Mark Culshaw

[Mark Culshaw @smarkculshaw]

@Mr_Bibbles_ @LoEl81 Intent is absolutely NOT required for a red card. Check your facts

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

A classic 😂

[Mark Culshaw @smarkculshaw]

@Incognito_qfs @TheEuropeanLad So what your saying is not only was it studs first and reckless, but it was also a late challenge 🤡

[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.

[Mark Culshaw @smarkculshaw]

@AmelieAmelie999 It’s called transferred malice, hence the proper murder conviction

[Mark Culshaw @smarkculshaw]

@robbsonco @BrianRoemmele Your eyes aren’t almond shaped mate

[Mark Culshaw @smarkculshaw]

@prioritypasscom Thanks, DM with screenshot just sent

[Dudley Butt, Lord of Ballaragh 🇪🇺 @DudleyButt]

I have a pint of milk in the fridge which has seen two monarchs and two Prime Ministers.
A half dozen eggs in the same fridge have in addition seen three Chancellors and Health Secretaries and four Education Ministers.

I can only imagine what the marmalade has witnessed.

[Mark Culshaw @smarkculshaw]

@GatesheadChap Oh yes please Matt, would you DM me the email address? Thanks

[Sir CJ 💙 @MrBenakaCJ]

@NadineDorries @DailyMailUK Who controls and pays for all the Govt Bots that pump out identical propaganda under different names?

[Austria_UK @Austria_UK]

Congrats @daveryding 👏 The British winner of this year's Hahnenkamm World Cup Slalom was today presented with his very own gondola at the Hahnenkamm lift in @kitzbuehel. Dave Ryding was the first Brit to win at the Hahnenkamm after Evelyn Pinching in 1937. #feelaustria

[Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele]

The effect of lens types on a laser. https://t.co/KG0HjzVcqm

[Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele]

Once the illusion is established it is difficult to disconnect it.

In fact it becomes reinforced.

Listen and watch as this plays out.

This is the classic false hand demonstration and it is quite powerful.

[Mark Culshaw @smarkculshaw]

@Auriga_ZA Folks, calm down! She is a (real) comedian taking the P out of some of the crazy stuff this gov says in ironic sketches

[Toby Earle 🇺🇦 @tobyontv.bsky.social @TobyonTV]

‘… I then had it pointed out to me I’d accidentally ticked a box which made me a citizen of another country while I was serving as an MP and minister…’

[Brian Roemmele @BrianRoemmele]

Consider the rings.

Their position does not change.

What changes is our mind when we have been influenced.

We are always influenced.

The question is, do we see the influence?

[Arnold Schwarzenegger @Schwarzenegger]

I love the Russian people. That is why I have to tell you the truth. Please watch and share.

[Mark Culshaw @smarkculshaw]

@TWMCLtd I’ve read the artefacts are due to very high compression of this particular copy