The briefest of online searches would have shown you that she is described in the press as a Labour activist in the Mail, the Express, the Sun, other press entities, and her own Twitter profile. Is all that good enough for you?
Anyway, I’ve had a flyer from a local independent candidate. He lists his Twitter alias as @judge_rico. Not a good move. (For non-Brits, Judge Rico was a character from 2000AD, the brother of Judge Dredd, and a very nasty piece of work.)
Not quite. Judge Rico Dredd was indeed a nasty piece of work; however, like his brother Joseph, his official name was “Judge Dredd”, rather than “Judge Rico” (his name badge confirms this on-panel, at least in the early issues before other writers got confused).
“Judge Rico”, on the other hand, is a completely different character; like Joseph and Rico Dredd, he is also a clone, but he took the name Judge Rico in order to rehabilitate the name, which he did successfully - Judge Rico is now a highly acclaimed judge, and sometime second-in-command to his clone-brother Joseph Dredd.
But yeah, either way you look at it, a politician having a twitter handle named after an all-in-one judge, jury and executioner in a fascist police state probably isn’t the best move - unless of course as an independent candidate this genuinely reflects his politics.
This is to be a Conservative party school breakfast. It will be half a bowl of thin gruel. If students are still hungry they may ask Mr. Bumble for some more. Mr Bumble will then administer a blow to the head with the ladle.
This assumes that enough of the electorate in question
(a) know or care about cartoon heroes
(b) are sufficiently interested by anything else the candidate says to consider voting for him
(c) know or care about Twitter.
My guess would be this would be noted by maybe 1% of the electorate, of whom about a third might vote anyway. I’d be surprised if he gains or loses one vote in a probably meagre haul anyway (independents are almost always on a hiding to nothing, unless they already have a substantial track record in public activity, and even then it doesn’t help them as much as they think it might).
On the one hand, security crises tend to favour conservative politicians as they are perceived as being “tough on crime”.
On the other hand, the use of the military as security has served to highlight the fact that May has been responsible for the reduction of the police force by about 20,000 during her tenures as Home Secretary and PM (also, Amber Rudd has not (TTBOMK) ruled out further cuts). Also, the military itself has shrunk by quite a bit in recent years, and may find doing domestic security further taxes its ability to do its day job of, y’know, fighting wars and shit.
How many years ago was it when the BNP finished second in, IIRC, Durham - and “coincidentally,” the election officials there decided that the traditional candidate statements following the announcement of the result would not take place?
As I said, I’m all for people having as much choice as possible (and information about those choices) but personally I sometimes wish some of the fringe parties were a little less…fringe-y.
I’m not sure you can avoid the conclusion the reason army uniforms are on the streets is because the Tories cut police numbers by 20, 000 since 2007 - I guess the question is who wants to make capital out of that in the circs.
Still dazzled by that poll from Wales - outlier or not, a 16% turn around suggests a change in sentiment: more people trust Corbyn now he gets [more] equal election airtime.
It’s still madness to even hope, though it’s energised community activists like nothing before.
Nitpick: the article says “2009” and the Conservatives (and the big budget cuts) started in 2010. I have my issues with Gordon Brown but underspending wasn’t one of them.
For all my criticism of Corbyn I think he’d do much better amongst the general populace if only the media would stop lying about his positions constantly. The Mail and Telegraph are the worst offenders but even the Guardian has misrepresented his statements more than a few times.