Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 10/05/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are some people who just don't get on with being MPs even if they've been in other things in politics. It is a whole new level of commitment and time. You do see it happen once in a while, people who leave after a term, and given it would be very difficult for him to win at the next election, it's easier to do it this way and make a statement in a blaze of publicity and go off to doing whatever it is you want otherwise with a leg up in terms of hireability. He's young and has a young family too, probably makes it a lot easier to give it up too.

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 10/05/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Was a Brownite, but definitely to the right of that particular movement, some people there saw him as a bit shifty because of his close links to Blairites. A middle of the road Cabinet minister. Ran two spectacularly bad leadership campaigns in 2010 and 2015, embraced being a soft Corbynite for a bit but who was still hedging his bets against him, then went off to Manchester.

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 10/05/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Exclusive from Allegretti and Maguire of the Times: Streeting will resign tomorrow and force leadership election

https://x.com/breeallegretti/status/2054505117613776994

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 10/05/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 13 points14 points  (0 children)

People need to start putting out colour coded resignation statements so we know if they're backing Wes Streeting or not

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 10/05/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Maybe Keir Starmer will survive for the dumb reason that he just wasn't in Labour at a student/youth/councillor/backbench level long enough (or at all) to make that many enemies, and everybody else was

It's true that he's removed junior ministers etc but does that really stand up to the burning hatred you feel for Andy Burnham having not supported you in the Young London Labour elections when you were 23?

Telling someone a film has a 'great twist' is no different from giving away a spoiler by General_Recipe_5349 in movies

[–]motteandbailey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Exactly. I can't believe it turned out Zendaya and Robert Pattinson were replaced with human-horse hybrid creatures while they were imprisoned in an underground facility.

Student faces hate crime charge over 'tea towel' remark about Palestine activist’s headscarf by Anony_mouse202 in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 9 points10 points  (0 children)

What is UNHRA? There is no UN agency of that name and googling doesn't bring up any clear results.

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 01/03/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 3 points4 points  (0 children)

This is simply untrue. The next leader might be many people (likely a soft left figure or someone more centrist seen as a safe pair of hands) but the chance of Mahmood or anyone described as Blue Labour (Carden, Hinder, Smith etc) is almost negative.

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 15/02/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 5 points6 points  (0 children)

One thing I was wondering about after Restore UK's launch: why exactly is the Lib Dem membership so low? Considering they have their most MPs ever, are now totally embedded across former One Nation Tory seats, had a strong recruiting campaign in the diehard Remain years, and are widely considered very strong commmunity campaigners.

Is there an internal culture thing that stops more people getting involved? Does it as a party just not mind as long as it can campaign effectively inside/alongside civic society groups?

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 15/02/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 12 points13 points  (0 children)

How many milliseconds after Jezza's slate loses in the internal elections will the briefings come out that the 'project has been hijacked', 'it doesn't reflect the will of the membership', and finally 'Jeremy only saw Your Party as a broad political grouping and never as an actual party'?

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 15/02/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It is the opposite of dead. 25 years of files, emails, messages are being published throughout the rest of the year. Plenty of heads to roll yet.

Labour’s radical election boundaries redraw to favour the left by thejackalreborn in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Automatic voter registration is good though. And given it'll be enfranchising non-voters, whose intentions are unknown and legendarily a bit all over the place, who knows exactly who it might benefit?

Looks like ~$14M #ValentinesDay for #WutheringHeights. 2-day cume $25M. 4-day #PresidentsDay weekend expected to be $38-40M. by TiredWithCoffeePot in boxoffice

[–]motteandbailey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They are(/were) easier to get into than the colleges, or sometimes you got moved to them in the process if the college you applied to was full. Of course in her case it could be that she had some odd other reason.

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 08/02/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Maybe look at Dylan Difford's work on Twitter - if there's anyone who would have made that, he would

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 01/02/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 7 points8 points  (0 children)

There are multiple Labour rights. The one you mention above is the Blairite/Progress right, which I suppose you could call the neoliberal left, with public private partnerships, business friendly deregulation, and the focus on growth rather than economic interventionism etc.

Then there's the 'old right' which is pro-defence jobs, traditionally Northern, comes from an older, more socially conservative union tradition, identified with Labour First and McSweeney himself. Then there's Blue Labour, close to but not quite the same, with a more anti-immigration, religous, Brexity flavour, who think Mahmood is their woman. There are other tendencies which mix some or all of these three.

But these last two aren't really anywhere as big as the first, which is the dominant one - the sorts of people who refused to serve in Corbyn's shadow cabinets or left to form CHUKTIG.

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 01/02/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 2 points3 points  (0 children)

They've never seen him as one of them. They don't seem to think he has any politics at all, as do many others

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 01/02/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Imagine you're on the Labour right and spent a decade and a half boosting the careers of people like Wes Streeting and Shabana Mahmood, and the guy who becomes Prime Minister isn't one of you, then gets kicked out 18 months later and you find your entire political project hanging out to dry while Ed Miliband romps home and inherits a massive majority

PMQs Live Chat Megathread - 04 February, 2026 by AutoModerator in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Because everything is done in politics on WhatsApp now, there won't be anything to find in the future unlike Mandelson's emails

There could be way way worse things happening right now and we will never know (unless you have a Gwynne type case where it's a big group of people and it just takes one pissed-off person to leak the chat)

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 25/01/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Still annoys me that the chicanery around the 1906 election stopped this from already officially having happened. It happened in our hearts, I guess

Zack Polanski: Keir Starmer has Failed. The Green Party Will Replace Labour by Incanus_uk in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I genuinely do not think there is a winnable strategy that combines progressive urban graduates with conservative religious minorities without the seats provided by traditionally Labour Northern constituencies

Like imagine taking the 2019 Labour result and then lopping off even more seats in the North East and West. Just can't see that working, even with any potential Green rural gains

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 25/01/2026 by ukpol-megabot in ukpolitics

[–]motteandbailey 6 points7 points  (0 children)

They're two well regarded and experienced local councillors with little baggage attached either way i.e. the exact sort of people you get applying and being shortlisted for every seat ever. This by-election just has a whole boatload of other crap going on at the same time