The Dictatorship of the Etonariat

[oddoneout]

Those new head mics that BBC outside broadcast personnel have been issued with are strange - not-quite-flesh coloured, they look more like unfortunate facial blemishes.

Don't they just! I don't watch TV news but when I saw a photo the other day I did a double take thinking it was a massive zit. What's wrong with leaving them 'tech black'. I've only seen the pinkish version - do they have a suite of flesh tones to choose from do you suppose?

[Serial_Apologist]

Don't they just! I don't watch TV news but when I saw a photo the other day I did a double take thinking it was a massive zit. What's wrong with leaving them 'tech black'. I've only seen the pinkish version - do they have a suite of flesh tones to choose from do you suppose?

Black ones for the black presenters, brown for the brown, etc etc...

[Dave2002]

Now what is there about this that reminds me of William Walton's remark upon hearing of the appointment of Malcolm Williamson to the position of Master of the Queen's Musick - "they got the wrong Malcolm"...

I am curious as to who the right Malcolm would have been.

[Bella Kemp]

They've lost nowhere near as many members as the Tories are about to do! BoJo's evident desire to call a GE in that climate is either bizarrely suicidal or deeply sinister for reasons that I cannot fathom. Also, it seems that the LibDems have attracted some 2,000 new members over the space of a week (not that this necessarly proves or disproves anything)...

Perhaps I can help with this one. If there is a General Election before Brexit the Tories will probably win - they are comfortably ahead in the polls and the Brexit Party will probably urge their voters to vote Tory in order to avoid Mr Corbyn and a new Euro vote. After the Tory win,The Labour Party will then split into a hard left faction and a more moderate party and the Tories will rule for ten more years. If, however, the election comes after a No Deal Brexit, with all the chaos and possible social unrest that that will cause, then the Tories will face wipeout.

[ahinton]

I am curious as to who the right Malcolm would have been.

Arnold (in Walton's opinion, that is).

[ahinton]

Perhaps I can help with this one. If there is a General Election before Brexit the Tories will probably win - they are comfortably ahead in the polls and the Brexit Party will probably urge their voters to vote Tory in order to avoid Mr Corbyn and a new Euro vote. After the Tory win,The Labour Party will then split into a hard left faction and a more moderate party and the Tories will rule for ten more years. If, however, the election comes after a No Deal Brexit, with all the chaos and possible social unrest that that will cause, then the Tories will face wipeout.

Well, I'm not sure about your assessment but I do suspect that the disarray in which both "main" parties find themselves - Labour because of its lack of backbone as main opposition and its allegations of anti-Semitism and the Tories because of their netotiating failures with EU, their partially self-inflicted minority, the accusations of serial lying and the allegations of Islamophobia, all of which will be sure to come to the fore during a campaign that woud run most inconveniently during the party conference season - will likely make the outcome as indecisive as it could be, especially if the LibDems and Greens maintain at least a little of their EU election success and the Brexit Party fail to build on theirs as well as SNP wiping out the Tories in Scotland now that Davidson has departed.

[LMcD]

Perhaps I can help with this one. If there is a General Election before Brexit the Tories will probably win - they are comfortably ahead in the polls and the Brexit Party will probably urge their voters to vote Tory in order to avoid Mr Corbyn and a new Euro vote. After the Tory win,The Labour Party will then split into a hard left faction and a more moderate party and the Tories will rule for ten more years. If, however, the election comes after a No Deal Brexit, with all the chaos and possible social unrest that that will cause, then the Tories will face wipeout.

What happens if no party ends up with enough seats/supporters to form a government? The Tories might gain seats in Labour-held 'Leave' constituencies in England but lose seats in Scotland where any candidate associated with a 'No-deal Brexit' party is hardly likely to be wildly popular.

[Richard Barrett]

If there is a General Election before Brexit the Tories will probably win - they are comfortably ahead in the polls

- although not to the extent that they were in the spring of 2017...

[LHC]

- although not to the extent that they were in the spring of 2017...

The difference between then and now is that this time the Tories will run with a nakedly populist agenda and promises of ‘sun lit uplands’ rather than deeply unpopular ideas such as the dementia tax. Whatever your views on Johnson, I suspect he will also be a more effective campaigner than May (although to be honest, it would be difficult for anyone to be worse than she was).

[Richard Barrett]

The difference between then and now is that this time the Tories will run with a nakedly populist agenda and promises of ‘sun lit uplands’

Yes well if people fall for that nonsense they will only have themselves to blame. My feeling is that they won't, but I'm an incurable optimist.

[Bryn]

Yes well if people fall for that nonsense they will only have themselves to blame. My feeling is that they won't, but I'm an incurable optimist.

If some of the street interviews with electors, broadcast in news bulletins, are anything to go by, rather too many people are indeed happy to fall for the nonsense, or at least expect the grass to be greener with no deal.

[Bella Kemp]

Yes well if people fall for that nonsense they will only have themselves to blame. My feeling is that they won't, but I'm an incurable optimist.

Well, er, a majority did vote for Brexit - which, in my view at least, represented a certain falling for 'that nonsense.' Boris is certainly hoping for an election now: that's why he's pumping so much money into education and healthcare. He stands a fair chance of winning in October. After the disaster of a no deal Brexit, as I observed earlier, he would almost certainly lose - possibly to a resurgent Lib Dems.

[Richard Barrett]

Well, er, a majority did vote for Brexit - which, in my view at least, represented a certain falling for 'that nonsense.'

That was then. Campaign slogan noticed on FB: "His own brother doesn't trust him - why should you?"

[ahinton]

That was then. Campaign slogan noticed on FB: "His own brother doesn't trust him - why should you?"

Quite right too! - and his sister might not be regarded as doing him any favours (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rachel_Johnson )...

[teamsaint]

Well, er, a majority did vote for Brexit - which, in my view at least, represented a certain falling for 'that nonsense.' Boris is certainly hoping for an election now: that's why he's pumping so much money into education and healthcare. He stands a fair chance of winning in October. After the disaster of a no deal Brexit, as I observed earlier, he would almost certainly lose - possibly to a resurgent Lib Dems.

The lib dems might win a lot more seats, in fact thats a certainty. But they are going to be miles behind the big two in seats. The best they can hope for is to be the junior partner in a coalition, or the largest of a group of junior partners.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned from all this, and good may yet come of it. Whatever happens, we as a nation really need to learn to respect others’ beliefs and opinions, because, like our own, they are just that. Beliefs, not absolute truths. And we have seen too clearly what happens when we don’t.

( IMO , if they get their act together, the lib dems , Labour and / or the Scots have a good chance of forming a government, especially if they give the tories a couple of weeks more rope).