Martin Johnstone

he/him Quietly muttering scotsman

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

@amz_ie

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

@MatthewStadlen @henrymoeranBBC As opposed to what.

For supposed "professional sportsmen" they apparently cant possibly stay on their feet as long as a Tesco or Amazon employee. Or do they not count as humans.

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

@CraigIrvinee @supertanskiii likely this one who has been bailed 4 times in the last year.

Not quite been jailed yet but given this country's appalling record at sexual assault convictions i wouldn't hold my breath.

https://t.co/7XbQDlWdd6

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

Just to clarify all Johnson did was rename the Health Protection Agency to the Health Security Agency.

Because he is a toddler who think calling something a Security Agency makes it sound cool.

What a fucking fuckwit

[Guardian news @guardiannews]

MPs criticise ‘staggering’ failures at UK Health Security Agency https://t.co/DGnKJNR7O6

[Edwin Hayward @edwinhayward]

Here's how the future is going to play out.

(Long - please expand the tweet.)

1. The Tories will wreck everything at an ever increasing pace as the GE approaches, like irresponsible teenagers who know they're not going to be the ones cleaning up the morning after their wild drunken binge.

2. Labour will win the GE on a desperate tide of people wanting to Get the Tories Out, but (and this will be VERY important later) their future freedom to manoevre will be hampered by the bright red lines they laid down on things like Brexit.

3. Labour will start trying to fix some of the stuff the Tories broke. It will prove very expensive. Mending is always more expensive than breaking.

4. Labour will try to Make Brexit Work. The RW tabloids will tear even bigger strips off them than usual.

5. Make Brexit Work won't. Work, that is. Trying to make Brexit work is like trying to get the toothpaste back in the tube after you've brushed your teeth with it.

6. Meanwhile, Labour are having to spend more more more just to keep stuff from literally falling apart (think sewers, water pipes, collapsing schools, crumbling hospitals etc.)

7. Tories watch from the sidelines, laughing and jeering. "Typical Labour. Always spending money they don't have."

8. If they're VERY lucky, Labour will go into the GE-after-next with the overall situation in Britain slightly better than it was when they took office. The country will only be knee-deep in metaphoric and real sewage, rather than thigh deep.

9. The Tories and the RW media will tag team to blame everything that's (still) broken in Britain on Labour. "Same old Labour. Can't be trusted with the economy. Can't be trusted with anything. Can't even fix Brexit, despite their lofty promises."

(Important intermission: Labour will never get fair coverage in our British media. But this is a "known known". They need to figure out how to win, repeatedly, anyway.)

10. GE2: Electric Boogaloo. Labour are stuck. The taunts about having failed their flagship Brexit fixing policy hit home, because they're true. That lubricates the way for all the lies the Tories and RW media are spinning about their wider performance to slip down like honey.

IF Labour pivot towards SM/CU/Rejoin, they might as well tattoo "we wasted 5 years because we didn't have a clue about what we were doing when it comes to Brexit" across their collective foreheads. They may pivot anyway, because the alternative is even worse. This is where those bright red lines (remember them?) will bite them in the fundament so hard they won't be able to sit down for the next six months. Because the press can absolutely legitimately scream "U-turn! Come and see the U-turn so big, it's visible from the Moon." And it will be true.

(Absolutely critical point: there is no "Get the Tories Out" vote. "Ooh, the scary Tories will get back in if you don't vote for us" doesn't have anything like the same impact, especially with non-core Labour voters who lent their votes last time but who are absolutely livid about Labour's failing approach to the Brexit they detest.)

11. Labour lose GE2. A one-term wonder, and they're done. The Tories do what they do best: keep blaming everything on Labour, while picking their looting back up where they left off last time.

-----------

Scroll back up through the scenario above, and look at how Brexit runs through it like a vein pumping pure poison.

That is why Labour need to change their fundamental approach to Brexit, and they need to do so now.

Stop ruling anything out (not saying you won't do something isn't the same as proactively saying you will). Think along the lines of "Labour will do whatever it takes to mitigate the damage Brexit is causing". Make the change far enough ahead of the GE that the fuss about the U-turn is reduced to the constant every-day moaning and carping of the RW press by the time the GE comes around.

Also, Labour need to reconsider PR. It's the only hope they (and we) have of anything approaching long-term stability.

Many of the problems Britain faces will take 2, 3, 4+ election cycles to fix. And they need to be fixed. But the only conceivable way of getting the time necessary to do so is to form long-term partnerships via PR.

That way, you get rid of the short-termism that has dominated British politics to the ruin of us all. (In the current 5-year political cycle, the first year is spent learning the ropes and the last gearing up for the GE, so there are really only 3 even vaguely "productive" years to be wrung out of incumbency.)

Phew, and we're done. You may disagree. You probably will disagree. But please take a very deep breath and a big step back, and think about whether your disagreement comes because it feels genuinely too horrible to contemplate the real world in the stark terms I painted above, and whether your support for a particular political party is blinding you to the reality of what they can achieve in a short 5-year (really 3) period in office.

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

@Gisele_ShoeSmug @tylerblack32 Fuck making it interesting just make it right

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

Watched the #TedLasso finale so i could cry in peace, was doing ok up until this point 😭

[グリ┊ COMMS FULL (5/5) @sharkboo_i]

This whole scene, oh god.

Each one of them, carrying a piece of the Believe sign, like a good luck charm. A talisman. I was crying at this scene oh my god this is EVERYTHING 😭😭

#TedLassoFinale #TedLasso #tedlassospoilers

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

@housetoastonish They say find a critic that matches your tastes.
Havent found one to be 100% reliable, except being completely the opposite of what Bradshaw thinks.

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

@hotpantsswe6 @edwinhayward Ohh @Jesse_Norman has a new book coming out

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

After days of faux outrage at Roger Waters dressed as a character from The Wall an album well known for its anti facist stance.
There is a distinct lack of comment about this.

[Pastor Ben @BenjaminPDixon]

DeSantis has secured the Nazi vote.

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

@Tory4A @dannyboy7796 @supertanskiii Im not sure you know what a rape alarm is if you think handing them out is a crime

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

Seems to be a lot of mature students going there.

[Jesse Norman @Jesse_Norman]

Fantastic talk now on @V_and_A and leadership in the arts, education and human creativity by @TristramHuntVA before a packed audience at #Herefordshire's own pioneering new STEM university, NMITE @nmite_ac

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

Fuck me Semi final 2 was a slog

#Eurovision2023

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

@allanj69 At least she tried unlike the car crash of
#greece

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

@metpoliceuk I fully expext this to be copy and pasted after every tome the Met prohibit any form of protest.

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

@JKroutinsky @sw_holocron Hello there surely

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

@JolyonMaugham It is always surprising how cheap the Tory party are.

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

@guardiannews Its bugger all, a reminder that 1 mil is a large number. Would take 25 yrs @ 40k per year to reach that

As shown by the Jr Dr strike after a decade of learning there is still another decade before they are likely to earn a salary thats possible to accomdate that

Bankers however

[𝖇𝖗𝖊𝖓𝖔𝖓64 @brenon64]

‼️

[Martin Johnstone @martinjohnstone]

Out of curiosity @jessenorman what did Adam Smith have to day about tax dosgers like the former Chancellor