[Hitler enters Vienna in 1938, after the Anschluss, and to general acclamation]
Tweets seen
"Terms like 'far-right' are now being stretched by liberal progressives to try and silence, stigmatise and shut down voters who question the established consensus among elites. Many voters can now see this"https://t.co/dmSQkhk9mG
By my use of Electoral Calculus, that might translate to Lab 476 Commons seats (overall majority 302), Con 68 (official Opposition), LibDems 62, SNP 13, Reform UK 4, Plaid Cymru 4, Greens 2 (Northern Ireland 18, Others 3).
What kind of “democracy” is it, though, when a party (Labour) might get 39% of the popular vote, yet get about 72% of the seats in the House of Commons (476 seats)? A strict 39% of seats would be 253 seats.
Another party (Conservatives) might get 19% of the popular vote, meaning, on strict mathematical equivalence, about 124 seats, not the mere 68 conferred by FPTP voting.
As for Reform UK, its present or forecast 17% should confer (under proportional voting) about 111 seats. The forecast under FPTP voting— a mere 4.
There again, the LibDems, with only 10% of the popular vote, are forecast to have 62 seats, almost the same as under a strict proportional allocation (65).
Can such an electoral system even be called “democratic”? Open question.
The DDR was a strange little country, in which I spent a couple of days in 1988; actually, not quite as small a country as commonly imagined: about 42,000 sq. miles, as against England’s 51,000, but with an overall density of population about a third of England’s (the UK as a whole has about 94,000 sq. miles).
Thérèse Coffey's constituency is on a knife edge. Lib Dems, lend your votes to Labour and a grateful nation will thank you. This needs to be reciprocated by Labour up and down the country. This is a generational opportunity to crush the Tories once and for all.#politicslivepic.twitter.com/yuNfo47v8l
— paulusthewoodgnome 🇺🇦💙 (@woodgnomology) June 12, 2024
Interesting both in itself and re. the tactical voting point.
“Two men have been jailed for a total of 67 years for shooting and stabbing to death an 18-year-old in east London.
Awadh Saleh and Rio Burton-Devine, both aged 25 from east London, were found guilty of the murder of Abubakar ‘Junior’ Jah, 18, at the Old Bailey today.
Judge Mark Dennis KC sentenced the pair to 36 years and 31 years respectively for the ‘brutal and cowardly’ attack in 2021.”
[defendant]
What will London be like in 2034 or 2044?
The System parties have no real answers.
Late tweets
This seems like a bit of a tipping point / watershed moment. My gut tells me that a decent proportion of Tory voters were waiting on this moment – using it as a test to see if Reform really could be considered a legitimate political force.
By my use of Electoral Calculus [https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html], that actually puts the Cons in a marginally better position than other recent polls, by reason of the slip in Labour’s position, but it still means Lab 466 (overall majority 282), Con 70, LibDem 70, Reform UK 4, Greens 2.
Were Labour to recover to 40%, the number of Con MPs would reduce to 51; were Labour to rise to 41%, the number of Con MPs would be a mere 42.
https://t.co/ImFdML1ebM Nigel Farage’s Reform party has overtaken Conservatives in a poll for 1st time. Tories were pushed into third in the survey, by pollsters YouGov.The findings will come as a blow to Rishi Sunak after a disastrous election campaign & risks triggering panic
— ML ie @randlight which has been deactivated why ? (@LightfootMarg) June 13, 2024
ITV Debate tonight – When questioned by Reform UK's Nigel Farage on why should the public trust the Conservatives on immigration, Tory Penny Mordaunt calls on the recent Prime minister's record to defend her – the Tories are a joke!#itvdebate#VoteReform#NigelFaragepic.twitter.com/DdEiD5IEPk
Penny Mordaunt is campaigning not so much for the Conservative Party as for her own political career (in fact, her career full stop, for she has no other). It seems 50-50, at best, that she will be re-elected anyway.
Labour is as dull as ditchwater, as witness its pathetic Manifesto for the General Election, but I do not think that it much matters now. The main aim of 80%+, maybe even 90%, of the electorate is to get rid of the Conservative Party not just for the next 5 years but permanently. Starmer and fake Labour will only fail to sweep all before them —by default— if something so devastating happens to their campaign that it is hard to imagine what.
Late music
[a rainy night in Tunis; I last trod that pavement in 1986]
“At least one in five working-age families in most UK constituencies – including in Liz Truss’s seat – would lose out by hundreds of pounds on average if real-terms benefit cuts go ahead, a study has found.
The scale of the impact of a below-inflation rise on already struggling households and by extension, local shops and businesses, is revealed in a study by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). It would amount to the biggest-ever real terms cut to benefits in a single year.
The findings will increase pressure on the prime minister to stick to promises made by her predecessor, Boris Johnson, to guarantee benefits would rise next April in line with September inflation – about 10% – rather than by the rise in earnings figure of 6%. This real-terms cut would deliver around £5bn in savings to the Treasury.
Dozens of backbench Tory MPs are understood to be prepared to rebel over real-terms benefits cuts, while a number of cabinet ministers – including Penny Mordaunt and Robert Buckland – have also signalled their opposition.
The JRF analysis shows seven out of 10 MPs represent areas where at least 20% of households are reliant on universal credit and other means-tested benefits.These include 193 Conservative seats, including a number of key marginals where over a third of working-age families would be affected by a cut.
“Politicians should think long and hard about the impact of withholding hundreds of pounds from thousands of families in their constituencies when the basic rate of benefits is already at its lowest in real terms for 40 years and prices are sky-high,” said Katie Schmuecker, JRF’s principal policy adviser
Families in ”red wall” seats in one-time Labour strongholds taken by the Conservatives at the last general election would be particularly badly affected by real-term benefit cuts. They include Blackpool South, where nearly half (46%) of households stand to lose out, Burnley (38%), and Redcar (33%).
The JRF analysis shows that even in the most affluent constituencies at least one in 10 households are on means-tested benefits.
[The Guardian]
Most Conservative Party MPs voting for the proposed measures will be turkeys voting for Christmas.
“A former academic at University College London must pay almost £50,000 in damages to a former colleague after falsely portraying her as a sex worker on social media as part of a months-long campaign of harassment.
Christopher Backhouse, a former research fellow at the department of physics and astronomy at UCL, has settled to pay £49,975 to Erica Smith, a physicist and a postdoctoral fellow at Indiana University in the US.
Backhouse was revealed as the perpetrator after Smith enlisted a US lawyer to subpoena Twitter and Google. Documents from the tech giants identified an IP address in London, despite great lengths by the perpetrator to cover their tracks using global proxy servers, the court heard.
Using a Norwich Pharmacal Order (NPO) against BT, a disclosure order allowing information to be obtained from third parties, Backhouse was revealed as the customer connected with the London IP address.”
[The Guardian]
“Smersh Never Sleeps”…
Therese Coffey
Deadhead MP and now, absurdly, Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Health, Therese Coffey, still attracting critical and/or incredulous tweets:
[Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister and Secretary of State for Health, Therese Coffey]
It is shaming for Britain to be represented by such as stupidly ignorant “ho” Liz Truss, ugly, nasty moneygrubbing drunk Therese Coffey, woolly-head Kwarteng, and ignorant half-caste James Cleverly.
The present Cabinet has no legitimacy.
The question is how to get rid of them.
More tweets seen
Actually, @DerbysPolice, there is a place for hate in society. Hate is a natural human emotion like love or anger. What you mean is there is no place for crime. pic.twitter.com/iT5NSKewu9
It will be recalled that Derbyshire Police (one of the worst-performing forces in the UK) was instrumental in the Jew-Zionist campaign against satirist Alison Chabloz, and its Police and Crime Commissioner at the time (removed in 2021) was a Labour Party drone, a Sikh, who was basically suborned some years ago by the malicious small pressure group called “Campaign Against Antisemitism” [“CAA”].
Derbyshire Police was also one of the worst police forces involved in illegal bullying of the public during the “panicdemic” of 2020-2021.
Talking about the police and their slide into becoming a pathetic poundland KGB, what about this, below?
Zelenskyy being nominated for a Peace Prize while simultaneously begging for Nuclear War exemplifies how nightmare-cartoonish our existence has become.
Lisa Nandy: "We can't.. get involved in individual disputes but what we can do is fight for the working people in this country"
Pathetic.
Lisa, if you refuse to support workers taking industrial action to fight against real terms pay cuts you're not fighting for working people pic.twitter.com/HGvsNpz8Dh
“Labour” is now just a label. In fact, one of Labour’s least impressive MPs, the unpleasant self-publicist Jess Phillips, said a few years ago that it was “just a f****** rose” (a reference to its symbol).
Labour is riding high in the opinion polls now by default, the Conservative Party having all but imploded, but Labour, in itself, is every bit as rubbish as the Conservative Party.
‘Within days, over 150,000 had signed up to become hosts, offering up their spare rooms, their summer houses, their annexes. Some put themselves down for a year, others indefinitely; many signed up for six months, the minimum the Government was asking for’https://t.co/vdqC34GWwmpic.twitter.com/AgnRVTAlek
🔴 “The council have said to me ‘You’ve got to make her homeless’,” says Karen, clearly upset by the notion that this is one of the few options available to them.
🔴'When a hosting arrangement comes to an end, the routes currently open to guests are: find a new host, rent somewhere privately, or agree with the host to extend the stay'
Some Tory MP's feel picked on for being shamed for stealing £30 a week from cancer sufferers. So here's ALL of them. pic.twitter.com/DxMor8CdXe
— Rachael Swindon #WeAreCollective (@Rachael_Swindon) March 13, 2016
It will be noted that among the names on the above list is that of Therese Coffey MP [Con, Suffolk Coastal], recently appointed as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. The role has been held by deadheads before, idiots such as Iain Dunce Duncan Smith and Esther McVey.
So who is Therese Coffey?
Therese Coffey was born in Lancashire, to parents about whom neither Wikipedia nor her own website say anything at all. She was brought up in Liverpool, according to Wikipedia, which however says that she was at school both at St. Mary’s College, in the small North Wales town of Rhos-on-Sea, and at St. Edward’s College, Liverpool. Both were at the time private Roman Catholic schools. Coffey is a name of Irish origin.
Therese Coffey was awarded a B.A. degree by Oxford University (subject unknown), she having gone up to Somerville College; then (oddly, on the face of it) she acquired a Ph.D. in Chemistry from UCL. Therese Coffey is often referred to as “Dr” Therese Coffey.
[Update, 21 May 2020: since writing the above, I have discovered that, while Oxford’s usual Chemistry degree is a 4-year course leading to a Master’s degree (M.Chem), the University does offer other chemistry-related 3-year science degrees
[Update, 7 September 2022: Wait a minute… it now turns out that Therese Coffey was asked to leave her Oxford college because she was not up to the course academically, and/or failed her exams! See update at foot of this blog post for more]
In England (though not in some other countries, notably Germany) it has always been considered infra dig to use the title “Doctor” unless one is either a medical doctor or some sort of working academic, scientist or clergyman. Unfortunately, there has fairly recently developed in the UK a strange affectation, of people insisting on referring to themselves as “Dr” when all they have is a doctorate in something (other than whatever they do professionally or whatever). So we have “Dr” Julian Lewis MP [Con, New Forest East], who holds a doctorate (D.Phil) in Strategic Studies. Another is “Dr” Louise Raw, “antifa” type prolific on Twitter, who holds a Ph.D. and whose special subject is one particular industrial strike in 1888. Now we also have “Dr” Therese Coffey.
Therese Coffey was awarded her doctorate in chemistry in 1998, at the age of 28. Her own website says that she was at one time a “management accountant”. She worked for Mars, the confectionery company, and for a subsidiary of the same, at which latter she was apparently Finance Director. She also did some work for the BBC. I think that we can assume that Therese Coffey’s non-political career was far from stellar.
Therese Coffey failed to become a Conservative MEP at the EU elections of both 2004 and 2009. She was, however, selected for the Conservative candidature at Suffolk Coastal (despite having been born and brought up in the North West of England, later living in Andover, Hampshire and having no obvious connection with Suffolk or East Anglia).
The expenses claimed by Therese Coffey in her first 6 months as MP were more than double those claimed by MPs in some other nearby seats. She seems to have kept her house and flat in Hampshire, which (it has been said of at least one) are being let.
Therese Coffey was one of the 72 MPs (almost all Conservatives) who both have an income of over £10,000 p.a. from rental property and voted out a bill requiring landlords to ensure that their properties were fit for human habitation! In other words, Therese Coffey is a parasite.
Therese Coffey voted to sell off woodland and forests in public ownership to private interests (the bill was dropped after a huge public outcry).
Therese Coffey has written a position paper recommending that pensioners pay National Insurance. She is a member of the extreme Free Enterprise Group within the Conservative Party.
Therese Coffey has been in favour of both Rupert Murdoch and gambling interests in the past.
Therese Coffey has from time to time bunged her own sister some money out of Parliamentary expenses for work (presumably) done.
Therese Coffey likes a “rock band” called Muse, it seems. I had never heard of them until now. Her interest in rock music seems bizarre, looking at her photographs and thinking of what can be gleaned of her personality (not very much). She certainly looks more like Patricia Routledge’s portrayal of the retirement-age Lancastrian private eye, Hetty Wainthropp, in Hetty Wainthropp Investigates. However, Ms. Coffey’s liking for real ale (she is a member of CAMRA) is rather plausible. In fact, Ms. Coffey is only 47 years old, surprisingly, she having been born in November 1971.
I would have assumed that Therese Coffey is a lesbian, looking at this tank-like, Guinness-drinking, cigar-smoking person who likes football, but there is nothing I have found on the Internet to support such a conclusion directly; and she voted against “gay marriage” (and in that alone I support her, inasmuch as I feel that “civil partnership” provided whatever socio-legal comfort was necessary to deal with the inadequacies of the English law as it was in the previous century).
What disturbs me most about Therese Coffey is not so much what she has said, written and done, though that is bad enough, but what I have not seen from her: I have seen no intellectual curiosity that goes outside the box, for example any discussion of the need for Basic Income; neither have I seen anything else of intellectual interest from her. Admittedly, I have only been looking since her elevation to Cabinet (she was only a non-Cabinet minister earlier in 2019, and before that only one of the Conservative whips, traditionally a role for plodders…). If my view changes, I shall update this article, being by nature fair and just.
Therese Coffey may be the Cabinet minister with the lowest public profile. She is unknown to the general public. How long she will remain in Cabinet, I have no idea. If Boris-Idiot falls, “not long” is my guess. It may be thought unfair to dub someone with qualifications in both chemistry and accountancy a “deadhead”, but from the socio-political point of view I think that she well merits it. At any rate, as MP she is not going away, in that Suffolk Coastal is one of the safest Conservative seats.
Obscure Minister moans about duff advice from scientists https://t.co/VZdf6j9gzu Downing Street says she is being 'unhelpful' . I'll say she is. The recognition that scientific advice can be wrong and ministers are responsible for following it or not, is dangerous to this lot.
Just as well that she does not have the power to give DWP benefits claimants an electric shock via a dog collar…
Update, 6 October 2021
DWP Secretary Therese Coffey singing ‘I’m having the time of my life’ at Tory conference just an hour after the £20 Universal Cut came into force. pic.twitter.com/lspuFKGs4Q
I could comment, but my words would probably be regarded either as “grossly offensive” or as “incitement” to…something or other…
One thing is for sure— standing outside the Conservative Party Conference holding up placards asking for this kind of political criminal to be nicer to people just does not work…
(and what about this?)…
5.5 million families woke up £1040-a-year worse off as their universal credit was cut.
While they were sleeping, the secretary of state for work and pensions was doing karaoke. pic.twitter.com/8OSEN5lwNc
Jesus Christ! Could it get any worse? Do you call for its nurse, or just put it out of its misery?
Update, 6 September 2022
Well, whether you call it “the irony of fate”, a concatenation of unexpected events, or just madness, Therese Coffey has not only survived the fall of “Boris”-idiot, and stayed in Cabinet, but has been effectively promoted to two new positions— Secretary of State for Health, and Deputy Prime Minister.
It seems that —unknown to me until today— Therese Coffey and the —it seems strange to use the words— new Prime Minister, Liz Truss, are rather friendly. I suppose that, in that snake pit, Liz Truss would rather have a few friends around her rather than potential backstabbers who might, however, actually be competent at the jobs occupied.
The Twitterati have not been kind:
The fact that I have put Therese Coffey in charge of the NHS tells you all you need to know about my government. pic.twitter.com/2ioREL9tC5
Thérèse Coffey's reward for kicking thousands of disabled people off Universal Credit ahead of a major cost of living crisis is promotion to health secretary. Be very afraid.
Therese Coffey who hid 9 reports that apparently detailed wrong doings and cruelty in her last department is Health Secretary, Deputy PM – She is also best friends with Truss. https://t.co/XOoGOZRljv
Thérèse Coffey advised the covid unemployed to 'spend their savings', and told victims of Sunak's £20 a week universal credit cut to 'work another two hours'. She's now Britain's deputy prime minister.
Therese Coffey is an absolutely woeful politician. For her to be given such important roles is @trussliz treating them with contempt. Only been Prime Minister five minutes and already making nonsensical Johnson like appointments.
So there it is. Those who follow my blog, or read it regularly, will know or perhaps can guess what I think (inter alia, that tweeting, blogging, or complaining and protesting, will not rid our country of incompetent, corrupt, or evil politicians). Let’s leave it there…
Update, 7 September 2002
Wait a minute… it now turns out that Therese Coffey was asked to leave her Oxford college because either she was not up to the course academically, and/or failed her exams.
So how did she get even a BA degree from Somerville? Or is that a total fabrication, like Iain Dunce Duncan Smith’s notoriously fake CV? Other MPs also have faked or partly-faked CVs.
To my mind, Therese Coffey warrants further and deeper investigation. She may be, or may have been, involved in other fakery, fabrication and/or fraud.
Still, it seems now, more than ever, that she fully deserves the title “deadhead“.
Well, there they are— the stupid and ignorant “ho”, Liz Truss, already living on borrowed time as (and merely posing as) Prime Minister, and equally-ridiculous “Secretary of State for Health”, Therese Coffey.
The completely decadent and broken (and Jew-Zionist dominated) British political system, 2022, in a single photograph.
Free school meals extension -Not interested Obesity campaign -Not interested Tobacco control plan -Not interested Benefit uprating -‘No definitive statement can be made about uprating’#BBCR4today
R4 today. Therese Coffey absolutely hopeless. Sounds patronising, out of touch and somehow unpleasant. Horrible listening to her. What an absolutely detestable Government we have …. I believe they are Tories.
— #gotyourbackNHS. #BrexitbrokeBrittain (@lynwis) October 11, 2022
One wonders about the psychology of Therese Coffey, looking at her, and looking at the state of her. A fat and ugly woman, prematurely aged, who gets drunk, spills beer over herself, and smokes cigars while doing it. “Multiple frustrations” would be my armchair psychologist diagnosis.
What does it say about our system of “democracy”, and our system of MP and ministerial selection, that a ghastly and quite possibly evil woman of that sort can become, by a series of “chance” events, a Deputy Prime Minister?
The same goes, of course, for the stupid and ignorant “ho” presently posing as Prime Minister.
Just watched a snippet of Kay Burley interviewing Therese Coffey. It gets more disgraceful every time you see it. Coffey could not give two shits. What a criminal state of affairs having a thing like that as Deputy Prime Minister. No wonder she pretends to be unaware. Horrendous!
Interesting, but not surprising. My assessment of the bitch, from 2019, implied as much.
‘It’s news to me,’ Deputy Prime Minister Therese Coffey says, when asked about UK financial market instability on Sky News this morning. Surely that’s not the line.. https://t.co/j7nx2rrw9R
Had one not seen what has been going on in the governance of Britain since at least 2010, one would perhaps be surprised that someone as totally inadequate, dim, and also amoral as Therese Coffey could ever climb higher than the backbenches.
How will the government pay for the £60 billion black hole?
Therese Coffey says she can't get into "hypotheticals" but growing the economy is essential and the Chancellors will share his plan at the end of the month.
— Simon Gosden. Esq. #fbpe 3.5% 🇪🇺🐟🇬🇧🏴☠️🦠💙 (@g_gosden) October 11, 2022
Look at the bitch! Look at her friend and boss, “ho” Truss, too. They are both embarrassments to this country, as are woolly-head Kwarteng and half-caste thicko James Cleverly.
Update, 23 October 2022
Cuts, closures, DIY dentistry: welcome to the NHS in Thérèse Coffey’s seat https://t.co/8zZwXYOO80
Indian money-juggler Rishi Sunak may now have taken over as bad-joke “Prime Minister”, but Therese Coffey has survived in Cabinet, unbelievably, and still sits there, stupid, incompetent, but immovable…
I’m sorry, but if you’ve been put forward to do the morning media rounds, it’s literally your job to know the fucking details!! Typically useless, arrogant Coffey dodging difficult questions with lazy, well worn responses. https://t.co/FhUgifRC2W
Ian Robert Millard 