General Election 2017

[chrisp65]

QT audience question: 'please answer, what are we actually going to get from this?'

David Davies: 'The PM is absolutely clear on this, we will get the best brexit'

The other tory panel member perfectly happy with that as an answer.

Question comes in on income tax rates and other tory bloke demands Labour spokesman answers the question 'specifically' AND asks a supplementary question on tax of his own.

I've not watched QT in quite some time so not sure on the format, anybody know who this guy, the other tory rep is?

 

[chrisp65]

secret footage emerges of a man claiming that, for a fee, he knows ways around getting Theresa May to appear in public and face questions

 

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

9 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Is May possibly ill or something?

I really can't understand somebody voluntarily calling an election they didn't have to and stating it is needed so she looks strong and stable and tough and bloody awkward - then going in to hiding. When she is flushed out like some scared twin setted fox, she looks awful and talks utter rubbish. All with the smile and laugh of someone proclaiming all is well, when they've clearly just done a very wet shit in their trouser suit.

 

 

I was thinking that as well.  Take away the Tory glad-rags and make-up and she would look 50 times worse.

I am starting to believe all is not right in her head and she has early onset something around the corner,  if one has mental health issues then I think it is easier to spot for myself and something is going on.  She is the only person I know who is, in front of our eyes morphing into Thatcher's own spitting image puppet.  I am not making this up,  there are funny eye and hand movements that I immediately connect to depression, anxiety and high levels of stress.  If you believe what you are saying and you can beat our opponents with a sharp mind and and sharp tongue,  no stress.  She knows she is out of her depth and I think the reality has set in,  no days off for a long time.  I hope she does not need any NHS care in the near future.  She is ill though that is for sure.

[Nicho]

8 hours ago, villa4europe said:

I think the scary thing is that's very much a 2 way street, what % of voters next week will be voting against either labour or Tory rather than for them? It'll be far higher than what it should be

i wouldn't vote for May but would vote against labour, I won't vote for Corbin (I have every intention of spoiling mine)

I really don't understand this. If you don't want to vote for the individual vote for the policies, whatever party that may be. 

[TrentVilla]

5 minutes ago, Nicho said:

I really don't understand this. If you don't want to vote for the individual vote for the policies, whatever party that may be. 

Regardless of if you agree or not I think it's perfectly understandable.

A vote in a GE is a lot of things, it's a vote for a local MP, it's a vote for the Party and their principles, a vote for the policies and it is a vote for a PM who has to instigate those policies, lead the nation and deal with everything a term in office throws up quite aside from what is in a manefesto.

 

[Davkaus]

I enjoyed this.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/theresa-may-tv-debate-no-show-idiot-called-election-a7767696.html

 

Quote

 

Theresa May has been criticised for not going on the BBC’s TV debate, but as she said of Jeremy Corbyn, instead of going on television he “should be paying attention to Brexit negotiations. That’s what I’m doing”.

This would be an extremely valid point, if Corbyn was going on television to commentate on the snooker, or appear in The Chase, or take an old bust of Harold Wilson to Antiques Roadshow as he’d been told it could fetch £60, rather than debating why he should be prime minister in an election in which he’s trying to become prime minister.

She must see the election as a distraction, and I bet she wishes she could get her hands on whichever idiot called this election unnecessarily, while she’s trying to pay attention to Brexit negotiations.

On Sunday she’ll see Jeremy Hunt is being interviewed by Andrew Marr, and run into the studio, grabbing him out of the chair while yelling “WHAT do you think you’re doing here asking people to vote for us? Go home and pay attention to Brexit negotiations, like I’m doing.”

Maybe she thinks everyone should be at home studying Brexit negotiations, and runs up the road after dustcarts, shouting “stop collecting rubbish and pay attention to Brexit negotiations”.

Presumably she didn’t even watch the debate, as that would have distracted her attention from memorising regional figures for beetroot production, so she doesn’t get caught out by the wily Italians, who would know she had no idea about them because she’d wasted two hours going on television.

In any case, as Damian Green explained when asked why she didn’t turn up, “She takes lots of questions from the public.” There you are, that explains it. She can’t take questions from the public AND go on television, who’s she supposed to be, Superman?

Luckily, the public who she’s taken questions from during this election have all been journalists, as she’s not had time to meet members of the public who only represent minority groups, such as people who aren’t journalists.  

Sometimes she meets as many as 12 members of the public all at once, all of which are holding Conservative Party placards, because she’s obviously wandered into a random street in which local members of the public have shouted “Gawd blimey it’s the Prime Minister”, then surrounded her in a perfect circle, smiling and clapping at her funny joke about Jeremy Corbyn being naked, before going back to work driving a forklift truck.

In any case, whenever you’re asking someone to select you to do a job, whether in an election or a job interview, it’s vital to make an impression straight away by not turning up. I’m sure there are government leaflets that get handed to the unemployed, that advise, “When you are asked to attend an interview, it’s essential that you stand out as a candidate by not going. When they call and ask why you’re not there, affect an air that says, ‘I’ve got better things to do than waste time with you rocket polishers’, and the job will be as good as yours!”  

Now, to make the democratic process fair, the leaders who did waste their time by going on television should be allowed to choose a TV show Theresa May does have to go on. I’d vote for Geordie Shore, so Theresa has to get a fake tan and a tattoo of a winged horse across her back and scream “I canna believe it like, ’cos Boris was snogging that Nathan AND that Chloe tart reet in front of me like, OH MY GOD.”

Or she can make announcements such as the one she thrilled us with yesterday, that went “I have said many times in the past, people can have faith in me as I have faith in them.”

This is so refreshing, to hear a politician explain honestly that the reason we should vote for her is because she has faith in us. We’re sick of people who stand for office, saying “People can have faith in me because I think they’re scum.”

I’ve copied this myself, writing to the England manager to say he can have faith in me as I have faith in him, and now he’s got no choice but to play me as a striker instead of Harry Kane.

It shows why she doesn’t have to appear on television, as she’s asking for more than our vote, she wants our faith. We’re not just choosing a government, we’re voting for a new God.

The only thing Theresa May needs to be careful of, is if she keeps making statements like that, she’ll end up having to slap her dementia tax on herself.

She sent Amber Rudd to the debate in her place, which must mean Amber has ADHD, so she might as well go on television as she can’t keep still enough to spend all night studying Brexit negotiations. But Amber made her own valuable point to Jeremy Corbyn, that the real economy wasn’t like Monopoly, where you have “the green money to buy the railways and the yellow money to buy the gas works”.

It’s fascinating how we all have variations of the rules of Monopoly. Some of us play by going round the board trying to acquire properties. And she plays a different version, in which you set everything up, then buy utilities with different coloured money. “Who’s got the yellow money?” they must all shout in the Rudd household, “Oh it’s cousin Phyllis – go on then, buy the gas works”, then they pack everything away, leaving plenty of time to spend the rest of Christmas paying attention to Brexit negotiations, like the normal members of the public her party likes so much.

 

 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

  I am not making this up,  there are funny eye and hand movements that I immediately connect to depression, anxiety and high levels of stress....  She knows she is out of her depth and I think the reality has set in,  no days off for a long time.  I hope she does not need any NHS care in the near future.  She is ill though that is for sure.

I'm not medic, but that's exactly what I thought when I saw her get interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg, and then the thing about not going on the radio. I think she's unwell. Essentially as a control freak, she's lost control and it's breaking her.

[markavfc40]

1 hour ago, Nicho said:

I really don't understand this. If you don't want to vote for the individual vote for the policies, whatever party that may be. 

With that in mind this site could help.

https://voteforpolicies.org.uk/

[dAVe80]

10 hours ago, Risso said:

If you've seen the film Withnail and I, she reminds me of the scene in the pub where Withnail is being threatened by the mad homicidal Irish bloke. The petrified look on her face is exactly the same.

"Ponce"

[Jareth]

10 hours ago, VillaChris said:

Anyone see Boris on BBC Breakfast this morning?

The look of bemusement on his face when Charlie Stayt started unexpectedly laying into him for fudging a question about Trump scrapping the climate change agreement was beautiful.

Was going to watch it again but they've put a password on I player now so would love if anyone has a link for it. Terrific stuff.

That interview reflects the reality of this election. Boris is a complete liability, but then all the tory spokespeople are because they are defending the indefensible, in the belief that they are being 'good' ministers, or loyal. The net result is that they appear to be lying and the public, at the end of the day elect the right party at the time of the vote. I am getting more certain than ever that the tories will lose this. 

[mjmooney]

10 hours ago, NurembergVillan said:

Listen to that Johnson clip again while looking at this...

 

[blandy]

27 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

 

When you go that colour, the colour of a fig, and then purse your lips like that, it's why people shout "fig pucker"

[peterms]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

I'm not medic, but that's exactly what I thought when I saw her get interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg, and then the thing about not going on the radio. I think she's unwell. Essentially as a control freak, she's lost control and it's breaking her.

I don't know whether she's clinically unwell, but she's obviously under immense stress and not coping.

An election campaign would be stressful for anyone, but there are a few things which make it worse for her.

First, as an introvert, she will find fronting the campaign tiring rather than energising - someone like the appalling Johnson would have enjoyed it far more.  This makes it hard to understand why the campaign strategy was so heavily dependent on putting her front and centre.  I assume the thinking was that Corbyn's ratings were so poor, that such an approach would be a banker and all they had to do was a "compare and contrast" and they'd be home in a boat.

Second, when that approach was seen to be a problem, they didn't really know what to do.  The cop-out of getting others to do the interviews looks like a cowardly retreat, not an inclusive approach, because it's clearly a last-minute panic.  At the same time, they have repeated the original approach of focussing on May - if you saw her speech, it was back to talking about I and me, place your faith in me, and even "strong and stable".  She talked about the team around her as a way of evading a question about ducking the interviews, not because it's part of the plan or her natural style.  So the strategy looks (and is) disjointed and incoherent.  She is very obviously floundering.

Third, and following on from that, she knows that many tory candidates and activists are deeply unhappy, that previously tame and malleable parts of the media are slowly acquiring the courage to ask mildly challenging questions, that she's being openly laughed at, and that her enemies are planning her imminent replacement.  Because her approach is one based on the authority of the leader rather than building support and winning allies, she has few resources and friends to call on.  Her own side are watching with sometimes unconcealed disapproval.

Fourth, even if she wins with enough of a majority to see off challengers to her leadership, she knows that she will be plunged into a nightmarish few years where success is impossible, and the question is more about how badly she will fail and how much damage will be caused in the process.

It's an exercise in self-destruction, and you might feel almost sorry for her, even if her own arrogance brought it about.  The problem will be the damage she wreaks on the rest of us in the process.

[MakemineVanilla]

The opposition parties' supporters seem to feel defrauded because May declined the offer of appearing in the BBC's televised slanging match, which managed to bring politics to a new low and made everyone look petty, spiteful and shabby.

Bearing that in mind, May's decision to avoid that vulgar pandering to the tastes of the demos, looked like a wise one.

Corbyn's late decision to take part was obviously as tactical as May's but his late change of mind is now being presented as an act of heroic bravery.

As Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War: The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

There's certainly truth in that.

[darrenm]

22 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

Bearing that in mind, May's decision to avoid that vulgar pandering to the tastes of the demos, looked like a wise one.

Really? It's not worked out so well for her has it?

[Davkaus]

22 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

The opposition parties' supporters seem to feel defrauded because May declined the offer of appearing in the BBC's televised slanging match, which managed to bring politics to a new low and made everyone look petty, spiteful and shabby.

Do you think that Woman's Hour was going to be gatecrashed by the leaders of other political parties as well?

You could almost have a point, if it wasn't for her dodging  other appearances too. Her strategists have clearly realised that every time the public see her, the poll numbers get worse. 

[peterms]

27 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

vulgar pandering to the tastes of the demos

Or "answering questions on her plans for our future", as the rest of us call it.

You make it sound like she was being asked to dress up as a pigeon and dance on a table, when in fact she is being expected to take part in discussion of the issues at stake in the election which she, and she alone, initiated.

[bickster]

25 minutes ago, MakemineVanilla said:

The opposition parties' supporters seem to feel defrauded because May declined the offer of appearing in the BBC's televised slanging match, which managed to bring politics to a new low and made everyone look petty, spiteful and shabby.

Bearing that in mind, May's decision to avoid that vulgar pandering to the tastes of the demos, looked like a wise one.

This is the same Theresa May that has make personal attacks on Corbyn in the pauses between robotic statements.

Apart from churn out empty statements and rhetoric, that's all she's done. Corbyn, this, Corbyn that... Corbyn naked... 

She's made more petty, spiteful and shabby statements this campaign than almost anyone else.

 

 

[MakemineVanilla]

10 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Do you think that Woman's Hour was going to be gatecrashed by the leaders of other political parties as well?

You could almost have a point, if it wasn't for her dodging  other appearances too. Her strategists have clearly realised that every time the public see her, the poll numbers get worse. 

If as you say her poll numbers get worse every time she makes a public appearance then she is wise to avoid it, and it is exactly why Labour supporters are trying to persuade she has a duty to do more.

According to the poll analysts I follow Labour have made small gains (+4) but the Tories are predicted, as of today, to have a 152 seat lead.

 

 

[meregreen]

She called an election .......and then didn't turn up.