Who is popular today?

Lib Dem leader lacks the killer instinct to ask him the question everyone wants answered
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The dead cat. Once, a sadness only for its owner and the various female cats it had impregnated and then left to deal with its offspring while it slunk off to do it again. But now, “dead cat” is the go-to political buzzphrase of every armchair campaign strategist who can’t wait to tell anyone paying attention to almost any part of this election that they should in fact be paying attention to something completely different. They’ve missed the 4D chess. They’ve fallen for a classic piece of misdirection. Remember: it’s never a cock-up, it’s always a conspiracy. Previously a fairly precise term of political arcana – it was a Lynton Crosby fave – the dead cat’s most enthusiastic adopters have now decided it can mean anything that distracts from bad news.
And this is the great felinicide election, where everything is judged by some keyboard Metternich to be a deliberate and masterful distraction from something else. Jacob Rees-Mogg’s repulsive Grenfell comments were a dead cat, apparently. They’re trying to divert you from the fact they haven’t released the Russia report! They’re trying to hoodwink you into stopping watching Corbyn’s Andrew Neil interview! They’re trying to draw your eye away from them doing a black Friday deal on the NHS! And, a personal highlight, from shadow cabinetry’s Richard Burgon: “Boris Johnson is a Tory. He wants us to forget this. But that’s what he is.” Yup, you have to get up pretty early in the morning to catch Burgon out. (He should definitely stop doing the breakfast shows.) Continue reading...