General Election '24

[headshot]

Farage has just proposed net zero migration - which is always a good idea in an ailing economy with and aging population and worker shortages.

[jimbob]

I'll point you all to my theory of Farage's intent from January.

Yup, this would help him short circuit some of those steps. Assuming he becomes an MP

Because he could think he has a chance to replace Sunak straight away

[lpm]

Almost impossible to predict how it will play out because we don't know which Tory MPs will survive.

Big difference in outcomes between there being 80 Conservative MPs or 160 or 240. Who will the survivors be - from the NatC wing, the Brexity wing, the pretend-to-be-nice wing?

It could well be a random collection of misfits and they'll carry on civil warring, but it could be concentrated down into a dominant clan.

[lpm]

Well this is a weird looking constituency.

Bristol North West. Any of you Bristol people know what's happening here?

It includes areas of the Severn Estuary, all the way south west of Weston-Super-Mare, which as far as I know is just mud. Does mud have a vote? I suppose it does in Clapton where the mud is cleverer than the people.

[headshot]

Perhaps a prominent Tory has a secret island lair somewhere in the Severn Estuary.

[El Pollo Diablo]

Almost impossible to predict how it will play out because we don't know which Tory MPs will survive.

Big difference in outcomes between there being 80 Conservative MPs or 160 or 240. Who will the survivors be - from the NatC wing, the Brexity wing, the pretend-to-be-nice wing?

It could well be a random collection of misfits and they'll carry on civil warring, but it could be concentrated down into a dominant clan.

It'll definitely play out differently, but the overall strategy seems clear enough. Farridge wants power, and after the election, the Tories will be absolutely ripe for a takeover.

[dyqik]

Almost impossible to predict how it will play out because we don't know which Tory MPs will survive.

Big difference in outcomes between there being 80 Conservative MPs or 160 or 240. Who will the survivors be - from the NatC wing, the Brexity wing, the pretend-to-be-nice wing?

It could well be a random collection of misfits and they'll carry on civil warring, but it could be concentrated down into a dominant clan.

It'll definitely play out differently, but the overall strategy seems clear enough. Farridge wants power, and after the election, the Tories will be absolutely ripe for a takeover.

Although if some of the more hilarious polling is correct, then that won't have much to do with power - and I don't know if the Tories will recover any faster than the Lib Dems did after 2015.

[Gfamily]

Well this is a weird looking constituency.

Bristol North West. Any of you Bristol people know what's happening here?

It includes areas of the Severn Estuary, all the way south west of Weston-Super-Mare, which as far as I know is just mud. Does mud have a vote? I suppose it does in Clapton where the mud is cleverer than the people.

At the simplest, it reflects the assignment of Denny's Island and Steep Holm to England and Flat Holm to Wales.
Having that stretch of the Bristol Channel linked to the Bristol Constituency dates back to the 1373 charter granting rights to the City and County of Bristol.
ETA -to add "and County"

[lpm]

That makes sense.

Got to respect the 1373 charter.

Can't stand those reformers who want to put Steep Holm in with Weston-super-Mare 5 miles away, when it clearly should be with North West Bristol 20 miles away. The issues affecting Steep Holm are similar to those affecting Southmead at the other end of the constituency.

[Woodchopper]

That makes sense.

Got to respect the 1373 charter.

Can't stand those reformers who want to put Steep Holm in with Weston-super-Mare 5 miles away, when it clearly should be with North West Bristol 20 miles away. The issues affecting Steep Holm are similar to those affecting Southmead at the other end of the constituency.

I done a Google

this isn’t the Boundary Commission’s doing. The commissioners are using existing council boundaries, and those of the City of Bristol really do extend several miles out into the Channel, as far as the islands of Flat Holm and Steep Holm. In 2007, the city’s then Lord Mayor Royston Griffey JP (this is, apparently, a real name) undertook the ancient rite of “beating the bounds” of the city. He had to borrow the Royal Navy’s HMS Ledbury to do it.

The existence of Bristol’s maritime extension seems to go back a very long way: Russ Garrett, who last year live tweeted his attempt to get to the bottom of all this, points to a document outlining it that dates from 1373. That was the year parts of Gloucestershire and Somerset were merged into the newfangled City and County of Bristol – a sort of medieval combined authority, a way of dealing with the awkward fact that one of the major cities of 14th century England was technically split between two counties and thus two sets of authorities. Whether the boundary dates back even further than that, nobody seems quite sure – but the logic seems to have been that, by extending the city’s territory below the low-waterline into open sea, Parliament was giving the port city control of shipping in the channel. It may have been tied up with the port’s defence, too: at some points, at least, the two islands were fortified.

Bristol is not unique: other councils including Brighton & Hove, Torbay and Aberdeen also include stretches of sea. And the City of Norwich technically includes a long stretch of the River Yare, well outside its boundaries. (It may not be a coincidence that Bristol and Norwich were two of the biggest cities in medieval England.)

But one last oddity about that seems worth noting: only one of those two islands that mark the boundaries of the city is technically a part of it. Why isn’t Flat Holm in Bristol? Because it’s in Wales.

https://jonn.substack.com/p/no-that-isn ... a-city-and

[monkey]

Farage is being remarkably open and seems to think that it's plausible:

Nigel Farage says he wants to 'take over' the Conservative party
We mentioned in the opening summary that Nigel Farage told ITV’s Good Morning Britain his goal was to take the Conservative party over, rather than join it. Here are the fuller quotes from the interview.

“You can speculate as to what’ll happen in three or four years’ time, all I will tell you is if Reform succeed in the way that I think they can, then a chunk of the Conservative party will join us – it’s the other way around,” he said.

Farage pointed to Canada, where “Reform did a reverse takeover of the Conservative party, rebranded it and Stephen Harper – who was elected as a Reform MP – became the Canadian prime minister for 10 years”.

He said: “I don’t want to join the Conservative party, I think the better thing to do would be to take it over.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... d0d6e61fc1

Though he's a lying liar so maybe its all just a ploy to get more votes in the 2024 election. If there is an apparent long term strategy then that counters the argument that a vote for Reform is wasted or just supports Labour.

If he's talking about what happened in Canada he's talking about Reform beating the Conservatives in an election, and the merger happening with the Tories being the minority partner in it (in terms of seats).

In the Canadian election of 1993 the Progressive Conservatives went from 156/295 seats (a majority) to 2/295 (very much not a majority). Reform got 52, coming just behind Bloc Quebecois (54) who were the opposition. The Progressive Conservatives never recovered and merged with Reform (now Canadian Alliance after merging with some provincial parties) in 2003. The new party, the Conservative Party of Canada under Harper got a majority in 2011, after forming minority governments in 2006 and 2008 and being in opposition in 2004.

I guess we should wait and see if the Tories decline further in (more than likely) 5 years time, but I don't see something like that happening in the UK to our Conservatives. He's just talking big, like you suggest.

I can see a few Tories getting disgruntled a switching to Reform through the course of the parliament, because there will be infighting, but more like a handful at most, rather than a chunk.

[lpm]

On Friday 7 June at 4 pm is the deadline for submitting/withdrawing candidates.

So the CONS are running out of time to do a deal with Farage. After that Reform are going to be taking votes off them, even if they go quiet in constituencies.

Is there any scenario where a deal happens? A proper one, where they divvy up constituencies.

If Sunak is left sobbing in the debate tonight and the party is desperate?

[El Pollo Diablo]

I don't think so, no. Farage's route to PM is via humiliating the Conservatives. Show of force, crumble them to dust and then be the Ezra to their Israelites. "The only route to success is by allying with me" sort of thing, but after the election.

[Brightonian]

English grammar advice please, about the verb 'to milkshake'. Is the past participle 'milkshaked' or 'milkshaken'?*

20240604_150937.jpg (105.41 KiB) Viewed 30862 times

* Edit: was only joking, but it seems 'milkshaking' is recognised as a proper word, in Wiktionary: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/milkshake (which has 'milkshaked' as the past participle, in case you really wanted to know).

[IvanV]

I have been disappointed to discover that there have been adjustments to the proposed boundary changes from when they were published.

Under those proposals, Beaconsfield constituency would have ceased to exist. I was going to enjoy that. The old Beaconsfield constituency was too big, so the proposal to shrink it was by cutting out Beaconsfield town itself, on the N edge of it, leaving a South Bucks & Marlow constituency behind. Evidently too much for the good rich people of Beaconsfield, whose constituency survives, with some different bits carved off into other constituencies. It does at least mean that Chesham & Amersham, which was originally to have received Beaconsfield Town, while losing larger pieces at its northern and western extremities, is now less likely to be tipped back to Conservative by the good rich people of Beaconsfield.

[Beaker]

English grammar advice please, about the verb 'to milkshake'. Is the past participle 'milkshaked' or 'milkshaken'?*


* Edit: was only joking, but it seems 'milkshaking' is recognised as a proper word, in Wiktionary: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/milkshake (which has 'milkshaked' as the past participle, in case you really wanted to know).

I would like to think it depends on object and subject. For example

“The woman milkshaked the gobsh*te.”

“The hateful tw*t was milkshook.”

[tenchboy]

English grammar advice please, about the verb 'to milkshake'. Is the past participle 'milkshaked' or 'milkshaken'?*

20240604_150937.jpg

* Edit: was only joking, but it seems 'milkshaking' is recognised as a proper word, in Wiktionary: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/milkshake (which has 'milkshaked' as the past participle, in case you really wanted to know).

That is a superb picture: press photo of the month material. I know shutter speeds don't come into it any more but to capture that much detail in the moving column of jiz milk - right down to the top and straw still hanging on the end of it - is absolutely fantastic.

[Gfamily]

That said, we deprecate physical assaults of course.

[lpm]

Farage took it with dignity and later would have quietly celebrated the extra publicity.

Another loss for the non-fascist side I'm afraid.

[El Pollo Diablo]

I dunno, getting a record because of Nifel Garage seems like a silly thing to do

[JQH]

English grammar advice please, about the verb 'to milkshake'. Is the past participle 'milkshaked' or 'milkshaken'?*

20240604_150937.jpg

* Edit: was only joking, but it seems 'milkshaking' is recognised as a proper word, in Wiktionary: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/milkshake (which has 'milkshaked' as the past participle, in case you really wanted to know).

That is a superb picture: press photo of the month material. I know shutter speeds don't come into it any more but to capture that much detail in the moving column of jiz milk - right down to the top and straw still hanging on the end of it - is absolutely fantastic.

It's almost as if the photographer knew ahead of time what was to happen.

[Stranger Mouse]

I dunno, getting a record because of Nifel Garage seems like a silly thing to do

Quite. This guy got a criminal record, a fine and lost his job.

https://news.sky.com/story/man-who-thre ... e-11744012

I wish people wouldn’t do this even though I despise Farage.

[Opti]

It's almost as if the photographer knew ahead of time what was to happen.

There's a lot of traffic on SM speculating that she is the girlfriend of a Farage aide.

He doesn't look massively surprised compared to others who have been milkshaked.

[Brightonian]

It's almost as if the photographer knew ahead of time what was to happen.

There's a lot of traffic on SM speculating that she is the girlfriend of a Farage aide.

He doesn't look massively surprised compared to others who have been milkshaked.

Interesting. I had noticed that Tice had a grin on his face in the photo above.

[Gfamily]

There's a lot of traffic on SM speculating that she is the girlfriend of a Farage aide.

There was a suggestion that it was someone called Hewertson, who does work for Reform, she's denied it and was seen elsewhere (campaigning for another candidate) at the time when the young woman was supposed to be in custody.

Doesn't rule it out - but not the one that was first suggested.