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I find it enlightening that many people who are happy to support men of the people such as Johnson and Rees Mogg, seek to belittle Emily Thornberry for being a supposed aristocrat.

Her husband is a High Court judge. His knighthood comes with the job. It is mean to add to the status of the judiciary. No High Court judge refuses the honour. It is part of the position.

Calling Emily Thornberry, Lady Nugee is crass sexism. She is a woman on her own right as a barrister and as a politician.

She is far from aloof or elitist. She is wonderfully down to earth. She has a great sense of humour and really cares. Her constituency is one of the most deprived in the country. Behind the Georgian townhouses of Barnsbury and Canonbury are huge estates in which the majority of Islington’s people live. She is known as an exceptional local MP and the warmth that people feel for her is evident when door knocking.

She is quick witted and articulate. She would be great to see against Johnson at PMQs.

A lot of bile is being wasted on questioning why Labour lost. The fact is that the Tories won and we should reflect on what they did to win and then seek to replicate it.

1. A leader with a brand. Yes we might not like it but it was recognisable and people did.

2. Eliminate internal opposition and brook no disloyalty.

3. Simplify the message. Get Brexit Done. No detail in the manifesto. Nothing to challenge.

4. Attack the other side. Scatter lies all over the shop so that the other side spends all its time answering those lies and not in getting its message out.

Now the challenge is to see how that can be replicated from a left perspective.

In the first instance, the next two years must be spent focusing locally and listening. And then we strike.

Why? Doesn’t that mean theyre trying to be in power for more than 5 years?

Before the FTPA, Parliaments were restricted to five years. It is a cumbersome and unnecessary piece of legislation that has done nothing to stop snap elections being called. It is a statute that should never have been enacted. The concern is that when it is repealed it will be replaced, not by what was there before but by something worse

The easiest and quickest win will be a tax giveaway in April

Coupled with a rise in VAT

So with so much doom and gloom around before Christmas, let me bring you more.

The genius of the Tory campaign was to avoid and detail; scrutiny or challenge. Their campaign was run on the basis of a slogan, attacking Labour and avoiding scrutiny. Their manifesto is a blank cheque.

Johnson faces a problem. Brexit, however it is done now, will depress the economy. He will not have the funds to spend as he has promised and make tax cuts. To get around this, he needs to fail to negotiate a trade deal with the EU. This will allow him to blame every negative economic occurrence on the EU's intransigence. It also frees him to give Bannon the US trade deal that Trump wants.

Once this is achieved, he can freeze and cut spending. He can plan all sorts of elaborate spending on infrastructure projects but never actually start them. Again, blame can be placed on the EU or local authorities or environmentalists. He will also be able to slip in a rise in VAT to 25%. Indrect taxation affects the less well off more than the well off.

One area that is covered in the manifesto is the constitution. The FTPA goes (good) but it will be replaced by something that gives more power to the executive and less scrutiny to the courts or Parliament. Constituency boundaries will be redrawn. This has been in the offing since Cameron. The plan is to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600. This is based on the electoral register of six or so years ago. The surge in registrations lately has altered the relevance of the old register and allows the boundaries to be changed in a way to benefit the Tories. This is a really serious issue.

He may also seek other gerrymandering under the guise of putting into effect non specific manifesto promises. The House of Lords, the Royal Prerogative, the Supreme Court.

The Human Rights Act will be repealed.

The BBC and the media also come in for scrutiny. Expect the requirement of impartiality to be watered down particularly if the BBC is to be broken up and sold off. Whatever your complaints about BBC bias are, expect worse when it is sold at a cutdown price to Fox News.

The Civil Service also comes in for an overhaul making more positions overtly political. Ambassadors and leading Civil Servants will be required to toe the party line. Rising Civil Servants will find their careers thrawted if they do not.

But, I hear you cry, these changes will also allow a future Labour Government to control the media, the Civil Service and the judiciary. Believe me, if these changes come in, the political infrastructure of the country will be such that we will not see a Labour government in my lifetime and probably not in yours.

Oh, and ignore the current media theme of Johnson being a one nation Tory. He might be but Bannon and Cummings are not. They win.

Happy days.

And a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all. As Emily Thornberry said, "the fight starts now". It is going to be one hell of a fight and the odds are stacked against us.

Laura K excelling herself today by illegally announcing that the postal vote results look grim for Labour. The postal vote is confidential. No one is allowed to sample. Everyone involved is sworn to absolute secrecy. That Raab and Keunsberg are announcing a win for the Tories on the PV before the actual vote is a gross irregularity.

Fact is that in just about every election in the past 10 or more years, the Tories have managed to get more of their supporters to register for PVs than any other party. They always do better on the PV and so if they have done so now is to be expected. The PV accounts for around 10% or less of total.

Another reason to GOTV for tomorrow.

Almost managed to throw away a game which we ought to have won 5-0 last night.

But then we knew that Loic Remy would come back to haunt us. Ajax let us down by not sneaking a draw.

Sadly I am bedwetting.

Johnson's basically threatening to kill with bulldozers anyone who opposes him.

And there was I thinking he had promised to die in a ditch in front of a bulldozer.

It's almost as though his promises are worthless.

Probably sitting in a chair in a puddle of my own piss with very little understanding of my surroundings.

No change then.

My girlfriend is a candidate for the Green Party in a local Labour safe seat, so I have the pleasure of going to the vote count on Thursday night.

Which constituency? And aren't you meant to be sampling?

Sorry, but I’m going to have to wet the bed. Meeting that evening and then Election Day and all night at the count next day all added to the possibility of a discussion of our woeful performance today.

1 - Ru (either date)
2- cliveo (11th only) BEDWETTER
3 - chalfie (either -both will take a monumental amount of planning. Thursdays are easier)
4 - jonny (either date at this point)
5 - andyp (either date)
6 - sheriff Blackfoot (would prefer 10th as spurs may have a do or die game vs Bayern on the 11th)
7 - ramsaye (please send vconf details)
8 - dst (might come, might not)
9 - Clever Pun (love a list)
10 - middleofnowhere (would prefer Wednesday in a pub with no WiFi)

Polling Day weather in London

Thank you ManU andArsenal for a little light relief from the election.

A hard brexit will be a disaster of massive proportion.

A soft brexit is pointless as it leaves us in and paying for all of the institutions without a say in them. We would clearly be better off staying in.

A soft brexit was what was sold but it looks as though a hard brexit is what will be delivered.

The full phrase used is:

...a longstanding friend and champion of the Jewish community,

Which doesn't indicate if the Chief Rabbi has even met him.

This is a decent read:

https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/11/labour-and-chief-rabbi.html

Then again, zelostreet is generally a good read.

To be honest I can't ever remember seeing any anti-semitism, only reports in the papers of it. I'm not saying no Labour members are anti-semites but the media response feels wildly out of proportion.

I didn't witness it but was told of an incident. A woman joined our branch. She openly admitted to campaigning against Labour for the London Mayor and for Respect. This was a strange admission and could (and possibly should) have been reason for her being denied membership. But people are polite. After a while and a series of pointless interjections in meetings, she ceased to attend. When I noticed this, I asked someone what had happened to her and was told that at a meeting I missed, she had made an antisemitic comment. The reaction to this from all of the other members (some of whom but not all of whom are Jewish) was such that she walked out and never came back. That is the reaction from members that one would expect. I was delighted to hear about it.

I should add that I would not just expect that reaction in the Labour Party but throughout society.

1. Teddy Sherringham
   
2. Dean Saunders
   
3. Roy Keane
   
   

(tbc)

I think he is well up there in my list of most loathed players.

He’s been fired by his mum.

Expect the slow road to rehabilitation to start with I’m a Celebrity next year and Strictly in 2021.

How did the name originate?

I feel for you. I have to say that the reaction of Spurs fans generally compares favourably to that of Arsenal fans in respect of Wenger. Both clubs getting shot of their most successful managers in recent times. One with Wenger out, the other wishing him luck and wishing he would stay.

I thought Arsenal should have kept Wenger just as Spurs should have kept the Sheriff. Then again, I've been proved wrong with Emery and hope that Mourinho can emulate his success at Spurs.

Conservative Party HQ renaming their twitter feed factcheckUK isn't at all dubious

Especially when they challenge Labour's statement about the number of meals served by food banks and then it transpires that the Labour number was an underestimate and the Tory figure was under 10% of the actual figure.

It has to be a name that no one else uses.

I have inadvertently used the Sheriff moniker in company and receive bemused looks. It was too hard to explain. I just pretended I had gone senile. People understood.

I mean:

“The Sheriff”

Bemused look.

“Oh sorry. That is the name given to Pochettino by a dear chum (despite being a Spurs supporter) who I know through a cycling forum and with whom I have ridden in real life”

Bemused look.