Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 49m BREAKING: The end of elite women's sport has just been announced.
Transgender athletes should not have to lower testosterone to compete, IOC says as it changes guidelines
So there's the trade off:
Keep your tackle and make it to the Olympic semi-final.
Get it chopped off and win a medal.
The International Athletics Federation still have their own testosterone rule that was stricter than the one dropped by the IOC, but I think the IOC are saying you'd need copious formal evidence to exclude even pre-op transgender athletes.
So in your scenario they might not even need to sacrifice the dangly bits.
It has been obvious that as soon as you let transgender male->female athletes compete against naturally born females that it would finish women's sport. They just will not be able to compete. It is a disgrace. There were 3 options and they have picked the worst. May as well just be done with it and no longer have any male/female categories.
The other two options in my view are: 1. No competition for transgender athletes (needs of the many outweighing needs of the few) 2. Creating new categories.
A female sportswoman who doped herself to have the amount of testosterone a transwoman sportsperson is permitted would be banned. But a trans athlete - a male claiming to be a woman - with that amount of testosterone in his body as a result of male puberty can legally compete. How can this possibly be fair? And isn't this discrimination against women?
It is a disgrace. Just as allowing men claiming to be women and convicted of sexual offences against women to be housed in womens' prisons is a disgrace. There was an interesting debate on this in the House of Lords yesterday where Ms Chakrabarti once again showed what an incoherent moron she is.
As I posted a few weeks ago, my goto question about the rights of trans wrt prison and other spaces is simple:
"What is to stop Wayne Couzens (convicted sex murderer) from claiming to self-identify as a woman and asking to be moved to a women's prison?"
Back in the real world, Wayne Cousins did not need to claim to self-identify as a woman in order to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard.
You are missing the point. Of course he did not need to. But if he wanted to attack women again, he could now easily gain access to a woman's prison to do so.
As a number of men convicted of sexual offences against women have done.
Do you think he should be able to do so by the simple step of now claiming that he feels his gender to be that of a woman?
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.
Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?
If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.
There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.
If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.
The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.
And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.
Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.
A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.
Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?
Where is the money going?
Old people. That's literally it, we, as a nation, are shovelling ever more of it to those over 70.
I often think I'm in generation fucked. We're spending ever increasing amounts to provide our boomer parents with the best ever retirement, but by the time we're able to retire in our mid-70s many of us are likely to be spending all our pension on our rent so that the rentier class can continue to live it up.
The only reason I am voting Tory at the moment is the great job they (Boris) is doing over covid . Most of Europe in the grip still of facemasks (useless ), curfews and rising cases in winter when Boris had the right idea to relax in summer and Autumn and gain herd immunity.Starmer is wrong on covid and has been for a while
Sorry but this argument is a little daft. If you want to keep Starmer out then you should be calling for Johnson's head. Remove Johnson, replace with someone like Sunak and you win the election. Don't and you may lose.
Spot on. Like it or hate it (or him, if you like) Johnson delivered a brexit, and has muddled through a pandemic. He cannot do the day to day job of being PM. The conservatives have an 80 seat majority, with new boundaries coming that favour them even more. Time to get shot of the liability and get someone in who does details, understands a bit more how normal people live, and isn't Johnson.
He is, and remains, their most effective Tory campaigner since Thatcher. Someone who can reach large stretches of the populace that other Tories simply cannot get near. I think the evidence that someone other than Boris would win the next election for the Tories is thin to non existent.
Hence why I don't see him being replaced. Nor Starmer for that matter. These are the 2 guys who will be facing off at the GE. It'll be (in BBC PMQs parlance) "Mr Johnson vs Sir Keir" with 10 Downing St the prize. And we have a true contest now with the polls changing. The Con majority is big but is it also soft? No Brexit, no Corbyn, Johnson minus his novelty value, so perhaps it is. I bet SKS is just starting to feel a stirring of the first inklings of a sense of real excitement. He could quite easily be PM of the United Kingdom within 3 years.
Ted Verity of the Mail on Sunday comes in as replacement, possibly as a seven day-ish operation. Sounds as if it is not unrelated to a reshuffle of DMGT executives yesterday that put MailOnline staff in charge of media operation. It's Martin Clarke's world now...
Wasn't/isn't he a pal of Ghislaine Maxwell's? Though that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people.
Isn't that the piece that pointed out that people Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were granted bail but Maxwell wasn't and has been in solitary confinement for 500 days and counting?
On that narrow point I do have some sympathy for her.
Ted Verity of the Mail on Sunday comes in as replacement, possibly as a seven day-ish operation. Sounds as if it is not unrelated to a reshuffle of DMGT executives yesterday that put MailOnline staff in charge of media operation. It's Martin Clarke's world now...
Wasn't/isn't he a pal of Ghislaine Maxwell's? Though that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people.
That little of piece of media news could in fact potentially save Johnson's political skin, at least for a period. Greig's Daily Mail has been at the absolute centre of the government's current woes, pursuing them with laser-like focus, and the Mail on Sunday has consistently been far more pro-government, under Verity, for the entire period of Grieg's editorship.
What interesting timing. Someone in Downing Street may even be having a celebratory drink.
Fascinating situation developing with respect to Boris. Now clear to everyone how unsuited he is to be PM in multiple ways. The ideal outcome for the Tories is he leaves next year. New leader new broom. Does as many popular things as can be done under financial constraints and if opinion polls not too bad goes for Autumn 2022 or Spring 2023 GE depending on timing of BJ exit. If opinion polls very bad can delay. Ideally (again from Tory viewpoint) he leaves on some face saving pretext without colossal scandal forcing him out that discredits entire cabinet. Wat could be trigger or pretext? I think there is a fair chance he will look for an exit soon.
Boris also looks very tired and unusually scruffy, these days. He sometimes looks as old as his dad.
I wonder if being a very old new father is getting to him. Being a new dad ages anyone by 10 years, if you get involved, and he is 58. He also has a 2nd baby due any day....
He must be shattered. The prospect of jacking it all in, putting his feet up, and writing his £20m memoirs must be appealing
The only reason I am voting Tory at the moment is the great job they (Boris) is doing over covid . Most of Europe in the grip still of facemasks (useless ), curfews and rising cases in winter when Boris had the right idea to relax in summer and Autumn and gain herd immunity.Starmer is wrong on covid and has been for a while
Sorry but this argument is a little daft. If you want to keep Starmer out then you should be calling for Johnson's head. Remove Johnson, replace with someone like Sunak and you win the election. Don't and you may lose.
Spot on. Like it or hate it (or him, if you like) Johnson delivered a brexit, and has muddled through a pandemic. He cannot do the day to day job of being PM. The conservatives have an 80 seat majority, with new boundaries coming that favour them even more. Time to get shot of the liability and get someone in who does details, understands a bit more how normal people live, and isn't Johnson.
He is, and remains, their most effective Tory campaigner since Thatcher. Someone who can reach large stretches of the populace that other Tories simply cannot get near. I think the evidence that someone other than Boris would win the next election for the Tories is thin to non existent.
He had Corbyn on his side last election. OGH has demonstrated through polling evidence that voting against Corbyn was a massive motivator.
May also had Corbyn as her opponent in 2017, she lost her majority. Boris won a majority of 80 against the same opponent 2 years later.
Boris reaches the Redwall in a way other Tories cannot.
With many Remain seats Cameron won in London and the South in 2015 (the only other time the Tories won a majority in the last 25 years) now Labour or LD and unlikely to return to the Tories anytime soon post Brexit, without holding most of the Redwall the Tories will lose their majority.
Ted Verity of the Mail on Sunday comes in as replacement, possibly as a seven day-ish operation. Sounds as if it is not unrelated to a reshuffle of DMGT executives yesterday that put MailOnline staff in charge of media operation. It's Martin Clarke's world now...
Wasn't/isn't he a pal of Ghislaine Maxwell's? Though that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people.
Isn't that the piece that pointed out that people Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were granted bail but Maxwell wasn't and has been in solitary confinement for 500 days and counting?
On that narrow point I do have some sympathy for her.
Was there any justification for 500 days of solitary confinement? Sounds a bit OTT.
The only reason I am voting Tory at the moment is the great job they (Boris) is doing over covid . Most of Europe in the grip still of facemasks (useless ), curfews and rising cases in winter when Boris had the right idea to relax in summer and Autumn and gain herd immunity.Starmer is wrong on covid and has been for a while
Sorry but this argument is a little daft. If you want to keep Starmer out then you should be calling for Johnson's head. Remove Johnson, replace with someone like Sunak and you win the election. Don't and you may lose.
Spot on. Like it or hate it (or him, if you like) Johnson delivered a brexit, and has muddled through a pandemic. He cannot do the day to day job of being PM. The conservatives have an 80 seat majority, with new boundaries coming that favour them even more. Time to get shot of the liability and get someone in who does details, understands a bit more how normal people live, and isn't Johnson.
He is, and remains, their most effective Tory campaigner since Thatcher. Someone who can reach large stretches of the populace that other Tories simply cannot get near. I think the evidence that someone other than Boris would win the next election for the Tories is thin to non existent.
He had Corbyn on his side last election. OGH has demonstrated through polling evidence that voting against Corbyn was a massive motivator.
May also had Corbyn as her opponent in 2017, she lost her majority. Boris won a majority of 80 against the same opponent 2 years later.
Boris reaches the Redwall in a way other Tories cannot.
With many Remain seats Cameron won in London and the South in 2015 (the only other time the Tories won a majority in the last 25 years) now Labour or LD and unlikely to return to the Tories anytime soon post Brexit, without holding most of the Redwall the Tories will lose their majority.
As the pollsters point out, perceptions about Corbyn fundamentally changed in 2018 after his response to the Salisbury poisonings.
Fascinating situation developing with respect to Boris. Now clear to everyone how unsuited he is to be PM in multiple ways. The ideal outcome for the Tories is he leaves next year. New leader new broom. Does as many popular things as can be done under financial constraints and if opinion polls not too bad goes for Autumn 2022 or Spring 2023 GE depending on timing of BJ exit. If opinion polls very bad can delay. Ideally (again from Tory viewpoint) he leaves on some face saving pretext without colossal scandal forcing him out that discredits entire cabinet. Wat could be trigger or pretext? I think there is a fair chance he will look for an exit soon.
Boris also looks very tired and unusually scruffy, these days. He sometimes looks as old as his dad.
I wonder if being a very old new father is getting to him. Being a new dad ages anyone by 10 years, if you get involved, and he is 58. He also has a 2nd baby due any day....
He must be shattered. The prospect of jacking it all in, putting his feet up, and writing his £20m memoirs must be appealing
And whilst it's an ignoble calculation, that value is probably beginning to drift down.
Had he gone last summer, Brexit done and Covid wave 1 squashed, he had a convincing story that he was the National Hero he so blatantly and desperately wants to be.
That's already a bit more dented and tarnished, and it's going to get worse from here.
And this time, there's no vaccine triumph coming over the hill.
Ted Verity of the Mail on Sunday comes in as replacement, possibly as a seven day-ish operation. Sounds as if it is not unrelated to a reshuffle of DMGT executives yesterday that put MailOnline staff in charge of media operation. It's Martin Clarke's world now...
Wasn't/isn't he a pal of Ghislaine Maxwell's? Though that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people.
Isn't that the piece that pointed out that people Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were granted bail but Maxwell wasn't and has been in solitary confinement for 500 days and counting?
On that narrow point I do have some sympathy for her.
Was there any justification for 500 days of solitary confinement? Sounds a bit OTT.
The authorities won't explain why.
Maxwell, 59, has spent 500 days in solitary confinement, the family declared on Twitter at the weekend, saying this contravened the “Nelson Mandela rules” adopted by the UN general assembly in 2015. Her brother Ian, 65, who has led the effort, has said he plans to bring her case before the United Nations himself.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 49m BREAKING: The end of elite women's sport has just been announced.
Transgender athletes should not have to lower testosterone to compete, IOC says as it changes guidelines
So there's the trade off:
Keep your tackle and make it to the Olympic semi-final.
Get it chopped off and win a medal.
The International Athletics Federation still have their own testosterone rule that was stricter than the one dropped by the IOC, but I think the IOC are saying you'd need copious formal evidence to exclude even pre-op transgender athletes.
So in your scenario they might not even need to sacrifice the dangly bits.
It has been obvious that as soon as you let transgender male->female athletes compete against naturally born females that it would finish women's sport. They just will not be able to compete. It is a disgrace. There were 3 options and they have picked the worst. May as well just be done with it and no longer have any male/female categories.
The other two options in my view are: 1. No competition for transgender athletes (needs of the many outweighing needs of the few) 2. Creating new categories.
A female sportswoman who doped herself to have the amount of testosterone a transwoman sportsperson is permitted would be banned. But a trans athlete - a male claiming to be a woman - with that amount of testosterone in his body as a result of male puberty can legally compete. How can this possibly be fair? And isn't this discrimination against women?
It is a disgrace. Just as allowing men claiming to be women and convicted of sexual offences against women to be housed in womens' prisons is a disgrace. There was an interesting debate on this in the House of Lords yesterday where Ms Chakrabarti once again showed what an incoherent moron she is.
As I posted a few weeks ago, my goto question about the rights of trans wrt prison and other spaces is simple:
"What is to stop Wayne Couzens (convicted sex murderer) from claiming to self-identify as a woman and asking to be moved to a women's prison?"
Back in the real world, Wayne Cousins did not need to claim to self-identify as a woman in order to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard.
Ted Verity of the Mail on Sunday comes in as replacement, possibly as a seven day-ish operation. Sounds as if it is not unrelated to a reshuffle of DMGT executives yesterday that put MailOnline staff in charge of media operation. It's Martin Clarke's world now...
Wasn't/isn't he a pal of Ghislaine Maxwell's? Though that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people.
Isn't that the piece that pointed out that people Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were granted bail but Maxwell wasn't and has been in solitary confinement for 500 days and counting?
On that narrow point I do have some sympathy for her.
Was there any justification for 500 days of solitary confinement? Sounds a bit OTT.
I think her habit of disappearing for long periods in the lead up to her arrest contributed to the judge considering her a flight risk. The solitary appears to be because they're paranoid about her being 'suicided' à la Epstein.
Ted Verity of the Mail on Sunday comes in as replacement, possibly as a seven day-ish operation. Sounds as if it is not unrelated to a reshuffle of DMGT executives yesterday that put MailOnline staff in charge of media operation. It's Martin Clarke's world now...
Wasn't/isn't he a pal of Ghislaine Maxwell's? Though that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people.
Isn't that the piece that pointed out that people Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were granted bail but Maxwell wasn't and has been in solitary confinement for 500 days and counting?
On that narrow point I do have some sympathy for her.
Was there any justification for 500 days of solitary confinement? Sounds a bit OTT.
I think her habit of disappearing for long periods in the lead up to her arrest contributed to the judge considering her a flight risk. The solitary appears to be because they're paranoid about her being 'suicided' a la Epstein.
Is that a comment on the security of conventional US jails?
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 49m BREAKING: The end of elite women's sport has just been announced.
Transgender athletes should not have to lower testosterone to compete, IOC says as it changes guidelines
So there's the trade off:
Keep your tackle and make it to the Olympic semi-final.
Get it chopped off and win a medal.
The International Athletics Federation still have their own testosterone rule that was stricter than the one dropped by the IOC, but I think the IOC are saying you'd need copious formal evidence to exclude even pre-op transgender athletes.
So in your scenario they might not even need to sacrifice the dangly bits.
It has been obvious that as soon as you let transgender male->female athletes compete against naturally born females that it would finish women's sport. They just will not be able to compete. It is a disgrace. There were 3 options and they have picked the worst. May as well just be done with it and no longer have any male/female categories.
The other two options in my view are: 1. No competition for transgender athletes (needs of the many outweighing needs of the few) 2. Creating new categories.
A female sportswoman who doped herself to have the amount of testosterone a transwoman sportsperson is permitted would be banned. But a trans athlete - a male claiming to be a woman - with that amount of testosterone in his body as a result of male puberty can legally compete. How can this possibly be fair? And isn't this discrimination against women?
It is a disgrace. Just as allowing men claiming to be women and convicted of sexual offences against women to be housed in womens' prisons is a disgrace. There was an interesting debate on this in the House of Lords yesterday where Ms Chakrabarti once again showed what an incoherent moron she is.
As I posted a few weeks ago, my goto question about the rights of trans wrt prison and other spaces is simple:
"What is to stop Wayne Couzens (convicted sex murderer) from claiming to self-identify as a woman and asking to be moved to a women's prison?"
Back in the real world, Wayne Cousins did not need to claim to self-identify as a woman in order to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard.
You are missing the point. Of course he did not need to. But if he wanted to attack women again, he could now easily gain access to a woman's prison to do so.
As a number of men convicted of sexual offences against women have done.
Do you think he should be able to do so by the simple step of now claiming that he feels his gender to be that of a woman?
No, I do not. But nor do I think cis or trans women are helped by extreme hypothetical situations. Both are susceptible to assault, rape and murder. The rates of detection are low, and of conviction miniscule. That's the scandal. As an aside, assault in women's prisons, while less than in men's prisons, is not unknown. That ought to be another scandal but we prefer to lock them up and look the other way.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 49m BREAKING: The end of elite women's sport has just been announced.
Transgender athletes should not have to lower testosterone to compete, IOC says as it changes guidelines
So there's the trade off:
Keep your tackle and make it to the Olympic semi-final.
Get it chopped off and win a medal.
The International Athletics Federation still have their own testosterone rule that was stricter than the one dropped by the IOC, but I think the IOC are saying you'd need copious formal evidence to exclude even pre-op transgender athletes.
So in your scenario they might not even need to sacrifice the dangly bits.
It has been obvious that as soon as you let transgender male->female athletes compete against naturally born females that it would finish women's sport. They just will not be able to compete. It is a disgrace. There were 3 options and they have picked the worst. May as well just be done with it and no longer have any male/female categories.
The other two options in my view are: 1. No competition for transgender athletes (needs of the many outweighing needs of the few) 2. Creating new categories.
A female sportswoman who doped herself to have the amount of testosterone a transwoman sportsperson is permitted would be banned. But a trans athlete - a male claiming to be a woman - with that amount of testosterone in his body as a result of male puberty can legally compete. How can this possibly be fair? And isn't this discrimination against women?
It is a disgrace. Just as allowing men claiming to be women and convicted of sexual offences against women to be housed in womens' prisons is a disgrace. There was an interesting debate on this in the House of Lords yesterday where Ms Chakrabarti once again showed what an incoherent moron she is.
As I posted a few weeks ago, my goto question about the rights of trans wrt prison and other spaces is simple:
"What is to stop Wayne Couzens (convicted sex murderer) from claiming to self-identify as a woman and asking to be moved to a women's prison?"
Back in the real world, Wayne Cousins did not need to claim to self-identify as a woman in order to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard.
You are missing the point. Of course he did not need to. But if he wanted to attack women again, he could now easily gain access to a woman's prison to do so.
As a number of men convicted of sexual offences against women have done.
Do you think he should be able to do so by the simple step of now claiming that he feels his gender to be that of a woman?
No, I do not. But nor do I think cis or trans women are helped by extreme hypothetical situations. Both are susceptible to assault, rape and murder. The rates of detection are low, and of conviction miniscule. That's the scandal. As an aside, assault in women's prisons, while less than in men's prisons, is not unknown. That ought to be another scandal but we prefer to lock them up and look the other way.
"Extreme hypothetical" is just wrong. Currently 12 of Scotland’s 400-500 female prisoners are trans, though only one of them had actually started transitioning. A statistical freak, or what?
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 49m BREAKING: The end of elite women's sport has just been announced.
Transgender athletes should not have to lower testosterone to compete, IOC says as it changes guidelines
So there's the trade off:
Keep your tackle and make it to the Olympic semi-final.
Get it chopped off and win a medal.
The International Athletics Federation still have their own testosterone rule that was stricter than the one dropped by the IOC, but I think the IOC are saying you'd need copious formal evidence to exclude even pre-op transgender athletes.
So in your scenario they might not even need to sacrifice the dangly bits.
It has been obvious that as soon as you let transgender male->female athletes compete against naturally born females that it would finish women's sport. They just will not be able to compete. It is a disgrace. There were 3 options and they have picked the worst. May as well just be done with it and no longer have any male/female categories.
The other two options in my view are: 1. No competition for transgender athletes (needs of the many outweighing needs of the few) 2. Creating new categories.
A female sportswoman who doped herself to have the amount of testosterone a transwoman sportsperson is permitted would be banned. But a trans athlete - a male claiming to be a woman - with that amount of testosterone in his body as a result of male puberty can legally compete. How can this possibly be fair? And isn't this discrimination against women?
It is a disgrace. Just as allowing men claiming to be women and convicted of sexual offences against women to be housed in womens' prisons is a disgrace. There was an interesting debate on this in the House of Lords yesterday where Ms Chakrabarti once again showed what an incoherent moron she is.
As I posted a few weeks ago, my goto question about the rights of trans wrt prison and other spaces is simple:
"What is to stop Wayne Couzens (convicted sex murderer) from claiming to self-identify as a woman and asking to be moved to a women's prison?"
Back in the real world, Wayne Cousins did not need to claim to self-identify as a woman in order to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard.
You are missing the point. Of course he did not need to. But if he wanted to attack women again, he could now easily gain access to a woman's prison to do so.
As a number of men convicted of sexual offences against women have done.
Do you think he should be able to do so by the simple step of now claiming that he feels his gender to be that of a woman?
No, I do not. But nor do I think cis or trans women are helped by extreme hypothetical situations. Both are susceptible to assault, rape and murder. The rates of detection are low, and of conviction miniscule. That's the scandal. As an aside, assault in women's prisons, while less than in men's prisons, is not unknown. That ought to be another scandal but we prefer to lock them up and look the other way.
It's not a hypothetical though. Men have attacked women in women's jails after self-identifying as female and being moved to women's prisons.
There’s going to be a lot of disappointed keyboard bashing in May 2024 when Boris Johnson romps home with a second workable majority. Not saying that gives me much excitement to contemplate but there’s a lot of wishful thinking on these pages today.
There’s going to be a lot of disappointed keyboard bashing in May 2024 when Boris Johnson romps home with a second workable majority. Not saying that gives me much excitement to contemplate but there’s a lot of wishful thinking on these pages today.
How much money at what odds do you have on that outcome?
Fascinating situation developing with respect to Boris. Now clear to everyone how unsuited he is to be PM in multiple ways. The ideal outcome for the Tories is he leaves next year. New leader new broom. Does as many popular things as can be done under financial constraints and if opinion polls not too bad goes for Autumn 2022 or Spring 2023 GE depending on timing of BJ exit. If opinion polls very bad can delay. Ideally (again from Tory viewpoint) he leaves on some face saving pretext without colossal scandal forcing him out that discredits entire cabinet. Wat could be trigger or pretext? I think there is a fair chance he will look for an exit soon.
Boris also looks very tired and unusually scruffy, these days. He sometimes looks as old as his dad.
I wonder if being a very old new father is getting to him. Being a new dad ages anyone by 10 years, if you get involved, and he is 58. He also has a 2nd baby due any day....
He must be shattered. The prospect of jacking it all in, putting his feet up, and writing his £20m memoirs must be appealing
And whilst it's an ignoble calculation, that value is probably beginning to drift down.
Had he gone last summer, Brexit done and Covid wave 1 squashed, he had a convincing story that he was the National Hero he so blatantly and desperately wants to be.
That's already a bit more dented and tarnished, and it's going to get worse from here.
And this time, there's no vaccine triumph coming over the hill.
In terms of story, if he leads us through winter, without any lockdown, he can then end the book on a high. He saved us from yet more restrictions (unlike Austria, Holland, Ireland, Germany, etc etc etc)
So he bows out under the April blossom. A short but incredible career, with amazing stories to tell. Publishers will clamour
Ted Verity of the Mail on Sunday comes in as replacement, possibly as a seven day-ish operation. Sounds as if it is not unrelated to a reshuffle of DMGT executives yesterday that put MailOnline staff in charge of media operation. It's Martin Clarke's world now...
Wasn't/isn't he a pal of Ghislaine Maxwell's? Though that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people.
Isn't that the piece that pointed out that people Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were granted bail but Maxwell wasn't and has been in solitary confinement for 500 days and counting?
On that narrow point I do have some sympathy for her.
Was there any justification for 500 days of solitary confinement? Sounds a bit OTT.
The authorities won't explain why.
Maxwell, 59, has spent 500 days in solitary confinement, the family declared on Twitter at the weekend, saying this contravened the “Nelson Mandela rules” adopted by the UN general assembly in 2015. Her brother Ian, 65, who has led the effort, has said he plans to bring her case before the United Nations himself.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 49m BREAKING: The end of elite women's sport has just been announced.
Transgender athletes should not have to lower testosterone to compete, IOC says as it changes guidelines
So there's the trade off:
Keep your tackle and make it to the Olympic semi-final.
Get it chopped off and win a medal.
The International Athletics Federation still have their own testosterone rule that was stricter than the one dropped by the IOC, but I think the IOC are saying you'd need copious formal evidence to exclude even pre-op transgender athletes.
So in your scenario they might not even need to sacrifice the dangly bits.
It has been obvious that as soon as you let transgender male->female athletes compete against naturally born females that it would finish women's sport. They just will not be able to compete. It is a disgrace. There were 3 options and they have picked the worst. May as well just be done with it and no longer have any male/female categories.
The other two options in my view are: 1. No competition for transgender athletes (needs of the many outweighing needs of the few) 2. Creating new categories.
A female sportswoman who doped herself to have the amount of testosterone a transwoman sportsperson is permitted would be banned. But a trans athlete - a male claiming to be a woman - with that amount of testosterone in his body as a result of male puberty can legally compete. How can this possibly be fair? And isn't this discrimination against women?
It is a disgrace. Just as allowing men claiming to be women and convicted of sexual offences against women to be housed in womens' prisons is a disgrace. There was an interesting debate on this in the House of Lords yesterday where Ms Chakrabarti once again showed what an incoherent moron she is.
As I posted a few weeks ago, my goto question about the rights of trans wrt prison and other spaces is simple:
"What is to stop Wayne Couzens (convicted sex murderer) from claiming to self-identify as a woman and asking to be moved to a women's prison?"
Back in the real world, Wayne Cousins did not need to claim to self-identify as a woman in order to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard.
You are missing the point. Of course he did not need to. But if he wanted to attack women again, he could now easily gain access to a woman's prison to do so.
As a number of men convicted of sexual offences against women have done.
Do you think he should be able to do so by the simple step of now claiming that he feels his gender to be that of a woman?
No, I do not. But nor do I think cis or trans women are helped by extreme hypothetical situations. Both are susceptible to assault, rape and murder. The rates of detection are low, and of conviction miniscule. That's the scandal. As an aside, assault in women's prisons, while less than in men's prisons, is not unknown. That ought to be another scandal but we prefer to lock them up and look the other way.
It's not a hypothetical though. Men have attacked women in women's jails after self-identifying as female and being moved to women's prisons.
Neither is it unknown for Trans inmates to be the victims of assault including sexually when in male prisons. There needs to be protection both ways, and not easy to find an appropriate balance point.
Ted Verity of the Mail on Sunday comes in as replacement, possibly as a seven day-ish operation. Sounds as if it is not unrelated to a reshuffle of DMGT executives yesterday that put MailOnline staff in charge of media operation. It's Martin Clarke's world now...
Wasn't/isn't he a pal of Ghislaine Maxwell's? Though that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people.
Isn't that the piece that pointed out that people Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were granted bail but Maxwell wasn't and has been in solitary confinement for 500 days and counting?
On that narrow point I do have some sympathy for her.
Was there any justification for 500 days of solitary confinement? Sounds a bit OTT.
The authorities won't explain why.
Maxwell, 59, has spent 500 days in solitary confinement, the family declared on Twitter at the weekend, saying this contravened the “Nelson Mandela rules” adopted by the UN general assembly in 2015. Her brother Ian, 65, who has led the effort, has said he plans to bring her case before the United Nations himself.
The timing of this Mail story really is fascinating.
"Geordie Greig has been ousted as editor of the Daily Mail after just three years in the job, in a move that could change the relationship between the right-wing newspaper and Downing Street. One individual with knowledge of Greig’s departure said it was a “power grab by Martin Clarke”, in reference to the powerful editor of MailOnline."
Clarke was a trainee of Dacre's, and shares the same swear-heavy style. Verity, the new editor, is also a Dacre protege.
Meanwhile Grieg has been the atypical Mail editor at the absolute centre of the print media's anti-sleaze coverage over the last few weeks. Dacre may be fighting a rearguard action through his proteges, to try and save the Tories from real crisis.
There’s going to be a lot of disappointed keyboard bashing in May 2024 when Boris Johnson romps home with a second workable majority. Not saying that gives me much excitement to contemplate but there’s a lot of wishful thinking on these pages today.
How much money at what odds do you have on that outcome?
I would put it at better than evens, but I don't have cash tied up on it because there's years until the next election and I only like to have my gambling cash tied up for years if its on very long-shots.
The timing of this Mail story really is fascinating.
"Geordie Greig has been ousted as editor of the Daily Mail after just three years in the job, in a move that could change the relationship between the right-wing newspaper and Downing Street. One individual with knowledge of Greig’s departure said it was a “power grab by Martin Clarke”, in reference to the powerful editor of MailOnline."
Clarke was a trainee of Dacre's, and shares the same swear-heavy style. Verity, the new editor, is also a Dacre protege.
Meanwhile Grieg has been the completely atypical Mail editor who's been the centre of the print media's anti-sleaze coverage over the last few weeks. Dacre may be fighting back through his proteges, to try and rescue the Tories.
Its been noteworthy how left-wing the Mail has been under Geordie Gregg. Its been shared frequently by [often the same] left-wingers saying "look even the Mail is criticising the government, that means something" for years now without any regard of the fact that the Heil is always criticising people and that under Geordie Gregg its had a very anti-government approach.
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
Were I Rishi / Liz my plan would be to get Boris through to May / June next year and replace him after what is likely to be a disastrous set of local elections following April's long announced so mostly forgotten tax rises.
This is the thing that infuriates me most about the Tories. They're so good at timing their leadership changes. It doesn't matter how disastrous the previous leader was, they go through such a Dr Who style transformation every time that the electorate seem immediately to treat them as a new party. Same will happen for Rishi.
I agree that turning out Boris now would be a bit early. Too long for things to go wrong before the next election.
While Labour still gets blamed for the Winter of Discontent.
One can only hope it takes the Tories a generation to live down the shame for what they have imposed on our poor country these last few years.
If the UK is such a bad country why do people risk their lives everyday to leave France to come here?
The timing of this Mail story really is fascinating.
"Geordie Greig has been ousted as editor of the Daily Mail after just three years in the job, in a move that could change the relationship between the right-wing newspaper and Downing Street. One individual with knowledge of Greig’s departure said it was a “power grab by Martin Clarke”, in reference to the powerful editor of MailOnline."
Clarke was a trainee of Dacre's, and shares the same swear-heavy style. Verity, the new editor, is also a Dacre protege.
Meanwhile Grieg has been the completely atypical Mail editor who's been the centre of the print media's anti-sleaze coverage in the last few weeks. Dacre may be fighting a rearguard action through his proteges to try and save the Tories from real crisis.
And then the Tories repay Dacre by putting him in charge of media regulation, even though he has previously found to be unsuitable for the role. Just remember that "this is not a corrupt country."
Fascinating situation developing with respect to Boris. Now clear to everyone how unsuited he is to be PM in multiple ways. The ideal outcome for the Tories is he leaves next year. New leader new broom. Does as many popular things as can be done under financial constraints and if opinion polls not too bad goes for Autumn 2022 or Spring 2023 GE depending on timing of BJ exit. If opinion polls very bad can delay. Ideally (again from Tory viewpoint) he leaves on some face saving pretext without colossal scandal forcing him out that discredits entire cabinet. Wat could be trigger or pretext? I think there is a fair chance he will look for an exit soon.
Boris also looks very tired and unusually scruffy, these days. He sometimes looks as old as his dad.
I wonder if being a very old new father is getting to him. Being a new dad ages anyone by 10 years, if you get involved, and he is 58. He also has a 2nd baby due any day....
He must be shattered. The prospect of jacking it all in, putting his feet up, and writing his £20m memoirs must be appealing
And whilst it's an ignoble calculation, that value is probably beginning to drift down.
Had he gone last summer, Brexit done and Covid wave 1 squashed, he had a convincing story that he was the National Hero he so blatantly and desperately wants to be.
That's already a bit more dented and tarnished, and it's going to get worse from here.
And this time, there's no vaccine triumph coming over the hill.
BJ (and Carrie no doubt) have got used to Caribbean estate, country house and private jet level wealth, not sure if even £20m would buy that, and he'd have to put in some hard work for it.
Perhaps if Trump is reelected Britain Trump could get pulled into the wake of the massive grift juggernaut that 2024-2028 would undoubtedly become. A revitalised right in the USA would be just the types to pay massive amounts to hear BJ's bullshit.
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 49m BREAKING: The end of elite women's sport has just been announced.
Transgender athletes should not have to lower testosterone to compete, IOC says as it changes guidelines
So there's the trade off:
Keep your tackle and make it to the Olympic semi-final.
Get it chopped off and win a medal.
The International Athletics Federation still have their own testosterone rule that was stricter than the one dropped by the IOC, but I think the IOC are saying you'd need copious formal evidence to exclude even pre-op transgender athletes.
So in your scenario they might not even need to sacrifice the dangly bits.
It has been obvious that as soon as you let transgender male->female athletes compete against naturally born females that it would finish women's sport. They just will not be able to compete. It is a disgrace. There were 3 options and they have picked the worst. May as well just be done with it and no longer have any male/female categories.
The other two options in my view are: 1. No competition for transgender athletes (needs of the many outweighing needs of the few) 2. Creating new categories.
A female sportswoman who doped herself to have the amount of testosterone a transwoman sportsperson is permitted would be banned. But a trans athlete - a male claiming to be a woman - with that amount of testosterone in his body as a result of male puberty can legally compete. How can this possibly be fair? And isn't this discrimination against women?
It is a disgrace. Just as allowing men claiming to be women and convicted of sexual offences against women to be housed in womens' prisons is a disgrace. There was an interesting debate on this in the House of Lords yesterday where Ms Chakrabarti once again showed what an incoherent moron she is.
As I posted a few weeks ago, my goto question about the rights of trans wrt prison and other spaces is simple:
"What is to stop Wayne Couzens (convicted sex murderer) from claiming to self-identify as a woman and asking to be moved to a women's prison?"
Back in the real world, Wayne Cousins did not need to claim to self-identify as a woman in order to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard.
You are missing the point. Of course he did not need to. But if he wanted to attack women again, he could now easily gain access to a woman's prison to do so.
As a number of men convicted of sexual offences against women have done.
Do you think he should be able to do so by the simple step of now claiming that he feels his gender to be that of a woman?
No, I do not. But nor do I think cis or trans women are helped by extreme hypothetical situations. Both are susceptible to assault, rape and murder. The rates of detection are low, and of conviction miniscule. That's the scandal. As an aside, assault in women's prisons, while less than in men's prisons, is not unknown. That ought to be another scandal but we prefer to lock them up and look the other way.
It's not a hypothetical though. Men have attacked women in women's jails after self-identifying as female and being moved to women's prisons.
Neither is it unknown for Trans inmates to be the victims of assault including sexually when in male prisons. There needs to be protection both ways, and not easy to find an appropriate balance point.
Not really. The nonces in male prisons are in solitary for their own protection, so self-identified trans women can be too.
The problem here is a Bayesian one, at heart. People fail to take into account that predatory devious heterosexual cis males are very very common, whereas trans women are very very rare.
Sound like the Tories are whipping against Labour's motion tonight on tightening MPs' code of conduct. Usually opposition debates like this would be loosely whipped or not at all.
One government insider said, "the political mood is not to give the opposition what they want"
Ah yes, when all else fails, appeal to rank tribalism as a last resort - "I know things look bad right now, but forget all that, just don't let the others win"
Fascinating situation developing with respect to Boris. Now clear to everyone how unsuited he is to be PM in multiple ways. The ideal outcome for the Tories is he leaves next year. New leader new broom. Does as many popular things as can be done under financial constraints and if opinion polls not too bad goes for Autumn 2022 or Spring 2023 GE depending on timing of BJ exit. If opinion polls very bad can delay. Ideally (again from Tory viewpoint) he leaves on some face saving pretext without colossal scandal forcing him out that discredits entire cabinet. Wat could be trigger or pretext? I think there is a fair chance he will look for an exit soon.
Boris also looks very tired and unusually scruffy, these days. He sometimes looks as old as his dad.
I wonder if being a very old new father is getting to him. Being a new dad ages anyone by 10 years, if you get involved, and he is 58. He also has a 2nd baby due any day....
He must be shattered. The prospect of jacking it all in, putting his feet up, and writing his £20m memoirs must be appealing
And whilst it's an ignoble calculation, that value is probably beginning to drift down.
Had he gone last summer, Brexit done and Covid wave 1 squashed, he had a convincing story that he was the National Hero he so blatantly and desperately wants to be.
That's already a bit more dented and tarnished, and it's going to get worse from here.
And this time, there's no vaccine triumph coming over the hill.
In terms of story, if he leads us through winter, without any lockdown, he can then end the book on a high. He saved us from yet more restrictions (unlike Austria, Holland, Ireland, Germany, etc etc etc)
So he bows out under the April blossom. A short but incredible career, with amazing stories to tell. Publishers will clamour
Not just publishers but the American lecture circuit, possibly television as well in due course.
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
Were I Rishi / Liz my plan would be to get Boris through to May / June next year and replace him after what is likely to be a disastrous set of local elections following April's long announced so mostly forgotten tax rises.
This is the thing that infuriates me most about the Tories. They're so good at timing their leadership changes. It doesn't matter how disastrous the previous leader was, they go through such a Dr Who style transformation every time that the electorate seem immediately to treat them as a new party. Same will happen for Rishi.
I agree that turning out Boris now would be a bit early. Too long for things to go wrong before the next election.
While Labour still gets blamed for the Winter of Discontent.
One can only hope it takes the Tories a generation to live down the shame for what they have imposed on our poor country these last few years.
If the UK is such a bad country why do people risk their lives everyday to leave France to come here?
How dare you ask such a sensible question.
I’d like to think it’s the roast beef, Yorkshire puddings and onion gravy. But it’s probably more nuanced, such as 650 opportunities every five years to become a millionaire
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 49m BREAKING: The end of elite women's sport has just been announced.
Transgender athletes should not have to lower testosterone to compete, IOC says as it changes guidelines
So there's the trade off:
Keep your tackle and make it to the Olympic semi-final.
Get it chopped off and win a medal.
The International Athletics Federation still have their own testosterone rule that was stricter than the one dropped by the IOC, but I think the IOC are saying you'd need copious formal evidence to exclude even pre-op transgender athletes.
So in your scenario they might not even need to sacrifice the dangly bits.
It has been obvious that as soon as you let transgender male->female athletes compete against naturally born females that it would finish women's sport. They just will not be able to compete. It is a disgrace. There were 3 options and they have picked the worst. May as well just be done with it and no longer have any male/female categories.
The other two options in my view are: 1. No competition for transgender athletes (needs of the many outweighing needs of the few) 2. Creating new categories.
A female sportswoman who doped herself to have the amount of testosterone a transwoman sportsperson is permitted would be banned. But a trans athlete - a male claiming to be a woman - with that amount of testosterone in his body as a result of male puberty can legally compete. How can this possibly be fair? And isn't this discrimination against women?
It is a disgrace. Just as allowing men claiming to be women and convicted of sexual offences against women to be housed in womens' prisons is a disgrace. There was an interesting debate on this in the House of Lords yesterday where Ms Chakrabarti once again showed what an incoherent moron she is.
As I posted a few weeks ago, my goto question about the rights of trans wrt prison and other spaces is simple:
"What is to stop Wayne Couzens (convicted sex murderer) from claiming to self-identify as a woman and asking to be moved to a women's prison?"
Back in the real world, Wayne Cousins did not need to claim to self-identify as a woman in order to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard.
You are missing the point. Of course he did not need to. But if he wanted to attack women again, he could now easily gain access to a woman's prison to do so.
As a number of men convicted of sexual offences against women have done.
Do you think he should be able to do so by the simple step of now claiming that he feels his gender to be that of a woman?
For some reason hypothetical scenarios are not liked by some.
Yes, concrete real examples are more compelling and some hypotheticals are bogus, but many are not.
The timing of this Mail story really is fascinating.
"Geordie Greig has been ousted as editor of the Daily Mail after just three years in the job, in a move that could change the relationship between the right-wing newspaper and Downing Street. One individual with knowledge of Greig’s departure said it was a “power grab by Martin Clarke”, in reference to the powerful editor of MailOnline."
Clarke was a trainee of Dacre's, and shares the same swear-heavy style. Verity, the new editor, is also a Dacre protege.
Meanwhile Grieg has been the completely atypical Mail editor who's been the centre of the print media's anti-sleaze coverage in the last few weeks. Dacre may be fighting a rearguard action through his proteges to try and save the Tories from real crisis.
And then the Tories repay Dacre by putting him in charge of media regulation, even though he has previously found to be unsuitable for the role. Just remember that "this is not a corrupt country."
In fairness I don't know the next line - was it 'and we're working on that'?
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.
Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?
If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.
There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.
If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.
The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.
And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.
Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.
A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.
Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?
Where is the money going?
Old people. That's literally it, we, as a nation, are shovelling ever more of it to those over 70.
I often think I'm in generation fucked. We're spending ever increasing amounts to provide our boomer parents with the best ever retirement, but by the time we're able to retire in our mid-70s many of us are likely to be spending all our pension on our rent so that the rentier class can continue to live it up.
You halfwit , no-one has ever provided me with a penny , rather I have paid a fortune to send yahoos to university to piss their lives up a wall and then whinge when they have to work in menial jobs, where I have to pay again to keep them in grandeur. Get out and earn enough to keep yourself loser.
Ted Verity of the Mail on Sunday comes in as replacement, possibly as a seven day-ish operation. Sounds as if it is not unrelated to a reshuffle of DMGT executives yesterday that put MailOnline staff in charge of media operation. It's Martin Clarke's world now...
Wasn't/isn't he a pal of Ghislaine Maxwell's? Though that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people.
Isn't that the piece that pointed out that people Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were granted bail but Maxwell wasn't and has been in solitary confinement for 500 days and counting?
On that narrow point I do have some sympathy for her.
Was there any justification for 500 days of solitary confinement? Sounds a bit OTT.
The authorities won't explain why.
Maxwell, 59, has spent 500 days in solitary confinement, the family declared on Twitter at the weekend, saying this contravened the “Nelson Mandela rules” adopted by the UN general assembly in 2015. Her brother Ian, 65, who has led the effort, has said he plans to bring her case before the United Nations himself.
Isn't it because she's considered a flight risk with a French passport?
That's irrelevant to the point being made.
Sure she's a flight risk, but there's no obvious reason to keep her in solitary confinement for 500 days and counting, they could keep her in genpop.
As has been noted, this is in violation of UN agreements.
A list of countries that keep people in solitary confinement for such long periods, before charge or conviction, is not a list you really want to be on.
I’ve had a bad day. Is there anything more pathetic than driving home with an empty cat basket from the vet?
Sorry to hear that.
Thank you.
With the big ball of yarn in the sky now. Did you just have the one?
Two. Not sure how long it will take her to realise her sister isn’t coming home.
Makes it even sadder. How old is the other one? Maybe time for a new kitten or two... (your cat lady future beckons)
With a new kitten I would be perpetually worried they would get run over. Not that that was how this one died: something she ate according to the vet.
Sad to hear. Losing pets at such an age is tragic. Cats often prefer to be solo though as they get older, even when sibs. Mine prefers the company of the dog as per my profile pic, eyeing up a squirrel...
It is very nice to see hardened PB Tories finally concede how very shit Boris is.
There is more joy in heaven etc…
But they keep saying how great he is at getting elected. So there's still some jam in the sandwich, it seems.
Maybe the Tory party could take a leaf out of the American Football playbook and use Boris as a special team. They bring him on/back as PM just before elections etc then sub him off for someone else who can actually do the harder long term graft then bring him in again every quarter/four years…..
My cynical side thinks maybe Boris and Carrie are holding on so their upcoming child is born as the child of the PM for extra points on its future CV….. cannot think if any rational reason (I exclude his delusions of his own greatness) for hanging on, getting shit from people, lots of hassle, small flat to live in and crap salary when he can start living it up if he quits…..
It is very nice to see hardened PB Tories finally concede how very shit Boris is.
There is more joy in heaven etc…
But they keep saying how great he is at getting elected. So there's still some jam in the sandwich, it seems.
Maybe the Tory party could take a leaf out of the American Fottball playbook and use Boris as a special team. They bring him on/back as PM just before elections etc then sub him off for someone else who can actually do the harder long term graft then bring him in again every quarter/four years…..
My cynical side thinks maybe Boris and Carrie are holding on so their upcoming child is born as the child of the PM for extra points on its future CV….. cannot think if any rational reason (I exclude his delusions of his own greatness) for hanging on, getting shit from people, lots of hassle, small flat to live in and crap salary when he can start living it up if he quits…..
He does have a free country mansion. Edit: not sure how the running costs work.
I’ve had a bad day. Is there anything more pathetic than driving home with an empty cat basket from the vet?
Sorry to hear that.
Thank you.
With the big ball of yarn in the sky now. Did you just have the one?
Two. Not sure how long it will take her to realise her sister isn’t coming home.
Makes it even sadder. How old is the other one? Maybe time for a new kitten or two... (your cat lady future beckons)
With a new kitten I would be perpetually worried they would get run over. Not that that was how this one died: something she ate according to the vet.
Sad to hear. Losing pets at such an age is tragic. Cats often prefer to be solo though as they get older, even when sibs. Mine prefers the company of the dog as per my profile pic, eyeing up a squirrel...
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.
Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?
If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.
There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.
If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.
The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.
And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.
Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.
A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.
Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?
Where is the money going?
Old people. That's literally it, we, as a nation, are shovelling ever more of it to those over 70.
I often think I'm in generation fucked. We're spending ever increasing amounts to provide our boomer parents with the best ever retirement, but by the time we're able to retire in our mid-70s many of us are likely to be spending all our pension on our rent so that the rentier class can continue to live it up.
You halfwit , no-one has ever provided me with a penny , rather I have paid a fortune to send yahoos to university to piss their lives up a wall and then whinge when they have to work in menial jobs, where I have to pay again to keep them in grandeur. Get out and earn enough to keep yourself loser.
It is very nice to see hardened PB Tories finally concede how very shit Boris is.
There is more joy in heaven etc…
Um, which ones?
HYUFD is pretty much the only PB tory still standing, and I don't think we have heard from him today. Who, specifically, has altered their position?
As I posted earlier Boris is still the best Tory leader to hold the Redwall and without the Redwall then there is no Tory majority as many of the Remain areas Cameron won in 2015 are solid Labour or LD post Brexit
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.
Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?
If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.
There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.
If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.
The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.
And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.
Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.
A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.
Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?
Where is the money going?
Old people. That's literally it, we, as a nation, are shovelling ever more of it to those over 70.
I often think I'm in generation fucked. We're spending ever increasing amounts to provide our boomer parents with the best ever retirement, but by the time we're able to retire in our mid-70s many of us are likely to be spending all our pension on our rent so that the rentier class can continue to live it up.
You halfwit , no-one has ever provided me with a penny , rather I have paid a fortune to send yahoos to university to piss their lives up a wall and then whinge when they have to work in menial jobs, where I have to pay again to keep them in grandeur. Get out and earn enough to keep yourself loser.
OK, boomer.
Yes been milked all my life to fund whinging woke over privileged shirkers PS: Life is great though , be getting winter fuel payments soon to supplement my meagre state pension.
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.
Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?
If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.
There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.
If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.
The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.
And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.
Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.
A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.
Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?
Where is the money going?
Old people. That's literally it, we, as a nation, are shovelling ever more of it to those over 70.
I often think I'm in generation fucked. We're spending ever increasing amounts to provide our boomer parents with the best ever retirement, but by the time we're able to retire in our mid-70s many of us are likely to be spending all our pension on our rent so that the rentier class can continue to live it up.
You halfwit , no-one has ever provided me with a penny , rather I have paid a fortune to send yahoos to university to piss their lives up a wall and then whinge when they have to work in menial jobs, where I have to pay again to keep them in grandeur. Get out and earn enough to keep yourself loser.
It is very nice to see hardened PB Tories finally concede how very shit Boris is.
There is more joy in heaven etc…
But they keep saying how great he is at getting elected. So there's still some jam in the sandwich, it seems.
Maybe the Tory party could take a leaf out of the American Fottball playbook and use Boris as a special team. They bring him on/back as PM just before elections etc then sub him off for someone else who can actually do the harder long term graft then bring him in again every quarter/four years…..
My cynical side thinks maybe Boris and Carrie are holding on so their upcoming child is born as the child of the PM for extra points on its future CV….. cannot think if any rational reason (I exclude his delusions of his own greatness) for hanging on, getting shit from people, lots of hassle, small flat to live in and crap salary when he can start living it up if he quits…..
He does have a free country mansion. Edit: not sure how the running costs work.
Think he has to cover costs if using in personal capacity. However if he sells his memoirs he can buy a nice big place in the country of his own for Carrie and the kids to stay at and a pied a terre in town where he can meet potential glamorous ladies to help them with their business ventures or cultural projects without disturbing Carrie or children. Everyone’s a winner!!
Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1 · 49m BREAKING: The end of elite women's sport has just been announced.
Transgender athletes should not have to lower testosterone to compete, IOC says as it changes guidelines
So there's the trade off:
Keep your tackle and make it to the Olympic semi-final.
Get it chopped off and win a medal.
The International Athletics Federation still have their own testosterone rule that was stricter than the one dropped by the IOC, but I think the IOC are saying you'd need copious formal evidence to exclude even pre-op transgender athletes.
So in your scenario they might not even need to sacrifice the dangly bits.
It has been obvious that as soon as you let transgender male->female athletes compete against naturally born females that it would finish women's sport. They just will not be able to compete. It is a disgrace. There were 3 options and they have picked the worst. May as well just be done with it and no longer have any male/female categories.
The other two options in my view are: 1. No competition for transgender athletes (needs of the many outweighing needs of the few) 2. Creating new categories.
A female sportswoman who doped herself to have the amount of testosterone a transwoman sportsperson is permitted would be banned. But a trans athlete - a male claiming to be a woman - with that amount of testosterone in his body as a result of male puberty can legally compete. How can this possibly be fair? And isn't this discrimination against women?
It is a disgrace. Just as allowing men claiming to be women and convicted of sexual offences against women to be housed in womens' prisons is a disgrace. There was an interesting debate on this in the House of Lords yesterday where Ms Chakrabarti once again showed what an incoherent moron she is.
No doubt a lot of people think it's a disgrace that murderers aren't executed any more, though. Is it quite that simple?
Only 42% approve of Biden, if 42% was his score in 2024 that would be the lowest Democratic voteshare in a presidential election since Mondale got 41% in 1984.
Though the Democrats still have the Trump card to play (and his approval rating when leaving office was even lower)
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.
Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?
If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.
There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.
If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.
The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.
And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.
Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.
A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.
Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?
Where is the money going?
Old people. That's literally it, we, as a nation, are shovelling ever more of it to those over 70.
I often think I'm in generation fucked. We're spending ever increasing amounts to provide our boomer parents with the best ever retirement, but by the time we're able to retire in our mid-70s many of us are likely to be spending all our pension on our rent so that the rentier class can continue to live it up.
You halfwit , no-one has ever provided me with a penny , rather I have paid a fortune to send yahoos to university to piss their lives up a wall and then whinge when they have to work in menial jobs, where I have to pay again to keep them in grandeur. Get out and earn enough to keep yourself loser.
Were you paying tax in 1979-83, malc?
If so, thanks.
Ishmael, you are rooting tooting I was, glad I ensured you a good time.
It is very nice to see hardened PB Tories finally concede how very shit Boris is.
There is more joy in heaven etc…
But they keep saying how great he is at getting elected. So there's still some jam in the sandwich, it seems.
Maybe the Tory party could take a leaf out of the American Fottball playbook and use Boris as a special team. They bring him on/back as PM just before elections etc then sub him off for someone else who can actually do the harder long term graft then bring him in again every quarter/four years…..
My cynical side thinks maybe Boris and Carrie are holding on so their upcoming child is born as the child of the PM for extra points on its future CV….. cannot think if any rational reason (I exclude his delusions of his own greatness) for hanging on, getting shit from people, lots of hassle, small flat to live in and crap salary when he can start living it up if he quits…..
He does have a free country mansion. Edit: not sure how the running costs work.
The NFL model you suggest was Cummings' idea. Have Boris front the election (or referendum campaign) and let the hard men do the serious work. That was also the GOP line with Reagan and GWBush (less so Trump though it worked out that way).
Christmas at Chequers is not to be underrated. Nor is Boris poor, especially when his friends pay for his wallpaper, his holidays, and even his food deliveries. But I do think he will step down before the next election. He does not seem to be having fun in the day job and defeat will hurt his ego and his price tag.
The timing of this Mail story really is fascinating.
"Geordie Greig has been ousted as editor of the Daily Mail after just three years in the job, in a move that could change the relationship between the right-wing newspaper and Downing Street. One individual with knowledge of Greig’s departure said it was a “power grab by Martin Clarke”, in reference to the powerful editor of MailOnline."
Clarke was a trainee of Dacre's, and shares the same swear-heavy style. Verity, the new editor, is also a Dacre protege.
Meanwhile Grieg has been the completely atypical Mail editor who's been the centre of the print media's anti-sleaze coverage in the last few weeks. Dacre may be fighting a rearguard action through his proteges to try and save the Tories from real crisis.
And then the Tories repay Dacre by putting him in charge of media regulation, even though he has previously found to be unsuitable for the role. Just remember that "this is not a corrupt country."
It also comes exactly a week after Dacre stepped down from his previous semi-detached editor-in-chief role at the paper, midway through Grieg's sleaze coverage. He's held that role for exactly the same three year period that Grieg's been in charge, and he was pushed into it when Grieg first came in.
The timing of this Mail story really is fascinating.
"Geordie Greig has been ousted as editor of the Daily Mail after just three years in the job, in a move that could change the relationship between the right-wing newspaper and Downing Street. One individual with knowledge of Greig’s departure said it was a “power grab by Martin Clarke”, in reference to the powerful editor of MailOnline."
Clarke was a trainee of Dacre's, and shares the same swear-heavy style. Verity, the new editor, is also a Dacre protege.
Meanwhile Grieg has been the completely atypical Mail editor who's been the centre of the print media's anti-sleaze coverage in the last few weeks. Dacre may be fighting a rearguard action through his proteges to try and save the Tories from real crisis.
And then the Tories repay Dacre by putting him in charge of media regulation, even though he has previously found to be unsuitable for the role. Just remember that "this is not a corrupt country."
And he will be in charge of broadband and Internet and the market regulation.
It is very nice to see hardened PB Tories finally concede how very shit Boris is.
There is more joy in heaven etc…
But they keep saying how great he is at getting elected. So there's still some jam in the sandwich, it seems.
Maybe the Tory party could take a leaf out of the American Fottball playbook and use Boris as a special team. They bring him on/back as PM just before elections etc then sub him off for someone else who can actually do the harder long term graft then bring him in again every quarter/four years…..
My cynical side thinks maybe Boris and Carrie are holding on so their upcoming child is born as the child of the PM for extra points on its future CV….. cannot think if any rational reason (I exclude his delusions of his own greatness) for hanging on, getting shit from people, lots of hassle, small flat to live in and crap salary when he can start living it up if he quits…..
He does have a free country mansion. Edit: not sure how the running costs work.
The NFL model you suggest was Cummings' idea. Have Boris front the election (or referendum campaign) and let the hard men do the serious work. That was also the GOP line with Reagan and GWBush (less so Trump though it worked out that way).
Christmas at Chequers is not to be underrated. Nor is Boris poor, especially when his friends pay for his wallpaper, his holidays, and even his food deliveries. But I do think he will step down before the next election. He does not seem to be having fun in the day job and defeat will hurt his ego and his price tag.
He lives high on the hog for sure, I doubt he even has to wipe his own erchie. There will be a minion for that.
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.
Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?
If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.
There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.
If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.
The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.
And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.
Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.
A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.
Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?
Where is the money going?
Old people. That's literally it, we, as a nation, are shovelling ever more of it to those over 70.
I often think I'm in generation fucked. We're spending ever increasing amounts to provide our boomer parents with the best ever retirement, but by the time we're able to retire in our mid-70s many of us are likely to be spending all our pension on our rent so that the rentier class can continue to live it up.
You halfwit , no-one has ever provided me with a penny , rather I have paid a fortune to send yahoos to university to piss their lives up a wall and then whinge when they have to work in menial jobs, where I have to pay again to keep them in grandeur. Get out and earn enough to keep yourself loser.
Do your children know you think of them in this way?
I’ve had a bad day. Is there anything more pathetic than driving home with an empty cat basket from the vet?
Sorry to hear that.
Thank you.
With the big ball of yarn in the sky now. Did you just have the one?
Two. Not sure how long it will take her to realise her sister isn’t coming home.
Makes it even sadder. How old is the other one? Maybe time for a new kitten or two... (your cat lady future beckons)
With a new kitten I would be perpetually worried they would get run over. Not that that was how this one died: something she ate according to the vet.
Sad to hear. Losing pets at such an age is tragic. Cats often prefer to be solo though as they get older, even when sibs. Mine prefers the company of the dog as per my profile pic, eyeing up a squirrel...
The cat that died was not a kitten, in fact far from it. That is part of the reason I’m finding this hard: she was part of my life.
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.
Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?
If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.
There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.
If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.
The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.
And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.
Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.
A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.
Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?
Where is the money going?
Old people. That's literally it, we, as a nation, are shovelling ever more of it to those over 70.
I often think I'm in generation fucked. We're spending ever increasing amounts to provide our boomer parents with the best ever retirement, but by the time we're able to retire in our mid-70s many of us are likely to be spending all our pension on our rent so that the rentier class can continue to live it up.
You halfwit , no-one has ever provided me with a penny , rather I have paid a fortune to send yahoos to university to piss their lives up a wall and then whinge when they have to work in menial jobs, where I have to pay again to keep them in grandeur. Get out and earn enough to keep yourself loser.
I imagine that you didn't pay for your education.
I'm quite happy to believe that you're a net contributer, but we've all been benificiaries at some point.
Should someone get out and earn their keep then they're clearly going to be paying in the way you have.
It is very nice to see hardened PB Tories finally concede how very shit Boris is.
There is more joy in heaven etc…
Um, which ones?
HYUFD is pretty much the only PB tory still standing, and I don't think we have heard from him today. Who, specifically, has altered their position?
As I posted earlier Boris is still the best Tory leader to hold the Redwall and without the Redwall then there is no Tory majority as many of the Remain areas Cameron won in 2015 are solid Labour or LD post Brexit
Thing is, we don’t know if Boris really is the best Tory leader to hold the Red Wall as any potential replacements haven’t been tested. Polling at present might say he is but then we don’t know if, for example, Truss or Rishi once PM and truly in the spotlight and leading things might suddenly strike a chord with the red wall that’s better, or of course worse.
So the risk is that the Tories keep Boris in place to win something because they are too scared or don’t have the confidence that someone else could do better or worse. They are buggered if they really believe Boris is the only person who can win over the red wall as he will go one day……
And there might be someone who ends up appealing to the red wall but also being more popular in Scotland (yes ok a low base) and the Home Counties.
So gripping hold of Boris because of the red wall belief could ultimately screw them more in the end surely.
I’ve had a bad day. Is there anything more pathetic than driving home with an empty cat basket from the vet?
Sorry to hear that.
Thank you.
With the big ball of yarn in the sky now. Did you just have the one?
Two. Not sure how long it will take her to realise her sister isn’t coming home.
Makes it even sadder. How old is the other one? Maybe time for a new kitten or two... (your cat lady future beckons)
With a new kitten I would be perpetually worried they would get run over. Not that that was how this one died: something she ate according to the vet.
Sad to hear. Losing pets at such an age is tragic. Cats often prefer to be solo though as they get older, even when sibs. Mine prefers the company of the dog as per my profile pic, eyeing up a squirrel...
The cat that died was not a kitten, in fact far from it. That is part of the reason I’m finding this hard: she was part of my life.
I hope this gives you some comfort, hopefully as a Fysics_Teacher at least.
It is very nice to see hardened PB Tories finally concede how very shit Boris is.
There is more joy in heaven etc…
Um, which ones?
HYUFD is pretty much the only PB tory still standing, and I don't think we have heard from him today. Who, specifically, has altered their position?
As I posted earlier Boris is still the best Tory leader to hold the Redwall and without the Redwall then there is no Tory majority as many of the Remain areas Cameron won in 2015 are solid Labour or LD post Brexit
Thing is, we don’t know if Boris really is the best Tory leader to hold the Red Wall as any potential replacements haven’t been tested. Polling at present might say he is but then we don’t know if, for example, Truss or Rishi once PM and truly in the spotlight and leading things might suddenly strike a chord with the red wall that’s better, or of course worse.
So the risk is that the Tories keep Boris in place to win something because they are too scared or don’t have the confidence that someone else could do better or worse. They are buggered if they really believe Boris is the only person who can win over the red wall as he will go one day……
And there might be someone who ends up appealing to the red wall but also being more popular in Scotland (yes ok a low base) and the Home Counties.
So gripping hold of Boris because of the red wall belief could ultimately screw them more in the end surely.
Ben Wallace (ex Scots Guard, ex MSP) might be more appealing to Scotland and the Home Counties.
I’ve had a bad day. Is there anything more pathetic than driving home with an empty cat basket from the vet?
Sorry to hear that.
Thank you.
With the big ball of yarn in the sky now. Did you just have the one?
Two. Not sure how long it will take her to realise her sister isn’t coming home.
Makes it even sadder. How old is the other one? Maybe time for a new kitten or two... (your cat lady future beckons)
With a new kitten I would be perpetually worried they would get run over. Not that that was how this one died: something she ate according to the vet.
Sad to hear. Losing pets at such an age is tragic. Cats often prefer to be solo though as they get older, even when sibs. Mine prefers the company of the dog as per my profile pic, eyeing up a squirrel...
The cat that died was not a kitten, in fact far from it. That is part of the reason I’m finding this hard: she was part of my life.
I hope this gives you some comfort, hopefully as a Fysics_Teacher at least.
It is very nice to see hardened PB Tories finally concede how very shit Boris is.
There is more joy in heaven etc…
Um, which ones?
HYUFD is pretty much the only PB tory still standing, and I don't think we have heard from him today. Who, specifically, has altered their position?
As I posted earlier Boris is still the best Tory leader to hold the Redwall and without the Redwall then there is no Tory majority as many of the Remain areas Cameron won in 2015 are solid Labour or LD post Brexit
Thing is, we don’t know if Boris really is the best Tory leader to hold the Red Wall as any potential replacements haven’t been tested. Polling at present might say he is but then we don’t know if, for example, Truss or Rishi once PM and truly in the spotlight and leading things might suddenly strike a chord with the red wall that’s better, or of course worse.
Yes, such polling is useful only up to a point. It's hard to say how someone will do in the top job, when they may be shown as out of their depth or reveal sides never before seen.
More economic illiteracy from Channel 4 this time "in October the cost of living jumped to its highest level in nearly a decade". Er no, just to its highest level since last month, as it almost always does.
The timing of this Mail story really is fascinating.
"Geordie Greig has been ousted as editor of the Daily Mail after just three years in the job, in a move that could change the relationship between the right-wing newspaper and Downing Street. One individual with knowledge of Greig’s departure said it was a “power grab by Martin Clarke”, in reference to the powerful editor of MailOnline."
Clarke was a trainee of Dacre's, and shares the same swear-heavy style. Verity, the new editor, is also a Dacre protege.
Meanwhile Grieg has been the atypical Mail editor at the absolute centre of the print media's anti-sleaze coverage over the last few weeks. Dacre may be fighting a rearguard action through his proteges, to try and save the Tories from real crisis.
If Dacre can pull that off for Johnson, he more than deserves the Ofcom gig.
Ted Verity of the Mail on Sunday comes in as replacement, possibly as a seven day-ish operation. Sounds as if it is not unrelated to a reshuffle of DMGT executives yesterday that put MailOnline staff in charge of media operation. It's Martin Clarke's world now...
Wasn't/isn't he a pal of Ghislaine Maxwell's? Though that doesn't seem to bother a lot of people.
Isn't that the piece that pointed out that people Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein were granted bail but Maxwell wasn't and has been in solitary confinement for 500 days and counting?
On that narrow point I do have some sympathy for her.
Was there any justification for 500 days of solitary confinement? Sounds a bit OTT.
The authorities won't explain why.
Maxwell, 59, has spent 500 days in solitary confinement, the family declared on Twitter at the weekend, saying this contravened the “Nelson Mandela rules” adopted by the UN general assembly in 2015. Her brother Ian, 65, who has led the effort, has said he plans to bring her case before the United Nations himself.
Isn't it because she's considered a flight risk with a French passport?
That's irrelevant to the point being made.
Sure she's a flight risk, but there's no obvious reason to keep her in solitary confinement for 500 days and counting, they could keep her in genpop.
As has been noted, this is in violation of UN agreements.
A list of countries that keep people in solitary confinement for such long periods, before charge or conviction, is not a list you really want to be on.
Isn't it also against the US constitution which grants one a timely trial before one's peers. At what point can sue so for dismissal with prejudice given the blatant trampling of her constitutional rights?
The timing of this Mail story really is fascinating.
"Geordie Greig has been ousted as editor of the Daily Mail after just three years in the job, in a move that could change the relationship between the right-wing newspaper and Downing Street. One individual with knowledge of Greig’s departure said it was a “power grab by Martin Clarke”, in reference to the powerful editor of MailOnline."
Clarke was a trainee of Dacre's, and shares the same swear-heavy style. Verity, the new editor, is also a Dacre protege.
Meanwhile Grieg has been the atypical Mail editor at the absolute centre of the print media's anti-sleaze coverage over the last few weeks. Dacre may be fighting a rearguard action through his proteges, to try and save the Tories from real crisis.
If Dacre can pull that off for Johnson, he more than deserves the Ofcom gig.
Strangely today was the first time for a very long time the mail editorial backed Boris, and his amendment
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
Were I Rishi / Liz my plan would be to get Boris through to May / June next year and replace him after what is likely to be a disastrous set of local elections following April's long announced so mostly forgotten tax rises.
This is the thing that infuriates me most about the Tories. They're so good at timing their leadership changes. It doesn't matter how disastrous the previous leader was, they go through such a Dr Who style transformation every time that the electorate seem immediately to treat them as a new party. Same will happen for Rishi.
I agree that turning out Boris now would be a bit early. Too long for things to go wrong before the next election.
While Labour still gets blamed for the Winter of Discontent.
happens when you have a complete lack of repentance.
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.
Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?
If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.
There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.
If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.
The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.
And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.
Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.
A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.
Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?
Where is the money going?
Old people. That's literally it, we, as a nation, are shovelling ever more of it to those over 70.
I often think I'm in generation fucked. We're spending ever increasing amounts to provide our boomer parents with the best ever retirement, but by the time we're able to retire in our mid-70s many of us are likely to be spending all our pension on our rent so that the rentier class can continue to live it up.
You halfwit , no-one has ever provided me with a penny , rather I have paid a fortune to send yahoos to university to piss their lives up a wall and then whinge when they have to work in menial jobs, where I have to pay again to keep them in grandeur. Get out and earn enough to keep yourself loser.
Do your children know you think of them in this way?
It is very nice to see hardened PB Tories finally concede how very shit Boris is.
There is more joy in heaven etc…
Um, which ones?
HYUFD is pretty much the only PB tory still standing, and I don't think we have heard from him today. Who, specifically, has altered their position?
As I posted earlier Boris is still the best Tory leader to hold the Redwall and without the Redwall then there is no Tory majority as many of the Remain areas Cameron won in 2015 are solid Labour or LD post Brexit
Thing is, we don’t know if Boris really is the best Tory leader to hold the Red Wall as any potential replacements haven’t been tested. Polling at present might say he is but then we don’t know if, for example, Truss or Rishi once PM and truly in the spotlight and leading things might suddenly strike a chord with the red wall that’s better, or of course worse.
Yes, such polling is useful only up to a point. It's hard to say how someone will do in the top job, when they may be shown as out of their depth or reveal sides never before seen.
I’m sure that when Blair got the Labour gig there were multitudes within Labour saying that he’s an unknown quantity so we need to stick with what we know. Boris was a known quantity and has “delivered” but that shouldn’t stop the Tories being brave enough to believe that within their ranks there isn’t someone even better - if they really think there is nobody better then the party/country are really screwed!
More economic illiteracy from Channel 4 this time "in October the cost of living jumped to its highest level in nearly a decade". Er no, just to its highest level since last month, as it almost always does.
Isn’t it the highest level ever: just like it did last month?
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.
Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?
If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.
There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.
If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.
The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.
And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.
Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.
A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.
Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?
Where is the money going?
Old people. That's literally it, we, as a nation, are shovelling ever more of it to those over 70.
I often think I'm in generation fucked. We're spending ever increasing amounts to provide our boomer parents with the best ever retirement, but by the time we're able to retire in our mid-70s many of us are likely to be spending all our pension on our rent so that the rentier class can continue to live it up.
You halfwit , no-one has ever provided me with a penny , rather I have paid a fortune to send yahoos to university to piss their lives up a wall and then whinge when they have to work in menial jobs, where I have to pay again to keep them in grandeur. Get out and earn enough to keep yourself loser.
I imagine that you didn't pay for your education.
I'm quite happy to believe that you're a net contributer, but we've all been benificiaries at some point.
Should someone get out and earn their keep then they're clearly going to be paying in the way you have.
More economic illiteracy from Channel 4 this time "in October the cost of living jumped to its highest level in nearly a decade". Er no, just to its highest level since last month, as it almost always does.
Wasn't it a journalist from Channel 4 who was surprised to learn of the existence of the ONS in the early days of Covid?
Just seen Angela Raynor on Ch4 News. I'd never rated her before but in fact she was very good. It could just be the contrast between someone transparently sincere versus a Prime Minister who clearly isn't but I think it's more than that. I actually believe she really did think Johnson was 'scum' and felt it needed sayiing
One well informed source told the BBC, ‘This is a significant change and greatly reduces the generosity of the scheme to less well off pensioners who need care for a long time.’ The announcement is here https://t.co/k9YnjyeMTf - white paper due before Christmas
Leave Boris to take the pelting with dung that's about to happen? Even with a fresh PM, the next year or two will be tough.
Or remove him before he makes things even worse?
A high-level resignation could bring him down. Rishi? Liz? Over to you.
When Major took over he was able to drop the unpopular policy of the poll tax, and that made a big difference. Similarly when Johnson replaced May he was able to offer a way out of the Brexit morass that had trapped May.
Would a new leader be able to offer new solutions to the high cost of providing social care? What is the key weakness of the Johnson premiership that a new leader could fix?
If there is something a new leader can do differently and better then they should do so sooner rather than later. If all they offer is a different set of empty promises and lame excuses then the best they can hope for is to time a honeymoon to coincide with a GE.
There is a major difficulty here coming down the tracks. We are at recent record highs for taxation, and there is little spare capacity to tax more.
If you listen, for example, to Today on R4 for a few days you will collect a massive set of issues where everyone is saying, and no-one contradicting, that huge amounts more need to be spent on X, Y and Z. heading the list is NHS (bottomless pit), education, social care, social security, public sector pay, transport but there are lots of others.
The BBC, and others, give endless time to every extra spending cause without challenge or question. The other sides (how to raise it and who from, should we cut instead) get almost no attention, as at the same time no thought is ever given to spending less, spending better, or giving up public spending at all on A, B or C.
And of course the people directly or indirectly suggesting the massive increases never talk about the actuality of how it shall be found, how much and who from.
Squaring this circle is going to be hard both for Tories and for Labour. And that is while interest rates are keeping government debt cheap.
A better debate should be had, led by the BBC in which the discussion always looks at both sides of the equation.
Why is that though? Like, I genuinely don't understand it. Technology is continually improving. We should be able to do more with less. We generally continue to get richer as a country. Why is it that public services and infrastructure appear to be badly funded and yet the tax burden is reaching record highs?
Where is the money going?
Old people. That's literally it, we, as a nation, are shovelling ever more of it to those over 70.
I often think I'm in generation fucked. We're spending ever increasing amounts to provide our boomer parents with the best ever retirement, but by the time we're able to retire in our mid-70s many of us are likely to be spending all our pension on our rent so that the rentier class can continue to live it up.
You halfwit , no-one has ever provided me with a penny , rather I have paid a fortune to send yahoos to university to piss their lives up a wall and then whinge when they have to work in menial jobs, where I have to pay again to keep them in grandeur. Get out and earn enough to keep yourself loser.
I imagine that you didn't pay for your education.
I'm quite happy to believe that you're a net contributer, but we've all been benificiaries at some point.
Should someone get out and earn their keep then they're clearly going to be paying in the way you have.
No-one paid in those days
The state paid. Which was of course essentially our parents etc. Anyway you had the odd penny thrown your way. Admittedly nobody asked us whether we wanted recieve such money. I doubt we'd have said no though.
Comments
As a number of men convicted of sexual offences against women have done.
Do you think he should be able to do so by the simple step of now claiming that he feels his gender to be that of a woman?
On that narrow point I do have some sympathy for her.
What interesting timing. Someone in Downing Street may even be having a celebratory drink.
Boris reaches the Redwall in a way other Tories cannot.
With many Remain seats Cameron won in London and the South in 2015 (the only other time the Tories won a majority in the last 25 years) now Labour or LD and unlikely to return to the Tories anytime soon post Brexit, without holding most of the Redwall the Tories will lose their majority.
Had he gone last summer, Brexit done and Covid wave 1 squashed, he had a convincing story that he was the National Hero he so blatantly and desperately wants to be.
That's already a bit more dented and tarnished, and it's going to get worse from here.
And this time, there's no vaccine triumph coming over the hill.
Maxwell, 59, has spent 500 days in solitary confinement, the family declared on Twitter at the weekend, saying this contravened the “Nelson Mandela rules” adopted by the UN general assembly in 2015. Her brother Ian, 65, who has led the effort, has said he plans to bring her case before the United Nations himself.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/after-16-months-in-solitary-ghislaine-maxwell-prepares-for-her-day-in-court-x268xmtb8
Best sympathies sir from a fellow cat lover.
I'll catch you all tomorrow.
So he bows out under the April blossom. A short but incredible career, with amazing stories to tell. Publishers will clamour
"Geordie Greig has been ousted as editor of the Daily Mail after just three years in the job, in a move that could change the relationship between the right-wing newspaper and Downing Street. One individual with knowledge of Greig’s departure said it was a “power grab by Martin Clarke”, in reference to the powerful editor of MailOnline."
Clarke was a trainee of Dacre's, and shares the same swear-heavy style. Verity, the new editor, is also a Dacre protege.
Meanwhile Grieg has been the atypical Mail editor at the absolute centre of the print media's anti-sleaze coverage over the last few weeks. Dacre may be fighting a rearguard action through his proteges, to try and save the Tories from real crisis.
There is more joy in heaven etc…
Perhaps if Trump is reelected Britain Trump could get pulled into the wake of the massive grift juggernaut that 2024-2028 would undoubtedly become. A revitalised right in the USA would be just the types to pay massive amounts to hear BJ's bullshit.
The problem here is a Bayesian one, at heart. People fail to take into account that predatory devious heterosexual cis males are very very common, whereas trans women are very very rare.
Yes, concrete real examples are more compelling and some hypotheticals are bogus, but many are not.
Sure she's a flight risk, but there's no obvious reason to keep her in solitary confinement for 500 days and counting, they could keep her in genpop.
As has been noted, this is in violation of UN agreements.
A list of countries that keep people in solitary confinement for such long periods, before charge or conviction, is not a list you really want to be on.
HYUFD is pretty much the only PB tory still standing, and I don't think we have heard from him today. Who, specifically, has altered their position?
My cynical side thinks maybe Boris and Carrie are holding on so their upcoming child is born as the child of the PM for extra points on its future CV….. cannot think if any rational reason (I exclude his delusions of his own greatness) for hanging on, getting shit from people, lots of hassle, small flat to live in and crap salary when he can start living it up if he quits…..
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/voters/
PS: Life is great though , be getting winter fuel payments soon to supplement my meagre state pension.
That suggests he’s still got a couple of years in him.
If so, thanks.
In recent days the person I struck the bet with is for the first time thinking his bet will be a loser.
Though the Democrats still have the Trump card to play (and his approval rating when leaving office was even lower)
Voting on government amendment now
Christmas at Chequers is not to be underrated. Nor is Boris poor, especially when his friends pay for his wallpaper, his holidays, and even his food deliveries. But I do think he will step down before the next election. He does not seem to be having fun in the day job and defeat will hurt his ego and his price tag.
How very interesting, for all concerned.
A subject he has vast knowledge of.
Banana republic.
I'm quite happy to believe that you're a net contributer, but we've all been benificiaries at some point.
Should someone get out and earn their keep then they're clearly going to be paying in the way you have.
So the risk is that the Tories keep Boris in place to win something because they are too scared or don’t have the confidence that someone else could do better or worse. They are buggered if they really believe Boris is the only person who can win over the red wall as he will go one day……
And there might be someone who ends up appealing to the red wall but also being more popular in Scotland (yes ok a low base) and the Home Counties.
So gripping hold of Boris because of the red wall belief could ultimately screw them more in the end surely.
Chris - of course my view settles nothing. I didn't say anything so weird though.
(If only I could say that)
Well, most? some? of them.