Best Of

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The question is whether Jenrick is “racist” is not illuminating. Yet, whether something or someone is “racist” consumes a massive amount of media attention and focus in 2025.

No, what is relevant is that Jenrick’s comments - taken out of context or not - were offensive.

God only knows how I’d feel if I was a brown migrant or perhaps even just brown, in the UK today. I would not be feeling very welcome, and I would also be feeling that the next Tory leader is stoking racial enmity for partisan advantage.

Jenrick should apologize, but he hasn’t and he won’t.
He’s beyond the pale.

There is a trend on the right to stop apologising - see also Truss's refusal to disassociate herself from Tommy Robinson. Liz Truss isn't a supporter of Tommy Robinson, but she refused to give any ground on it because she did not want to continue what she sees as the left being given the right to pronounce on what is right and decent, and what, as you say, is 'beyond the pale'.

If someone wants the right to pronounce on what is 'right and decent', I might suggest they start by not associating herself with criminal neo-Nazi thugs.

Truss is not setting herself up as the pronouncer of what is right and decent - she is refusing to submit to what is effectively a left-wing derived rulebook of modern manners.

Don't be a nitwit. You don't need to be left-wing to criticise Tommy Robinson.

She is making the same mistake as Enoch Powell who refused to give any ground to his critics even when the criticism was justified. The latest episode of The Rest is History is very good on this and how his utter refusal to show or express any empathy for those harmed by his words, even in the face of clear evidence of such harm, damned him even more. He didn't simply make criticisms. He deliberately used inflammatory language and then tried to claim the consequences of his choice of words had nothing to do with him.

This is irresponsible dangerous politics. It is as bad as those marchers shouting Arab slogans from the 8th century about killing Jews and then pretending this has nothing to do with creating a climate of fear.

Tory politicians should not be behaving like this.

Excellent announcement from Kemi that a Conservative government would abolish Stamp Duty

SDLT raised
23-34 £11.6bn
22-23 £15.4bn

I don't disagree that Stamp Duty has negative effects on the housing market and mobility, but how will the tax be raised instead?

How bout cutting spending 👍

We, like most of Europe, have a choice -

• Raise taxes on a dwindling workforce,
  
• Cut benefits to politically powerful older voters,
  
• Or borrow more, which is becoming harder and more expensive.
  

France has attempted all three in recent years. We (via Truss) attempted the last one. In all cases it hasn't gone well.

We could also import younger people of working age, of course #starttheboats.

And that has led to…. Not much difference in economic output.

What we need is productivity increases. Which come from mechanisation and streamlining processes.

For example, my Aunt was trying to escape from hospital. The doctors, the various care units in the hospital and the external support for elderly people were unable, apparently, to talk to each other about simple things.

I ended up sketching, in my head, a simple collaboration portal - on a per case basis. So all the concerned parties could at least talk to each other. Instead of a game of telephone tag….

The Discord / Zendesk hack from the other day just took a bad turn.

The hackers have 1.5TB of photos, 2.2m photos, related to age verification, and are using it for extorting Discord.

That’ll be 2.2m photos of passports, driving licences, national ID cards…

https://x.com/vxunderground/status/1975834621503062495

And, thanks to the OSA, they'll be disproportionately British...

Heads should roll at Ofcom. Their implementation of the OSA was almost guaranteed to lead to such issues. It's insane that we've basically switched from 20 years of telling people "don't give out Personally Identifiable Information on the internet" to "give out PII to anyone from anywhere who asks for it, to prove your age."

Seems a lot of people are very easily impressed by, essentially, "Let's have the smallest state possible and cut tax on everything" without any thought for how that bears out in the real world

Badenoch is being lionised here for giving a speech that anyone could give, setting out policies that anyone could advocate.

If it were that easy then the Tories would have already done it 10 years ago, reaped all the presumed economic benefits, and then won the next election handily. Except it isn't.

Stamp Duty has tons of flaws. There is some benefit reform that is clearly needed. Et Cetera. Hopefully Labour get rid of it - but with a property tax / land value tax of some sort to make up for the shortfall.

It is ridiculous to frame yourself as the party of sound money, and then say "We're undoing all of Labour's tax rises, we're not touching the triple lock, we're scrapping stamp duty... and um... we'll pay for all this with... I dunno, fewer civil servants?"

I too rather like Kemi Badenoch. Whereas Starmer is bad and loathsome, she is bad but amiable

However, she is pretty bad. The Tories maybe have one more roll of the dice and it’s gotta be Jenrick. He will at least get them noticed

Very able but too early? Is there a comparison with William Hague?

Yes. Like Hague she is talented, with lots of potential, but far too early to take the exposure of being LOTO after a crushing defeat. We'll see, but I doubt that Jenrick is the answer. The MPs really screwed it up by accidentally excluding Cleverly.

Talented?

She was Business Secretary at a time when the Post Office scandal was in the news and needed action. It still does, by the way. She did fuck all and when she gave evidence to the inquiry came across as arrogant and evasive.

She had a chance to show what she could do. She had a chance to show what the Tory party could be about - as on the side of the little people not the overweening corrupt and incompetent state. She fluffed that opportunity. I wrote about it here.

https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2023/07/18/a-missed-opportunity/

And every word of what I said then has turned out to be true. She has an ego but lacks emotional intelligence, achievement or the ability to work through problems and come up with practical solutions (see, for instance, her nonsense about the ECHR).