Prime Minister in D-Day shocker as general election candidates lists are published

Posted byCambridge Town OwlPosted inUncategorized

Where to start...Let’s try an old book about how Parliament worked in 1955!

First of all, candidates’ lists:

In summary?

The presence of TeamNigel in seven of the eight seats up for grabs represents a *huge threat* to the Conservatives. The challenge for the opposition parties is whether they can agree informally on who is going to target which seats with more resources. For example will Labour throw the kitchen sink at Huntingdon in return for easing off in say South Cambridgeshire? Or will the electorate deliver to that effect for them through the online tactical voting campaigns?

Now. Rishi. Oh dear! Oh-dear-oh-dear-oh-dear!

And remember the good old days when he had a good press image?

Above – the BBC were persuaded to remove this image back in 2020

And just when you thought things could not get worse, Nigel returned, followed by this.

Which was astonishing to watch on telly – so much so that several of us (myself included) wondered if there was a personal/family issue that caused the PM to leave early. Turns out there wasn’t.

And it ended with this powerful image.

Above – from Twitter here

The furore got people wondering who would and would not stand as last-minute candidates…some decided not to stand…

…..while others are standing up to be counted – such as Count Binface, slayer of the Far Right in London who has decided to go head-to-head with the PM and the Monster Raving Loony Party in North Yorkshire.

In the meantime east of Cambridge in Suffolk, the Tories have taken things so far backwards that even the communists have returned in Bury St Edmunds & Stowmarket!

I’ll also be watching the Wet Suffolk election contest with interest as Rebecca Denness who I worked with during my civil service days 20 years ago takes on one of Theresa May’s former top political advisers in what was the safe seat of the disgraced ex-Health Secretary who left his constituents in the lurch to go on celebrity TV.

This wasn’t a minor error – this is potentially an existential crisis for the Conservatives. And they know it too.

Because the D-Day shocker has broken out of Westminster, and it has broken out of the ‘chattering classes’ who like to talk about politics but are not involved in it day-to-day, to the parts of the public who otherwise barely pay attention.

How many constituencies will have a critical mass of voters who are either:

  • Ultra-loyal to the Conservatives that it’s part of their life structure
  • Ultra-loyal to their Member of Parliament…

…that not even this can persuade them to vote for another party (or stay at home) in the general election that is 27 days away and counting? Turns out the loyalty to the philosophy is not strong enough to hold even the PM’s closest of advisers to the electoral cause.

With the return of TeamNigel to the fray, the Tory side of politics has fractured just as the Progressive side of politics did in 2019 when Labour, LibDems, and Greens were unable to unite to stop TeamBoris – the subject of songs such as

…the results of whose time as PM was summarised by the Australian satirists at The Juice Media in the NSFW slick video below

Above – A review of Team BJ after he was ejected by his MPs

They also produced a very timely (NSFW) video for the general election too.

…which also has things to say about voter suppression, voting systems, and tactical voting

Anyway, the next election TV debate is on. Seven leading politicians from seven political parties – with Penny Mordaunt, Leader of the Commons having been given the most difficult of jobs of defending the PM and the Government after the past 24 hours. The opinion polls next week will make for interesting reading. Will it indicate a shift to one party, to several parties, no shift at all, or even to a ‘won’t vote’ choice?

That was the first week of political campaigning. I wonder what the next three will bring!

If you are interested in the longer term future of Cambridge, and on what happens at the local democracy meetings where decisions are made, feel free to:

Below: Book recommendations: How to be an MP by the late Paul Flynn (one of my first Twitter followers), and also any student text book on GCSE Citizenship Studies. Those published before 2016 contain the rights UK citizens used to have before Brexit! These will cover the essentials of the UK’s political system (from England’s perspective), plus some insights into what being an MP involves.