Best Of

She's going to end up looking like a power propellerhead.

Well done TSE, I loved History Repeating Itself with Shirley Bassey and the Propellerheads. Don't know if its true, but I once read an article that claimed that after Shirley Bassey agreed to record with them the actual recording was delayed because when she turned up she insisted on performing with a live orchestra for the recording? But Shirley Bassey is always a class act and old school.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzLT6_TQmq8&list=RDyzLT6_TQmq8&start_radio=1

There’s an album I bought in the late 90s, Shaken and Stirred: The David Arnold James Bond Project, where David Arnold reworked a load of Bond songs with different artists where there is a version of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by the Propellerheads.

My favourite James Bond Theme song is Louis Armstrong's We Have All The Time In The World from On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in fact one of my all time favourite top 10 songs and I have very electic music tastes so its up there with other more modern songs.

I think Trump's dire performance as President is in danger of making us forget what a dismal candidate Harris was. She never seemed to say why she wanted to be President, had no original or inspiring ideas and, when given the chance to put her point across, actively fled from the media.

As I've said before, Democrats win when they have a charismatic bullshitter who inspires the young and the left without terrifying the centre and the middle-aged then lets them down in office - see Kennedy, Clinton, Obama. Trump may be so unpopular by 2028 that even Harris will win, or maybe she will be able to fake enough charisma, but the Democrats would be unwise to bank on that.

For all their faults Kennedy, Clinton, & Obama were three of the most outstanding political leaders of my lifetime. The only potential candidate coming anywhere near now is Buttigieg.

What do you think?

Sadly, I just can't see how Buttigieg gets through the primaries in the South.

Buttigieg needs to first explain why he repeatedly lied about Biden's fitness for office.

He can then explain what he achieved himself as transport secretary for four years.

You'll be going on about Hunter Biden next.
None of that is in the slightest bit relevant to Democratic primaries in three years time.

Assuming the US still has a democracy (not 100% guaranteed), the record of the current administration will be uppermost in voters minds, and whoever has the best shot at uniting the Democrats is likely to get the nomination.

I doubt that will be Harris, and on current form, it might just be Newsom. He's not exactly adored by the Democratic base, but he's getting traction for leading the opposition to Trump. Quite what he does after leaving the governor's office at the end of 2026 is an interesting question.

After four years of Trump, the Democrats need to find a unifying candidate. Harris isn’t that person.

I don't think Harris is the best choice for the Democrats in 2028, but I don't think it's fair to say she can't be a unifying candidate. She's in the middle of some of the party's internal debates. She has some gravitas as a former VP and candidate. She would be more of a unifying candidate than Newsom or AOC, two other names mentioned in this discussion.

Also, do the Democrats need to find a unifying candidate? The Republicans didn't win in 2024 with a unifying candidate. They won with about the least unifying candidate in the history of US Presidential elections. Maybe the Democrats need a firebrand candidate who's good on social media (a role AOC and Newsom are both auditioning for). Whoever they pick, the Republicans and Musk's Twitter will pump out the claim that they are a dangerous woke obsessed radical!

PBers have already started with that.

I think Trump's dire performance as President is in danger of making us forget what a dismal candidate Harris was. She never seemed to say why she wanted to be President, had no original or inspiring ideas and, when given the chance to put her point across, actively fled from the media.

As I've said before, Democrats win when they have a charismatic bullshitter who inspires the young and the left without terrifying the centre and the middle-aged then lets them down in office - see Kennedy, Clinton, Obama. Trump may be so unpopular by 2028 that even Harris will win, or maybe she will be able to fake enough charisma, but the Democrats would be unwise to bank on that.

For all their faults Kennedy, Clinton, & Obama were three of the most outstanding political leaders of my lifetime. The only potential candidate coming anywhere near now is Buttigieg.

What do you think?

The nominee Polymarket, with $300m+ traded so far, is very weird.

https://polymarket.com/event/democratic-presidential-nominee-2028

The two favourites are Newsom and AOC, and I don’t see how either of them get there. Middle America isn’t voting for a very coastal liberal.

Gretchen Whitmer at 50/1 could be a good outsider, and they’ll want to keep at least one woman in the race for as long as possible. Josh Shapiro is probably underpriced at 20/1, as is Andy Beshear at 33/1.

Middle America doesn't come into it. This is the nominee market.

I do wonder if the Dem primary voters will even try and take into account the suitability of the candidates to beat a Republican (likely one of Rubio or Vance or DeSantis), or if they go for the most woke coastal ideologue that makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside?

Harris lost the popular vote by a mere 1.5%. She got a higher share of the popular vote than Trump did in 2016, than Dubya did in 2000, or than Bill Clinton did in 1992.

That’s copium on a par with ‘Corbyn got a higher popular vote than Starmer’

It doesn’t change the fact she lost and that she was a poor candidate.

I suggest it is evidence that she was not as poor a candidate as some believe.

Harris lost the popular vote by a mere 1.5%. She got a higher share of the popular vote than Trump did in 2016, than Dubya did in 2000, or than Bill Clinton did in 1992.

That’s copium on a par with ‘Corbyn got a higher popular vote than Starmer’

It doesn’t change the fact she lost and that she was a poor candidate.

I suggest it is evidence that she was not as poor a candidate as some believe.

She was a far superior candidate to Trump. As would almost anyone have beenn.

What seems odd to me is that a candidate from the left has to be both moderate and personally perfect in every way to stand a chance of winning, yet a candidate from the right can be any raving lunatic with no principles whatsoever and that's perfectly fine. And I say that as a centrist with no axe to grind for either side.

You think that Joe Biden was 'personally perfect' in 2020 ?

It was already obvious that he was too old.

But that didn't matter as over 45% would vote Dem under any circumstance and there were enough swing voters who wanted a change in government.

The reverse happened in 2024.

And likely will reverse again in 2028.

And then reverse again in 2032.

After all, 2024 was the year that pretty much all incumbents worldwide got clobbered. From that perspective, Harris did rather less badly than, say, Sunak.

Is there any sign of governments being any more popular, anywhere, yet?

I think Trump's dire performance as President is in danger of making us forget what a dismal candidate Harris was. She never seemed to say why she wanted to be President, had no original or inspiring ideas and, when given the chance to put her point across, actively fled from the media.

As I've said before, Democrats win when they have a charismatic bullshitter who inspires the young and the left without terrifying the centre and the middle-aged then lets them down in office - see Kennedy, Clinton, Obama. Trump may be so unpopular by 2028 that even Harris will win, or maybe she will be able to fake enough charisma, but the Democrats would be unwise to bank on that.

For all their faults Kennedy, Clinton, & Obama were three of the most outstanding political leaders of my lifetime. The only potential candidate coming anywhere near now is Buttigieg.

What do you think?

Sadly, I just can't see how Buttigieg gets through the primaries in the South.

Buttigieg needs to first explain why he repeatedly lied about Biden's fitness for office.

He can then explain what he achieved himself as transport secretary for four years.

Doubt either of those will any kind of factor in the 2027/8 primaries.

Cheating fucking Aussies, this test and the entire series is tainted and should be awarded to England.

Alex Carey's controversial reprieve on the first day of the third Ashes Test was down to an error by the operator of the Snicko technology.

Carey admitted he edged a delivery from England pace bowler Josh Tongue that was caught by Jamie Smith when the Australia wicketkeeper had 72.

Carey went on to make 106 in Australia's 326-8 at the Adelaide Oval.

BBG Sports, the company that owns Snicko, has accepted culpability for the mistake.

"Given that Alex Carey admitted he had hit the ball in question, the only conclusion that can be drawn from this, is that the Snicko operator at the time must have selected the incorrect stump mic for audio processing," BBG told BBC Sport.

"In light of this, BBG Sports takes full responsibility for the error."

It is understood the sound used for the review was taken from the stump microphone at the bowlers' end, rather than the strikers' end.

This caused a discrepancy between the pictures and sound wave shown to TV umpire Chris Gaffaney.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/c0mpjw7g7nko

Also if he hit it and didn't walk, will the Aussie fans give him the same abuse they gave Stuart Broad?

I think Trump's dire performance as President is in danger of making us forget what a dismal candidate Harris was. She never seemed to say why she wanted to be President, had no original or inspiring ideas and, when given the chance to put her point across, actively fled from the media.

As I've said before, Democrats win when they have a charismatic bullshitter who inspires the young and the left without terrifying the centre and the middle-aged then lets them down in office - see Kennedy, Clinton, Obama. Trump may be so unpopular by 2028 that even Harris will win, or maybe she will be able to fake enough charisma, but the Democrats would be unwise to bank on that.

For all their faults Kennedy, Clinton, & Obama were three of the most outstanding political leaders of my lifetime. The only potential candidate coming anywhere near now is Buttigieg.

What do you think?

The nominee Polymarket, with $300m+ traded so far, is very weird.

https://polymarket.com/event/democratic-presidential-nominee-2028

The two favourites are Newsom and AOC, and I don’t see how either of them get there. Middle America isn’t voting for a very coastal liberal.

Gretchen Whitmer at 50/1 could be a good outsider, and they’ll want to keep at least one woman in the race for as long as possible. Josh Shapiro is probably underpriced at 20/1, as is Andy Beshear at 33/1.

Middle America doesn't come into it. This is the nominee market.

I do wonder if the Dem primary voters will even try and take into account the suitability of the candidates to beat a Republican (likely one of Rubio or Vance or DeSantis), or if they go for the most woke coastal ideologue that makes them feel warm and fuzzy inside?

Should not be hard to beat that trio of absolute donkeys

Quite. Trump is at record levels of unpopularity. If that continues (probable), and the election is fair (unknown), then the Democrats will win with just about anyone, and said winner will get the Nobel Peace Prize just for not being Trump.

Harris lost the popular vote by a mere 1.5%. She got a higher share of the popular vote than Trump did in 2016, than Dubya did in 2000, or than Bill Clinton did in 1992.

If they’d actually had primaries and nominated a candidate who wasn’t terrible, they might even have beaten Trump.

Biden hanging on till the last moment didn't help

With the support of his cabinet and the Dem establishment.

Compare how the cabinet and MPs forced Boris out here to the lickspittle loyalty Buttigieg and the others showed to Biden.

Yes and forcing Boris out led to a landslide Labour victory and loss of the all the Conservative redwall seats, Biden I suspect would still have done better in the rustbelt than Harris did as he did in 2020

Boris was on a bizarre journey of self-destruction, he would never had lasted to 2024.

What you Conservatives need to ask yourselves is why you never made any attempt to control Boris's behaviour as PM.

Had Boris remained Conservative leader, Reform would not have got 14% at the last GE and Reform would not now be leading the polls.

Indeed Sunak might now be leading the polls as the new LOTO, Rishi made a stupid political move resigning to remove Boris

The expression 'the blind cannot see' comes to mind with your idolatry of Johnson