You know, I'm not at all sure I do want to see that show, but I'm a bit confused as to why anyone wants to keep up with the Kardashians as well, so I don't think my bemusement is specific to Sir Jacob and his family.
To be fair, I'd enjoy this bit: "The Discovery+ documentary will also follow his failed General Election campaign after he spectacularly lost his North East Somerset seat last week while standing next to a man dressed as baked beans."
Having recently observed Rees-Mogg's show it seems that his technique is to invite a rather ineffective left-wing voice onto his panel in order to act as "easy meat" for his sympathisers.
Where on earth was he supposed to find an effective left wing voice ?
Given that he was 'The Dishonourable Member For The 18th Century', how do his weather forecasts run?
'Alright you sturdy swains and yokels, if you want to get the harvest in quickly this weekend before my bailiffs evict you from your hovels, you'd better get cracking because Storm Jedidiah is on its way ... and don't go spending a farthing in the ale-house afterwards lest I set the yeomanry on you to fire your thatch and turf you out into the cold and dark without a thread to keep you warm and dry ...
Ingrates! Flogging's too good for you! I'd have you shipped to Barbadoes then you'll be sorry for wanting to extend the franchise beyond the landed gentry and your betters!'
He could find effective left wingers anywhere. We tend to be up on the political situation. We tend to be able to stand up for ourselves. Invite Owen Jones on the show. He would put the cat among the pidgins. He is well know lefty and Guardian journalist.
Given that he was 'The Dishonourable Member For The 18th Century', how do his weather forecasts run?
He readily accepts that he is of the 18th century but he's not Dishonourable
'Alright you sturdy swains and yokels, if you want to get the harvest in quickly this weekend before my bailiffs evict you from your hovels, you'd better get cracking because Storm Jedidiah is on its way ... and don't go spending a farthing in the ale-house afterwards lest I set the yeomanry on you to fire your thatch and turf you out into the cold and dark without a thread to keep you warm and dry ...
Ingrates! Flogging's too good for you! I'd have you shipped to Barbadoes then you'll be sorry for wanting to extend the franchise beyond the landed gentry and your betters!'
Nothing like that. He merely tells us that the weather will be splendiferous.
1. He will assert things that are demonstrably wrong and untrue - even after he's been called out on it
2. His condescending manner
3. His use of Parliamentary privilege to slander a doctor
4. And the greatest outrage today
He used a typical antisemitic trope in the Commons...
FWIW, I suspect he isn't antisemitic but he does know his audience and he does know that it will play well. He also knows that he almost certainly will face no real consequences for his disgraceful, irresponsible behaviour.
1. He will assert things that are demonstrably wrong and untrue - even after he's been called out on it
2. His condescending manner
3. His use of Parliamentary privilege to slander a doctor
4. And the greatest outrage today
He used a typical antisemitic trope in the Commons...
FWIW, I suspect he isn't antisemitic but he does know his audience and he does know that it will play well. He also knows that he almost certainly will face no real consequences for his disgraceful, irresponsible behaviour.
Given that he was 'The Dishonourable Member For The 18th Century', how do his weather forecasts run?
He readily accepts that he is of the 18th century but he's not Dishonourable
'Alright you sturdy swains and yokels, if you want to get the harvest in quickly this weekend before my bailiffs evict you from your hovels, you'd better get cracking because Storm Jedidiah is on its way ... and don't go spending a farthing in the ale-house afterwards lest I set the yeomanry on you to fire your thatch and turf you out into the cold and dark without a thread to keep you warm and dry ...
Ingrates! Flogging's too good for you! I'd have you shipped to Barbadoes then you'll be sorry for wanting to extend the franchise beyond the landed gentry and your betters!'
Nothing like that. He merely tells us that the weather will be splendiferous.
The Lord sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
1. He will assert things that are demonstrably wrong and untrue - even after he's been called out on it
2. His condescending manner
3. His use of Parliamentary privilege to slander a doctor
4. And the greatest outrage today
He used a typical antisemitic trope in the Commons...
FWIW, I suspect he isn't antisemitic but he does know his audience and he does know that it will play well. He also knows that he almost certainly will face no real consequences for his disgraceful, irresponsible behaviour.
1. He will assert things that are demonstrably wrong and untrue - even after he's been called out on it
2. His condescending manner
3. His use of Parliamentary privilege to slander a doctor
4. And the greatest outrage today
He used a typical antisemitic trope in the Commons...
FWIW, I suspect he isn't antisemitic but he does know his audience and he does know that it will play well. He also knows that he almost certainly will face no real consequences for his disgraceful, irresponsible behaviour.
All links in the original post.
He is an utterly disgrace.
AFZ
Never the less I like him.
no comment
and just to be clear, I have never heard him have a bad word to say about you.
You are trying to explain that how someone relates to marginalised communities matters, to someone who once chose to vote for Enoch Powell.
I assume you are on about me. I chose to vote for Enoch Powell in 1970 when he was an excellent MP for the multi racial seat of Wolverhampton South West. His winning share of the vote was 64.3% so I wasn't the only one.
I watched an interview with Kemi Badenoch on GB News last night. I find her to be really charming.
So that's all right then.
I agree.
I don't want my political leaders to be charming. I want them to be competent and driven by a desire make life better for people - especially the ones for whom it's currently a bit (read a lot) crap.
Johnson is reputed to be charming, and we all know how that turned out.
As an aside; a large number of MPs of all stripes can be charming in person. The job selects for those who can motivate a group of volunteers to turn up on a cold and foggy morning and leaflet an area with the possibility of verbal hostility thrown in.
Thatcher could be charming. The Devil can appear as an angel of light. Need I say more
I think that's a little harsh, say what you like about the Devil but...
No. Seriously, whilst I fundamentally disagreed (and still do) with almost everything she did, she was an effective leader and had a moral compass. She believed in what she was doing and believed it would benefit the country. She was wrong on many levels but I would not accuse her of acting in bad faith.
I raise this because Cameron had no mission other than he believed he could be PM and he often acted in bad faith, most notably with Windrush and Brexit.
May believed that what was in the best interests of the Conservative Party was also in the interests of the country. Deeply flawed but not actually immoral.
And then we get to Johnson and Truss... oh and Rishi Rich...
My point is that whilst I despise about 95% of what Thatcher did to our country and much of it still has a big impact today, the most recent leaders of that party are all measurably worse.
I would suspect the recent parade of Conservative leaders of being an attempt to rehabilitate Thatcher among liberals and left-wingers by comparison if it weren't for the fact that Thatcher paved the way for them.
I would suspect the recent parade of Conservative leaders of being an attempt to rehabilitate Thatcher among liberals and left-wingers by comparison if it weren't for the fact that Thatcher paved the way for them.
This, and I am expecting much the same from the new leader.
We will have to see the direction she now takes but based on the campaign I expect her to keep digging and make the Conservative hole bigger. Chasing Reform is not a winning strategy for the Tories.
The Turquoise crystal ball has failed me. I will enter a period of self-reflection and asking of hard questions with a view to never speaking of this again.
I wonder how many party members are actually very elderly and no longer have the cognitive capacity to engage with an election. I'm not suggesting that's the main reason for not voting but I wouldn't be surprised if it's up to 5%.
With apologies for the double post, it occurs to me to wonder whether electing a black woman as leader will make it harder for the tories to win back votes from Reform Ltd.
The Turquoise crystal ball has failed me. I will enter a period of self-reflection and asking of hard questions with a view to never speaking of this again.
Many other shipmates (not excluding myself) talk balls. So please carry interrogating the aforementioned spherical object.
Enoch Powell gave wonderful talks on radio four (or was it radio 3). Erudite, educated stimulating. But .....
Mrs RR knew John Major quite well (don't ask). He was charming and humane.
With apologies for the double post, it occurs to me to wonder whether electing a black woman as leader will make it harder for the tories to win back votes from Reform Ltd.
Asking as a total outsider - to what degree, if any, did Shipmates think Badenoch's race influence Tory party member's decision to support or oppose her? Did it have any influence on in earlier rounds of voting among Tory MPs (in terms of what MPs thought her performance would be in improving the Tories' standing in the polls)?
I can think of a number of reasons (parliamentary vs presidential systems, the US primary process vs UK party leadership elections, etc) why the UK has seen three female heads of government, an Asian Hindu PM, and now a black female leader of the opposition, all from the Conservative Party, before the US has ever had a female president, a president who was not at least nominally or culturally Christian (including Unitarians and Deists), or a female or nonwhite Republican nominee for president. But do shipmates in the UK have any good explanations as to why this has happened sooner in the UK than in the US and sooner in the Conservative Party than in Labour?
With apologies for the double post, it occurs to me to wonder whether electing a black woman as leader will make it harder for the tories to win back votes from Reform Ltd.
Asking as a total outsider - to what degree, if any, did Shipmates think Badenoch's race influence Tory party member's decision to support or oppose her? Did it have any influence on in earlier rounds of voting among Tory MPs (in terms of what MPs thought her performance would be in improving the Tories' standing in the polls)?
I can think of a number of reasons (parliamentary vs presidential systems, the US primary process vs UK party leadership elections, etc) why the UK has seen three female heads of government, an Asian Hindu PM, and now a black female leader of the opposition, all from the Conservative Party, before the US has ever had a female president, a president who was not at least nominally or culturally Christian (including Unitarians and Deists), or a female or nonwhite Republican nominee for president. But do shipmates in the UK have any good explanations as to why this has happened sooner in the UK than in the US and sooner in the Conservative Party than in Labour?
Broadly speaking I think politicians and those who are politically active are generally more willing to sacrifice personal prejudice for political expedience. The closer working relationships of MPs with leadership candidates makes it easier for them to select a Black or female leader as an exception i.e, "one of the good ones". The primary system in the US means that the personal prejudices of the electorate have to be factored in, and there is a far larger faction in the US who are ideologically opposed to female leadership, particularly in military matters, than in the UK. Labour is a more democratic party than the tories, with (even now) a larger membership. Badenoch's victory is the only time the tory membership have selected someone other than a white man when a white man has been available - Thatcher was chosen by MPs, May by default, Truss faced only Sunak and Sunak was unopposed. Labour has had female leadership candidates, but they've never been particularly high profile and often from one wing of the party. In some ways it was luck of the draw that put Corbyn in the mix in 2015 - in 2010 it was Diane Abbott who was the token lefty, and no-one expected Corbyn to do any better. Rebecca Long-Bailey suffered from being seen as the continuity candidate after the 2019 defeat and Starmer's lies allowed him to attract those of us who might have voted for her if we'd known then what we knew a year later.
Badenoch's victory is the only time the tory membership have selected someone other than a white man when a white man has been available
This seems a rather uncharitable spin. One might equally say that the membership have never failed to pick either a woman or a non-white candidate when one has been available! But in fact the sample size is too small to be meaningful.
@stonespring I think in the UK xenophobia is starting to trump straight racism. Though I also think there is a glass cliff phenomenon going on.
Which is absolutely (glass cliff) what happened with Thatcher’s emergence. Though, again, charitably, the other way of looking at that is when the chips are down British people *tend* to go with whoever might dig them out of the hole. See Labour in 1940…
A small part of me is genuinely tempted to join the Tories now they’ve finally got a leader. If only as the best boat to kick out Labour.
My other observation would be that if I were Tory leader I’d be moving mountains to make Rishi shadow chancellor. Which isn’t as mad as it sounds if only because this leadership is unlikely to win an election and therefore he wouldn’t be signing up to do the actual job. Consequently, in the circs of 10 years minimum before forming a government having *now* a shadow chancellor who knows *exactly* where the bodies are buried would be very smart politics and make life extraordinarily difficult in the chamber for Reeves. It would also be completely shameless (but this is the Tories) but it would be lethally effective I suspect.
Badenoch's victory is the only time the tory membership have selected someone other than a white man when a white man has been available
Shall we try that again without the dishonest spin?
2001: Iain Duncan Smith vs Ken Clarke
(2003: Michael Howard unopposed)
2005: David Cameron vs David Davis
(2016: Theresa May unopposed)
2019: Boris Johnson vs Jeremy Hunt
2022: Liz Truss vs Rishi Sunak
(2022: Rishi Sunak unopposed)
2024: Kemi Badenoch vs Robert Jenrick
In most cases, the party membership elected a white man by construction, because they had a choice between two white men. In 2016, they would have had a choice between two white women, except that Andrea Leadsom withdrew.
Yes, it's technically true that this election is the first time the Tory membership has selected someone who wasn't a white man in preference to someone who was a white man. It's also the first time that the Tory membership has been presented with a choice between a white man and someone who wasn't a white man.
Badenoch's victory is the only time the tory membership have selected someone other than a white man when a white man has been available
Shall we try that again without the dishonest spin?
2001: Iain Duncan Smith vs Ken Clarke
(2003: Michael Howard unopposed)
2005: David Cameron vs David Davis
(2016: Theresa May unopposed)
2019: Boris Johnson vs Jeremy Hunt
2022: Liz Truss vs Rishi Sunak
(2022: Rishi Sunak unopposed)
2024: Kemi Badenoch vs Robert Jenrick
In most cases, the party membership elected a white man by construction, because they had a choice between two white men. In 2016, they would have had a choice between two white women, except that Andrea Leadsom withdrew.
Yes, it's technically true that this election is the first time the Tory membership has selected someone who wasn't a white man in preference to someone who was a white man. It's also the first time that the Tory membership has been presented with a choice between a white man and someone who wasn't a white man.
I was trying to make the point that the fact that the tories have had female and non-white leaders is due to the choices MPs made and you can't conclude much about the membership from that. I can see how the framing appears more uncharitable than that, so my apologies.
A small part of me is genuinely tempted to join the Tories now they’ve finally got a leader. If only as the best boat to kick out Labour.
And then in order to achieve what precisely?
Well I’ve never made any secret of hating Labour more than the Tories (Iraq will do for starters and I had skin in that game) so the end of a Labour government will do me as a goal. YMMV, obviously.
A small part of me is genuinely tempted to join the Tories now they’ve finally got a leader. If only as the best boat to kick out Labour.
And then in order to achieve what precisely?
Well I’ve never made any secret of hating Labour more than the Tories (Iraq will do for starters and I had skin in that game) so the end of a Labour government will do me as a goal. YMMV, obviously.
I dislike Blairites as much as the next man and loathe that Mandelson is anywhere near the levers of government again but I still think it's a little blinkered to focus on a decision made 20 years ago and disregard the actual substantive issues on the table today. I want rid of this government, but surely the goal has to be replacing it with something better, not something even worse?
A small part of me is genuinely tempted to join the Tories now they’ve finally got a leader. If only as the best boat to kick out Labour.
And then in order to achieve what precisely?
Well I’ve never made any secret of hating Labour more than the Tories (Iraq will do for starters and I had skin in that game) so the end of a Labour government will do me as a goal. YMMV, obviously.
I dislike Blairites as much as the next man and loathe that Mandelson is anywhere near the levers of government again but I still think it's a little blinkered to focus on a decision made 20 years ago and disregard the actual substantive issues on the table today. I want rid of this government, but surely the goal has to be replacing it with something better, not something even worse?
I start from the position that the worst thing we can have is a Labour government though. Bevan was looking in the mirror with ‘lower than vermin’
A small part of me is genuinely tempted to join the Tories now they’ve finally got a leader. If only as the best boat to kick out Labour.
My other observation would be that if I were Tory leader I’d be moving mountains to make Rishi shadow chancellor. Which isn’t as mad as it sounds if only because this leadership is unlikely to win an election and therefore he wouldn’t be signing up to do the actual job. Consequently, in the circs of 10 years minimum before forming a government having *now* a shadow chancellor who knows *exactly* where the bodies are buried would be very smart politics and make life extraordinarily difficult in the chamber for Reeves. It would also be completely shameless (but this is the Tories) but it would be lethally effective I suspect.
This country cannot afford 10 years of this Labour shower. A Conservative win in 2029 is vital.
Comments
An entertaining channel.
Where on earth was he supposed to find an effective left wing voice ?
He also does the weather forcast for Somerset.
Given that he was 'The Dishonourable Member For The 18th Century', how do his weather forecasts run?
'Alright you sturdy swains and yokels, if you want to get the harvest in quickly this weekend before my bailiffs evict you from your hovels, you'd better get cracking because Storm Jedidiah is on its way ... and don't go spending a farthing in the ale-house afterwards lest I set the yeomanry on you to fire your thatch and turf you out into the cold and dark without a thread to keep you warm and dry ...
Ingrates! Flogging's too good for you! I'd have you shipped to Barbadoes then you'll be sorry for wanting to extend the franchise beyond the landed gentry and your betters!'
Oh, he really is:
https://forums.shipoffools.com/discussion/1952/jacob-rees-mogg-esq/p1
Some of what I wrote back then:
All links in the original post.
He is an utterly disgrace.
AFZ
The Lord sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
I assume you are on about me. I chose to vote for Enoch Powell in 1970 when he was an excellent MP for the multi racial seat of Wolverhampton South West. His winning share of the vote was 64.3% so I wasn't the only one.
So that's all right then.
I agree.
I don't want my political leaders to be charming. I want them to be competent and driven by a desire make life better for people - especially the ones for whom it's currently a bit (read a lot) crap.
No, seriously, I'm sure Badenoch can be very charming. I wouldn't want her running the country though.
As an aside; a large number of MPs of all stripes can be charming in person. The job selects for those who can motivate a group of volunteers to turn up on a cold and foggy morning and leaflet an area with the possibility of verbal hostility thrown in.
In Johnson's case there were journalists who would give him a pass because he had been 'one of them', and he was able to channel a specific idea of eccentricity and satire (c.f https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v35/n14/jonathan-coe/sinking-giggling-into-the-sea )
I think that's a little harsh, say what you like about the Devil but...
No. Seriously, whilst I fundamentally disagreed (and still do) with almost everything she did, she was an effective leader and had a moral compass. She believed in what she was doing and believed it would benefit the country. She was wrong on many levels but I would not accuse her of acting in bad faith.
I raise this because Cameron had no mission other than he believed he could be PM and he often acted in bad faith, most notably with Windrush and Brexit.
May believed that what was in the best interests of the Conservative Party was also in the interests of the country. Deeply flawed but not actually immoral.
And then we get to Johnson and Truss... oh and Rishi Rich...
My point is that whilst I despise about 95% of what Thatcher did to our country and much of it still has a big impact today, the most recent leaders of that party are all measurably worse.
YMMV, of course.
AFZ
I am mildly surprised.
This, and I am expecting much the same from the new leader.
We will have to see the direction she now takes but based on the campaign I expect her to keep digging and make the Conservative hole bigger. Chasing Reform is not a winning strategy for the Tories.
AFZ
Jenrick 32%
Didn't vote 27%
That is not a great place to be starting from
when Truss won the didn't votes were 18%:
when Johnson won it was 13%
with Cameron and IDS it was 22%
I wonder how many party members are actually very elderly and no longer have the cognitive capacity to engage with an election. I'm not suggesting that's the main reason for not voting but I wouldn't be surprised if it's up to 5%.
Many other shipmates (not excluding myself) talk balls. So please carry interrogating the aforementioned spherical object.
Mrs RR knew John Major quite well (don't ask). He was charming and humane.
Asking as a total outsider - to what degree, if any, did Shipmates think Badenoch's race influence Tory party member's decision to support or oppose her? Did it have any influence on in earlier rounds of voting among Tory MPs (in terms of what MPs thought her performance would be in improving the Tories' standing in the polls)?
I can think of a number of reasons (parliamentary vs presidential systems, the US primary process vs UK party leadership elections, etc) why the UK has seen three female heads of government, an Asian Hindu PM, and now a black female leader of the opposition, all from the Conservative Party, before the US has ever had a female president, a president who was not at least nominally or culturally Christian (including Unitarians and Deists), or a female or nonwhite Republican nominee for president. But do shipmates in the UK have any good explanations as to why this has happened sooner in the UK than in the US and sooner in the Conservative Party than in Labour?
Broadly speaking I think politicians and those who are politically active are generally more willing to sacrifice personal prejudice for political expedience. The closer working relationships of MPs with leadership candidates makes it easier for them to select a Black or female leader as an exception i.e, "one of the good ones". The primary system in the US means that the personal prejudices of the electorate have to be factored in, and there is a far larger faction in the US who are ideologically opposed to female leadership, particularly in military matters, than in the UK. Labour is a more democratic party than the tories, with (even now) a larger membership. Badenoch's victory is the only time the tory membership have selected someone other than a white man when a white man has been available - Thatcher was chosen by MPs, May by default, Truss faced only Sunak and Sunak was unopposed. Labour has had female leadership candidates, but they've never been particularly high profile and often from one wing of the party. In some ways it was luck of the draw that put Corbyn in the mix in 2015 - in 2010 it was Diane Abbott who was the token lefty, and no-one expected Corbyn to do any better. Rebecca Long-Bailey suffered from being seen as the continuity candidate after the 2019 defeat and Starmer's lies allowed him to attract those of us who might have voted for her if we'd known then what we knew a year later.
I suspect that many of the 27% were happy with either candidate and decided to abstain from making a choice.
I would have been happy with either of them and I am pleased for Kemi.
Many voters may not have been happy with all of Bobby's policies. Kemi's lack of current policies may have given her an edge.
This seems a rather uncharitable spin. One might equally say that the membership have never failed to pick either a woman or a non-white candidate when one has been available! But in fact the sample size is too small to be meaningful.
Which is absolutely (glass cliff) what happened with Thatcher’s emergence. Though, again, charitably, the other way of looking at that is when the chips are down British people *tend* to go with whoever might dig them out of the hole. See Labour in 1940…
My other observation would be that if I were Tory leader I’d be moving mountains to make Rishi shadow chancellor. Which isn’t as mad as it sounds if only because this leadership is unlikely to win an election and therefore he wouldn’t be signing up to do the actual job. Consequently, in the circs of 10 years minimum before forming a government having *now* a shadow chancellor who knows *exactly* where the bodies are buried would be very smart politics and make life extraordinarily difficult in the chamber for Reeves. It would also be completely shameless (but this is the Tories) but it would be lethally effective I suspect.
Shall we try that again without the dishonest spin?
2001: Iain Duncan Smith vs Ken Clarke
(2003: Michael Howard unopposed)
2005: David Cameron vs David Davis
(2016: Theresa May unopposed)
2019: Boris Johnson vs Jeremy Hunt
2022: Liz Truss vs Rishi Sunak
(2022: Rishi Sunak unopposed)
2024: Kemi Badenoch vs Robert Jenrick
In most cases, the party membership elected a white man by construction, because they had a choice between two white men. In 2016, they would have had a choice between two white women, except that Andrea Leadsom withdrew.
Yes, it's technically true that this election is the first time the Tory membership has selected someone who wasn't a white man in preference to someone who was a white man. It's also the first time that the Tory membership has been presented with a choice between a white man and someone who wasn't a white man.
And then in order to achieve what precisely?
I was trying to make the point that the fact that the tories have had female and non-white leaders is due to the choices MPs made and you can't conclude much about the membership from that. I can see how the framing appears more uncharitable than that, so my apologies.
Well I’ve never made any secret of hating Labour more than the Tories (Iraq will do for starters and I had skin in that game) so the end of a Labour government will do me as a goal. YMMV, obviously.
I dislike Blairites as much as the next man and loathe that Mandelson is anywhere near the levers of government again but I still think it's a little blinkered to focus on a decision made 20 years ago and disregard the actual substantive issues on the table today. I want rid of this government, but surely the goal has to be replacing it with something better, not something even worse?
I start from the position that the worst thing we can have is a Labour government though. Bevan was looking in the mirror with ‘lower than vermin’
Completely understandable. :votive: