Best Of

On topic, why would Farage want to lead the Tories? It is already a 50/50 toss up who will lead the forthcoming Tory-Reform administration. Reform could be running Wales soon. Kemi is going to have to be brilliant and make the most of all her opportunities not to see the Tories go the way of the Liberals.

I agree, I'd say there's a real risk the Tories become the UUP to Reform's DUP.

However, and it's a big however, the Tories can also fish for LD (home counties) and Labour (switchers and floating voters as well) so they can face and pull in multiple directions, if they get the mix and tone right.

Not sure Badenoch is quite the right candidate to go fishing for LD and centrist Labour votes. Davey is a more conservative leader and overall safer bet.

Davey is anything but conservative. He's a socialist in a yellow suit with a flying bird on it.

Not at all.

For example the LDs oppose the abolition of AR on farms and imposition of VAT on private schools.

Davey certainly wasn't a Socialist when in government either.

It will be tough to expand the number of LD seats at the next GE, as there will surely be some dead cat bounce for the Tories, but it isn't impossible. There is not a lot of love out there for either of the big two parties. We may well be in one of those decades where the tectonic plates of party politics shift.

I suggest you read the interviews with him on his background and political philosophy, which was so left-wing the interviewer even asked him why he didn't join the Labour Party then - to which he gave some weakish answer about how he didn't like its tradition.

He's a Lefty through and through.

Don't confuse political opportunism for where his real sympathies lie, and he'd be delighted to prop up a Labour administration that fell short next time.

I see the MD of Jaguar, Rawdon Glover, has shown himself up to be a chronic dickhead with a markedly defensive interview in The Times today, calling the negative reaction to his ad - utterly predictably - a "blaze of intolerance". We see, now, how this idiocy was signed off in the first place.

Rattled doesn't come close.

Here's what will happen: he will lose his existing customer base, he won't gain the younger and wealthier one he craves, the brand will fail, and then he'll be sacked:

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/transport/article/jaguar-boss-defends-rebrand-from-blaze-of-intolerance-dh3mgqdqh

Is he claiming it's intolerant to mock an advert? ISTR the buffoon in charge of Aberdeen Asset Management tried a similar tack with criticism of their rebrand.
Or is he trying to hint that the real reason people don't like the advert is that they're racists? Which rather overlooks the hundreds of non-shit adverts with black people in which people don't mock.

“The customer is always right, in matters of taste.”

If you produce a product that people don’t like, and don’t understand the market you are aiming at, that is on you, not the customers.

Has anyone on Twitter suggested 'your customers may be what you think of as intolerant longer than what your bank thinks of as you being solvent?'

First.

Not a bet for me. Even if Badenoch flops spectacularly, Farage is a worse choice.

Nothing would ensure a second Starmer government more certainly.

I'm not so sure. Farage strikes me as someone that the centrist Establishment often underestimate.

People might be annoyed enough with five years - well, actually by then about 20 - of mass immigration and economic stagnation to give Farage a whirl in 2029, especially if Kemi (and a successor?) disappoint. The Ukraine war might be over by then and Trump will be on his way out.

It's certainly not the likeliest scenario, and the logistics are daunting, but stranger things have happened ...

I can only speak for myself. But there is a growing thought in this country - and on here - that embraces shit like the Great Replacement Theory. I think that theory is nasty b/s, but politically it plays well amongst people who like conspiracy theories, are borderline or fully racist, and who want someone to blame for things they don't like.

And I can see Farage playing that sort of card to that crowd. After all, that card has helped Trump.

PB is just too upper middle class to understand the appeal of Farage.

Wrong. Long time political anoraks on this site of all political persuasions have sadly always understood the appeal of Farage and why in his previous role as UKIP leader he and his previous party were so successful in European elections, and far more so in Labour heartlands seats by 2015 than in previous heartland Conservative seats and also in particular in the Welsh Parliamentary elections around that time. So no surprise at how well Reform are performing in either Wales or Scotland right now.

But again, long time political anoraks are already recognising the negative signs of his previous modus operandi as leader of UKIP starting to appear on his new Reform bandwagon.

Are you saying that Farage is yesterday’s man, like Trump?

The difference is that we don't have a Presidential system. Farage might do well at that (though there would be a lot of tactical voting against), but in the UK he needs 326 MPs to become PM and the calibre of Reform candidates is very poor. He would need to take over the existing Tory party and for them to nearly treble their seats to become PM.

He is also ageing fast and is a bit too fond of long boozy lunches and media grandstanding to do the hard work needed, like constituency surgeries and committee work.

We are not America, and Farage has a strong unpopularity against him - like Le Pen does in France - but it's ridiculously complacent to assume he'd always be denied office just by tactical voting.

I'd have thought we'd have learned that lesson by now.

OT but something one needs to know: not only are banks sometimes imposing an upper limit on scam refunds, many are now bringing in an £100 excess deduction.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/nov/23/uk-bank-fraud-victims-100-excess-refund-claims

I think there has to be at least a small element of personal responsibility for where you send your money. As long as the bank didn’t do anything wrong, why should they have to pay for your mistake?

I'm actually surprised at how many scams are for less than £100 - once it's set up, why settle for so little?

Easier to get many, many more people to fall for it, yielding a much higher return.

I'm currently getting dozens of emails from 'Evri' demanding £2,50 to deliver an unspecified 'parcel.'

Not sure whether they're hoping thousands of people fall for it or whether it's a Trojan horse to hack my card if I fall for it.

I can't help feeling they'd have more chance of fooling people if they didn't send three emails from different addresses within a minute of each other, but I'm assuming they use some kind of AI.

Looks utterly miserable outside. Bring back the cold !

At least the grid is having a good day. 15.45 GW or 58% of demand, including 1.26 being used for pumping water back up in pumped storage.

21.56GW of wind - the record is 21.81GW.

Massive change from the last few weeks where the High pressure area meant the windmills were barely turning.

Over the past week wind provided 33.4% of our energy, higher than the average for the last 12 months (31.1%).

That surprises me a little. When I have checked of late the numbers have been disappointing. We are still importing energy though. We really need to get ourselves to the point we are net exporters on days like this and, ideally, most days.

What's curious is that we are importing energy even while our domestic gas generation is down at only 5GW. I guess the spot price of gas is high enough that it's cheaper to import.

I use this: https://grid.iamkate.com. The reason the numbers for wind are so different is because the other monitors exclude onshore wind in England and Wales.