Skip to content

PJ O’Rourke’s dictum on winning in politics

No, not advice about how to win in politics, rather, how to know that you are winning.

winninginpolitics

If all the cute birds are turning up on your side of the demo then you’re winning. Women love winners, that alpha male thing and this extends to movements and causes.

Jeremy Corbyn is winning in British politics. Discuss

83 thoughts on “PJ O’Rourke’s dictum on winning in politics”

  1. Um. I guess the West Asian is like a Paki 8 or something? The potential non-lezzer, actual British girl who’s totally obscured is probably alright too… but when #3 is the Jewess in the back left, you’ve got problems.

  2. They are fat-arsed fembo bodyguards whose sheer cheese-stinking obesity would provide a barrier to bullets hitting the Dear Leader. Not to mention the black radiation of hatred for white men that they project.

    Except that they would all shriek and wobble a mile if a car backfired never mind flying lead.

    The best thing would be if they turned on Corbyn like fat furies and tore him apart.

    Suitable work for Harpys after all.

  3. 7 of the 8 look like they’ve been run over by a bus. One can only say that one is winning in British politics when one can pick and choose which cute birds follow one around. Corbyn here has made no choices – those are his entire 8.

  4. Milifandom didn’t do much for Ed, who seemed rather bemused by all the young female attention. Nor did …

    http://order-order.com/2015/07/21/50-shades-of-burnham/

    … propel Andy Burnham to victory in the 2015 Labour leadership contest – though he did beat the ladies who were running, so could have become leader had a few MPs on Labour’s right not been daft enough to nominate Corbyn to ensure “debate”.

  5. If the cutest birds that Team Corbyn can muster for a posed photocall are quota-filling race activists and obese pie-gobblers, there’s nothing to worry about. Corbyn’s unelectable.

  6. If they turn up naturally, then yes. But having the trappings of success is not the same as being successful.

    I note we have here a perfect palette of skin tones, and not one handbag among them.

  7. Hmmm… not exactly “cute birds”.

    I don’t think it applies so much now because the individual discretionary power and wealth of politicians/leaders is so much less than it was.

    If you’re a hottie today, you might as well go chasing bankers or people running Google.

  8. AFAIC Y’all have every goddamn right to be a bunch of racist, misogynist pricks. But for the sake of the record I’m gonna stick my head up to point out that’s what you’re being.

  9. TTG: Shove your cultural Marxist jargon up your arse.

    They are fat, ugly supporters of evil, tyranny and mass murder–by reason of supporting a cause that is neck deep in all three.

  10. Cute means “Ugly but interesting”. Pretty sure they’re not interesting if they’re dumb enough to follow Corbynomics, or Corbyn-anything.On PJ ORourkes definition, labour are, as predicted, unelectable for a generation;

  11. The last 4 PMs took every opportunity to be photographed surrounded by suppotrive women. So Jeremy is hardly breaking the mould.

  12. TTG, by the use of the word “Y’all”, I’m assuming that you are a Septic. I suppose you aren’t used to seeing women who don’t waddle.

  13. I’ll say this in fairness to Corbyn, or whoever arranged the photo op: I usually find this “let’s put a bunch of ladies in a photo with the leader, preferably of diverse races, to prove he’s not sexist or racist” business to be unedifying, tokenistic and in its own way rather sexist. Cf David Cameron making sure that Tory women MPs filled the seats behind the middle of the front bench to fool the cameras that there were more women Tory MPs and the balance was somewhere near 50:50, but actually not doing much behind the scenes to rectify the true balance (especially on the front bench). Corbyn at least is a chap genuinely committed to gender equality. And while the photo is likely a set-up, one can imagine the physical situation portrayed actually having taken place in the absence of cameras.

    Moreover, no effort appears to have been expended positioning the women so that “better looking women stand at the front and more central to the shot”, which is a genuinely misogynistic practice yet frequently applied to these kind of photo opportunities. In fact they look like eight regular and representative members of young British womanhood (at least its urban subset). I recall several David Cameron visits to some project or centre or local Tory party or whatever, “out meeting the normal folk”, where if you look at the video you see it’s largely a bunch of blokes milling around in the background (who mostly vanish entirely from the press photos but can be seen in the news footage) but somehow, strategically positioned right up by the PM and following him about for reasons that remained unexplained, just so happens to be a young lady – often extremely pretty, often ethnic minority. Perhaps I’m too cynical, but I often wondered who they were trying to kid with stunts like that. Not sure whether it was the “let’s prove he’s not a sexist racist Nasty Party PM” idea, or something more subtle – subconscious messaging that DC is a truly powerful/magnetic figure, or perhaps that voting Tory will make you more successful with the ladies. The implicit sexism of that left a bad taste in the mouth. This photo looks pretty much okay to me in comparison.

  14. AFAIC Y’all have every goddamn right to be a bunch of racist, misogynist pricks. But for the sake of the record I’m gonna stick my head up to point out that’s what you’re being.

    Racist? It’s hardly racist to point out the obvious quota-filling going on in that photo op. And most of the rest of the comments concerned the pie shortage in Liverpool.

    I’ll give you ‘pricks’ though: and nothing at all wrong with that!

  15. Bloke in North Dorset

    No doubt given the trappings of office, shadow or real, that lot will be lecturing us about obesity and diet and taxing our pleasures.

  16. Surely Emily Thornberry all by herself is proof of the “pudding” club ? Or if your taste is more for the savory, then Diane Abbot is a black pudding ?

  17. BIW

    “It’s hardly racist to point out the obvious quota-filling going on in that photo op. ”

    Bearing in mind the Labour membership is very London-centric and even outside London is mostly urban, and that it remains the main party for most ethnic minority groups, I’m not sure that photo is deliberately quota-filled. It has about the same ethnic mix as a typical student union committee these days, which is pretty much the same demographic being sampled from.

  18. The Thought Gang – “AFAIC Y’all have every goddamn right to be a bunch of racist, misogynist pricks.”

    They can’t be too racist or misogynistic. I haven’t commented yet.

    It is a general rule that pretty girls congregate around power. These are not pretty girls. It is not racist or sexist to point that out. Especially given Corbyn himself looks like three drawf zombies pretending to be a real boy.

  19. MBE

    The point of all these absurd photocalls is either to make a party look (more) “representative” of the electorate or to appeal to particular demographics. The photocalls are not about representing a party’s membership or conference.

    Presumably, the aim of Corbyn’s effort above was to appeal to women and immigrants. The immigrants are over-represented (and as such are there to fill some arbitrary PR quota) and the white women are porkers (which may be intended to suggest that they are benefit claimants or NHS nurses).

    TTG: your virtue signal is received and noted. *yawn*

  20. @ Paul Rain – ???
    @ Ecksy – Do you need a cuddle?
    @ SMFS – I’ve never noticed you being especially misogynistic.
    @ Theo – I don’t think you know what virtue signalling is, or where and why people do it.

  21. TTG

    Virtue signalling is the expression of platitudinous, empty or superficial support of socially progressive views in ways intended to enhance the social or moral standing of the speaker or writer.

    And, in my hardly unreasonable view, that’s what you did.

  22. TTG–You peddle the thought-destroying clichés of leftist shite but use the word “thought” in your cognomen?

    They are fat, evil hags –and if you don’t like to hear truth still you will lump it.

  23. My wife recently bought a cushion embroidered with the slogan

    “Men, coffee and chocolate are all better rich”

    should I accuse her of misogyny.

  24. @ Theo

    You think that I intended to enhance my social or moral standing?

    Amongst the TW commentariat?

    It seems more likely that I was the only person *not* doing that.

  25. jgh

    “To be representative of the electorate, only one of them should be non-white.”

    Quite so. Yet it is very surprising how many everyday advertisements – for supermarkets, holidays, furniture etc – feature a disproportionate number of immigrants. Often advertisements include a mixed race couple. It’s as though the whole advertising industry has an unstated policy of encouraging colonisation and racial miscegenation.

  26. The one on the far left might be an Asian babe. Hard to tell from that photo. The rest look like extras from WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.

  27. TTG

    “You think that I intended to enhance my social or moral standing”

    Yes, your moral standing. Perhaps without realising it, you surely gave yourself a smug pat on the back for occupying the moral high ground.

  28. Ian Reid,

    find the most sumptuous and lavishly embroidered cushion in your house and park your arse on it.
    Make it clear that this is now your cushion and there will be all hell to pay if anybody so much as looks at your cushion let alone moves it.

    Cushions have a unique place in human society (they are proxy crowns).
    Your better half will gaze adoringly at you once you have reclaimed your throne.

  29. You think that I intended to enhance my social or moral standing?

    Amongst the TW commentariat?

    JuliaM classes this place up.

    All the rest of you are cantankerous blokey deplorables. Except for Mr Ecks – in real life he’s Gyles Brandreth.

  30. Breaking news, Diane Abbott has expressed interest in appearing in my latest series, Rocco’s Big Assed Blasters. A few of the women in this photo seem worth a try out.

  31. Rocco S–Rather than a tawdry porno–the tone of which Abbot’s participation would surely lower–why not make not an action movie.

    Wicked patriarchal males are minding their own business when suddenly they are hit from nowhere by the mighty dump-truck-like arses of Abbot and gang. There follows a slew of Peckinpah/Blade Runner scenes as the patris crash through countless plate-glass windows in slo-mo or are knocked off high perches ala this trailer:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RH2BD49sEZI

    How should the film end?

    Abbot has a change of heart, renounces the evil of socialism and saves humanity by smothering the world-ending cobolt bomb with her arse.

    A final appearance by CGI involving the late Charlton Heston crying “You finally did it you maniacs, you finally blew it up”. should make for a classy and classic ending.

  32. Often advertisements include a mixed race couple. It’s as though the whole advertising industry has an unstated policy of encouraging colonisation and racial miscegenation.

    Chateau Heartiste has been all over that. There was even one with a white chick wearing a wedding ring skipping along with a black guy without one. Something is going on here, this stuff isn’t being done by accident.

  33. @TN Indeed. Recently on the new series of Cold Feet when David was arrested it was a black female detective who interviewed him, and when Robbie Coltranes character in National Treasure was arrested, blow me down if it wasn’t another black female rozzer who did it. What are the odds hey? You wait a lifetime for one black female detective, and then like busses two turn up at once.

    Deliberate social engineering, of course, conditioning us to the new reality, or what they would like to be the new reality, that ethnic people are capable of holding professional positions. Perhaps the program makers have spent so much time staging Jeremy Corbyn photo ops they don’t even know they’re doing it.

  34. MBE,

    “Bearing in mind the Labour membership is very London-centric and even outside London is mostly urban, and that it remains the main party for most ethnic minority groups, I’m not sure that photo is deliberately quota-filled. It has about the same ethnic mix as a typical student union committee these days, which is pretty much the same demographic being sampled from.”

    The thing is, it’s a bit overloaded if it’s deliberate.

    And most of that is about nothing more than defensive PR. You put a couple of token people into your picture so that you don’t have to fight a cooked-up media shitstorm about racism. One college in Canada even photoshopped a black student in, because they literally didn’t have any.

  35. Corbyn is currently winning the power struggle within the Labour Party, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to win with the country as a whole. Plus, it’s obviously a photo-opportunity staged for the press so of course it’s arranged to make him look popular.

  36. Chateau Heartiste has been all over that. There was even one with a white chick wearing a wedding ring skipping along with a black guy without one. Something is going on here, this stuff isn’t being done by accident.

    You’re right: I’ve just looked and CH is good on this issue. The advertising industry seems determined to promote ‘diversity’ and racial miscegenation – and I’m generally no fan of conspiracy theories.

  37. Mr Ecks, you wouldn’t call it “tawdry” if you watched the scene where big D crushes a beer can between her luscious, oiled-up, rippling chocolate buns!

  38. Note to women: you can’t ban words just because you don’t like them. Stamp your feet and go all hysterical (oops), but you can’t, see?

  39. But, without wishing to be unkind, he could stack his side with Charlie’s Angels, the saucy one from out of The Bangles and the entire Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad – naked – but if he’s still got Diane Abbott on the team, he’s winning nothing: http://bit.ly/2983j6D P.J’s dictum still holds water…

  40. Leo DiCaprio appears on a St Barts beach with a bunch of hotties, and at 40 he’s labelled a sad sort. In what category do we place a 67 year old Corbyn?

  41. Just a passing comment, being good looking and paying lots of attention to your hair does not make yourself a better pornstar than the divine Ms D, or indeed the Polly I need to fill

  42. Rob/ Cynic – they can ban them and they most certainly will, especially if Corby gets in which while currently unlikely is not impossible…..

  43. Interesting the ones on his right are slimmer than the ones on his left, and are cuter, so it’s better to be to the right of Jeremy is the message I see

  44. BobRocket said:
    “Cushions have a unique place in human society (they are proxy crowns).”

    Don’t they go on opposite ends?

  45. The Inimitable Steve – “The one on the far left might be an Asian babe. Hard to tell from that photo. The rest look like extras from WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE.”

    You need your own blog. Wasted just commenting on others. The Asian girl is at least thin but what is with those trousers and, I hate to say, comfortable shoes.

    The sad thing is that a couple of them really could be babes if only they lost some weight. That girl to the far right of the picture would actually be pretty – if she was half the woman that she is.

    Ian Reid – “What are the odds hey? You wait a lifetime for one black female detective, and then like busses two turn up at once.”

    Well if they are anything like Dianne Abbott at least part of them does resemble a bus.

    It is the idiocies of modern political correctness. I can forgive Transformers for casting a hot White babe as their computer expert. I mean it might happen. But a fat Black crypt-Gay one? Come on. What is an IT team with no East Asians or Jewish-looking dorks on it?

    The Martian was even worse. The physics geek who came up with their obvious orbital transfer move was a thin, obviously hip, Black? Please. You could probably fit every Black with a PhD in physics from a real university into a black cab. And have room for the Spice Girls.

    It used to be just the Police Chief. Always Black in Hollywood. Then it became the heart surgeon. I blame Grey’s Anatomy for that one. Next it will be Queen Elizabeth – both the First and Second.

  46. “You’re right: I’ve just looked and CH is good on this issue. The advertising industry seems determined to promote ‘diversity’ and racial miscegenation – and I’m generally no fan of conspiracy theories.”

    You should check out the Sex Ed they’re giving German schoolgirls. They use dolls… all of which are brown, not pink…

  47. SMFS
    The Martian baffled me there a bit. So, If you’ve got Chiwetel Ejiofor, an African-Briton working largely in America, playing an Indian, you still need a token African-American? It all gets very confusing.

  48. The Martian baffled me there a bit.

    I didn’t bother watching it as soon as I saw Matt Damon was playing the lead. The best part of the book for me was the main character’s sardonic, dry, and often childish humour and the last person who could pull that off would be Mr Earnest Matt Damon. Then when I read they’d pulled in all these other B-list actors to try to give the lineup some weight, I decided not to bother.

  49. Damon does better than expected. The really jarring thing is Sean Bean seems to have interrupted a ten day bender to do a few days filming. Surprised the insurance allowed it.

  50. I remembered what bugged me about the trailer: the shot of Matt Damon looking at his all-American family on Earth that he simply has to get back to. In the book, he had no family: his motivation was pure bloody-mindedness. This kind of sugary crap I can do without watching. It’s why I avoid Tom Hanks films nowadays.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *