As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
Boris was, as well as Telegraph writer, motoring correspondent for GQ. I'm surprised he does not make more of this.
But Boris will not earn millions on the business lecture circuit because he treats audiences with contempt as we have seen this week, and a few weeks ago at the Conservative Party conference.
No, the future for Boris lies on the American academic circuit, starting with seven figures as a moosehead professor at the University of Wazoo, and free to write and make hay on the after-dinner circuit.
He will get £10m for his memoirs. A fortune to see him to his grave
He is the first British Prime Minister since Thatcher with a story that the whole world wants to hear, especially the USA. Arguably, he is the most bankable PM since Churchill
This is not because he is a great PM, but simply events, dear boy. He was the winner of the Brexit referendum - one of the great geopolitical events of the century so far, and he has been PM during a once-a-century pandemic, when Britain was also at the centre of events producing vaccines AND variants
And he is a naturally good writer, and he he has had a colourful life apart from all this. Publishers will throw money at him; there will be a glossy Netflix series about him
There have been only 3 UK PMs since Churchill with truly global recognition, Thatcher, Blair and now Boris.
I would add Blair to that group too alongside Churchill, Thatcher and Boris as you suggest
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
I'd be surprised if Sunak doesn't already poll better than Johnson does given the last couple of weeks.
Is Sunak any better ? He appears, for instance, to be largely to blame for the rail debacle (though I note the Treasury is briefing that's it's all a problem of No10 'presentation').
It’s definitely not all plain sailing this week for Sunak:
FPT:
The Chancellor is getting it this week, for having let the Free Ports initiative get watered down by the Treasury civil servants, despite having authored a report on their advantage five years ago.
“The idea of reviving freeports had come from then-international trade secretary Liz Truss. She invited me and others to join a working group to push it forward. When I got there, I was pleased to see Rishi Sunak, who had recently published a think tank report extolling the virtues of freeports. I was less pleased to see ranks of Treasury civil servants, almost outnumbering those of us round the table. “They insisted on being here,” a trade official told me. This was now a joint Trade-Treasury project.
“I had the sinking feeling that — despite the support of the Prime Minister, the Trade Secretary, and the man who would become Chancellor — the freeports revival was already in its last throes. And so it proved. Oxbridge professors on the panel said freeports would only relocate jobs from one part of the UK to another. (Oxbridge economics says very little about entrepreneurship. It regards firms as a "given" rather than asking how and why new ones are generated. Hence the idea that jobs can only be moved around, not created.)
“The Treasury officials, meanwhile, complained of the complexity of changing the customs and VAT rules, hinting of fraud and tax avoidance. The number of freeports would be limited to 10 and politics, not economics, would decide where they were located. And they would have to focus on "high-tech" jobs (the politicians’ mantra) rather than what the market might produce. None of the people I suggested, who actually created or ran successful freeports around the world, were ever contacted. After one meeting, the freeports "working group" quietly expired.
“Recently there have been reports that ministers and businesses have said that Treasury is killing freeports with a lack of ambition on tax cuts and planning relaxation. This comes as the first freeport started operating in Teesside on Friday.”
Its hardly a surprise. "We can have Freeports" was hardly a selling point for Brexit that was going to stand up long term. We already had Freeports, we know why they don't do much more than move jobs around, and the "new" Freeports' main advantage vs not having one is to reverse the worst effects of Brexit on business and trade.
Johnson's "got the chance to remind voters of his authority at PMQs at noon."
Ten minutes to PMQs. I would imagine Boris is dreading it, for once. Starmer will, I suspect, go on the contempt for business shown at the CBI knockabout speech, and try to demonstrate that he has a more serious approach to business investment. Lots of material for Starmer to use. As I said before, I think Boris is safe for now, but it could be a rocky ride.
I don't disagree with the verdict on racist killer Rittenhouse - with the laws they have - and he is only 18. I hope he manages to turn things around in his life. His chances of this aren't helped by the MAGA right treating him like a hero celeb.
The people involved in the altercation with Rittenhouse were white. One of them directly pointed a gun at him first, and another was a known violent pedophile inviting people to shoot him.
The reason that the right are now treating him like a celeb, is because the left were treating him like a Nazi before they even knew the facts of the case.
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
I'd be surprised if Sunak doesn't already poll better than Johnson does given the last couple of weeks.
Is Sunak any better ? He appears, for instance, to be largely to blame for the rail debacle (though I note the Treasury is briefing that's it's all a problem of No10 'presentation').
It’s definitely not all plain sailing this week for Sunak:
FPT:
The Chancellor is getting it this week, for having let the Free Ports initiative get watered down by the Treasury civil servants, despite having authored a report on their advantage five years ago.
“The idea of reviving freeports had come from then-international trade secretary Liz Truss. She invited me and others to join a working group to push it forward. When I got there, I was pleased to see Rishi Sunak, who had recently published a think tank report extolling the virtues of freeports. I was less pleased to see ranks of Treasury civil servants, almost outnumbering those of us round the table. “They insisted on being here,” a trade official told me. This was now a joint Trade-Treasury project.
“I had the sinking feeling that — despite the support of the Prime Minister, the Trade Secretary, and the man who would become Chancellor — the freeports revival was already in its last throes. And so it proved. Oxbridge professors on the panel said freeports would only relocate jobs from one part of the UK to another. (Oxbridge economics says very little about entrepreneurship. It regards firms as a "given" rather than asking how and why new ones are generated. Hence the idea that jobs can only be moved around, not created.)
“The Treasury officials, meanwhile, complained of the complexity of changing the customs and VAT rules, hinting of fraud and tax avoidance. The number of freeports would be limited to 10 and politics, not economics, would decide where they were located. And they would have to focus on "high-tech" jobs (the politicians’ mantra) rather than what the market might produce. None of the people I suggested, who actually created or ran successful freeports around the world, were ever contacted. After one meeting, the freeports "working group" quietly expired.
“Recently there have been reports that ministers and businesses have said that Treasury is killing freeports with a lack of ambition on tax cuts and planning relaxation. This comes as the first freeport started operating in Teesside on Friday.”
Its hardly a surprise. "We can have Freeports" was hardly a selling point for Brexit that was going to stand up long term. We already had Freeports, we know why they don't do much more than move jobs around, and the "new" Freeports' main advantage vs not having one is to reverse the worst effects of Brexit on business and trade.
Is being able to “reverse the worst effects of Brexit on business and trade”, not a good thing?
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
Boris was, as well as Telegraph writer, motoring correspondent for GQ. I'm surprised he does not make more of this.
But Boris will not earn millions on the business lecture circuit because he treats audiences with contempt as we have seen this week, and a few weeks ago at the Conservative Party conference.
No, the future for Boris lies on the American academic circuit, starting with seven figures as a moosehead professor at the University of Wazoo, and free to write and make hay on the after-dinner circuit.
If people pay May hundreds of thousands to speak for an hour, because she is an ex PM, I'm sure Boris will have bidders. Surely that's the point more than what they say or how contempful they are.
I'd be furious if it was my cash, but there's sycophancy by the oil tanker load in the world.
I actually attended a speech by Mrs May, she was very good and witty, it wasn't just my low expectations of her.
I don't disagree with the verdict on racist killer Rittenhouse - with the laws they have - and he is only 18. I hope he manages to turn things around in his life. His chances of this aren't helped by the MAGA right treating him like a hero celeb.
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
Boris was, as well as Telegraph writer, motoring correspondent for GQ. I'm surprised he does not make more of this.
But Boris will not earn millions on the business lecture circuit because he treats audiences with contempt as we have seen this week, and a few weeks ago at the Conservative Party conference.
No, the future for Boris lies on the American academic circuit, starting with seven figures as a moosehead professor at the University of Wazoo, and free to write and make hay on the after-dinner circuit.
If people pay May hundreds of thousands to speak for an hour, because she is an ex PM, I'm sure Boris will have bidders. Surely that's the point more than what they say or how contempful they are.
Yes, I agree Boris will earn millions making speeches, but not on the business circuit and not the Far East. The American academic and after-dinner circuit is for Boris. Possibly telly as well, come to think of it, once the US networks see his HIGNFY collections on Youtube.
I don't disagree with the verdict on racist killer Rittenhouse - with the laws they have - and he is only 18. I hope he manages to turn things around in his life. His chances of this aren't helped by the MAGA right treating him like a hero celeb.
The people involved in the altercation with Rittenhouse were white. One of them directly pointed a gun at him first, and another was a known violent pedophile inviting people to shoot him.
The reason that the right are now treating him like a celeb, is because the left were treating him like a Nazi before they even knew the facts of the case.
Rittenhouse is a little sh*t who, in any civilised country, would be locked up for a long time.
But as you say, the facts of the case appear to be very different to how they were commonly portrayed - on both sides.
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
I'd be surprised if Sunak doesn't already poll better than Johnson does given the last couple of weeks.
Is Sunak any better ? He appears, for instance, to be largely to blame for the rail debacle (though I note the Treasury is briefing that's it's all a problem of No10 'presentation').
It’s definitely not all plain sailing this week for Sunak:
FPT:
The Chancellor is getting it this week, for having let the Free Ports initiative get watered down by the Treasury civil servants, despite having authored a report on their advantage five years ago.
“The idea of reviving freeports had come from then-international trade secretary Liz Truss. She invited me and others to join a working group to push it forward. When I got there, I was pleased to see Rishi Sunak, who had recently published a think tank report extolling the virtues of freeports. I was less pleased to see ranks of Treasury civil servants, almost outnumbering those of us round the table. “They insisted on being here,” a trade official told me. This was now a joint Trade-Treasury project.
“I had the sinking feeling that — despite the support of the Prime Minister, the Trade Secretary, and the man who would become Chancellor — the freeports revival was already in its last throes. And so it proved. Oxbridge professors on the panel said freeports would only relocate jobs from one part of the UK to another. (Oxbridge economics says very little about entrepreneurship. It regards firms as a "given" rather than asking how and why new ones are generated. Hence the idea that jobs can only be moved around, not created.)
“The Treasury officials, meanwhile, complained of the complexity of changing the customs and VAT rules, hinting of fraud and tax avoidance. The number of freeports would be limited to 10 and politics, not economics, would decide where they were located. And they would have to focus on "high-tech" jobs (the politicians’ mantra) rather than what the market might produce. None of the people I suggested, who actually created or ran successful freeports around the world, were ever contacted. After one meeting, the freeports "working group" quietly expired.
“Recently there have been reports that ministers and businesses have said that Treasury is killing freeports with a lack of ambition on tax cuts and planning relaxation. This comes as the first freeport started operating in Teesside on Friday.”
Were circumstances ever bizarre enough that I was put in charge, I would shut down the Treasury at once. And I would create a new department from the ground up with entirely new people.
Nope, I would relocate all of it to somewhere well outside London (Darlington) and get them to understand how the rest of the UK works.
But the reality is that the treasury needs separate guidance in what they are planning to do, which for levelling up means - you need to fix things so that GDP per capita is increasing higher up North than in London. And if you don't no further promotions.
The problem about not believing in wealth creation is a long running thing.
When American style venture capitalism* tried to set up here, the Treasury tried to stop it. Because investment should be done by banks, apparently.
*The key to this is letting people risk their own money directly. In America there are some rather sensible rules regarding this.
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
Boris was, as well as Telegraph writer, motoring correspondent for GQ. I'm surprised he does not make more of this.
But Boris will not earn millions on the business lecture circuit because he treats audiences with contempt as we have seen this week, and a few weeks ago at the Conservative Party conference.
No, the future for Boris lies on the American academic circuit, starting with seven figures as a moosehead professor at the University of Wazoo, and free to write and make hay on the after-dinner circuit.
He will get £10m for his memoirs. A fortune to see him to his grave
He is the first British Prime Minister since Thatcher with a story that the whole world wants to hear, especially the USA. Arguably, he is the most bankable PM since Churchill
This is not because he is a great PM, but simply events, dear boy. He was the winner of the Brexit referendum - one of the great geopolitical events of the century so far, and he has been PM during a once-a-century pandemic, when Britain was also at the centre of events producing vaccines AND variants
And he is a naturally good writer, and he he has had a colourful life apart from all this. Publishers will throw money at him; there will be a glossy Netflix series about him
There have been only 3 UK PMs since Churchill with truly global recognition, Thatcher, Blair and now Boris.
I would add Blair to that group too alongside Churchill, Thatcher and Boris as you suggest
I reckon its too early to put BJ into the same category as the others.... he's hardly a statesman
See black people protesting at murder by white cop in another state. Nope, that didn't happen. Jacob Blake is still alive. Antifa were doing most of the protesting.
Take a huge fuck-off rifle you can't legally possess and drive to the protest
Nope, that didn't happen. Drove there. Picked up the gun. Legally allowed to handle it. Hence, no gun charge.
Go out patrolling someone else's town in someone else's state pretending to be part of the local vigilante militia defending the town against uppity black communists or whatever
His family's town - Dad and other relatives live there. Footage shows him cleaning graffiti earlier in the day and putting out fires on that third night of rioting. The mob that chased him was almost all white (except for the drop kick guy). Riminskis - who fired the first shot - white. Rosenbaum - who chased him through the car lot - white. Huber - who wrestled with him on the floor - white. Grosskreutz - who was only shot when he raised his pistol at Rittenhouse - white.
There's a good reason Rittenhouse was exonerated.
It's like you're willingly ignoring details that can be independently corroborated. Like, for a start and your very first comment, Jacob Blake still being alive.
While you are completely right, Rochdale's version of events is exactly what the US media, and the BBC, have been telling us ever since it happened. I, too, watched the trial, and there was very little that was presented at trial that couldn't have been known beforehand.
Quite simply, the mainstream US media have lied about this case from Day 1, and as far more people will have read about/watched the Rittenhouse case in the US media than will have watched the trial, their lies will have been effective, and now cause many to believe that the justice system is rigged - when in this instance it wasn't.
This is far from a one off event. The Covington school scenario is another of many examples. I would no more believe the NY Times or the Washington Post than I would Fox News or Newsmax - and anyone using these as their source of record in relation to US politics is sure to get an incredibly skewed, and mostly false, perspective.
Off-topic: On today's run: I reached 2,500 miles (4,000 km) run in 2021 Running on 328 consecutive days. I ran 15.5 miles (25 km) Including a 2hr 14:28 half-marathon, on- and off-road.
I am feeling very pleased with myself. Even more so, because over a month ago I promised myself I would buy no alcohol until I reached 2,500 miles. I have a bottle of Laphroig downstairs waiting.
I apologise if my posts this afternoon get inchreesingly slurrrred ...
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
I'd be surprised if Sunak doesn't already poll better than Johnson does given the last couple of weeks.
Is Sunak any better ? He appears, for instance, to be largely to blame for the rail debacle (though I note the Treasury is briefing that's it's all a problem of No10 'presentation').
It’s definitely not all plain sailing this week for Sunak:
FPT:
The Chancellor is getting it this week, for having let the Free Ports initiative get watered down by the Treasury civil servants, despite having authored a report on their advantage five years ago.
“The idea of reviving freeports had come from then-international trade secretary Liz Truss. She invited me and others to join a working group to push it forward. When I got there, I was pleased to see Rishi Sunak, who had recently published a think tank report extolling the virtues of freeports. I was less pleased to see ranks of Treasury civil servants, almost outnumbering those of us round the table. “They insisted on being here,” a trade official told me. This was now a joint Trade-Treasury project.
“I had the sinking feeling that — despite the support of the Prime Minister, the Trade Secretary, and the man who would become Chancellor — the freeports revival was already in its last throes. And so it proved. Oxbridge professors on the panel said freeports would only relocate jobs from one part of the UK to another. (Oxbridge economics says very little about entrepreneurship. It regards firms as a "given" rather than asking how and why new ones are generated. Hence the idea that jobs can only be moved around, not created.)
“The Treasury officials, meanwhile, complained of the complexity of changing the customs and VAT rules, hinting of fraud and tax avoidance. The number of freeports would be limited to 10 and politics, not economics, would decide where they were located. And they would have to focus on "high-tech" jobs (the politicians’ mantra) rather than what the market might produce. None of the people I suggested, who actually created or ran successful freeports around the world, were ever contacted. After one meeting, the freeports "working group" quietly expired.
“Recently there have been reports that ministers and businesses have said that Treasury is killing freeports with a lack of ambition on tax cuts and planning relaxation. This comes as the first freeport started operating in Teesside on Friday.”
Were circumstances ever bizarre enough that I was put in charge, I would shut down the Treasury at once. And I would create a new department from the ground up with entirely new people.
Nope, I would relocate all of it to somewhere well outside London (Darlington) and get them to understand how the rest of the UK works.
But the reality is that the treasury needs separate guidance in what they are planning to do, which for levelling up means - you need to fix things so that GDP per capita is increasing higher up North than in London. And if you don't no further promotions.
The problem about not believing in wealth creation is a long running thing.
When American style venture capitalism* tried to set up here, the Treasury tried to stop it. Because investment should be done by banks, apparently.
*The key to this is letting people risk their own money directly. In America there are some rather sensible rules regarding this.
I can't get into specifics but I'm tempted to lodge a complaint against Barclays for false advertising with their attitude toward business banking.
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
I'd be surprised if Sunak doesn't already poll better than Johnson does given the last couple of weeks.
Is Sunak any better ? He appears, for instance, to be largely to blame for the rail debacle (though I note the Treasury is briefing that's it's all a problem of No10 'presentation').
It’s definitely not all plain sailing this week for Sunak:
FPT:
The Chancellor is getting it this week, for having let the Free Ports initiative get watered down by the Treasury civil servants, despite having authored a report on their advantage five years ago.
“The idea of reviving freeports had come from then-international trade secretary Liz Truss. She invited me and others to join a working group to push it forward. When I got there, I was pleased to see Rishi Sunak, who had recently published a think tank report extolling the virtues of freeports. I was less pleased to see ranks of Treasury civil servants, almost outnumbering those of us round the table. “They insisted on being here,” a trade official told me. This was now a joint Trade-Treasury project.
“I had the sinking feeling that — despite the support of the Prime Minister, the Trade Secretary, and the man who would become Chancellor — the freeports revival was already in its last throes. And so it proved. Oxbridge professors on the panel said freeports would only relocate jobs from one part of the UK to another. (Oxbridge economics says very little about entrepreneurship. It regards firms as a "given" rather than asking how and why new ones are generated. Hence the idea that jobs can only be moved around, not created.)
“The Treasury officials, meanwhile, complained of the complexity of changing the customs and VAT rules, hinting of fraud and tax avoidance. The number of freeports would be limited to 10 and politics, not economics, would decide where they were located. And they would have to focus on "high-tech" jobs (the politicians’ mantra) rather than what the market might produce. None of the people I suggested, who actually created or ran successful freeports around the world, were ever contacted. After one meeting, the freeports "working group" quietly expired.
“Recently there have been reports that ministers and businesses have said that Treasury is killing freeports with a lack of ambition on tax cuts and planning relaxation. This comes as the first freeport started operating in Teesside on Friday.”
Its hardly a surprise. "We can have Freeports" was hardly a selling point for Brexit that was going to stand up long term. We already had Freeports, we know why they don't do much more than move jobs around, and the "new" Freeports' main advantage vs not having one is to reverse the worst effects of Brexit on business and trade.
Is being able to “reverse the worst effects of Brexit on business and trade”, not a good thing?
Sure! But its hardly a saleable benefit of Brexit is it...
I don't disagree with the verdict on racist killer Rittenhouse - with the laws they have - and he is only 18. I hope he manages to turn things around in his life. His chances of this aren't helped by the MAGA right treating him like a hero celeb.
His chances of being loaded, feted, laid and celebrated and never having to do a day's work in his life are pretty high compared to your average 18 year old tbf.
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
I'd be surprised if Sunak doesn't already poll better than Johnson does given the last couple of weeks.
Is Sunak any better ? He appears, for instance, to be largely to blame for the rail debacle (though I note the Treasury is briefing that's it's all a problem of No10 'presentation').
It’s definitely not all plain sailing this week for Sunak:
FPT:
The Chancellor is getting it this week, for having let the Free Ports initiative get watered down by the Treasury civil servants, despite having authored a report on their advantage five years ago.
“The idea of reviving freeports had come from then-international trade secretary Liz Truss. She invited me and others to join a working group to push it forward. When I got there, I was pleased to see Rishi Sunak, who had recently published a think tank report extolling the virtues of freeports. I was less pleased to see ranks of Treasury civil servants, almost outnumbering those of us round the table. “They insisted on being here,” a trade official told me. This was now a joint Trade-Treasury project.
“I had the sinking feeling that — despite the support of the Prime Minister, the Trade Secretary, and the man who would become Chancellor — the freeports revival was already in its last throes. And so it proved. Oxbridge professors on the panel said freeports would only relocate jobs from one part of the UK to another. (Oxbridge economics says very little about entrepreneurship. It regards firms as a "given" rather than asking how and why new ones are generated. Hence the idea that jobs can only be moved around, not created.)
“The Treasury officials, meanwhile, complained of the complexity of changing the customs and VAT rules, hinting of fraud and tax avoidance. The number of freeports would be limited to 10 and politics, not economics, would decide where they were located. And they would have to focus on "high-tech" jobs (the politicians’ mantra) rather than what the market might produce. None of the people I suggested, who actually created or ran successful freeports around the world, were ever contacted. After one meeting, the freeports "working group" quietly expired.
“Recently there have been reports that ministers and businesses have said that Treasury is killing freeports with a lack of ambition on tax cuts and planning relaxation. This comes as the first freeport started operating in Teesside on Friday.”
Its hardly a surprise. "We can have Freeports" was hardly a selling point for Brexit that was going to stand up long term. We already had Freeports, we know why they don't do much more than move jobs around, and the "new" Freeports' main advantage vs not having one is to reverse the worst effects of Brexit on business and trade.
Is being able to “reverse the worst effects of Brexit on business and trade”, not a good thing?
I suspect Freeports disappeared when I jokingly asked someone - so I can set up an umbrella company there and avoid paying Employer NI? When can I begin?
Unfortunately that was to someone senior at HMRC and not a cabinet minister while writing a cheque to the Tory Party.
See black people protesting at murder by white cop in another state. Nope, that didn't happen. Jacob Blake is still alive. Antifa were doing most of the protesting.
Take a huge fuck-off rifle you can't legally possess and drive to the protest
Nope, that didn't happen. Drove there. Picked up the gun. Legally allowed to handle it. Hence, no gun charge.
Go out patrolling someone else's town in someone else's state pretending to be part of the local vigilante militia defending the town against uppity black communists or whatever
His family's town - Dad and other relatives live there. Footage shows him cleaning graffiti earlier in the day and putting out fires on that third night of rioting. The mob that chased him was almost all white (except for the drop kick guy). Riminskis - who fired the first shot - white. Rosenbaum - who chased him through the car lot - white. Huber - who wrestled with him on the floor - white. Grosskreutz - who was only shot when he raised his pistol at Rittenhouse - white.
There's a good reason Rittenhouse was exonerated.
It's like you're willingly ignoring details that can be independently corroborated. Like, for a start and your very first comment, Jacob Blake still being alive.
While you are completely right, Rochdale's version of events is exactly what the US media, and the BBC, have been telling us ever since it happened. I, too, watched the trial, and there was very little that was presented at trial that couldn't have been known beforehand.
Quite simply, the mainstream US media have lied about this case from Day 1, and as far more people will have read about/watched the Rittenhouse case in the US media than will have watched the trial, their lies will have been effective, and now cause many to believe that the justice system is rigged - when in this instance it wasn't.
This is far from a one off event. The Covington school scenario is another of many examples. I would no more believe the NY Times or the Washington Post than I would Fox News or Newsmax - and anyone using these as their source of record in relation to US politics is sure to get an incredibly skewed, and mostly false, perspective.
I am very happy to be wrong about Rittenhouse. Do you mind if I stay well clear of his country and just leave them to it?
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
I'd be surprised if Sunak doesn't already poll better than Johnson does given the last couple of weeks.
Is Sunak any better ? He appears, for instance, to be largely to blame for the rail debacle (though I note the Treasury is briefing that's it's all a problem of No10 'presentation').
It’s definitely not all plain sailing this week for Sunak:
FPT:
The Chancellor is getting it this week, for having let the Free Ports initiative get watered down by the Treasury civil servants, despite having authored a report on their advantage five years ago.
“The idea of reviving freeports had come from then-international trade secretary Liz Truss.. (snip) “Recently there have been reports that ministers and businesses have said that Treasury is killing freeports with a lack of ambition on tax cuts and planning relaxation. This comes as the first freeport started operating in Teesside on Friday.”
I doubt more than a handful of people care about, that, though. Whereas the betrayal of the north over rail is an issue of great political salience.
Possibly so, although I will continue to stand by my comments last week that most people in the north of England are much more interested in road improvements than rail, and that those pushing rail are more London-centric in their thinking.
I’m only half way through reading the actual proposal at this point, but it does seem more comprehensive than anything since Beeching, even if it’s not the full original HS2 plan. Personally, I think that both the regional improvements and the HS2 plan should have gone ahead, these are once-in-a-century projects which increase capacity significantly.
Off-topic: On today's run: I reached 2,500 miles (4,000 km) run in 2021 Running on 328 consecutive days. I ran 15.5 miles (25 km) Including a 2hr 14:28 half-marathon, on- and off-road.
I am feeling very pleased with myself. Even more so, because over a month ago I promised myself I would buy no alcohol until I reached 2,500 miles. I have a bottle of Laphroig downstairs waiting.
I apologise if my posts this afternoon get inchreesingly slurrrred ...
Nice
We will tell you when you reach 10% on the SeanT Drunk Posting Scale.
Off-topic: On today's run: I reached 2,500 miles (4,000 km) run in 2021 Running on 328 consecutive days. I ran 15.5 miles (25 km) Including a 2hr 14:28 half-marathon, on- and off-road.
I am feeling very pleased with myself. Even more so, because over a month ago I promised myself I would buy no alcohol until I reached 2,500 miles. I have a bottle of Laphroig downstairs waiting.
I apologise if my posts this afternoon get inchreesingly slurrrred ...
I hope you can wait a few more hours - Laphroig is an evening drink...
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
Boris was, as well as Telegraph writer, motoring correspondent for GQ. I'm surprised he does not make more of this.
But Boris will not earn millions on the business lecture circuit because he treats audiences with contempt as we have seen this week, and a few weeks ago at the Conservative Party conference.
No, the future for Boris lies on the American academic circuit, starting with seven figures as a moosehead professor at the University of Wazoo, and free to write and make hay on the after-dinner circuit.
If people pay May hundreds of thousands to speak for an hour, because she is an ex PM, I'm sure Boris will have bidders. Surely that's the point more than what they say or how contempful they are.
Yes, I agree Boris will earn millions making speeches, but not on the business circuit and not the Far East. The American academic and after-dinner circuit is for Boris. Possibly telly as well, come to think of it, once the US networks see his HIGNFY collections on Youtube.
Exactly. You’d be expecting entertainment, not enlightenment .
Off-topic: On today's run: I reached 2,500 miles (4,000 km) run in 2021 Running on 328 consecutive days. I ran 15.5 miles (25 km) Including a 2hr 14:28 half-marathon, on- and off-road.
I am feeling very pleased with myself. Even more so, because over a month ago I promised myself I would buy no alcohol until I reached 2,500 miles. I have a bottle of Laphroig downstairs waiting.
I apologise if my posts this afternoon get inchreesingly slurrrred ...
Incredible achievement. You've more than earned your Laphroaig, of which I'm sure you won't need a great deal to get yourself well and truly lubricated!
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
I'd be surprised if Sunak doesn't already poll better than Johnson does given the last couple of weeks.
Is Sunak any better ? He appears, for instance, to be largely to blame for the rail debacle (though I note the Treasury is briefing that's it's all a problem of No10 'presentation').
It’s definitely not all plain sailing this week for Sunak:
FPT:
The Chancellor is getting it this week, for having let the Free Ports initiative get watered down by the Treasury civil servants, despite having authored a report on their advantage five years ago.
“The idea of reviving freeports had come from then-international trade secretary Liz Truss. She invited me and others to join a working group to push it forward. When I got there, I was pleased to see Rishi Sunak, who had recently published a think tank report extolling the virtues of freeports. I was less pleased to see ranks of Treasury civil servants, almost outnumbering those of us round the table. “They insisted on being here,” a trade official told me. This was now a joint Trade-Treasury project.
“I had the sinking feeling that — despite the support of the Prime Minister, the Trade Secretary, and the man who would become Chancellor — the freeports revival was already in its last throes. And so it proved. Oxbridge professors on the panel said freeports would only relocate jobs from one part of the UK to another. (Oxbridge economics says very little about entrepreneurship. It regards firms as a "given" rather than asking how and why new ones are generated. Hence the idea that jobs can only be moved around, not created.)
“The Treasury officials, meanwhile, complained of the complexity of changing the customs and VAT rules, hinting of fraud and tax avoidance. The number of freeports would be limited to 10 and politics, not economics, would decide where they were located. And they would have to focus on "high-tech" jobs (the politicians’ mantra) rather than what the market might produce. None of the people I suggested, who actually created or ran successful freeports around the world, were ever contacted. After one meeting, the freeports "working group" quietly expired.
“Recently there have been reports that ministers and businesses have said that Treasury is killing freeports with a lack of ambition on tax cuts and planning relaxation. This comes as the first freeport started operating in Teesside on Friday.”
Were circumstances ever bizarre enough that I was put in charge, I would shut down the Treasury at once. And I would create a new department from the ground up with entirely new people.
Nope, I would relocate all of it to somewhere well outside London (Darlington) and get them to understand how the rest of the UK works.
But the reality is that the treasury needs separate guidance in what they are planning to do, which for levelling up means - you need to fix things so that GDP per capita is increasing higher up North than in London. And if you don't no further promotions.
The problem about not believing in wealth creation is a long running thing.
When American style venture capitalism* tried to set up here, the Treasury tried to stop it. Because investment should be done by banks, apparently.
*The key to this is letting people risk their own money directly. In America there are some rather sensible rules regarding this.
I can't get into specifics but I'm tempted to lodge a complaint against Barclays for false advertising with their attitude toward business banking.
I think it fair to say that borrowing money from Triad mobsters is probably a better way to get investment capital than through Barclays Business Banking. Lower interest rates, for a start.
Off-topic: On today's run: I reached 2,500 miles (4,000 km) run in 2021 Running on 328 consecutive days. I ran 15.5 miles (25 km) Including a 2hr 14:28 half-marathon, on- and off-road.
I am feeling very pleased with myself. Even more so, because over a month ago I promised myself I would buy no alcohol until I reached 2,500 miles. I have a bottle of Laphroig downstairs waiting.
I apologise if my posts this afternoon get inchreesingly slurrrred ...
Jesus. I haven't been that far by all modes of transport combined. Chapeau.
Off-topic: On today's run: I reached 2,500 miles (4,000 km) run in 2021 Running on 328 consecutive days. I ran 15.5 miles (25 km) Including a 2hr 14:28 half-marathon, on- and off-road.
I am feeling very pleased with myself. Even more so, because over a month ago I promised myself I would buy no alcohol until I reached 2,500 miles. I have a bottle of Laphroig downstairs waiting.
I apologise if my posts this afternoon get inchreesingly slurrrred ...
Have a good flight home (and don’t forget the PLF)!
See black people protesting at murder by white cop in another state. Nope, that didn't happen. Jacob Blake is still alive. Antifa were doing most of the protesting.
Take a huge fuck-off rifle you can't legally possess and drive to the protest
Nope, that didn't happen. Drove there. Picked up the gun. Legally allowed to handle it. Hence, no gun charge.
Go out patrolling someone else's town in someone else's state pretending to be part of the local vigilante militia defending the town against uppity black communists or whatever
His family's town - Dad and other relatives live there. Footage shows him cleaning graffiti earlier in the day and putting out fires on that third night of rioting. The mob that chased him was almost all white (except for the drop kick guy). Riminskis - who fired the first shot - white. Rosenbaum - who chased him through the car lot - white. Huber - who wrestled with him on the floor - white. Grosskreutz - who was only shot when he raised his pistol at Rittenhouse - white.
There's a good reason Rittenhouse was exonerated.
It's like you're willingly ignoring details that can be independently corroborated. Like, for a start and your very first comment, Jacob Blake still being alive.
While you are completely right, Rochdale's version of events is exactly what the US media, and the BBC, have been telling us ever since it happened. I, too, watched the trial, and there was very little that was presented at trial that couldn't have been known beforehand.
Quite simply, the mainstream US media have lied about this case from Day 1, and as far more people will have read about/watched the Rittenhouse case in the US media than will have watched the trial, their lies will have been effective, and now cause many to believe that the justice system is rigged - when in this instance it wasn't.
This is far from a one off event. The Covington school scenario is another of many examples. I would no more believe the NY Times or the Washington Post than I would Fox News or Newsmax - and anyone using these as their source of record in relation to US politics is sure to get an incredibly skewed, and mostly false, perspective.
I am very happy to be wrong about Rittenhouse. Do you mind if I stay well clear of his country and just leave them to it?
That sounds like wise advice. Our problems seem to pale into insignificance when you observe the perennial s***show over there.
I don't disagree with the verdict on racist killer Rittenhouse - with the laws they have - and he is only 18. I hope he manages to turn things around in his life. His chances of this aren't helped by the MAGA right treating him like a hero celeb.
The people involved in the altercation with Rittenhouse were white. One of them directly pointed a gun at him first, and another was a known violent pedophile inviting people to shoot him.
The reason that the right are now treating him like a celeb, is because the left were treating him like a Nazi before they even knew the facts of the case.
Yes he killed 2 white BLM protesters in self-defense. I know that.
You are way too generous to the MAGA right if you think they are lauding him only in response to him being villified by others.
I don't disagree with the verdict on racist killer Rittenhouse - with the laws they have - and he is only 18. I hope he manages to turn things around in his life. His chances of this aren't helped by the MAGA right treating him like a hero celeb.
The people involved in the altercation with Rittenhouse were white. One of them directly pointed a gun at him first, and another was a known violent pedophile inviting people to shoot him.
The reason that the right are now treating him like a celeb, is because the left were treating him like a Nazi before they even knew the facts of the case.
Rittenhouse is a little sh*t who, in any civilised country, would be locked up for a long time.
But as you say, the facts of the case appear to be very different to how they were commonly portrayed - on both sides.
The incident itself, the trial, and the reporting around both, show in a nutshell how screwed-up things are in the US at the moment. Everything has to be polarised and politicised, there are no shades of grey, opinions are presented as facts, and everyone is shouting to their own audience.
Possibly the best commentary I’ve seen was the interview between Joe Rogan and journalist Tim Pool, who spend two weeks watching both the trial itself and much of the reporting around it. It’s on Spotify at the moment, perhaps it will be on Youtube in the next couple of days. Breaking Points podcast (the old The Hill presenters Krystal and Saagar) was also very good. https://youtube.com/watch?v=bUBBY4AHpjI
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
I'd be surprised if Sunak doesn't already poll better than Johnson does given the last couple of weeks.
Is Sunak any better ? He appears, for instance, to be largely to blame for the rail debacle (though I note the Treasury is briefing that's it's all a problem of No10 'presentation').
It’s definitely not all plain sailing this week for Sunak:
FPT:
The Chancellor is getting it this week, for having let the Free Ports initiative get watered down by the Treasury civil servants, despite having authored a report on their advantage five years ago.
“The idea of reviving freeports had come from then-international trade secretary Liz Truss. She invited me and others to join a working group to push it forward. When I got there, I was pleased to see Rishi Sunak, who had recently published a think tank report extolling the virtues of freeports. I was less pleased to see ranks of Treasury civil servants, almost outnumbering those of us round the table. “They insisted on being here,” a trade official told me. This was now a joint Trade-Treasury project.
“I had the sinking feeling that — despite the support of the Prime Minister, the Trade Secretary, and the man who would become Chancellor — the freeports revival was already in its last throes. And so it proved. Oxbridge professors on the panel said freeports would only relocate jobs from one part of the UK to another. (Oxbridge economics says very little about entrepreneurship. It regards firms as a "given" rather than asking how and why new ones are generated. Hence the idea that jobs can only be moved around, not created.)
“The Treasury officials, meanwhile, complained of the complexity of changing the customs and VAT rules, hinting of fraud and tax avoidance. The number of freeports would be limited to 10 and politics, not economics, would decide where they were located. And they would have to focus on "high-tech" jobs (the politicians’ mantra) rather than what the market might produce. None of the people I suggested, who actually created or ran successful freeports around the world, were ever contacted. After one meeting, the freeports "working group" quietly expired.
“Recently there have been reports that ministers and businesses have said that Treasury is killing freeports with a lack of ambition on tax cuts and planning relaxation. This comes as the first freeport started operating in Teesside on Friday.”
The whole purpose of the civil service is to kick the tyres on ministers' pet projects to make sure they will actually deliver good value for taxpayers. The shortcomings of free ports - that they simply divert activity from elsewhere in the country while undermining tax revenue - are well understood, and it would be worrying if Treasury officials weren't pointing this out.
Telling that Boris Johnson cannot answer that yes or no question.
What question was it? As in fairness many yes or no questions that are put cannot properly be answered in a non misleading way if you are told to say just yes or no.
Which is why people demand it of course.
That said I can easily believe he fails to answer do even when appropriate and easy.
One of Starmer or Johnson doesn’t understand the care proposals.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we are seeing the opening of the gates of hell for Peppa. He quite clearly doesn't know his own policy, doesn't know the detail, doesn't have a clue about reality.
"You will not need to sell your house" will not last the end of PMQs will it.
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
Boris was, as well as Telegraph writer, motoring correspondent for GQ. I'm surprised he does not make more of this.
But Boris will not earn millions on the business lecture circuit because he treats audiences with contempt as we have seen this week, and a few weeks ago at the Conservative Party conference.
No, the future for Boris lies on the American academic circuit, starting with seven figures as a moosehead professor at the University of Wazoo, and free to write and make hay on the after-dinner circuit.
He will get £10m for his memoirs. A fortune to see him to his grave
He is the first British Prime Minister since Thatcher with a story that the whole world wants to hear, especially the USA. Arguably, he is the most bankable PM since Churchill
This is not because he is a great PM, but simply events, dear boy. He was the winner of the Brexit referendum - one of the great geopolitical events of the century so far, and he has been PM during a once-a-century pandemic, when Britain was also at the centre of events producing vaccines AND variants
And he is a naturally good writer, and he he has had a colourful life apart from all this. Publishers will throw money at him; there will be a glossy Netflix series about him
I don't think Johnson is a particularly readable writer. He gets lost in rather a lot of florid nonsense. Compare and contrast with the travelogues of @SeanT formerly of this parish who if you care to look at his travel writing work is far more fluent than Johnson, although some of his more subjective writing less so.
Johnson will make a fortune as an after dinner speaker. I wouldn't pay money to see him. He is not a raconteur of the quality of Ustinov for example, but many will
Telling that Boris Johnson cannot answer that yes or no question.
What question was it? As in fairness many yes or no questions that are put cannot properly be answered in a non misleading way if you are told to say just yes or no.
Which is why people demand it of course.
That said I can easily believe he fails to answer do even when appropriate and easy.
Will people need to sell their homes to fund social care.
I don't disagree with the verdict on racist killer Rittenhouse - with the laws they have - and he is only 18. I hope he manages to turn things around in his life. His chances of this aren't helped by the MAGA right treating him like a hero celeb.
His chances of being loaded, feted, laid and celebrated and never having to do a day's work in his life are pretty high compared to your average 18 year old tbf.
Yep. Not what I meant by 'turning his life around' but I fear he would disagree.
Anyway, I'm just glad that however people want to treat the whys and wherefores of America that we don't have the same gun madness as they do.
You can't even argue that their possession of guns is the issue. Other countries have a lot of guns and manage to avoid the American problem.
What I find fascinating (in a grim way) is the response to mass shootings. When Hungerford happened, or Dunblane, the UK response is to try to reduce gun ownership/use. In the US, many people think the answer is more guns, so that active shooters can be taken out by any passing, armed, person.
See Canada too. A very relevant comparison. 20m firearms. Same response to mass shootings.
It's quite understandable that when gun ownership reaches a certain level so many people want to own guns for their own protection that the situation becomes irreversible.
We should just be thankful that in the UK we are not at that level.
Who will be their Toyotomi Hideyoshi and ban (peasants) from carrying weapons? (Despite having been a peasant IIRC)
He was quite deliberately pulling up the ladder, to make sure that no more peasants turned themselves into Toyotomi Hideyoshi....
Sound strategy. Our politicians should take note.
Also avoid invading Korea.
Our Tory masters are already implementing that strategy (ladder I mean). Vide student grants/loans. Vide one of us on PB saying the other day it was quite right and proper that posh people spoke RP to emphasise their right to rule (I paraphrase, so won't name the poster).
Off-topic: On today's run: I reached 2,500 miles (4,000 km) run in 2021 Running on 328 consecutive days. I ran 15.5 miles (25 km) Including a 2hr 14:28 half-marathon, on- and off-road.
I am feeling very pleased with myself. Even more so, because over a month ago I promised myself I would buy no alcohol until I reached 2,500 miles. I have a bottle of Laphroig downstairs waiting.
I apologise if my posts this afternoon get inchreesingly slurrrred ...
Bloody Hell!!! I was worried that a few days in bed last week might threaten my 10,000 steps a day target this month!
The first job of every speechwriter — and giver — is to rise to the occasion. Boris Johnson failed on this basic requirement. At a time of profound economic uncertainty, what business leaders need to hear is a message of reassurance — not a sequence of rambling asides and silly noises.
Boris is at his best when some kind of external order is imposed upon him. As Mayor of London he was subject to the control of Downing Street. As a columnist, his talents shone most brightly when patient editors were on hand to polish his literary gems. But as Prime Minister, he’s been set free to follow his worst instincts.
Boris needs a Willie — and his critics in the party should insist that he gets one…. I’d look to Alok Sharma. The former Business Secretary is widely respected. His role as President of the COP26 conference has demonstrated his grasp of detail and his diplomatic finesse. He is trusted by his colleagues, including the Prime Minister, and has no obvious leadership ambitions. And now that COP26 is over, he’s in need of a new job.
I don't disagree with the verdict on racist killer Rittenhouse - with the laws they have - and he is only 18. I hope he manages to turn things around in his life. His chances of this aren't helped by the MAGA right treating him like a hero celeb.
The people involved in the altercation with Rittenhouse were white. One of them directly pointed a gun at him first, and another was a known violent pedophile inviting people to shoot him.
The reason that the right are now treating him like a celeb, is because the left were treating him like a Nazi before they even knew the facts of the case.
Yes he killed 2 white BLM protesters in self-defense. I know that.
You are way too generous to the MAGA right if you think they are lauding him only in response to him being villified by others.
According to the Independent headline the victims were black.
Telling that Boris Johnson cannot answer that yes or no question.
What question was it? As in fairness many yes or no questions that are put cannot properly be answered in a non misleading way if you are told to say just yes or no.
Which is why people demand it of course.
That said I can easily believe he fails to answer do even when appropriate and easy.
Will people need to sell their homes to fund social care.
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
I'd be surprised if Sunak doesn't already poll better than Johnson does given the last couple of weeks.
Is Sunak any better ? He appears, for instance, to be largely to blame for the rail debacle (though I note the Treasury is briefing that's it's all a problem of No10 'presentation').
It’s definitely not all plain sailing this week for Sunak:
FPT:
The Chancellor is getting it this week, for having let the Free Ports initiative get watered down by the Treasury civil servants, despite having authored a report on their advantage five years ago.
“The idea of reviving freeports had come from then-international trade secretary Liz Truss. She invited me and others to join a working group to push it forward. When I got there, I was pleased to see Rishi Sunak, who had recently published a think tank report extolling the virtues of freeports. I was less pleased to see ranks of Treasury civil servants, almost outnumbering those of us round the table. “They insisted on being here,” a trade official told me. This was now a joint Trade-Treasury project.
“I had the sinking feeling that — despite the support of the Prime Minister, the Trade Secretary, and the man who would become Chancellor — the freeports revival was already in its last throes. And so it proved. Oxbridge professors on the panel said freeports would only relocate jobs from one part of the UK to another. (Oxbridge economics says very little about entrepreneurship. It regards firms as a "given" rather than asking how and why new ones are generated. Hence the idea that jobs can only be moved around, not created.)
“The Treasury officials, meanwhile, complained of the complexity of changing the customs and VAT rules, hinting of fraud and tax avoidance. The number of freeports would be limited to 10 and politics, not economics, would decide where they were located. And they would have to focus on "high-tech" jobs (the politicians’ mantra) rather than what the market might produce. None of the people I suggested, who actually created or ran successful freeports around the world, were ever contacted. After one meeting, the freeports "working group" quietly expired.
“Recently there have been reports that ministers and businesses have said that Treasury is killing freeports with a lack of ambition on tax cuts and planning relaxation. This comes as the first freeport started operating in Teesside on Friday.”
Its hardly a surprise. "We can have Freeports" was hardly a selling point for Brexit that was going to stand up long term. We already had Freeports, we know why they don't do much more than move jobs around, and the "new" Freeports' main advantage vs not having one is to reverse the worst effects of Brexit on business and trade.
Is being able to “reverse the worst effects of Brexit on business and trade”, not a good thing?
I suspect Freeports disappeared when I jokingly asked someone - so I can set up an umbrella company there and avoid paying Employer NI? When can I begin?
Unfortunately that was to someone senior at HMRC and not a cabinet minister while writing a cheque to the Tory Party.
To which the answer is, only if you are trading with people within the free zone. If you want to trade outside the free zone, you need an ‘onshore’ company.
Telling that Boris Johnson cannot answer that yes or no question.
What question was it? As in fairness many yes or no questions that are put cannot properly be answered in a non misleading way if you are told to say just yes or no.
Which is why people demand it of course.
That said I can easily believe he fails to answer do even when appropriate and easy.
Will people need to sell their homes to fund social care.
Yes or no.
Yes, that one is pretty straightforward.
Not according to the Prime Minister who has spent the entire 6 question period from Starmer saying that no they won't.
See black people protesting at murder by white cop in another state. Nope, that didn't happen. Jacob Blake is still alive. Antifa were doing most of the protesting.
Take a huge fuck-off rifle you can't legally possess and drive to the protest
Nope, that didn't happen. Drove there. Picked up the gun. Legally allowed to handle it. Hence, no gun charge.
Go out patrolling someone else's town in someone else's state pretending to be part of the local vigilante militia defending the town against uppity black communists or whatever
His family's town - Dad and other relatives live there. Footage shows him cleaning graffiti earlier in the day and putting out fires on that third night of rioting. The mob that chased him was almost all white (except for the drop kick guy). Riminskis - who fired the first shot - white. Rosenbaum - who chased him through the car lot - white. Huber - who wrestled with him on the floor - white. Grosskreutz - who was only shot when he raised his pistol at Rittenhouse - white.
There's a good reason Rittenhouse was exonerated.
It's like you're willingly ignoring details that can be independently corroborated. Like, for a start and your very first comment, Jacob Blake still being alive.
While you are completely right, Rochdale's version of events is exactly what the US media, and the BBC, have been telling us ever since it happened. I, too, watched the trial, and there was very little that was presented at trial that couldn't have been known beforehand.
Quite simply, the mainstream US media have lied about this case from Day 1, and as far more people will have read about/watched the Rittenhouse case in the US media than will have watched the trial, their lies will have been effective, and now cause many to believe that the justice system is rigged - when in this instance it wasn't.
This is far from a one off event. The Covington school scenario is another of many examples. I would no more believe the NY Times or the Washington Post than I would Fox News or Newsmax - and anyone using these as their source of record in relation to US politics is sure to get an incredibly skewed, and mostly false, perspective.
A very wealthy, liberal friend, half American and highly educated - with a house in LA - invited me to his private suite to watch Chelsea Juventus at the Bridge last night
We got talking about Rittenhouse. A case he had FOLLOWED. He was convinced Rittenhouse killed at least one black man. It took some persuasion to make him grasp the truth
He gets all his American news from the NYT, CNN, which happily lie and lie again. As you say
Btw it was an excellent match. I might adopt Chelsea as my team. They were superb
I don't disagree with the verdict on racist killer Rittenhouse - with the laws they have - and he is only 18. I hope he manages to turn things around in his life. His chances of this aren't helped by the MAGA right treating him like a hero celeb.
He is claiming to support BLM, at the moment.
Well that's a good start if sincere. Which I have to rather doubt. But I just meant lose the guns and the softhead MAGA mindset. Then the world's his oyster.
I don't disagree with the verdict on racist killer Rittenhouse - with the laws they have - and he is only 18. I hope he manages to turn things around in his life. His chances of this aren't helped by the MAGA right treating him like a hero celeb.
The people involved in the altercation with Rittenhouse were white. One of them directly pointed a gun at him first, and another was a known violent pedophile inviting people to shoot him.
The reason that the right are now treating him like a celeb, is because the left were treating him like a Nazi before they even knew the facts of the case.
Yes he killed 2 white BLM protesters in self-defense. I know that.
You are way too generous to the MAGA right if you think they are lauding him only in response to him being villified by others.
According to the Independent headline the victims were black.
Though perhaps they just meant acting black?
Just following the lead of a number of US papers and news channels who tried to imply that the men he shot were black.
Fairly good performance from Starmer, while at least some or many of Boris's MP's also seem in the mood to give him another chance from his point of view. Not much shifted here or there.
David Cameron said to be good at PMQs you need a cruel streak.
Starmer is displaying some of it today.
As LOTA or PM? I presume the latter. I seem to remember Clegg was far better standing in as cover than Cameron was at it. Though I haven't watched it for years.
Off-topic: On today's run: I reached 2,500 miles (4,000 km) run in 2021 Running on 328 consecutive days. I ran 15.5 miles (25 km) Including a 2hr 14:28 half-marathon, on- and off-road.
I am feeling very pleased with myself. Even more so, because over a month ago I promised myself I would buy no alcohol until I reached 2,500 miles. I have a bottle of Laphroig downstairs waiting.
I apologise if my posts this afternoon get inchreesingly slurrrred ...
Have a good flight home (and don’t forget the PLF)!
I wish! All bar six of the runs have been in an area bounded by Huntingdon, Cambridge, Royston and Sandy. I'm rapidly running out of unrun roads and paths in that area...
Today's run was from my home in Cambourne down into Cambridge via Hardwick and Coton, then running a little around some roads in the town, before ending up at a Greggs, and then a bus home. I know how to live ...
Fairly good performance from Starmer, while at least some of Boris's MP's also seem in the mood to give him another chance from his point of view. Not much shifted here or there.
I imagine they felt they made their point and/or got a bollocking after the bare benches last week.
As columnist on the Telegraph Boris was earning £275,000 a year, only about £100k more than he gets as PM now and without the rent and mortgage free town house in Westminster and mansion in Buckinghamshire (with chef and staff) and government provided chauffeur driven car and police escort and flights he gets as perks of his job as PM.
If he stayed PM through the next general election and won it and headed to 10 years as PM he would be in the Blair and Thatcher league and could command millions on the lecture circuit as they did.
So Boris will want to stay and Tory MPs won't remove him unless Labour gets a clear poll lead and an alternative Tory leader polls better against Starmer than he does
Boris was, as well as Telegraph writer, motoring correspondent for GQ. I'm surprised he does not make more of this.
But Boris will not earn millions on the business lecture circuit because he treats audiences with contempt as we have seen this week, and a few weeks ago at the Conservative Party conference.
No, the future for Boris lies on the American academic circuit, starting with seven figures as a moosehead professor at the University of Wazoo, and free to write and make hay on the after-dinner circuit.
He will get £10m for his memoirs. A fortune to see him to his grave
He is the first British Prime Minister since Thatcher with a story that the whole world wants to hear, especially the USA. Arguably, he is the most bankable PM since Churchill
This is not because he is a great PM, but simply events, dear boy. He was the winner of the Brexit referendum - one of the great geopolitical events of the century so far, and he has been PM during a once-a-century pandemic, when Britain was also at the centre of events producing vaccines AND variants
And he is a naturally good writer, and he he has had a colourful life apart from all this. Publishers will throw money at him; there will be a glossy Netflix series about him
I don't think Johnson is a particularly readable writer. He gets lost in rather a lot of florid nonsense. Compare and contrast with the travelogues of @SeanT formerly of this parish who if you care to look at his travel writing work is far more fluent than Johnson, although some of his more subjective writing less so.
Johnson will make a fortune as an after dinner speaker. I wouldn't pay money to see him. He is not a raconteur of the quality of Ustinov for example, but many will
I agree. He’s a good writer (as I said) not a great one like some others you mentioned
But being a good professional writer sets him well above 99% of prime ministers. And his story is amazing simply because of the epochal events he has seen/steered
I don’t want to disagree with a thread header, but the Boris fighting back from choppy time mid term as other PMs have done is different because unlike those other prime ministers at no point has Boris ever looked, sounded or acted like a Prime Minister. He is in there solely on promise and promises, once he no longer has promise and is only broken promises he has nothing.
See black people protesting at murder by white cop in another state. Nope, that didn't happen. Jacob Blake is still alive. Antifa were doing most of the protesting.
Take a huge fuck-off rifle you can't legally possess and drive to the protest
Nope, that didn't happen. Drove there. Picked up the gun. Legally allowed to handle it. Hence, no gun charge.
Go out patrolling someone else's town in someone else's state pretending to be part of the local vigilante militia defending the town against uppity black communists or whatever
His family's town - Dad and other relatives live there. Footage shows him cleaning graffiti earlier in the day and putting out fires on that third night of rioting. The mob that chased him was almost all white (except for the drop kick guy). Riminskis - who fired the first shot - white. Rosenbaum - who chased him through the car lot - white. Huber - who wrestled with him on the floor - white. Grosskreutz - who was only shot when he raised his pistol at Rittenhouse - white.
There's a good reason Rittenhouse was exonerated.
It's like you're willingly ignoring details that can be independently corroborated. Like, for a start and your very first comment, Jacob Blake still being alive.
While you are completely right, Rochdale's version of events is exactly what the US media, and the BBC, have been telling us ever since it happened. I, too, watched the trial, and there was very little that was presented at trial that couldn't have been known beforehand.
Quite simply, the mainstream US media have lied about this case from Day 1, and as far more people will have read about/watched the Rittenhouse case in the US media than will have watched the trial, their lies will have been effective, and now cause many to believe that the justice system is rigged - when in this instance it wasn't.
This is far from a one off event. The Covington school scenario is another of many examples. I would no more believe the NY Times or the Washington Post than I would Fox News or Newsmax - and anyone using these as their source of record in relation to US politics is sure to get an incredibly skewed, and mostly false, perspective.
A very wealthy, liberal friend, half American and highly educated - with a house in LA - invited me to his private suite to watch Chelsea Juventus at the Bridge last night
We got talking about Rittenhouse. A case he had FOLLOWED. He was convinced Rittenhouse killed at least one black man. It took some persuasion to make him grasp the truth
He gets all his American news from the NYT, CNN, which happily lie and lie again. As you say
Btw it was an excellent match. I might adopt Chelsea as my team. They were superb
David Cameron said to be good at PMQs you need a cruel streak.
Starmer is displaying some of it today.
As LOTA or PM? I presume the latter. I seem to remember Clegg was far better standing in as cover than Cameron was at it. Though I haven't watched it for years.
Both, it was said the best PMs at PMQs who had previously done long stints at PMQs at LOTO.
There are no votes to be had in solving the social care problem. That much is clear.
This is why you need to elect me as the country's first directly elected dictator on a 25 year term.
It's one of the weaknesses in our system that parliament could change the voting terms to 25 years on a simple majority. It's one area where the (much higher) US bar is better than our system.
There are no votes to be had in solving the social care problem. That much is clear.
This is why you need to elect me as the country's first directly elected dictator on a 25 year term.
It's one of the weaknesses in our system that parliament could change the voting terms to 25 years on a simple majority. It's one area where the (much higher) US bar is better than our system.
Could the monarch say "no" and refuse to sign the bill?
See black people protesting at murder by white cop in another state. Nope, that didn't happen. Jacob Blake is still alive. Antifa were doing most of the protesting.
Take a huge fuck-off rifle you can't legally possess and drive to the protest
Nope, that didn't happen. Drove there. Picked up the gun. Legally allowed to handle it. Hence, no gun charge.
Go out patrolling someone else's town in someone else's state pretending to be part of the local vigilante militia defending the town against uppity black communists or whatever
His family's town - Dad and other relatives live there. Footage shows him cleaning graffiti earlier in the day and putting out fires on that third night of rioting. The mob that chased him was almost all white (except for the drop kick guy). Riminskis - who fired the first shot - white. Rosenbaum - who chased him through the car lot - white. Huber - who wrestled with him on the floor - white. Grosskreutz - who was only shot when he raised his pistol at Rittenhouse - white.
There's a good reason Rittenhouse was exonerated.
It's like you're willingly ignoring details that can be independently corroborated. Like, for a start and your very first comment, Jacob Blake still being alive.
While you are completely right, Rochdale's version of events is exactly what the US media, and the BBC, have been telling us ever since it happened. I, too, watched the trial, and there was very little that was presented at trial that couldn't have been known beforehand.
Quite simply, the mainstream US media have lied about this case from Day 1, and as far more people will have read about/watched the Rittenhouse case in the US media than will have watched the trial, their lies will have been effective, and now cause many to believe that the justice system is rigged - when in this instance it wasn't.
This is far from a one off event. The Covington school scenario is another of many examples. I would no more believe the NY Times or the Washington Post than I would Fox News or Newsmax - and anyone using these as their source of record in relation to US politics is sure to get an incredibly skewed, and mostly false, perspective.
A very wealthy, liberal friend, half American and highly educated - with a house in LA - invited me to his private suite to watch Chelsea Juventus at the Bridge last night
We got talking about Rittenhouse. A case he had FOLLOWED. He was convinced Rittenhouse killed at least one black man. It took some persuasion to make him grasp the truth
He gets all his American news from the NYT, CNN, which happily lie and lie again. As you say
Btw it was an excellent match. I might adopt Chelsea as my team. They were superb
You can't just adopt a team.
I’ll do what I like. What the fuck is it with this Lefty predisposition to tell people what they can and can’t do? It even extends to football. Go jump in the Serpentine
See black people protesting at murder by white cop in another state. Nope, that didn't happen. Jacob Blake is still alive. Antifa were doing most of the protesting.
Take a huge fuck-off rifle you can't legally possess and drive to the protest
Nope, that didn't happen. Drove there. Picked up the gun. Legally allowed to handle it. Hence, no gun charge.
Go out patrolling someone else's town in someone else's state pretending to be part of the local vigilante militia defending the town against uppity black communists or whatever
His family's town - Dad and other relatives live there. Footage shows him cleaning graffiti earlier in the day and putting out fires on that third night of rioting. The mob that chased him was almost all white (except for the drop kick guy). Riminskis - who fired the first shot - white. Rosenbaum - who chased him through the car lot - white. Huber - who wrestled with him on the floor - white. Grosskreutz - who was only shot when he raised his pistol at Rittenhouse - white.
There's a good reason Rittenhouse was exonerated.
It's like you're willingly ignoring details that can be independently corroborated. Like, for a start and your very first comment, Jacob Blake still being alive.
While you are completely right, Rochdale's version of events is exactly what the US media, and the BBC, have been telling us ever since it happened. I, too, watched the trial, and there was very little that was presented at trial that couldn't have been known beforehand.
Quite simply, the mainstream US media have lied about this case from Day 1, and as far more people will have read about/watched the Rittenhouse case in the US media than will have watched the trial, their lies will have been effective, and now cause many to believe that the justice system is rigged - when in this instance it wasn't.
This is far from a one off event. The Covington school scenario is another of many examples. I would no more believe the NY Times or the Washington Post than I would Fox News or Newsmax - and anyone using these as their source of record in relation to US politics is sure to get an incredibly skewed, and mostly false, perspective.
A very wealthy, liberal friend, half American and highly educated - with a house in LA - invited me to his private suite to watch Chelsea Juventus at the Bridge last night
We got talking about Rittenhouse. A case he had FOLLOWED. He was convinced Rittenhouse killed at least one black man. It took some persuasion to make him grasp the truth
He gets all his American news from the NYT, CNN, which happily lie and lie again. As you say
Btw it was an excellent match. I might adopt Chelsea as my team. They were superb
You can't just adopt a team.
Alhough, that never stopped the Saudis at Newcastle, the former President of Thailand at Manchester City, or any other number of famous owners.
There are no votes to be had in solving the social care problem. That much is clear.
This is why you need to elect me as the country's first directly elected dictator on a 25 year term.
It's one of the weaknesses in our system that parliament could change the voting terms to 25 years on a simple majority. It's one area where the (much higher) US bar is better than our system.
Works fine in both if people follow the spirit of the rules. The letter of their rules are better in several instances but letter doesnt matter as much as it should if the spirit is abandoned.
There are no votes to be had in solving the social care problem. That much is clear.
This is why you need to elect me as the country's first directly elected dictator on a 25 year term.
It's one of the weaknesses in our system that parliament could change the voting terms to 25 years on a simple majority. It's one area where the (much higher) US bar is better than our system.
Could the monarch say "no" and refuse to sign the bill?
Yes but the monarchy would be over if they were rejecting a manifesto commitment.
See black people protesting at murder by white cop in another state. Nope, that didn't happen. Jacob Blake is still alive. Antifa were doing most of the protesting.
Take a huge fuck-off rifle you can't legally possess and drive to the protest
Nope, that didn't happen. Drove there. Picked up the gun. Legally allowed to handle it. Hence, no gun charge.
Go out patrolling someone else's town in someone else's state pretending to be part of the local vigilante militia defending the town against uppity black communists or whatever
His family's town - Dad and other relatives live there. Footage shows him cleaning graffiti earlier in the day and putting out fires on that third night of rioting. The mob that chased him was almost all white (except for the drop kick guy). Riminskis - who fired the first shot - white. Rosenbaum - who chased him through the car lot - white. Huber - who wrestled with him on the floor - white. Grosskreutz - who was only shot when he raised his pistol at Rittenhouse - white.
There's a good reason Rittenhouse was exonerated.
It's like you're willingly ignoring details that can be independently corroborated. Like, for a start and your very first comment, Jacob Blake still being alive.
While you are completely right, Rochdale's version of events is exactly what the US media, and the BBC, have been telling us ever since it happened. I, too, watched the trial, and there was very little that was presented at trial that couldn't have been known beforehand.
Quite simply, the mainstream US media have lied about this case from Day 1, and as far more people will have read about/watched the Rittenhouse case in the US media than will have watched the trial, their lies will have been effective, and now cause many to believe that the justice system is rigged - when in this instance it wasn't.
This is far from a one off event. The Covington school scenario is another of many examples. I would no more believe the NY Times or the Washington Post than I would Fox News or Newsmax - and anyone using these as their source of record in relation to US politics is sure to get an incredibly skewed, and mostly false, perspective.
A very wealthy, liberal friend, half American and highly educated - with a house in LA - invited me to his private suite to watch Chelsea Juventus at the Bridge last night
We got talking about Rittenhouse. A case he had FOLLOWED. He was convinced Rittenhouse killed at least one black man. It took some persuasion to make him grasp the truth
He gets all his American news from the NYT, CNN, which happily lie and lie again. As you say
Btw it was an excellent match. I might adopt Chelsea as my team. They were superb
You can't just adopt a team.
Course you can. What if you only got into football late on for a start?
I chose pretty randomly at 8-9 and its that for life though.
I don't disagree with the verdict on racist killer Rittenhouse - with the laws they have - and he is only 18. I hope he manages to turn things around in his life. His chances of this aren't helped by the MAGA right treating him like a hero celeb.
The people involved in the altercation with Rittenhouse were white. One of them directly pointed a gun at him first, and another was a known violent pedophile inviting people to shoot him.
The reason that the right are now treating him like a celeb, is because the left were treating him like a Nazi before they even knew the facts of the case.
Yes he killed 2 white BLM protesters in self-defense. I know that.
You are way too generous to the MAGA right if you think they are lauding him only in response to him being villified by others.
According to the Independent headline the victims were black.
Though perhaps they just meant acting black?
Well the US left have already taken to calling black Republicans white supremacists.
There are no votes to be had in solving the social care problem. That much is clear.
This is why you need to elect me as the country's first directly elected dictator on a 25 year term.
It's one of the weaknesses in our system that parliament could change the voting terms to 25 years on a simple majority. It's one area where the (much higher) US bar is better than our system.
Could the monarch say "no" and refuse to sign the bill?
Yes but the monarchy would be over if they were rejecting a manifesto commitment.
If the monarch was rejecting a bill that prevented general elections being held at minimum every 5 years then of course they would be constitutionally able to.
Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament, not Parliament alone acting as a dictatorship and preventing the voters having the chance to re elect MPs
There are no votes to be had in solving the social care problem. That much is clear.
This is why you need to elect me as the country's first directly elected dictator on a 25 year term.
It's one of the weaknesses in our system that parliament could change the voting terms to 25 years on a simple majority. It's one area where the (much higher) US bar is better than our system.
Could the monarch say "no" and refuse to sign the bill?
Yes. And she would be expected to. As the ultimate protector of the constitution.
There are no votes to be had in solving the social care problem. That much is clear.
This is why you need to elect me as the country's first directly elected dictator on a 25 year term.
It's one of the weaknesses in our system that parliament could change the voting terms to 25 years on a simple majority. It's one area where the (much higher) US bar is better than our system.
Could the monarch say "no" and refuse to sign the bill?
Yes but the monarchy would be over if they were rejecting a manifesto commitment.
And why on earth would the monarch not want to sign a bill that protects most inherited wealth and property anyway? Hardly something the royal family is opposed to
There are no votes to be had in solving the social care problem. That much is clear.
This is why you need to elect me as the country's first directly elected dictator on a 25 year term.
It's one of the weaknesses in our system that parliament could change the voting terms to 25 years on a simple majority. It's one area where the (much higher) US bar is better than our system.
Could the monarch say "no" and refuse to sign the bill?
BBC Sport says Michael Vaughan will not have a role in its Ashes coverage this winter “for editorial reasons” after allegations of a racist remark in 2009 towards a group of Asian players when he played for Yorkshire. Vaughan denies the allegation.
Vaughan, who has been an expert analyst, commentator and presenter at the corporation since 2009, had already been stood down by the BBC from Radio 5 live’s Tuffers and Vaughan Show earlier this month after two cricketers said they heard the former England captain make racist comments while playing for Yorkshire in 2009.
The decision came after Vaughan, who has worked as an expert summariser and analyst on Test Match Special for 12 years, was accused of telling three players of Asian descent that there were “too many of you lot, we need to do something about it” before a county match in Nottingham.
See black people protesting at murder by white cop in another state. Nope, that didn't happen. Jacob Blake is still alive. Antifa were doing most of the protesting.
Take a huge fuck-off rifle you can't legally possess and drive to the protest
Nope, that didn't happen. Drove there. Picked up the gun. Legally allowed to handle it. Hence, no gun charge.
Go out patrolling someone else's town in someone else's state pretending to be part of the local vigilante militia defending the town against uppity black communists or whatever
His family's town - Dad and other relatives live there. Footage shows him cleaning graffiti earlier in the day and putting out fires on that third night of rioting. The mob that chased him was almost all white (except for the drop kick guy). Riminskis - who fired the first shot - white. Rosenbaum - who chased him through the car lot - white. Huber - who wrestled with him on the floor - white. Grosskreutz - who was only shot when he raised his pistol at Rittenhouse - white.
There's a good reason Rittenhouse was exonerated.
It's like you're willingly ignoring details that can be independently corroborated. Like, for a start and your very first comment, Jacob Blake still being alive.
While you are completely right, Rochdale's version of events is exactly what the US media, and the BBC, have been telling us ever since it happened. I, too, watched the trial, and there was very little that was presented at trial that couldn't have been known beforehand.
Quite simply, the mainstream US media have lied about this case from Day 1, and as far more people will have read about/watched the Rittenhouse case in the US media than will have watched the trial, their lies will have been effective, and now cause many to believe that the justice system is rigged - when in this instance it wasn't.
This is far from a one off event. The Covington school scenario is another of many examples. I would no more believe the NY Times or the Washington Post than I would Fox News or Newsmax - and anyone using these as their source of record in relation to US politics is sure to get an incredibly skewed, and mostly false, perspective.
A very wealthy, liberal friend, half American and highly educated - with a house in LA - invited me to his private suite to watch Chelsea Juventus at the Bridge last night
We got talking about Rittenhouse. A case he had FOLLOWED. He was convinced Rittenhouse killed at least one black man. It took some persuasion to make him grasp the truth
He gets all his American news from the NYT, CNN, which happily lie and lie again. As you say
Btw it was an excellent match. I might adopt Chelsea as my team. They were superb
You can't just adopt a team.
I regular adopt the team which has my wager on it.
Comments
I would add Blair to that group too alongside Churchill, Thatcher and Boris as you suggest
CBI not thrilled with Boris
The reason that the right are now treating him like a celeb, is because the left were treating him like a Nazi before they even knew the facts of the case.
But as you say, the facts of the case appear to be very different to how they were commonly portrayed - on both sides.
When American style venture capitalism* tried to set up here, the Treasury tried to stop it. Because investment should be done by banks, apparently.
*The key to this is letting people risk their own money directly. In America there are some rather sensible rules regarding this.
NEW: detailed thread on Europe’s winter wave and the contrast vs UK
What’s happening? Why the difference? Can boosters help?
First, the wave itself: cases, hospitalisations & deaths surging in Europe, several western countries shooting past UK 📈
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1463450302212886530
Quite simply, the mainstream US media have lied about this case from Day 1, and as far more people will have read about/watched the Rittenhouse case in the US media than will have watched the trial, their lies will have been effective, and now cause many to believe that the justice system is rigged - when in this instance it wasn't.
This is far from a one off event. The Covington school scenario is another of many examples. I would no more believe the NY Times or the Washington Post than I would Fox News or Newsmax - and anyone using these as their source of record in relation to US politics is sure to get an incredibly skewed, and mostly false, perspective.
On today's run:
I reached 2,500 miles (4,000 km) run in 2021
Running on 328 consecutive days.
I ran 15.5 miles (25 km)
Including a 2hr 14:28 half-marathon, on- and off-road.
I am feeling very pleased with myself. Even more so, because over a month ago I promised myself I would buy no alcohol until I reached 2,500 miles. I have a bottle of Laphroig downstairs waiting.
I apologise if my posts this afternoon get inchreesingly slurrrred ...
Unfortunately that was to someone senior at HMRC and not a cabinet minister while writing a cheque to the Tory Party.
https://www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/absolutely-outrageous-detail-leeds-hidden-22208911
£100m of the money given in the IPR to West Yorkshire has to be spend checking the feasibility of HS2E - just get on and build it.
We will tell you when you reach 10% on the SeanT Drunk Posting Scale.
Anyone told the minister?
Chapeau.
Have a good flight home (and don’t forget the PLF)!
It also shows why we will start to see cases falling as it runs out of youngsters to infect.
You are way too generous to the MAGA right if you think they are lauding him only in response to him being villified by others.
Possibly the best commentary I’ve seen was the interview between Joe Rogan and journalist Tim Pool, who spend two weeks watching both the trial itself and much of the reporting around it. It’s on Spotify at the moment, perhaps it will be on Youtube in the next couple of days. Breaking Points podcast (the old The Hill presenters Krystal and Saagar) was also very good. https://youtube.com/watch?v=bUBBY4AHpjI
Which is why people demand it of course.
That said I can easily believe he fails to answer do even when appropriate and easy.
Another leftie chimes up
PM says it’s a problem left over from the Attlee govt
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1463480036451827712
"You will not need to sell your house" will not last the end of PMQs will it.
Johnson will make a fortune as an after dinner speaker. I wouldn't pay money to see him. He is not a raconteur of the quality of Ustinov for example, but many will
Yes or no.
He's lying.
Let's not dress it up as ignorance.
Enjoy the Laphroig
Boris well supported by his mps by the sound of it
Boris is at his best when some kind of external order is imposed upon him. As Mayor of London he was subject to the control of Downing Street. As a columnist, his talents shone most brightly when patient editors were on hand to polish his literary gems. But as Prime Minister, he’s been set free to follow his worst instincts.
Boris needs a Willie — and his critics in the party should insist that he gets one…. I’d look to Alok Sharma. The former Business Secretary is widely respected. His role as President of the COP26 conference has demonstrated his grasp of detail and his diplomatic finesse. He is trusted by his colleagues, including the Prime Minister, and has no obvious leadership ambitions. And now that COP26 is over, he’s in need of a new job.
https://unherd.com/2021/11/boris-johnson-needs-a-willie/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=7084842c67&mc_eid=836634e34b
Starmer is displaying some of it today.
Though perhaps they just meant acting black?
We got talking about Rittenhouse. A case he had FOLLOWED. He was convinced Rittenhouse killed at least one black man. It took some persuasion to make him grasp the truth
He gets all his American news from the NYT, CNN, which happily lie and lie again. As you say
Btw it was an excellent match. I might adopt Chelsea as my team. They were superb
And I think kangaroos as judges will be a nice creative flourish, boss.
Punch & Judy and it's just a question of who do you believe and how you understand the sleight of hand in what was said.
Today's run was from my home in Cambourne down into Cambridge via Hardwick and Coton, then running a little around some roads in the town, before ending up at a Greggs, and then a bus home. I know how to live ...
But being a good professional writer sets him well above 99% of prime ministers. And his story is amazing simply because of the epochal events he has seen/steered
And now I've fallen prey to Brexit Analogy Syndrome and must flagellate myself in the streets of Dover.
any cabinet descent to our policy?
Neigh.
I chose pretty randomly at 8-9 and its that for life though.
With Moderna (the UK has apparently run out of Pfizer)
I am now SUPER RESILIENT LEON
https://news.yahoo.com/dyson-winsome-sears-black-face-151354030.html
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-08-20/recall-candidate-larry-elder-is-a-threat-to-black-californians
Our constitution is based on Crown in Parliament, not Parliament alone acting as a dictatorship and preventing the voters having the chance to re elect MPs
You expect owt else??
Vaughan, who has been an expert analyst, commentator and presenter at the corporation since 2009, had already been stood down by the BBC from Radio 5 live’s Tuffers and Vaughan Show earlier this month after two cricketers said they heard the former England captain make racist comments while playing for Yorkshire in 2009.
The decision came after Vaughan, who has worked as an expert summariser and analyst on Test Match Special for 12 years, was accused of telling three players of Asian descent that there were “too many of you lot, we need to do something about it” before a county match in Nottingham.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/nov/24/michael-vaughan-stood-down-by-bbc-from-ashes-for-editorial-reasons
Is probably the most important graph/stat of the current state of COVID.