When you belong to a political party it would be amazing if you believed in everything that is in their manifesto.
I am one of so many people now who have seen their natural home turned into an extremist party and I want to defeat Brexit for all of the UK citizens living in the EU who will lose established rights when we came to live here.
Benny Hill, Reg Varney etc…
Buster Keaton, Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, Danny Kaye, Charlie Chaplin, George Formby, Norman Wisdom, Kenneth Horne, Richard Murdoch, Tommy Handley, Mr Bean, Boris Johnson…
How the times change!
How we laughed! 
And how it fades…
BBC Breakfast live breakfast interview with BoJo could have been with any one of the characters you mention and would have made as much sense. Whatever has happened to the British states person?
What a blithering idiot. I have voted Tory all my life until 2017 but as then, not now in 2019. I have my proxy vote ready but not for a buffoon like him.
You have my commiserations. Although I am a socialist and am very unlikely ever to vote Conservative I respect many aspects of conservative thinking and principles and I am well disposed to many who vote Conservative, including several Tory MPs.
I agree, Johnson is blithering himself to oblivion. His gruesome and breathless hyperactivity, his wretched bout of verbal diarrhoea in front of his Election Bus today…enough, enough!
Another fascinating and IMO utterly reliable and predictive comment on the current state of Brexit affairs.
I’ve been following Chris Grey’s analysis for several months and find it is closer to the heart of the matter as anyone else who speaks on it.
It’s more of a palm reading than a thumbnail sketch, but worth persevering with. Hope you think it worth reading too.
Thank you for posting that. An interesting and terrifying read.
Think I’m going to vote Labour…I’ve been politically homeless for many years…I’ve been really annoyed with Labour for seemingly sitting on the fence and if I lived in Scotland where my grandma was born then I would be voting SNP…
My mom’s constintuency is Lib Dem and she will be voting Lib Dem but my home constituency not 10 miles away is Tory who I have never voted for and never will…,
I’ve been watching the tactical voting sites and there’s no recommendations for my area…
I actually find my self loving the Labour manifesto…
Got several weeks to think about it but as a decidedly undecided voter who feels that article 50 should be revoked then I’m thinking I’lll vote Labour …
I can’t understand why you see Labour’s policy of neutrality as fence-sitting, Helen.
Would a parent take sides with one child against another in a dispute between them about a course of action concerning each of their futures, where the parent just wanted the best for them both?
The only answer to this Leave-Remain issue is for the ‘parent’ to suggest a compromise in which each ‘child’ gets something worthwhile, doesn’t harm their future relations, and doesn’t poison the family well forever.
That’s a wise, mature and reasonable outcome. Johnson’s oven-ready solution has no regard at all for the future welfare of people whose futures could be ruined by leaving; and Swinson’s has no regard for the sensibilities of those who won the original referendum, and will justifiably feel betrayed if their opinions were just dumped in the dustbin.
Corbyn is the only leader with emotional intelligence, and concern for the country’s future, and coherence.
The idea of winner-takes-all yah-boo politics is causing great harm to society, and a calm reasonable approach is essential. I can’t see you, with your intuitive gifts and foresight plumping for a quick solution because the appropriate one would take more time to deliver. That “just get this done” attitude is the psychology of the nursery.
I remember quarreling as a small child with my brother about a simple game we had for Christmas, and my mother snatched it from us and threw it on the fire.
I don’t think it was a wise thing to do, and it lowered her in both our eyes. It was petulant and self- indulgent. It set a wretched example to children re conflict resolution.
I can’t imagine you doing such a thing, can you?
Surely Corbyn’s stance on brexit is one of the few examples of real statesmanship around in UK politics at the moment?
It’s only people that don’t really know what ‘leadership’ is that see it as some kind of narrow-minded macho posturing.
Interesting insights in this article on the fact that the BBC must have carefully edited even its Remembrance Day coverage to try to make Johnson look good…
I should have added “in the past”…
The more the polls were showing that people had changed their minds and wanted a final say then the more I felt at the time that Labour should go for remain…and I’ve been flip-flopping between Lib Dem and Labour…
I’ve never had a problem with Jeremy Corbyn…I think he’s a genuinely kind and compassionate human being…
I hate to see how the billionaire press write about him…
I would love for Labour to win the election with a majority…it most definitely is time for real change…
My home constituency is a safe Tory seat and has been for years…only really challenged by the Lib Dems…
Ivan Rogers’ latest speech - as ever, insightful in a way which escapes most politicians.
Here’s another excellent, hard-hitting analysis of what “Getting Brexit Done” will put in the toe of your Christmas Stockings, if Santa Bojo decides you have been good, or if you haven’t, 'cos - boys and girls - Santa Bojo really doesn’t give a shit…
I was mulling on some of the changes to the WAB and Boris’s posturing.
One thing struck me - in removing the right of parliament to intervene who, exactly, is he trying to block?
It can’t be the opposition who cannot muster the votes to win.
Which draws me to the conclusion that the group that he wants to neuter can only be the ERG.
I cannot imagine that this means he is planning on a soft landing - but it does strike me that he at least knows who his enemies are.
You are a shrewd enough strategist, Paul, but the notion that he is blocking the ERG in some way escapes my understanding.
Isn’t forcing a ‘clean break’ in December 2020 what the ERG want most? Why should they fear a legal ban that prevents the transition period extending beyond 12 months?
Too Machiavellian for my simple mind to grasp, but I’m sure you’ll clue me in with a sentence of less that ten pithy words! 
On second thoughts, is this new law some kind of chloroform pad to be applied to put the ERG to sleep for six months while he works out a ruse for delivering a softy save-my-skin double-cross-compromise Bottle-it Brexette?
Squidgy–soft enough to satisfy Workington man’s lust for Getting It Done, while saving jobs in the Northern rust belt…
I foresee another year of rich political pickings…
A typical comment from a southern softy perhaps?
Well, the ERG is a group which thinks any form of agreement with the EU makes Brexit “too soft” - remembering that Farage already decried the deal as “not Brexit” - and are the group responsible for blocking May’s deal after all. To be honest some would happily declare war on the EU given half an excuse (some possibly with less than that much of one).
It is also larger than in the last parliament - the new intake of hard right Tory MPs has swelled its ranks considerably.
So, as a group the ERG could easily styme Johnso’s plans - so the gagging order might prove useful to him - though going up against the ERG won’t do anything to ease party tensions.
Don’t forget either that Johnson will be under considerable pressure from industry to agree at least an FTA and his self-imposed “no extension” might mean that he is desperate enough to agree large concessions with the EU - he already threw the DUP under the bus over customs checks in the Irish Sea after all so he’s got form for this.
You have a legit point there, @JohnBoy, rust belt was meant ironically but was just clumsy instead. The industrial north has been left to rot in many respects, and I don’t think the Tories give a shit, they just wanted the votes to GBD.
I’m not a southerner, having been born in Birmingham and brought up by Black Country parents who had “climbed the social ladder”, bought a pre-war off-plan ‘cheapo’ semi for £250, and ‘aspired’ me to the first post-war intake of uncouth lads to Grammar School in 1949.
The process of bourgeois reshaping into a softy had begun…
But my Dad was a toolroom foreman at Austin, Longbridge during the war, built Lancaster bombers, detested Churchill, was a lifelong communist, but also joined the local golf club. A sort of antediluvian Workington Man, perhaps!? I’m a political mongrel, and ugly and ungrateful with it 
For me, not so much a political mongrel but perhaps a northern mongrel. I consider myself Yorkshire Bred Which indeed I am but born over the border in Robin Hood Country. Coal and Cotton, my book I completed last year traces my paternal northern ancestry which the title suggests. My current work which I hope to publish next year traces my maternal ancestry which is firmly based in Oxfordshire, London and the south west, as yet untitled but an all consuming project that is fast becoming an Epic!
We all have our allegiance to our roots which makes for healthy views and conversation, at least most of the time!
So from this Yorkshire lad to a Brummy boy I send you the seasons good wishes as I do to all who Survive France.