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Will Sunak still be Chancellor at the end of the year? – politicalbetting.com

The betting exchange Smarkets is planning a new market on whether Rishi Sunak will still be Chancellor at the end of the year.
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This paragraph at the very bottom of Geidt's letter to the PM seems very important. He says that if he'd seen the WhatsApp exchange he likely would have found that the PM didn't follow the rules on declaring his interests.
https://twitter.com/hzeffman/status/1479096989006512129?s=20
It was a book of letters to and from a brother and his sisters. The brother been a teenage midshipman in the RN. The booked ended with a letter from the ships Captain, telling the story of his death at the hands of a slaver crew he was boarding with his boats crew - the boat had been on detached service from the ship itself.
There was a further letter, badly spelt and capitalised from a member of the boats crew - about how he'd been a good officer and everyone in the crew had liked him.
So when he was killed by a shot from the slaver they'd boarded the slaver and killed the entire crew. Including the ones trying to surrender.
https://twitter.com/hmtreasury/status/1479099294640586756?s=20
Didn't even get the few pounds I paid for it back.
I remember wondering about the sisters - how they lived, how often did they read the letters to remind themselves of him.
"why does anyone get a new number with an new device these days"
Actually, there is a really annoying loophole to PAC / moving number system that providers exploit. There are deals which aren't available to existing customers, especially getting the latest phones. If you want to keep your number and get a new phone, they will offer you a worse tariff to "Upgrade".
The only other way get it is to cancel your contract and sign up as a new customer. But in doing so, they won't let you do it in the time period that PAC works.
I had this exact situation a couple of years ago.
Yes yes I know it's (republished in) the New European, but if anyone fancies being terrified like when they first watched Threads, have a read of this.
https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/desk-russie-putin-plan-for-europe-and-ukraine/
More puzzlingly (to me, anyway) is the idea that Geidt wouldn't have fully exonerated BoJo had he known about the WhatsApp exchange, but now he does know... what?
(Is it the understandable reluctance not to want to press the button that would cause the PM trouble if at all possible?)
Sometimes I want that break.
Boris will keep Sunak as Chancellor as Brown kept David Miliband as Foreign Secretary, as it would have been too dangerous to move their main leadership rival
I think it was basically as brand new Samsung S10, which cost a £1000 from the manufacturer. You paid £250 upfront and contract is £25 a month, but you got the free wireless earbuds (£150) for pre-ordering via the operator and the money back site was offering the ability to stack offers to get I think £300 back.
So free phone, free earbuds, tariff £25 a month, while the equivalent sim only deal was more than £25 a month. But I ended up having to change my phone number.
(Snip FPT: Our PM apparently acted 'unwisely' but wasn't deliberately misleading. However the noble lord has had his confidence shaken 'precisely because potential and real failures of process occurred in more than one part of the apparatus of government'.)
Which, to my mind anyway, is just about as damning!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2147714
Plus the Northern Ireland Assembly is up for re election
It is a really annoying exploitation by the phone companies, where they give you all this BS about "upgrade" its a really good deal, when the tariff for a new standalone contract is cheaper / better deal and blocking your ability to keep your number without resorting to a workaround.
Hmmm... let me have a think about that for a nanosecond.
But you stated "why does anyone get a new number with an new device these days?". I am saying there is a common reason why people do i.e. to get a new phone with the best tariff, requires either bouncing your number to a PAYG and then back, or just accepting a new number.
I don't for a second think that Boris was on compare the meerkat to get the best tariff when his old number was made public.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/05/kazakhstan-protests-president-threatens-ruthless-crackdown
Labour might gain a few councils from NOC in the North like Kirklees, Bolton and Wirral but that's about it.
In Scotland pretty much the key headline aim for Labour will be to be the largest party in Glasgow (don't snigger).
Wales might be the best news for Labour.
Strangely we didn't get the same prominance for Labour Lord convicted of child rape yesterday.
However, that doesn't relate to conversations at which are backed up to an account rather than a number these days.
Remember the weird "flamethrowers" they are apparently using in Xi'an, creating various theories? - eg they are exterminating rats and mice, or "this is Chinese theatre" - a fake stunt designed to impress the public with the severity of their counter-Covid measures
One of the first theories was that "this is merely a malfunction" - the foggers can suddenly start shooting out flames. It was greeted skeptically (as it didn't seem to match the behaviour of the users) nonetheless, it turns out, it is almost certainly true. There are several non-suspicious videos of the foggers doing exactly this, malfunctioning and shooting out flame
This is one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89B6ICOvJ1A&t=32s
Twitter solved this problem. Social media is not all bad
https://twitter.com/StephenMcDonell/status/1479036996534390787?s=20
They really are doing some VERY determined disinfecting in Xi'an (and, piquantly, you can briefly see another fogger spazzing out and squirting flame).
Why? Do they really think this works against an airborne virus? If so, why has no other country disinfected spaces like this? What if it DOES work, and explains China's remarkable success in suppressing Covid-19? We might all be missing a trick
"xi'an city
Chinese biochemistry stormtroopers are striking again to sanitize the entire city !
This time they used an electro-tricycle.
2022/1/6"
https://twitter.com/songpinganq/status/1479010011820920832?s=20
This isn't a difficult one.
Wandsworth is a really iconic Tory Council held since 1978. Barnet has been Tory except for a NOC period with Tories largest party at peak Blair. Westminster and K&C have always been solidly blue. If the Tories are running into trouble in these areas, it causes far more trouser-browning and letters to the '22 than any number of district council results in the arse end of nowhere. And if they hold up well in all these areas, nobody is going to be worrying all that much about a handful of losses in Sandwell or whatever. Perhaps they should, but it's not how politicians work.
Of course with our cheap sim only we had to buy the phones ;-)
A Northern Ireland Boxer, say, can pick to be on either the Irish or GB teams based on personal preference and / or likelihood of selection.
I'm saying they've got a much lesser story about a Tory at the very top of their website, when something far worse about an equivalent Labour figure was pushed down the page.
Looking again he is also referred to as 'former Peer' with no party affiliation given. It's a pretty open and shut case of political bias. They're the Guardian, it's allowed, no one is forced to buy then, but it is worthy of note.
The Labour Party may be a miserable bunch of lowlifes for enobling Ahmed in the same way the Conservatives were for knighting Peter Morrison. Nonetheless I don't really think the Labour Party can be blamed directly for the crimes of Ahmed.
If it DOES work, why aren't we doing it? If it does NOT work, why are they doing it?
Peculiar
Appointed a life peer by Tony Blair, Ahmed resigned from the Labour party in 2013.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/05/former-peer-nazir-ahmed-found-guilty-of-serious-sexual-assault
Today the Guardian has a much more minor story about a Tory Peer at the top of the page and the headline makes it all about her being a Tory, when it is equally not relevant.
Yesterday a significantly worse story was given much less prominance (3rd on the side bar for 3 hours then removed from front page completely), and they never even mentioned Labour in the headline.
I'm not saying no one covered it. I'm saying the Guardian let their bias show for all to see.
Same sidebar. Michelle gets a photo.
Compare and contrast -
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/06/met-investigating-tory-peer-michelle-mone-over-racist-message
This is so blatent I really can't believe anyone is trying to debate it.
The alleged contents of WhatsApp messages, in which Mone also allegedly described Lynton-Jones’s partner as a “mental loony” and “nut case bird”, were revealed by the Guardian last month.
No other country - as far as I know - has used this technique. Yet the Chinese have done it from the get-go in Wuhan, and then elsewhere
Odd
And they are - if their stats are to be believed - by a distance THE most successful country when it comes to controlling Covid. Perhaps we should all be out with our foggers
Mone remains a Conservative peer, and apparently retains the confidence of her party's leadership at this time.
OTOH the Graun is happy to refer in its headline today (UK news) to the 'ex-SNP MP' Ms Ferrier as standing trial, so that doesn't work.
Used to buy it at the station on the way to school from when I was about 14. I think the station, in what is now Southend West, had about three copies.
A total of 125 passengers who arrived in the northern Indian city of Amritsar on a chartered flight from Italy have tested positive for Covid-19. They were among 179 passengers on the flight from Milan which landed in Amritsar on Wednesday afternoon.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-59894989
If you both believe Tony Blair should apologise for enobling Ahmed, I don't disagree with your call.
Because they weren't a national ship, they would have thus classed themselves as pirates.
In theory, you could hang the whole crew, IIRC. After a trial....
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