Best Of

I don't follow LD world very closely and I'm wondering about Daisy Cooper. In the Next Leader market she is (and has been for a while) a very cramped odds on shot with no-one else in the betting really. I reckon I could get matched for a lay at 1.4. Is that worth doing, do we think? Or is she pretty much nailed on to get the job when Ed Davey goes?

I don't have a vote nowadays (not since the early 2010s) but Cooper leaves me cold. I find it hard to believe that there isn't a stronger candidate among the LD MPs if Davey goes before the next GE. She is quite popular in the party, I believe, but at 1.4 I'd lay too. Anything under 2 looks short to me when there's not even a contest yet, too much to happen. I haven't bet though, partly for the same reason - not sure how long I'd be tying money up for.

Should note that I'm not at all active in the party - I know some people who are and they're fairly split on Cooper. There are plenty of unbelievers, but probably around half are fans. For me, she's Swinson mk2 - the heir apparent for reasons that are not immediately obvious to me. Swinson, of course, did get the gig.

Should also note that I don't know who I would choose at present.

ETA: If it was soon she'd be in a good position. Longer there's more time for others to emerge, I think. but even if soon if someone good decides to go for it then I think Cooper can be outshone. The Cameron to her Davis.

I thought you meant Yvette Cooper!

Could we have a situation where two parties are led by a Cooper? That would be a barrel of laughs

Heh, much of that does apply to Cooper (Y) as well!

Why not add John Cooper and go for the triple?

Can we trade him for John Cooper Clark?

He'd be great at PMQs.

"No-one's got a good word for you. But I have.

Twat."

Random observation - my wife never really watched old Top Gear so we've been going through it on iPlayer for the last couple of weeks in the evenings. Firstly, it's genuinely great entertainment, even for non-car enthusiasts.

Secondly, I think Top Gear coming off the air and moving to a less watched streaming programme has contributed to the political fracturing of the nation. Top Gear used to be watched by basically everyone in the country and it was a constant of three middle aged blokes telling the emperor he had no clothes on and it meant the rest of the country didn't feel completely insane for having common sense.

I don't think there's been a show like it since then that has captured the cultural zeitgeist and is watched by basically the whole country that just tells it like it is and isn't afraid of being "cancelled".

There's a sanity check that's been missing.

Unpopular Biden shunned from speaking engagements
Companies reluctant to hire former US president as paid speaker in fear of backlash from Donald Trump, report claims
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/09/16/joe-biden-shunned-from-speaking-engagements/ (£££)

No paid speeches in the home of free speech.

Perhaps.

Or perhaps nobody thinks its worth paying someone like him to speak, given he was so awful at speaking last year that his own party dropped him as a candidate - and he'll be even older now.

Is Obama struggling to get engagements? I doubt it.

Undoubtedly a factor (and mentioned in the report) but of the two former presidents, only Biden stole the 2020 election from its rightful winner.

And he's still screwing up the economy, a year after he lost the election.

BBC "Four men have been arrested after images of Donald Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein were projected on to Windsor Castle on Tuesday, as the US president arrived in the UK for a state visit.

They were arrested on suspicion of "malicious communications following a public stunt in Windsor" and remained in custody, Thames Valley Police said."

This does look like censorship.
A malicious communication must be one of these:
Indecent or grossly offensive
Contain a believable threat of harm or violence.
Give false information with the intent to cause distress or anxiety
Repeated harassment that cause fear or distress

Projecting images of Trump and Epstein on to Windsor Castle is none of these things.
It might be embarrassing but it isn't grounds to keep them in custody!

I was going to ask in what way protecting a picture onto a house was a criminal offence.

Quite.

At this rate Tommy Lots of Names will claim that the existence of brown people causes him “fear and distress”.

Tbf that is an unarguable fact, to the point that poor little Tommy has to self medicate to an alarming degree.