The inevitable Sunakapalooza election shenanigans thread

[Emrys]

The lad's off to a flying start.



And all the media seem to be lapping it up from their seats. Their nice, dry seats:

The rain of Rishi Sunak and the Tory election launch cringe - https://www.thedrum.com/news/2024/05/22/the-rain-rishi-sunak-and-the-tory-election-launch-cringe

The best Rishi Sunak memes as prime minister announces 2024 general election in the rain
From Four Weddings to Only Fools and Horses and Alan Partridge, social media did its best to poke fun at the rain-soaked prime minister - https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/rishi-sunak-memes-general-election-rain-b1159828.html

Standups no longer need to write material:

I'll kick off what I hope will be a thread that makes the next few weeks a little less excruciating.

Feel free to chip in with your own highlights.



Source:

Link to tweet

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Unable to organise a piss-up in a Welsh brewery - that embarrasing silence

when he tries to talk about football, oblivious to the Welsh not being in the Euro finals this time.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Been humming that old song...

Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
And just like the guy
Whose feet are too big for his bed
Nothin' seems to fit
Those raindrops are fallin'
On my head, they keep fallin'

So, I just did me some talkin' to the sun
And I said, I didn't like
The way he got things done
Sleepin' on the job
Those raindrops are fallin'
On my head, they keep fallin'...


Raindrops keep fallin' on my head
But that doesn't mean
The votes will soon be turnin' red
Reality's not for me 'cause
Wishful thinking's so much better than complainin'
But my MPs are breakin' free, standin' down, what a pain for me

[T_i_B]

3. I have a subject to bring up...

Election advertising on social media. Be it promoted tweets, Farcebook adverts or stuff on YouTube. Please feel free to share what examples of this you come across.

The good news is that the election ads I've seen online for this election are much better targeted than they were for Mayoral elections. Which begs that question, how come Parliamentary candidates are able to target voters in their local area but the likes of Susan Hall and Sadiq Khan were putting out advertising that ended up reaching me in the North of England instead of Londoners?

Within hours of the election being called I was seeing an advert from Labour on Facebook that looked like it had only just been filmed that day with their local candidate stood on a hill making a speech about the election being called.

[Emrys]

4. A few more to catch up with the last couple of days' crop

Rishi Sunak considering an election

Chemtrailers: “The government are controlling the weather!”

The government:

‘I’ve called a general election by mistake’

“Once, whilst working for the Government, I suggested the PM tell the nation how great he was at planning ahead whilst standing in the rain with no umbrella”

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Tip for disastrous leaders: don't get too close to Titanic-themed areas

Sunak’s efforts to breathe life into the two-day-old campaign suffered another hiccup on Friday when a visit to Belfast’s Titanic Quarter brought comparisons to the liner’s sinking in 1912.

“We are just yards away from where the Titanic was built and designed,” a reporter from Belfast Live asked Sunak in a clip widely shared on social media. “Are you captaining a sinking ship going into this election?”

As Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary – among those not standing again – tried to suppress a smirk, Sunak launched into a heavily rehearsed answer about how “our plan is working”.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/may/24/michael-gove-to-stand-down-at-general-election

Link to tweet

[Emrys]

6. The Tories have just sent out an email pleading for candidates for just under 100 seats

To be fair, I know in Scotland Labour have also been having problems finding candates. But to be even more fair, Labour didn't call the election.

"Inexperienced Tory candidates, sir - hundreds of 'em!"

"Would you like to be a Conservative candidate?"

[Emrys]

7. A quiet day was planned for Sunak after an eventful week.

You know, holed up in his Yorkshire home for morning discussions about how things were going so far, then flying down to south London in a donor's helicopter for some light campaigning while he waited for his hard work on his Mail on Sunday op ed to pan out.

“The new bold, brave policy is… national service.”

Flashback to 2010:

"Have you ever fired a gun?"

Meanwhile, the search for further Conservative manifesto commitments continues:

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. They lost nearly 500 local councillors last month - surely there should be loads queuing up

to have a go at the big one?

[Emrys]

9. I'd imagine a proportion of them might

But if the electorate has decided they're not fit to represent them as councillors, I don't give much for their chances as MPs!

Vetting will no doubt have to be rushed. Given some of the social media and other skeletons that have emerged from some of their earlier candidates selected at relative leisure who've had to be removed, what could possibly go wrong?

Labour does have its own problems in this respect. But at least it's not having to contend with the climbing number of Tory MPs who aren't going to stand for re-election in addition to everything else.

[T_i_B]

10. A week in and I've finally had the first leaflet of the campaign

From Labour, who's candidate has mostly been fighting her campaign with a barrage of adverts on social media.

The incumbent Tory MP is getting a reputation for flying into somewhere, shooting a campaign video then clearing off immediately without talking to anybody.

[Emrys]

11. My wife answered the door to an unwelcome visit a couple of days ago

It was Amanda Hampsey, the Tory candidate hereabouts (hereabouts looks nothing like this pic), which even many locals consider the back of beyond. Conscientiousness or desperation? Hampsey was elected as a councillor last year, which passed me by, and evidently drew the short straw.



She handed my wife a leaflet. My wife handed it right back with a "Thanks." That might not be the worst reception she receives on her rounds. Hamsey's on the left in the pic above. On the right is Lisa Cameron, who in an unlikely and probably ill-advised career move defected as an MP from the SNP to the Tories last autumn after a lengthy falling out with the party leadership, her party colleagues and her own constituency party, which deselected her.

Her defection was claimed to have been encouraged by Tory Secretary of State Alister Jack and ""masterminded" by Rishi Sunak himself. If its ripples escaped you, that can be forgiven as I'd pretty much forgotten about it and her myself until she popped up in this photo opportunity.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Annoying leaflets: "Labour Mail" designed to look like a Royal Mail "Something for you" notice

https://images.app.goo.gl/Ug8zyv73xuLvWRzLA

and they come with the annoying (and statistically dubious, in my constituency) bar charts of "It's Labour or X here - Y can't win". In the North Cornwall leaflet at the link, they claim the Lib Dems can't win (I've no idea if that's true); in mine, they claim the Tories can't win, despite them have won (under old or new boundaries) in from 2015-2019.

They seem to have derived the claim they can shoot past the Tories from claiming they would have come 2nd in 1017 under the redrawn boundaries - dubious, since Electoral Calculus converts a 2019 real result of Con 55%, LibDem 29%, Lab 13% to 52%, 34% and 11%, ie Con -3%, LibDem +5%, Lab -2%. The real 2017 result was Con 50%, LibDem 26%, Lab 20%.

Labour are claiming current polls predict LibDem 31%, Lab 27%, Con 20%, Reform 15%. I have no idea how they make that work. Electoral Calculus predict LibDem 34%, Con 26%, Lab 25%, Reform 11%.

[T_i_B]

13. The Labour leaflet I had was very bland

As has been the barrage of social media ads I've seen from said Labour candidate.

I'm actually a little bit worried on this point as in 2019 Miriam Cates of the Conservatives got in after running a bland campaign and we had no idea from her election campaign of what sort of MP she would turn out to be.

After that experience I do want to know what the next local MP is going to be like, and the bland, cautious Labour campaign gives no clues as to that point.