missy-politics-blog

[missy-politics-blog]

Ready for Raab? Avid for Javid? Maybe even hard for Hancock? A brief look at the weird and wonderful world of the leadership candidates’ fanbases

“I want Raab to choke me” confesses one user on an anonymous message board, to the layman, this may come across as just an unusual and crude one-off opinion but with an ever-increasing media presence in the leadup to their election the Tory leadership candidates are developing a profoundly new and unfamiliar type of fanbase.

Most people are dismissing them as pitiful attempts at political engagement from a generation all too often characterised by their supposed promiscuousness but some of these accounts dedicated to the premiership hopefuls boast around four thousand followers and upon further inspection actually give some rather good commentary on the leadership bids that are easily accessible and engaging.

 Let’s take a look at this source courtesy of @torykink on Twitter:

Yes at first glance this may look half-arsed and crude but please bear with me. Let us start at the top with the ‘Daddy Tier’. For those of you unfamiliar with the term it refers to someone who comes across as the type to be dominant often  (but not exclusively) in a sexual context - think Jeff Goldblum or Steve Carell. Here we find Dominic Raab, Boris Johnson, and Sajid Javid their placement here alludes to their confident deminer and pledges to take a hard line with the EU should they take up office. Esther Mcvey and Jeremy Hunt being placed in the ‘sexy villain’ tier reflects on a distrust of them amongst the electorate, people haven’t really got them figured out.  You find candidates who have generally had their campaigns characterized by a more sensible and softer approach such as Hancock and Stewart in the ‘smol tier’ connoting that their  bids have  made them seem innocent and wholesome in the current rigid political landscape; in other words- it’s sweet that they're but everyone knows that their stance gives them little to no chance of winning. The ‘don’t judge me tier’ touches on the conflicting views members may have of the two candidates; Micheal Gove’s education reforms weren’t exactly popular and neither were his actions in the Vote Leave campaign or his short-lived (and rather tragic) bid in the leadership election that shortly followed but he’s been in DEFRA for the past few years so nobody really has any reason to be incredibly annoyed at him. There’s Andrea Leadsom who hadn’t done anything particularly newsworthy until recently but after her own mini-coup on Theresa May last week she must have gone up in people’s estimations. Then there’s Kit Malthouse whose irrelevancy is even acknowledged by someone just making a meme for Twitter.

Of course, we shouldn’t be boiling down politics to this level but you have to admit you can get as much information out of this single image than you’d be able to get by watching each candidate’s respective campaign video.

The account this was taken from posts fanaticisms about all eleven candidates but there are far more specific ones such as @hard4hancock, @rorystewartfans,  @readyforraab, and many more - though I am unable to find any accounts supporting Kit Malthouse, I know it’s still early days but could this be very telling that he’s not going down too well with the kids?

However vain they may be these accounts are introducing a usually disengaged audience into politics, and at a time where it is more important than ever that young people voice their opinions and vote if it takes a picture of Dominic Raab looking rather alluring in his rowing gear to get them to do that then so be it.

#politics #uk politics #uk #tory #conservative

[missy-politics-blog]

We shouldn’t be taking Boris Johnson to court, not right now anyway

Over the past few days Twitter, for the most part, has been rejoicing over the news that campaigner Marcus Ball has been successful in taking Johnson to the Crown Court over supposed misconduct during the 2016 vote leave campaign.

Of course, there’s no question that the £350m claim wasn’t entirely truthful but if campaigners such as Marcus  Ball truly do want to keep Boris Jonson out of number 10 then they need to seriously reconsider their course of action because what they are doing right now is counterproductive and incredibly dangerous.

Picture this: you're a life long member of the Tory party (though probably voted for the Brexit party at last week’s European elections), you voted for Brexit in 2016 because you felt alienated by the political elite and since then you've seen the commons vote down every form of Brexit, against no deal  which you have been conditioned to believe is the only viable option if we ‘truly want to leave’ ; naturally you are infuriated at ‘the establishment’. The remainer PM Theresa May (whom you never got to vote for) finally resigns, this paves the way for a new brexiteer prime minister (dream come true right?).  And guess what! Your favourite politician who helped deliver the referendum result is running!

Unfortunately, he’s been summoned to court for lying about the extent to which the UK would benefit from being outside the EU so naturally, you feel incredibly deceived and immediately withdraw your initial support for him, reconsider the facts in a rational way and back a less hardline candidate like Jeremy Hunt, right?

No, wrong, very wrong! Your distrust of and anger towards the political class grows, you become more populist in your views, and Boris Johnson goes massively up in your estimations - he truly is the man of the people; fighting back against the metropolitan elitist remainers!

The only people who are happy about Boris Johnson getting taken to court over the Vote Leave campaign are remainers, who for the most part don’t need to be convinced that Boris Johnson wouldn't be a great PM. This is an issue that has consistently been prevalent in remain campaigns such as People’s Vote and Change UK’s European election campaign whereby they put out material that only appealed to people who voted remain in 2016 whom they don’t need to convince; they constantly portray leave voters as idiotic and racist. And however true it may be we all too often fail to address how patronising the phrase ‘people didn’t know what they were voting for’ really sounds. Consider Steve Bray who manages to annoy even the most staunch remainers by constantly belting out rather jarring protests on College Green, do you honestly think that upon seeing him dressed head to toe in EU flags and shouting “stop Brexit” at the top of his lungs anyone who voted to leave will feel compelled to switch sides?

Yes, of course, we need to address any misconduct  by Johnson while in his mayoral office ( though why this was not looked at in the past three years after the referendum I do not know) but doing it now makes it look like deliberate sabotage on his bid to be PM rather than actual concern over transparency in political campaigns and will inevitably help Boris in the long term if he gets through to the final stage of the leadership election.  

#politics #uk #tory #conservative #uk politics