abbott chose to play safe, pitching to her narrow constituency and going negative with a succession of  jabs at her opponents. In the debates, audiences loved it. But she squandered the opportunity to broaden her appeal, and lost momentum.

Momentum was a political commodity that remained tantalisingly beyond Andy Burnham’s reach. Playing on his northern roots, he managed to build a base, but at the price of becoming ghettoised and one dimensional.

Ed Balls opted to ignore that he was in a race at all, tearing at the hapless Michael Gove and a shell-shocked government. This display of machismo was a sound tactic on paper, and won admirers. Yet his legacy as Brown’s chief pistolero, meant that he, more than anyone, needed to address questions of biography and process. While people were searching for the warmth and empathy of a retail politician, Ed Cojones  was piling in with the knuckle duster.

All of which meant that the contest was quickly whittled  down to two. David Miliband, who unveiled a classic pitch of experience and gravitas; the man who passed the Number 10 test, (can you see him physically standing on the threshold of Downing Street, delivering bland statements about “doing not talking” while clinging, limpet-like, to his stoic wife).

And Ed Miliband, who deployed the equally classical opening gambit of the ‘change candidate’. It’s easy to forget now, but in the beginning Ed’s was a standard “change versus more of the same” mantra. The military beret, Cuban cigars and intoxicating revolutionary rhetoric were nowhere to be seen. In the speech that launched his campaign, New Labour didn’t even warrant a mention.

It was David’s message that resonated. The party needed and wanted a winner. 15 years in opposition? Bugger that. We could be fighting a new election in six months. Modernisation and change? We’ve heard that somewhere before. David consolidated.

But then the trauma of our election defeat began to play tricks with the mind. The contest was turning into another coronation. We needed a debate. We had to find a way to bury Blairism for good.

Ed saw his opening. Diane was becalmed. A treacherous but passable leftward route to the summit lay open. He struck out.

On August 27, New Labour got it’s first proper kicking. It had fallen, “into the same trap as old Labour, clinging to old truths that had served their time”. “The New Labour modernisers”, were  “the New Labour traditionalists” and “out of touch”.  The pressure was ratcheted up,  the attacks personalised. By 1 September it was time to “move on from the politicians of a previous generation”. By 10 September, it was all out war: “You know, New Labour was right for its time but we need to move on from New Labour, and all the attacks on me from the New Labour establishment have helped crystallise that message”.

The mood changed. The coronation was now a contest. Red Ed had Big Mo.

On Sunday, September 12, he had the lead. YouGov, placed him two points up. The MPs had rejected his message. But the ordinary members, and the unions, had swung behind him.

Victory was in his grasp. A political earthquake for the ages. And then…

There are three main reasons why David Miliband won. The first was Ed’s willingness so readily to trade electability for perceived ideological purity. The party’s loyalty has been sorely tested in the years since dawn broke over Festival Hall. But never again will we view power as an optional extra.

The second was David Miliband’s political courage. He was slow to respond to attempts to define him as Blair’s successor, and the sheer audacity of his brother’s turn left surprised him. But he never departed significantly from his core strategy, nor joined in  a scorched earth assault on the party’s past. Time will grant Gordon Brown the political rehabilitation he deserves. But the price we paid for unpopular and indecisive leadership will not be forgotten.

The third reason lies in the resilience and vision of the party itself. The defeat hit hard. We should have had time to regroup and lick our wounds before launching into a leadership contest. But, in the end, we saw beyond the impact on ourselves; our guilt, envy, hatred, love, fear, hope. We looked outward. And saw that the flags of the old guard could simply be lowered. There was no need to tear them down. The Blairite and Brownite camps were now deserted. Their few remaining followers dispersed. Change could be embraced. It did not need to be enforced.

This Saturday, David Miliband will be elected. It will not mean that we are on the path back to power. Nor that we have fully come to terms with our election defeat. But we will have a new leader. And the right one. For the moment, that is enough.


Dan Hodges is contributing editor of Labour Uncut

Hardly
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