Charlie Elphicke: Former Tory MP jailed for two years after being found guilty of three sexual assaults

[BoroMart]

It makes me slightly nauseous thinking of what Labour will have had to bribe her with to get her to do this, given she is stepping down at the election.

Dame Natalie Elphicke will be gracing the House of Lords in a couple of years presumably.

I'm not convinced they will have. I think she is doing this as a way of causing maximum impact the people in the party that she thinks have cost her her cushy job. This switch allows her to not tow the Tory Party line, and instead take a swipe at everyone in the party, and spill any beans she chooses, without being shamed by having the whip withdrawn.

 

[The_Unicorn]

She crossed the floor at PMQ

Ah, thank you

 

[1finny]

I nearly got an NED job with her as Chair.
Git down to the last two
Only reason I wanted it was to turn her down.

Bigger picture
No one who is voting Labour will not as a result of this
Those who aren’t will have a field day
Some of her constituents may well switch to Labour
She is going to be in the party for 2 mins
Causes more shchitt for Sunak

Personally think it’’s cack but - I get it.

 

[Lefty]

It's brutal and entirely engineered to provide this

https://twitter.com/x/status/1788172389747937686

 

[Lefty]

Come on referee, you should have stepped in by now.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1788165618962686131

 

[Lefty]

Mockery

https://twitter.com/x/status/1788175970316251261

 

[FabioPorkpie]

Bigger picture
No one who is voting Labour will not as a result of this

Wanna bet?

 

[equaliser]

I had a party meeting in my house last night and consensus was we were all a bit queasy about this, but on the other hand you would expect a degree of due diligence would have been done. She may have made questionable pronouncements but has she aired opinions that crossed the line into prejudice or hate speech? Presumably they concluded not. My concern would be that stuff emerges that casts this decision in a bad light. I can't imagine Dover Labour members will be anxious to welcome her into the fold, let's put it that way!

 

[1finny]

Wanna bet?

Nope - It was a euphemism.
There will always be 1 on here - especially after what I wrote.

I would say just say if that is the reason for not voting labour so be it.

 

[FabioPorkpie]

I think this move seems to have somewhat backfired. All of the headlines in the print media this morning are about the unease with which some Labour MPs and activists are taking this, and none are about the pressure growing on Sunak or the damage to the Tories.

Thursday's national newspaper front pages

Sky News takes a look at the stories making the headlines on Thursday's national newspaper front pages.

news.sky.com

 

[Alzi]

I think this move seems to have somewhat backfired. All of the headlines in the print media this morning are about the unease with which some Labour MPs and activists are taking this, and none are about the pressure growing on Sunak or the damage to the Tories.

Thursday's national newspaper front pages

Sky News takes a look at the stories making the headlines on Thursday's national newspaper front pages.

news.sky.com

Just the Tory rags, who cares about them? It won’t impact the polls.

There is no real downside for Labour (there would have been an issue if she was standing at the next election) but it’s absolutely humiliating for Sunak.

 

[FabioPorkpie]

Just the Tory rags, who cares about them? It won’t impact the polls.

There is no real downside for Labour (there would have been an issue if she was standing at the next election) but it’s absolutely humiliating for Sunak.

That’s all fine and well, but surely Labour are trying to appeal to the readers of those Tory rags by making such a move? And none of the left leaning papers are focussing on the problems this defection causes for the Tories either. Sky and BBC have both been running headlines about grumbling on the Labour benches.
The people who they are hoping to capture by such a move aren’t getting the memo, at least not in the media.
Anyway, here’s hoping for more chaos in the coming days and some other rats jumping ship. Although I’d personally rather Labour didn’t throw lifebuoys to them, I’m happy to see the Tories further implode. GE asafp

 

[BlindBoyGrunt]

A far better statement would have been to turn her down on principle. "Get back over there, we have standards."

 

[mercury_redstone7]

That’s all fine and well, but surely Labour are trying to appeal to the readers of those Tory rags by making such a move? And none of the left leaning papers are focussing on the problems this defection causes for the Tories either. Sky and BBC have both been running headlines about grumbling on the Labour benches.
The people who they are hoping to capture by such a move aren’t getting the memo, at least not in the media.
Anyway, here’s hoping for more chaos in the coming days and some other rats jumping ship. Although I’d personally rather Labour didn’t throw lifebuoys to them, I’m happy to see the Tories further implode. GE asafp

Most of the Momentum - tories would rather be in opposition forever, they have principals ...my axxx

 

[Wiseman_Vaughn]

Labour are becoming the new Tories.

I think this could come back to haunt them.

 

[Alzi]

That’s all fine and well, but surely Labour are trying to appeal to the readers of those Tory rags by making such a move? And none of the left leaning papers are focussing on the problems this defection causes for the Tories either. Sky and BBC have both been running headlines about grumbling on the Labour benches.
The people who they are hoping to capture by such a move aren’t getting the memo, at least not in the media.
Anyway, here’s hoping for more chaos in the coming days and some other rats jumping ship. Although I’d personally rather Labour didn’t throw lifebuoys to them, I’m happy to see the Tories further implode. GE asafp

Lets see how it impacts the polls. The vast majority of the electorate will see an MP for Dover, at the frontline of Sunak's "stop the boats" schtick, saying the Tories haven't got a clue about immigration.

It's simple not true that it's not getting media coverage. Watch Sophie Ridge absoloutly eviscerate Michelle Donelan about the defection lastnight.

 

[Liamo]

Isn't/wasn't she a member of the ERG nutjobs?

The ERG has always refused to provide their membership list but according to the organisation openDemocracy, she was a subscriber to the pooled service provided by the ERG.

 

[Ziggy]

She is leaving politics in a few months. Labour saw an opportunity, and took it.
Politically it was brilliantly timed and for once wasn’t leaked beforehand.
Then Starmer a few minutes later went at Sunak in the most personal way, than ever before.
Sunak totally lost his s**t…didn’t know what day it was. In ‘Politik’ terms, lovely brutal stuff.
Didn’t know Starmer had it in him.
That’s was what it was designed to do, just as Sunak felt a bit safer

 

[theboydom]

That’s all fine and well, but surely Labour are trying to appeal to the readers of those Tory rags by making such a move? And none of the left leaning papers are focussing on the problems this defection causes for the Tories either. Sky and BBC have both been running headlines about grumbling on the Labour benches.
The people who they are hoping to capture by such a move aren’t getting the memo, at least not in the media.
Anyway, here’s hoping for more chaos in the coming days and some other rats jumping ship. Although I’d personally rather Labour didn’t throw lifebuoys to them, I’m happy to see the Tories further implode. GE asafp

"none of the left leaning papers are focussing on the problems this defection causes for the Tories either. Sky and BBC have both been running headlines about grumbling on the Labour benches." I find this fascinating if true. So no journalists have been pinning the Conservatives to the wall for ages over having someone with such odious views on their benches, but it isn't a Conservative problem, it is a Labour one? Almost as if there was a dearth of good quality political journalism in this country holding those elected to account... And her views were not odious enough to stop the local Tory association or the electorate of Dover from returning her as candidate and MP, but this is a Labour problem? I would be astonished if anyone but the client journalists go after this for any length of time, as the simple answer is that if she had any answering to do, it has already been done, unless our whole system isn't running as well as it should? Even the journalist asking the question can be questioned about their apparent complicity in not challenging her odious views until she crossed the floor It is not as if all these views and comments were kept secret at the time, so even the Labour MPs so exercised about them now have had ample opportunity to even raise their concerns with her directly in the HoC. Hansard will be an interesting record of how worried they actually were at the time she was nominated and elected... Unless this is just being used as a stick to beat Starmer with of course, but surely not

 

[viv_andersons_nana]

Did Starmer and his team consider how welcoming this lying, racist sack of sh*t would make female Labour MPs and voters feel considering she wrote an article for The Sun saying the victims of his sexual assault were lying?

And the arrogance of those on here and elsewhere saying it’ll all be forgotten about in a week, well yeah for you it may well be but for those affected by the actions of the Elphickes it might leave a slightly different taste. But who cares about trivialities like that when you’re trying to score cheap points in the press, eh.