Best Of

A Fukker government is going to need to appoint a lot of peers very quickly. They obviously can't all come from the ranks of the Third Positionists, petty criminals, terminally unemployed and mentally ill that form the bulk of the Fukker membership. In those circumstances I could see a Fukker peerage being attractive to Lord Johnson of Uccle and Henly. Ditto other disgusting tory relicts like Chopey, Shappsie and IDS.

Morning all. I was reflecting on this over the last few days. Not Boris going fukker (though joining a party which describes his primary hobby would be fun), the need for Reform to have capable people.

So far they seem to attract the mad, bad and dispossessed. We have seen in Reform councils how these people come a cropper when the rhetoric of "all the money is wasted on woke" splats against reality. They have no ideas other than bad ones based on fantasy, so actually turning things around becomes difficult.

Who are the people being lined up as fukker candidates for Westminster? The mad, bad and dispossessed. Should we be unlucky enough to have these fukkers in government, the only ones capable of doing anything are the ones who have already proven themselves to be unfit and incapable.

Which leaves the Lords. So far we have a former handmaid leading the party in Scotland as the highest profile. Is the intention to attract people from industry? Lets be honest, they'll be spivs won't they?

So back to Boris. Why on earth would he want to join that?

The appeal of populism, of whatever flavour, is that it claims to offer easy solutions. "Your life sucks, but there's one easy trick that to turn it round, but THEY don't want to do it."

That's fine at a campaign rally, but hardly ever works in government. There's nearly always a very good reason for not doing the one eady trick; either it doesn't work or it comes with horrible consequences. That's when it gets... "interesting".

Like saying “We won’t put up taxes on working people”?

'Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey is calling on the government to start building a "fully independent British nuclear deterrent" to end the UK's reliance on the US.

The UK has operational control of its nuclear arsenal, including British-built warheads, but it depends on the US to supply and maintain the Trident missiles that would deliver them.

In a speech to his party's spring conference in York on Sunday, Sir Ed will argue the UK's continued reliance on US support is an unacceptable risk to national security..France, the only other European country with nuclear weapons, has always maintained a fully independent system.

The Lib Dems say France's approach proves a sovereign British capability is achievable.

They argue it could be done in two stages - developing a way to maintain the existing Trident weapons system domestically, and in the longer term manufacturing a fully British-made replacement.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0dz1k0rr4o

I'm a bit worried that there may have been something odd in my tea this morning. I agree with Ed!

The way to do it would be to buy the South Korean Hyunmoo-5, invest in their program and go from there.

The important tech is winding large carbon fibre solid fuel rocket casings, and building large nozzles for the rocket. Grain pouring in large sizes is also a bit of an art.

You’d build a factory to build them here, test facilities. Once you have the skills on line, you’d develop the next one as about double the mass. Same as Trident D5

I presume we have many of the skills anyway in that we do make smaller missile systems.

Also, is the idea of one big multi-warhead missile still the best in terms of 'getting through'?

At a random finger in the air guess, a Hyunmoo-5 with a single warhead (or maybe 3?) woukd have the same range as Minuteman 3. The South Koreans have given it an 8 ton conventional warhead - to disguise they are building and deploying an ICBM

The problem with this is that the “World War” appellation is arbitrary. 1939 (earlier if you’re Chinese) to 1945 was a genuinely global conflict. However, the Seven Years War had major theatres in America, Europe, and South Asia, yet the 1914-1918 conflict which was largely confined to Europe (with due regard to Gallipolli, Arab Revolt etc, but even they were “Europe adjacent”) is labelled WW1.

You can argue the toss but the point is we might have a world war and not recognise it. WW3 is pre-recognised as a nuclear exchange, possible, but other scenarios exist.

WW1 was originally called the Great War until the second one happened. And there were certainly campaigns in Africa and the Middle East, and transatlantic and Pacific naval war. And the USA and Japan were belligerents.

The Revolutionary/Napoleonic wars were fairly global too, there was certainly an African campaign (Egypt) and Malacca was surrendered to the British as a result for example.although I don't think much action was seen in the colonies. And the War of 1812 can be regarded as a theatre of the Napoleonic Wars, much as the Pacific and European wars were separate until Pearl Harbor.

I always liked The Great War's moniker 'The war to end all wars'.

Rubbish title. We want our money back.

And our generation of young men.

Indeed, the pals battalions had such noble intentions but the reality was disastrous.

Yes, unintended consequences sadly.

About 15 years ago I bought a 10 CD boxset of interviews with former WW1 veterans. It was harrowing.

The pals battalions were a disaster. Whole towns or districts lost many of their young men.

Yep. And there are horrific stories of the telegrams arriving to multiple houses in a street on the same day. I can’t imagine what it was like to go to war with your mates and see them killed all around you. Bad enough when it’s men you’ve only known through the army.

The chap I was talking to last night was moved several times during the war ... ending up in Coventry.
He remembers going back to school one morning, and finding three newly empty desks in his classroom.

I recall reading somewhere that the arrival of multiple telegrams in a street, particularly when there was a 'Pals' battalion involved was one of the reasons for conscription being brought in in 1916, and for men being assigned to different regiments.
One of my uncles originally joined the Hertfordshire Yeomanry and ended up in a Yorkshire regiment. Looks a bit odd on the war memorial in the small Hertfordshire village where he'd lived.

I’m not clear whether this is a poll or a model… https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/exclusive-shock-poll-predicts-local-33565940

The science behind the polling for local elections 2026

Bombe describes itself as 'the UK's leading AI agent powered audience insight platform'.

It has launched a machine learning powered local elections model for England, which they have called Results Based Modelling. It’s the first publicly released ward-level prediction model of its kind anywhere in the world.

The model is validated against real-world election results and correctly projected the 20 most recent by-election outcomes, with 85% accuracy, calling 17 out of 20 results correct.

The model will be updated weekly in the run up to the May 2026 elections as real-world data evolves, developing its continued accuracy over time and keeping it in step with public sentiment and shifts in the national mood, says Mike Joslin, co-founder and CEO of Bombe.

Bombe was founded to pioneer Result Based Prediction in consumer insight. It has worked out how to model what motivates people to do things like vote and buy things.

Working with some of the UK's leading data scientists, they have divided the population into nine demographic and seven commercial personas, based on what drives them; all the way down to postcode level.


The election predictions are based on the behaviour of personas in the ward areas between 2022-2026. Using Gradient Boosted Regression Prediction, they have created dozens of models that overlay voting over the behaviour of the personas in those wards over that time period.

This allows Bombe to produce 'highly accurate predictions that are based on real world behaviour over a four year period' - not just polling samples from a small window.

NOTE: The firm says the current model is based on support levels, not actual candidates. Once the list of candidates is published this will be factored into the model. As a result it says it recognises some polling outcomes may change significantly.

So why couldn't we, with more resources, and presumably access to what we would need, do the same?

Organisational capture of the government by BAE.

If we did succumb to the grip of national neurosis and decide we need nuclear weapons then the least shit way of doing it probably to license the M45 design from Airbus then build a facility in the south of England to build and maintain them. Expecting to generate the requisite industrial and scientific capacity at Faslane is a complete non-starter no matter how politically convenient that would be.

We'd also need a test range though we could probably bribe some remote shithole like Nauru to host it for us. And a range instrumentation ship like the French Navy's Monge. And a degaussing facility, this probably could be built in Faslane,

100bn+? Just think of all the benefits we could cut! Exciting times ahead for our program of national rebirth.

Programme.

Fucc offe.

Lib Dems at 9% !!!!!!!

https://x.com/i/status/2033115031294943260

Tories tied 3rd with the Green Party on 17% each not good for Kemi either.

Good poll for Starmer as well as Polanski with Labour on 21% and a clear second, Reform on 28% so still most seats but Labour closing the gap a bit with Farage's party

The fact is the political climate is all over the place and May will be a real poll giving a good idea of public opinion

The electorates of our countries (note the plural) are very divided and inconsistent in their voting intentions. N=2; Mrs C and I might vote any way of Lab, LibDem or Green next time, and she and I might well vote differently.

Lib Dems at 9% !!!!!!!

https://x.com/i/status/2033115031294943260

I think you're burying the lede there.

Maybe rather questioning the Lib Dem share

Sometimes you are a little bit naughty when you frame a story. Did you ever work for the Daily Telegraph?

And you are not ??????

Pete just posts the link. You have a tendency to slightly disingenuously frame, typically, Sky reporting.

There was an incident a few months ago where you were saying Sky were reporting Starmer’s “”whack a mole” pressure on European HoG’s to accept Trump’s Ukraine “peace deal”, when what they were actually reporting on was his attempts not to reject it too forcefully at that specific moment. It was quite a telling interpretation.

Seems I have really touched a nerve

And of course nobody else is 'slightly disengenous' in their comments - This is a politics site

I link my posts as much as possible and when wrong I apologise

The art of politics is not only to enthuse your supporters but also not to enthuse your opponents. The most successful politicians are those who make their opponents willing to accept the fact you might win and not work too hard to prevent it happening.

The more you antagonise and criticise your opponents, the more likely they are to respond by redoubling their efforts against you.

Making your opponents angry enough to go that extra mile can be cumulatively counter productive.

The canny opposition politician realises you catch more flies with honey than with fly paper and that doesn't mean making ridiculous promises - it means respecting the fact people disagree with you, accepting you won't get them to switch to your side but at the same time reassuring them (to a point) in Government you won't govern in a vengeful, vindictive way.

This is what Badenoch and Farage do so badly and Blair, for example, did so well.

'Liberal Democrats leader Sir Ed Davey is calling on the government to start building a "fully independent British nuclear deterrent" to end the UK's reliance on the US.

The UK has operational control of its nuclear arsenal, including British-built warheads, but it depends on the US to supply and maintain the Trident missiles that would deliver them.

In a speech to his party's spring conference in York on Sunday, Sir Ed will argue the UK's continued reliance on US support is an unacceptable risk to national security..France, the only other European country with nuclear weapons, has always maintained a fully independent system.

The Lib Dems say France's approach proves a sovereign British capability is achievable.

They argue it could be done in two stages - developing a way to maintain the existing Trident weapons system domestically, and in the longer term manufacturing a fully British-made replacement.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0dz1k0rr4o

I'm a bit worried that there may have been something odd in my tea this morning. I agree with Ed!

He could be recruiting for the Green Party. Many LibDems are nuclear disarmers.
Of course if we were back in the the EC we'd be (partially at least) getting 'benefit' of French weapons.

And Good Morning one and all.

They aren't now, most LD voters now voted for Cameron or Clegg in 2015.

The Charles Kennedy pacifist CND types left for Labour and the Greens long ago.

Macron has also included the UK in a wider European deterrence group so it has nothing to do with the EU 'He said eight other European countries – the UK, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark – had agreed to participate in a new "advanced deterrence" strategy.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj4zlnezrl7o

Kennedy was by no means a pacifist. He opposed the Gulf War. Not the same thing in the slightest.

Most Charles Kennedy voters went LD until the 2010 coalition, then Ed Miliband Labour, then Corbyn Labour and most of them now vote Green. Kennedy was left of Blair let alone the Tories on most things not just being anti the 2003 Iraq War.

Most LD voters now voted for Cameron or Clegg in 2015, LD voters now are firmly centrist indeed as most of their seats were won by Cameron in 2015 if anything the median LD voter under Davey is fractionally right of centre but just anti Brexit

That’s not the point you made.

Anyway, I’m a Kennedy Lib Dem who has, not wholly enthusiastically it has to be said, returned to the fold.