Best Of

I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.

If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.

Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.

We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.

Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.

If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.

It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!

I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.

Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.

I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.

Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).

I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.

Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news

Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm

Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).

You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.

I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking

1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party

or

2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?

The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos

I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems

A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...

Everyone but the English.......

What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK

Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!

I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.

Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.

You meanie,

I greatly enjoy @rogers baiting of the Brexiteers, and the Reformites of Hartlepool. It's always worth pointing out that Farage's life work has been a massive failure that has done permenant harm to the country.

I see that today our main export market for steel has just slapped on a 50% tariff.

It's cold outside...

We're not baited by it though, we just laugh or cringe.

Brexit has destroyed the Conservative Party, so its not all bad...

Nah. Doesn't work.

What, Brexit or the Conservative Party?

They will share a common grave, unmourned.

I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.

If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.

Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.

We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.

Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.

If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.

It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!

I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.

Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.

I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.

Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).

I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.

Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news

Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm

Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).

You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.

I'm in France so it's not ideal to get the full flavour of what's going on, But am I right in thinking

1. Jenrick has screwed his chances of ever leading a group of boy scouts let alone a political Party

or

2. Has the leadership of the Tory Party nailed on?

The same France that is collapsing into political turmoil and chaos

I would rather be here in Wales and the UK despite its problems

A sunny place with an azure blue sea and bars and cafes heaving with cheerful staff from all over the continent including Ireland here to learn the language and have fun...

Everyone but the English.......

What a screw up your selfish rotten Party have made of the UK

Yet you're there, you fucking idiot!

I'm a rejoiner but you really make us look stupid. Stay off the board if you want to progress the cause you claim to espouse. Slagging off the UK and catastrophising is part of what got us into this state in the first place. France is in as much of a mess politically we are and Brexit hasn't changed the weather you buffoon.

Your antediluvian sexual politics should have got you banned years ago anyway. Knob.

Evening all

Two very different polls from Freshwater and YouGov.

Jenrick's antics made sure the defection of 20 councillors from the Conservatives to Reform (moving Reform ahead of the Greens in councillor numbers) didn't get the attention it might otherwise have received.

As someone who lives in an area with few "white British" faces currently (though I sense that's starting to change as new housing is bringing people into the area), I can't say it bothers me all that much. It may bother others - the main people speaking English are the children who mingle together indifferent to ethnicity, gender and creed.

Once again, we see from another Badenoch interview the debate has moved from immigration to integration. I'm not sure what it is people want or expect - do I feel any less British surrounded by Muslims and Hindus? In truth, no. Britain isn't about the colour of your skin or the God to whom you pray - never has been. It is about people living and working together and the fact we have a family of Catholics from the Phillipines on one side and a young Indian couple on the other side makes no odds.

The Anglican church houses both a Tamil Christian congregation and a couple of groups of evangelicals from sub-saharan Africa. Up the road, I see the older Muslim men walking toward the mosque to pray - it may not be the Vicar cycling past the village green as cricket is being played but it's my community and I see no problem with it.

Farage on GB News just said 'I agree very strongly with Robert and his remarks in his speech today.'

Confirming again Jenrick is not the man to take on Farage, even if he might be a successor to Farage as a leader of the right

Jenrick's comments were of course vile racist crap and illustrate what a thoroughly nasty man he is. But they were also astonishingly stupid even on his own terms. The area of Birmingham he was so critical of is actually extremely diverse rather than being some kind of ghetto populated by a single insular community. Only some "they all look the same to me" moron like Jenrick could have got it as wrong as he did. If white British people have chosen not to live there maybe that's something he could consider taking up with them.
It does make me wonder whether Britain is in danger of becoming a dangerous place to live for anyone who isn't a "white face". That's the path we are on if supposedly mainstream politicians are now casually tossing out this kind of pig ignorant bile.

Trouble is, we all think it's bonkers, but last time I checked polling support for the triple-lock was very strong, even among younger voters.

Yup

Keeping the TL is extremely bad government, but scrapping it is even worse politics. And I suspect that it's naive to think that explaining the mathematical facts to the public will be persuasive.

Bottom line, it needs a government that is doomed, knows it is doomed, and therefore decides to go out in a blaze of posthumous glory. I get why Sunak and Hunt didn't spend their last year doing the right things, but they had the opportunity.

The Tories were once a party which prided itself on fiscal rectitude.

Did you mean rectal fistitude?

I am not sure I can be in the same party as Robert Jenrick.

If the party wants to go down the Jenrick route then it deserves to die.

Just in case anyone was naive enough to take his comments last night as throwaway chat at a Tory dinner, he comes up today demanding that we TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK.

We're now in a polity where the parties of the right are so hard over to the right that they have to compete with each other about who can stoke division and hate the hardest.

Sorry mate, the party is cooked. Because even if Badenoch is ousted you're getting *that* as leader, after whom there will be little left.

If Bob was dog whistling for clicks and headlines he can award himself an A*.

It's unusual for a prospective leader of one of the main parties to persuade me *not* to vote for a party he's in charge of before he even gets the job! well done, Jenrick!

I suspect Honest Bob has calculated that for every JosiasJessop he repels he attracts ten Lucy Connollys.

Like it or not, an awful lot of people in the country think Farage is right about immigration. People like my next door neighbour. Not a beer swilling, skinhead, BNP type racist, just someone who think that immigration is out of control.

I am not suggesting he is wrong or right, but if you want to get elected you need votes. And you need enough to get you a majority.

Good politicians... well, bad politicians as well... I guess I'm saying effective politicians don't just follow the little-thought-through views of the electorate. They persuade the electorate. They respond to the concerns of the electorate (they think immigration has been out of control), but not by just giving them the obvious kneejerk response (saying immigration is still out of control and all immigrants are bad).

I think good politicians are also ones who realise that sometimes the plebs are right.

Jenrick has taken the media by storm today and certainly made the news

Apparently Badenoch is being interviewed by Beth Rigby from the conference live on Sky at 5.00pm

Yes, after last week's disastrous Labour Party Conference your party has captured the narrative (captured exclusively by Jenrick).

You have had a great day today! No news is bad news, and he has stolen the news cycle.

I had a great day shopping with my good lady and not really into the news

It is good to realise everything is not about politics

Exactly what is a ‘good day shopping’; I can’t imagine such a thing.

The Tories seem intent on casting themselves into irrelevance by their attempt to out-Reform Reform.

They appear to have missed the fact that there is a gap in the market on economic restructuring/radical reform of the state literally crying out for someone to fill it, and instead are majoring on who can announce the most authoritarian policy/say the most dubious comment.

It is a desperate strategy I believe is doomed to fail. I am not even saying they shouldn’t tack to the right on certain topics, but that should not have been their emphasis. Anyone who wants a strong border policy and wants a culture war is already deserting them for Farage. They cannot offer anything different in that space.

There may be a gap in the market, but how big is it?
It's like the post earlier bemoaning the LD's not being Orange Book enough.
There's plenty on here up for it. But few in the general population.

And most of us who accept the patriotic need for economic restructuring shuffle away a bit nervously when its consequences look like getting too near us. If you want to know why Mel Stride is planning to not touch the triple lock, look at who votes for his party. Same goes for those who want to leave taxes unraised and those who want to leave public spending uncut.

The politics were hard enough in 2008-10, they are harder still now.

Indeed.
There's a good reason why the "economic restructuring" which is wildly popular on PB is exclusively a tax cuts for the well off, benefits and service cuts for the rest kind.

Why should all parties inhabit a space that requires high taxes and high spending in perpetuity? Why is there not a space for a party arguing for a smaller state, lower taxes, and working better with public expenditure?

This is not a message that is just the preserve of the “well off”, as you term it.

The State has shrunk, in many ways.

Let's break down government spending - education, healthcare, defence, pensions etc - and look at how much they were as a percentage of GDP in both 2007 and 2024:

                2007/8          2024/5          Change
Health          7.1%            9.2%            +2.1pp
Education       5.6%            4.1%            -1.5pp
Defence         2.4%            2.1%            -0.3pp
State pensions  3.5%            5.1%            +1.6pp
Interest        2.0%            3.1%            +1.1pp
Pulic order     2.1%            1.9%            -0.2pp

As a percentage of GDP, the amount we spend on justice (police, prisons and courts) has fallen by a tenth, defence has dropped more. While education spending has sharply contracted.

By contrast what we spend on oldies has risen shaply. Spending on health has risen by as much as we spend in total on defence! Spending on state pensions has increased by the equivalent of 40% of the education budget.

There is genuine austerity in government. We just don't see it, because we're spending ever more on oldies. (And bear in mind, this excludes all the local government spending on oldies.)

FPT:

The Tories seem intent on casting themselves into irrelevance by their attempt to out-Reform Reform.

They appear to have missed the fact that there is a gap in the market on economic restructuring/radical reform of the state literally crying out for someone to fill it, and instead are majoring on who can announce the most authoritarian policy/say the most dubious comment.

It is a desperate strategy I believe is doomed to fail. I am not even saying they shouldn’t tack to the right on certain topics, but that should not have been their emphasis. Anyone who wants a strong border policy and wants a culture war is already deserting them for Farage. They cannot offer anything different in that space.

There may be a gap in the market, but how big is it?
It's like the post earlier bemoaning the LD's not being Orange Book enough.
There's plenty on here up for it. But few in the general population.

And most of us who accept the patriotic need for economic restructuring shuffle away a bit nervously when its consequences look like getting too near us. If you want to know why Mel Stride is planning to not touch the triple lock, look at who votes for his party. Same goes for those who want to leave taxes unraised and those who want to leave public spending uncut.

The politics were hard enough in 2008-10, they are harder still now.

Indeed.
There's a good reason why the "economic restructuring" which is wildly popular on PB is exclusively a tax cuts for the well off, benefits and service cuts for the rest kind.

Why should all parties inhabit a space that requires high taxes and high spending in perpetuity? Why is there not a space for a party arguing for a smaller state, lower taxes, and working better with public expenditure?

This is not a message that is just the preserve of the “well off”, as you term it.

The State has shrunk, in many ways.

Let's break down government spending - education, healthcare, defence, pensions etc - and look at how much they were as a percentage of GDP in both 2007 and 2024:

                2007/8          2024/5          Change
Health          7.1%            9.2%            +2.1pp
Education       5.6%            4.1%            -1.5pp
Defence         2.4%            2.1%            -0.3pp
State pensions  3.5%            5.1%            +1.6pp
Interest        2.0%            3.1%            +1.1pp
Pulic order     2.1%            1.9%            -0.2pp

As a percentage of GDP, the amount we spend on justice (police, prisons and courts) has fallen by a tenth, defence has dropped more. While education spending has sharply contracted.

By contrast what we spend on oldies has risen shaply. Spending on health has risen by as much as we spend in total on defence! Spending on state pensions has increased by the equivalent of 40% of the education budget.

There is genuine austerity in government. We just don't see it, because we're spending ever more on oldies. (And bear in mind, this excludes all the local government spending on oldies.)