there's another fire burning in California, this time it's near Santa Barbara where my dad lives. So far there's no houses destroyed, but he's in the yellow zone on this map. There's also a storm forecasted today or tomorrow, which is good to extinguish the fire, but it will bring mud slides possibly... and there's strong winds apparently too

And now for something completely different. :D

Canberra Times - Naked man steals Mt Isa local's KFC zinger box from his hands

I wanted to say: Show us your buttocks and prove that it wasn't you. But that could get me arrested so forget what I just said

Cheese making cunt, shittest member of Blur can't support Labour

"Your reminder that Blur formed at Goldsmiths University, to attend which no fees were payable and students received maintenance grants at the time.

Hopefully you heard that over the sound of a ladder being pulled up."

The lack of self awareness nis astounding

welcome to america, england xD

—

i don’t know that i could vote for a daniel ortega admirer (and possible emulator) though...

Quite the charmless man, evidently.

Lol

Boris was car-crash levels of awful last night. His constant switching between "umm, err" bluster and "get Brexit done" was embarrassing. The country's being forced to choose between an unelectable leader and an unelectable manifesto.

Feel free to ignore this, but I feel like this might be Corbyn taking a gamble given the current scenarios. Were the Conservatives governed by anyone halfway competent, this Corbynite manifesto wouldn't have a chance.

So perhaps Corbyn feels that, considering how loathsome the alternative is, he may as well try and push something through that other people wouldn't support normally.

"take back control"

lmao

^Claire

You might well be right. Although it works both ways. I'd argue that if Labour had a more realistic manifesto the Tories really could be in trouble, but as it stands I just think it scares off far more people than it will ever attract. Corbyn does come across better than Boris in these kinds of Presidential style debates, reflected by the reduced gap in their approval ratings, but the Tories overall lead stays the same. So it seems that while people may be starting to warm to Corbyn as a person, they're still put off of Labour as a party. But we do clearly live in strange political times, so who knows?

how’s yr election coming along? and who will succeed corbyn post-crash?

The election is today with results only starting to come in the early hours of tomorrow morning.

As for who would replace Corbyn. Who knows? But whether he stands down at all will depend on how the party does today. If he does there'll be a split within the party between those who want to stick with Corbyn's agenda under another name (John Mcdonnell? Angela Rayner?) and those on the centre who would want someone completely different, like Keir Starmer.

thanks for those names, i will keep an eye

all the polls i’ve seen look like shit for labor

did you guys see alan moore on twatter?

https://twitter.com/Npton_South_CLP/...79412828811265

“if we have another 4 years of these monstrous, rapacious tories, we may not ever have another meaningful vote upon anything”

1 hour(ish?) for first exit polls...

and what’s with taking your dog to vote?

The polls are all over the place right now. Not seeing an outright majority for Corbyn but it could be interesting. Some reports are saying that Johnson's seat in Uxbridge is running the risk of an upset by Labour as the Libdem vote has collapsed there.

oh hahahahahahaha

that would be a coup...

Grim. Just grim.

Exit polls look terrible for Labour.

ooof. yeah...

—

and the pound hit 1.3445 (highest in 18 months)

that was 1h ago, now at 1.3498... about to hit 1.35

wow

—

scotland up in arms again? (metaphorically speaking)

Seb Dance MEP ������
✔
@SebDance
I remember very well the canvass I did in a seat Labour hoped (still hopes!) to get. Huge anger at Brexit - they loathed Johnson. But they feared one thing more: Jeremy Corbyn.

Door after door after door.

—

^^the circular firing squad has begun

looks like yr beloved jo swinson (lmfao) is a goner

This sucks :(

I don't get it. The Australian 'left' party weren't far enough away from our right, and they lost an election that they never should have. Now the British one's gone way out, and they've also lost - gotten smashed.
Maybe I bought into an echo chamber? But it's hard when the other side are all completely shit.

2020 isn't going to be fun. Ah well, time to become anarcho-hedonists.

the middle class will be the middle class: petty, self-interested, pedestrian, practical, center-right. no time for big dreams or utopias—those are left for idealists, students, artists, dreamers, failures, and malcontents.

other failures and malcontents are attracted by far-right dreams and visions slapped together by bad artists (e.g., hitler).

the middle class can go left but only when exausted by conservatism and center-massaged and lubricated (“new labor”). middle class will also go far right when they fear the far left, eg, hitlerism.

people are really predictable, and demonyo’s prediction nailed this result months ago.

reuters reports furreal the snp took swinson’s sear

and boris kept his

OH, AND CORBYN THREW THE TOWEL. no need for removal.

wait... i dont get what corbyn is saying

He's standing down but will remain leader until the party selects a replacement. Problem is there's still a powerful hard-left element in place and they'il want one of their people put in, insisting (ludicrously imo) that the problem tonight was with Corbyn, rather than their policies. The issue then is whether the more centrist wing of the party is strong enough to counter them and get one of their people in instead.

Well there's five years to squabble between each other before we go again. Five years...feel like this place will be unrecognisable by then.

The problem tonight was leave voting constituencies in the North East and Midlands decimating the traditional Labour vote. There was no way for Corbyn to pick a side and win, it just wasn't our time.

Labour's policies have widespread public support but absolutely none of it mattered. It was all down to Brexit. Brexit brexit brexit.

If you think Labour pivoting back to the centre will in any way rejuvenate the party then go ask Brown and Miliband. Or ask the Lib Dems. Labour need to stick with the same economic and social platform but with new leadership who can bring new strategies.

Though why do I care? I'm Scottish, I'm voting to get the fuck out of the union as fast as possible at this point hahaha.

I'll honestly never forgive Cameron for allowing that vote to happen. Not that he'll care about me, like. Other countries that had dabbled in the idea have clearly realised it's not worth the aggro it's caused.

Alan Johnson nails it here for me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dme8AwpThAc

People are now radicalised about something most of them didn't give a fuck about pre-2014 or so.

We have a lot of major, major issues in the world, with our global environment going down the shitter in particular. And we spend 3 years with our discourse dominated (and dominated impotently) by Brexit, something which will improve nobody's life in any tangible way, and will weaken the country's influence and potentially break it apart... it's actually quite funny in its stupidity and short-sightedness.

I fear Labour are finished in a lot of ways, on the basis of this election. I disagree with Derek, they need a centre-left leadership candidate with a bit of fucking charisma, and ASAP...

With the Lib Dems collapsing and the Tories edging further to the Right there's a vacuum now at the centre that Labour could easily fill. The obvious choice as Corbyn's replacement if the want to try and reclaim that centre is Keir Starmer but I can see the Momentum influence within the party backing Angela Rayner or Rebecca Long-Bailey, which will only see them going even further down the rabbit hole.

the weird thing is that on paper the liberal democrats should be occupying that space, but instead they stand for nothing, yes? that jo swinson voting record you showed me—hahaha wtf, tory wannabe.

a labor party by definition is not a center party, which is why in modern times (post-80s) it needed the “new labor” version to command a majority. a pity the fucker was seduced by war (and yeah, they had other shortcomings, but it had to be better than this...)

I agree. It's increasingly difficult to see any common identity or shared interests anymore. The political class in England remain dead against it but I'd say most people in England really couldn't care less if Wales, Scotland and NI went their own way.

They definitely don't care, it's all to do with the establishment ruling Scotland, Wales and NI with an iron fist and ignoring the fact that they're out of touch with the needs and wants of these specific countries. Fully agreed with what you said actually.

Tho...


There's a vacuum precisely because there's no desire for the centre, proven by the first two things you said. Also interesting that despite the insanely poor number of seats, Corbyn still had a bigger vote share than Brown and Miliband (the remnants of years of Blairism). And the election two years ago returned Labour to the 40% vote share range, first time since Blair's landslide '97 election. The policy platform clearly works on the public when broken down, it is a matter of a change of strategy in how to execute and a fresher face without the political and smearable baggage of the older Corbyn crowd.

Unless you mean that since you have centrist views, you should have your voice heard within the Labour party? I think they did plenty to appease that side of the party, gave them concessions (including supporting another referendum which completely fucked the election over for them in the end) and gave them various cabinet positions despite the fact they tried to oust Corbyn TWICE and the party membership voted him back as leader with an insane majority compared to other leadership elections.

this is an intriguing statement that would explain a lot. i’m not sure it’s factually true, but if it is, i.e.,that public fatigue at wavering incrementalism is polarizing politics, then you might be about to “live in interesting times,” as the chinese curse goes. and if so, the bad news is that the fascists seem to be winning.

That's the fear. That's why the left must be on the offensive STAT.

but as i understand they were already on the offensive and lost, hard

in fact, in a country with predominantly center-right values, a right-left polarization will throw more support to the right, like it already happened where you live.

yes, i get that scotland is a different country, but the reality is that you’re under british rule, like it or not, and now have to suffer boris precisely because the western lefts are, to paraphrase darth mou, specialists in failure, and can only squeeze in their incrementalist victories with the help of centrist vaseline.

which is currently lacking.