This now seems likely. If so arguably worst of all political worlds for No 10. We get SG after all with the potential political fallout and yet is impossible to fully draw a line and move on as there will be an outstanding and ongoing police investigation. https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1486000177223774212
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
It does not matter if SF get 100% of the vote in the Republic, which they won't if there are still more Unionist than Nationalist MLAs in NI
Everyone in the country knows the service isn't good enough. The question is, who will put the most effort into fixing it, someone who has always relied on it or someone who has chosen not to use it?
Well, for a start, effort isn't everything; a fool who has an obsession with purity but realises the service is poor might well put in a lot of effort, but a fat lot of good that effort will do if it's uninformed or blinded by ideology. What you want is someone with understanding of how huge organisations work, how to improve them, and how to get value for money from them, against the hugely difficult problems of political interference, the institutional inertia, the changing technology, and the reluctance to learn from best practice elsewhere.
Whether a candidate uses private healthcare is just about the most irrelevant criterion you could come up with, especially since nearly all qualified candidates will have done.
It might not the most relevant factor but neither is it anywhere near the least. Somebody who believes in public healthcare to the extent they don't go private despite being able to afford it is likely to be a better choice to run it than somebody with similar profile and abilities who lacks that strength of belief. Ditto with education. Double ditto with education in fact.
You clearly know very little about hiring if you think there are ever two equal profiles. People who support Labour need to grow up on the public sector/ private divide. It was clearly one of the things Blair never succeeded in changing. The approach you have borders on the fanatical. You are public sector puritans, where the public sector, and the NHS in particular is some repository of all virtue, and anyone that doesn't align is a heretic or infidel. Sorry to break it to you but there really are just as many selfish nasty self serving people in the public sector as there are in private. They just manifest their behaviours in slightly different ways. As for education, I can tell you as someone that went to a comp (a pretty bad one) and sent my kids privately, the public sector could learn a lot from the private, double ditto, if you like, but the puritans just don't want to hear it.
Go easy on @kinabalu his favourite Labour politician is (now disgraced?) ex public schoolboy Haileyburian Bazza Gardener and he wrestles with that uncomfortable fact daily. .
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
Totally O/t but tomorrow I am logging into a discussion about electric cars (etc) vs Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) ones. Some of the questions posed are: 1. I have heard that ICE cars cannot refuel at home while you sleep. How often do you have to refill elsewhere? Is this several times a year? Will there be a solution for refuelling at home?
2. Which parts will I need service on and how often? The car salesperson mentioned a box with gears in it. What is this, and will I receive a warning with an indicator when I need to change gear? What about mufflers, tailpipes, filters, oil, and pollution control equipment. The sales rep said I have to change those frequently.
3. Can I accelerate and brake with one pedal as I do today with my electric car?
4. Do I get fuel back when I slow down or drive downhill? I assume so, but need to ask to be sure.
5. The car I test drove seemed to have a delay from the time I pressed the accelerator pedal until it began to accelerate. Is that normal in petrol cars?
6. We currently pay about £2/100 kilometres to drive our electric car. I have heard that petrol can cost up to five times as much, so I reckon we will lose some money in the beginning. We drive about 20,000 kilometres a year. Let’s hope more people start using petrol so prices go down.
7. Is it true that petrol is flammable? Should I empty the tank and store the petrol somewhere else while the car is in the garage?
8. Is there an automatic system to prevent petrol from catching fire or exploding in a collision? What does this cost?
9. I’m told ICE cars are noisy. Will that upset my neighbours?
10. I understand the main ingredient in petrol is oil. Is it true that the extraction and refining of oil causes environmental problems as well as conflicts and major wars that over the last 100 years have cost millions of lives? Is there a solution to these problems?
I have a Tesla. I am almost as smug about that as Leon is about his foreign trips, but I do not feel the need to post on PB when I am driving it.
Quite. It really is pathetic. His posts are 'I this' 'Me that' constantly - an incessant barrage of me-filled posts. If Leon was really as content as he brags he wouldn't be feeling the need to come on here the whole time telling everyone how wonderful it (he) is. He'd put it away and immerse himself in the countries he claims to know so much about (from his rooftop bars).
I find Leon’s travelogues quite interesting, but I’ve noticed over the years that he has really shit taste in music and film/TV, which has started to make me doubt his taste in food/alchohol/places to stay.
If he went all food & travel and no politics there'd be no complaints from me.
Totally O/t but tomorrow I am logging into a discussion about electric cars (etc) vs Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) ones. Some of the questions posed are: 1. I have heard that ICE cars cannot refuel at home while you sleep. How often do you have to refill elsewhere? Is this several times a year? Will there be a solution for refuelling at home?
2. Which parts will I need service on and how often? The car salesperson mentioned a box with gears in it. What is this, and will I receive a warning with an indicator when I need to change gear? What about mufflers, tailpipes, filters, oil, and pollution control equipment. The sales rep said I have to change those frequently.
3. Can I accelerate and brake with one pedal as I do today with my electric car?
4. Do I get fuel back when I slow down or drive downhill? I assume so, but need to ask to be sure.
5. The car I test drove seemed to have a delay from the time I pressed the accelerator pedal until it began to accelerate. Is that normal in petrol cars?
6. We currently pay about £2/100 kilometres to drive our electric car. I have heard that petrol can cost up to five times as much, so I reckon we will lose some money in the beginning. We drive about 20,000 kilometres a year. Let’s hope more people start using petrol so prices go down.
7. Is it true that petrol is flammable? Should I empty the tank and store the petrol somewhere else while the car is in the garage?
8. Is there an automatic system to prevent petrol from catching fire or exploding in a collision? What does this cost?
9. I’m told ICE cars are noisy. Will that upset my neighbours?
10. I understand the main ingredient in petrol is oil. Is it true that the extraction and refining of oil causes environmental problems as well as conflicts and major wars that over the last 100 years have cost millions of lives? Is there a solution to these problems?
I have a Tesla. I am almost as smug about that as Leon is about his foreign trips, but I do not feel the need to post on PB when I am driving it.
Quite. It really is pathetic. His posts are 'I this' 'Me that' constantly - an incessant barrage of me-filled posts. If Leon was really as content as he brags he wouldn't be feeling the need to come on here the whole time telling everyone how wonderful it (he) is. He'd put it away and immerse himself in the countries he claims to know so much about (from his rooftop bars).
I find Leon’s travelogues quite interesting, but I’ve noticed over the years that he has really shit taste in music and film/TV, which has started to make me doubt his taste in food/alchohol/places to stay.
If he went all food & travel and no politics there'd be no complaints from me.
I’m sorry, you have to take the whole package. As I, you
I find your political predictions some of the most valuable on here - only you firmly predicted No 4th Lockdown, IIRC - you also have a dryly amusing take on late middle aged life which, I have to admit, sometimes strikes a chord. But with that comes the bien pensant whining and occasional Woke preening.
But all this is you, it’s @kinabalu - i accept this: it is the glory of the PB garden
Eg I am starting to find @Heatherner’s constant obsessive objections to my posts quite entertaining, in themselves
Just had the haulage company on the phone again. With all of the paperwork fully assembled for the many many products on their truck from many many companies it took 5 hours to process them through customs. That's after hours of queues to get to the border.
So much for Brexit having been delivered and that's it now done. We have a border operating model that doesn't operate. There is no benefit to the UK in turning a 20 minute border crossing into an 8 hour border crossing.
Do you regret voting for brexit now? I know this is not your version of brexit, but you did contribute to this. (Genuine question - I'm not trying to be sarky or snide.)
Of course I regret it - its turned into the catastrofuck. We're a trading nation. We voted to leave a load of political restrictions on a project we were increasingly distant from. Stepping off an EU that was increasingly Schengen and Euro and closer bounds at a time of our choosing felt better than waiting to be flung to the outer reaches of a twin track Europe.
But never did I conceive that we would impose 30 years of red tape, and demolish our just in time supply chain, and voluntarily put up as many barriers and impediments to trade as we could. Its the polar opposite of what the current government have spent decades doing and delivers a worse position post-Brexit than we had.
As I keep saying, the current Border Operating Model does not work. So regardless of Brexit being done it isn't over, as we will need to remove many of our self-imposed barriers so that we can trade again.
You voted for structural change and now spend all your time saying that structural change is the last thing we need.
Did you completely miss the referendum campaign? Vote Leave's position on leaving the single market featured heavily in it.
Bloody hell! Haven't seen you in a while. Welcome back. You must've been all the way to Damascus, written your letters to the Corinthians, Romans, Ephesians etc. and come back again. Any other strange volte faces on the journey?
I'm hearing Boris Johnson is meeting MPs who are wavering on his leadership in his parliamentary office this evening until 6pm. Source says it's not rebellious 2019-ers on the list of attendees, but some surprising names of people who are usually loyal... https://twitter.com/Tony_Diver/status/1486011842715701251
This now seems likely. If so arguably worst of all political worlds for No 10. We get SG after all with the potential political fallout and yet is impossible to fully draw a line and move on as there will be an outstanding and ongoing police investigation. https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1486000177223774212
Cummings has suggested there are photos.
I still don’t think Sue Gray + photo is survivable, never mind the ongoing Met investigation.
As for replacement, I think Rishi has had a poor week. I think the men (and women, and non-binary people) in grey suits are still trying to figure out who is has the right stuff. Step forward Ben Wallace.
Sam Coates Sky @SamCoatesSky Sky News understands that officials have handed over to investigators photos of parties in Downing Street which include images of Boris Johnson
Sue Gray was given the pictures of people close together with wine bottles.
Apologies if already posted but Pesto has tweeted that the report is finished and has been sent to the PM. It will be published in full tonight or tomorrow. Apparently!
I'm told by Tory MPs that Johnson lieutenants are ringing round trying to convince them that Russia/Ukraine crisis means now would be worst time for leadership contest.
Some apparently agree. But one says: "It's at moments like this that we *don't* want him in charge".
One of the key things that did for Chamberlain in the Norway debate was his explicit call to his parliamentary 'friends' - i.e. Tory MPs - to support him.
The partisan appeal was completely at odds with the need for national unity.
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
It won't, first NI has 2 nationalist parties as there is also the SDLP and second NI has full STV PR without even any constituencies at Stormont so a divided Unionist vote still produces a lot of Unionist MLAs. If Holyrood had the Stormont voting system Unionist parties combined would likely have a majority.
Protestants would never consider voting for SF regardless of how competent it was, though of course SF is not economically competent anyway, its manifesto is basically Corbynite
That as many as 14 on Labour's NEC still think Corbyn should have the whip is no laughing matter.
Starmer I can disagree with politically but respect but Labour is still not detoxified by any means and if he falls it's plausible a Corbynite could take over.
Definitely think I'd vote for LDs next time. Labour still is not fit.
The opposite (mine) is the better take. That the leader until just 21 months ago has been denied the whip back by a vote which wasn't even close shows the extent to which he's been junked and the strength of the grip Starmer now has on the party.
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
It won't, first NI has 2 nationalist parties as there is also the SDLP and second NI has full STV PR without even any constituencies at Stormont so a divided Unionist vote still produces a lot of Unionist MLAs.
Protestants would never consider voting for SF regardless of how competent it was, though of course SF is not economically competent anyway, its manifesto is basically Corbynite
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
No, SF would raise taxes heavily and spend heavily, companies would leave Ireland as it whacks up corporation tax.
I have to get out of this hotel. NOW. It has the best food per dollar I have ever encountered. Superb, freshly made curries for £4
I need to check into a hostel above a weirdly expensive McDonalds.
I recommend Geneva.
Where some of the cheaper dishes involve piles of bread dipped into a vast vat of melted cheese... or lake fish swamped in butter sauce with a pile of chips.
But yes, the worst value for money hotel I ever stayed in was in Geneva. £250 a night for something hovering around student halls of residence standards.
I had great food in Switzerland last summer, especially in the Italian bit, but my God, it was fucking expensive, luckily I wasn’t paying
For a diet surely the best place in the advanced world is Norway. Obscenely pricey AND it’s shit? Iceland close behind
If the only options were rotting shark then you would lose five stone in a month.
True story: when I was a young man doing my first gigs for the Flint Knappers Gazette I was sent to Iceland with a photographer friend (those were the days), My commission was: Oh just go and find something interesting . Literally (as I say those were the days!)
So I went and had a laugh and we met girls and it was all great and then we got a boat over the Arctic Ocean to the Vestman Islands, and we climbed a live volcano and I took out the two early Ecstasy tablet sI had smuggled in, via my sheepskin coat, and me and my tog friend had one each - this is when E was brilliant, late 80s - and we literally danced on the volcano until we were utterly exhausted with laughter and then we stomped down the lava off the volcano with an appetite like Daniel Lambert after a diet and we marched into the only restaurant to discover that the ONLY dish they were serving was…. Puffin
Two puffin each. Boiled. Beaks and claws on, and heads, everything.
Despite our ravenous hunger we could not eat a morsel. Puffin is disgusting. Like fishy liver, gone rancid.
I think we found a pizzeria the next day and forced them to open at about 10am
Rotted shark (Iceland) Snake blood (China) Snake bile (China) Drunken shrimp [ie live shrimp in a soup] (China)
= the worst culinary experiences of my life although I can taste each of those right this minute so I can't say they weren't memorable.
Balat - half formed chicken embryo in an egg - in Indonesia (actually delicious - meaty egg! - but the concept and the sight, OMG) Fried crickets in avocado dip - Mexico Puffin, like I say, Vestman Islands, Iceland Tarantula, in Skeon, Cambodia Mealy worm things - Australia
But worse, far worse, than any of these - worse even than the gunge-filled thorax of the tarantula in Skeon - was also in Cambodia. In Phnom Penh, bought at their central market
Dried frog
I can’t even begin to describe how bad it was. Like chewing the corpse of a mummified dolphin who had famously bad breath. Jesus
I had fried (I think) tree frog in China. Bit crunchy but OK. Quite small. Yours must have been a big frog, I guess.
Hmm. Wiki says re drunken shrimp:
'Another version is based on shrimp that are submerged in a bowl of rice wine. The rice wine forces the shrimp to expel their wastes. Once done, the shrimp are anesthetized and are taken from the bowl, de-shelled and eaten alive.[4][5]
Consuming uncooked freshwater shrimps may be a serious health hazard due to the risk of paragonimiasis.'
The Chinese propensity to eat living animals is disgusting. It just is
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
It won't, first NI has 2 nationalist parties as there is also the SDLP and second NI has full STV PR without even any constituencies at Stormont so a divided Unionist vote still produces a lot of Unionist MLAs.
Protestants would never consider voting for SF regardless of how competent it was, though of course SF is not economically competent anyway, its manifesto is basically Corbynite
You mean, like Mr Johnson's economic policy?
Still no income tax rises and still lower corporation tax than Corbyn proposed
As far as Southend West, I thought it was wrong of the Labour, LD, Green and Reform UK parties not to stand candidates but that's another debate.
However, we have a series of "interesting" types from the darker recesses of the "far right" who are taking on the Conservative candidate. None of them make a scintilla of appeal and calling them "fruitcakes" would be an insult to cakes of all types.
I do exempt the Psychedelic Movement from this as I imagine "mushrooms" would be more their thing.
How this shows the strength of our democracy in the face of those who would seek to undermine it eludes me.
Where’s my friend IshmaelZ? 😕 last I read he was losing it completely and marching on Downing Street. Did he not come back?
Maybe its a Long March from wherever he is 😆
Just in from a day on Dartmoor on a horse
I would bet my house to a nine bob note that Cressy did this because Bozza asked her to because he thought it would buy months of time. Happily the saintly Sue Gray seems to have scuppered that approach. You really have to feel for him.
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
Indeed, HYUFD is anticipating their destruction of the Stormont government.
This now seems likely. If so arguably worst of all political worlds for No 10. We get SG after all with the potential political fallout and yet is impossible to fully draw a line and move on as there will be an outstanding and ongoing police investigation. https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1486000177223774212
Cummings has suggested there are photos.
I still don’t think Sue Gray + photo is survivable, never mind the ongoing Met investigation.
As for replacement, I think Rishi has had a poor week. I think the men (and women, and non-binary people) in grey suits are still trying to figure out who is has the right stuff. Step forward Ben Wallace.
Re last paragraph - maybe correct re Rishi unless it’s a very clever “clearing house” operation, float the crap out, see how it goes down and stop it from being an issue during any campaign…..
Totally O/t but tomorrow I am logging into a discussion about electric cars (etc) vs Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) ones. Some of the questions posed are: 1. I have heard that ICE cars cannot refuel at home while you sleep. How often do you have to refill elsewhere? Is this several times a year? Will there be a solution for refuelling at home?
2. Which parts will I need service on and how often? The car salesperson mentioned a box with gears in it. What is this, and will I receive a warning with an indicator when I need to change gear? What about mufflers, tailpipes, filters, oil, and pollution control equipment. The sales rep said I have to change those frequently.
3. Can I accelerate and brake with one pedal as I do today with my electric car?
4. Do I get fuel back when I slow down or drive downhill? I assume so, but need to ask to be sure.
5. The car I test drove seemed to have a delay from the time I pressed the accelerator pedal until it began to accelerate. Is that normal in petrol cars?
6. We currently pay about £2/100 kilometres to drive our electric car. I have heard that petrol can cost up to five times as much, so I reckon we will lose some money in the beginning. We drive about 20,000 kilometres a year. Let’s hope more people start using petrol so prices go down.
7. Is it true that petrol is flammable? Should I empty the tank and store the petrol somewhere else while the car is in the garage?
8. Is there an automatic system to prevent petrol from catching fire or exploding in a collision? What does this cost?
9. I’m told ICE cars are noisy. Will that upset my neighbours?
10. I understand the main ingredient in petrol is oil. Is it true that the extraction and refining of oil causes environmental problems as well as conflicts and major wars that over the last 100 years have cost millions of lives? Is there a solution to these problems?
I have a Tesla. I am almost as smug about that as Leon is about his foreign trips, but I do not feel the need to post on PB when I am driving it.
Tesla = the new Range Rover, BMW and Audi in one.
Are Tesla another manufacturer who only include indicators as expensive optional extras?
Nope. There are virtually no optional extras on Tesla. The colour is one and full autopilot is the other IIRC
This now seems likely. If so arguably worst of all political worlds for No 10. We get SG after all with the potential political fallout and yet is impossible to fully draw a line and move on as there will be an outstanding and ongoing police investigation. https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1486000177223774212
Cummings has suggested there are photos.
I still don’t think Sue Gray + photo is survivable, never mind the ongoing Met investigation.
As for replacement, I think Rishi has had a poor week. I think the men (and women, and non-binary people) in grey suits are still trying to figure out who is has the right stuff. Step forward Ben Wallace.
Everyone in the country knows the service isn't good enough. The question is, who will put the most effort into fixing it, someone who has always relied on it or someone who has chosen not to use it?
Well, for a start, effort isn't everything; a fool who has an obsession with purity but realises the service is poor might well put in a lot of effort, but a fat lot of good that effort will do if it's uninformed or blinded by ideology. What you want is someone with understanding of how huge organisations work, how to improve them, and how to get value for money from them, against the hugely difficult problems of political interference, the institutional inertia, the changing technology, and the reluctance to learn from best practice elsewhere.
Whether a candidate uses private healthcare is just about the most irrelevant criterion you could come up with, especially since nearly all qualified candidates will have done.
It might not the most relevant factor but neither is it anywhere near the least. Somebody who believes in public healthcare to the extent they don't go private despite being able to afford it is likely to be a better choice to run it than somebody with similar profile and abilities who lacks that strength of belief. Ditto with education. Double ditto with education in fact.
You clearly know very little about hiring if you think there are ever two equal profiles. People who support Labour need to grow up on the public sector/ private divide. It was clearly one of the things Blair never succeeded in changing. The approach you have borders on the fanatical. You are public sector puritans, where the public sector, and the NHS in particular is some repository of all virtue, and anyone that doesn't align is a heretic or infidel. Sorry to break it to you but there really are just as many selfish nasty self serving people in the public sector as there are in private. They just manifest their behaviours in slightly different ways. As for education, I can tell you as someone that went to a comp (a pretty bad one) and sent my kids privately, the public sector could learn a lot from the private, double ditto, if you like, but the puritans just don't want to hear it.
Go easy on @kinabalu his favourite Labour politician is (now disgraced?) ex public schoolboy Haileyburian Bazza Gardener and he wrestles with that uncomfortable fact daily. .
Plenty of useless, inefficient people and companies in the private sector too. Which I've happily taken advantage of in the past.
This now seems likely. If so arguably worst of all political worlds for No 10. We get SG after all with the potential political fallout and yet is impossible to fully draw a line and move on as there will be an outstanding and ongoing police investigation. https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1486000177223774212
Cummings has suggested there are photos.
I still don’t think Sue Gray + photo is survivable, never mind the ongoing Met investigation.
As for replacement, I think Rishi has had a poor week. I think the men (and women, and non-binary people) in grey suits are still trying to figure out who is has the right stuff. Step forward Ben Wallace.
As far as Southend West, I thought it was wrong of the Labour, LD, Green and Reform UK parties not to stand candidates but that's another debate.
However, we have a series of "interesting" types from the darker recesses of the "far right" who are taking on the Conservative candidate. None of them make a scintilla of appeal and calling them "fruitcakes" would be an insult to cakes of all types.
I do exempt the Psychedelic Movement from this as I imagine "mushrooms" would be more their thing.
How this shows the strength of our democracy in the face of those who would seek to undermine it eludes me.
Pity the SNP didn't put someone up. At least the locals would have someone from the centre to vote for.
I have to get out of this hotel. NOW. It has the best food per dollar I have ever encountered. Superb, freshly made curries for £4
I need to check into a hostel above a weirdly expensive McDonalds.
I recommend Geneva.
Where some of the cheaper dishes involve piles of bread dipped into a vast vat of melted cheese... or lake fish swamped in butter sauce with a pile of chips.
But yes, the worst value for money hotel I ever stayed in was in Geneva. £250 a night for something hovering around student halls of residence standards.
I had great food in Switzerland last summer, especially in the Italian bit, but my God, it was fucking expensive, luckily I wasn’t paying
For a diet surely the best place in the advanced world is Norway. Obscenely pricey AND it’s shit? Iceland close behind
If the only options were rotting shark then you would lose five stone in a month.
True story: when I was a young man doing my first gigs for the Flint Knappers Gazette I was sent to Iceland with a photographer friend (those were the days), My commission was: Oh just go and find something interesting . Literally (as I say those were the days!)
So I went and had a laugh and we met girls and it was all great and then we got a boat over the Arctic Ocean to the Vestman Islands, and we climbed a live volcano and I took out the two early Ecstasy tablet sI had smuggled in, via my sheepskin coat, and me and my tog friend had one each - this is when E was brilliant, late 80s - and we literally danced on the volcano until we were utterly exhausted with laughter and then we stomped down the lava off the volcano with an appetite like Daniel Lambert after a diet and we marched into the only restaurant to discover that the ONLY dish they were serving was…. Puffin
Two puffin each. Boiled. Beaks and claws on, and heads, everything.
Despite our ravenous hunger we could not eat a morsel. Puffin is disgusting. Like fishy liver, gone rancid.
I think we found a pizzeria the next day and forced them to open at about 10am
Rotted shark (Iceland) Snake blood (China) Snake bile (China) Drunken shrimp [ie live shrimp in a soup] (China)
= the worst culinary experiences of my life although I can taste each of those right this minute so I can't say they weren't memorable.
Balat - half formed chicken embryo in an egg - in Indonesia (actually delicious - meaty egg! - but the concept and the sight, OMG) Fried crickets in avocado dip - Mexico Puffin, like I say, Vestman Islands, Iceland Tarantula, in Skeon, Cambodia Mealy worm things - Australia
But worse, far worse, than any of these - worse even than the gunge-filled thorax of the tarantula in Skeon - was also in Cambodia. In Phnom Penh, bought at their central market
Dried frog
I can’t even begin to describe how bad it was. Like chewing the corpse of a mummified dolphin who had famously bad breath. Jesus
I had fried (I think) tree frog in China. Bit crunchy but OK. Quite small. Yours must have been a big frog, I guess.
Hmm. Wiki says re drunken shrimp:
'Another version is based on shrimp that are submerged in a bowl of rice wine. The rice wine forces the shrimp to expel their wastes. Once done, the shrimp are anesthetized and are taken from the bowl, de-shelled and eaten alive.[4][5]
Consuming uncooked freshwater shrimps may be a serious health hazard due to the risk of paragonimiasis.'
The Chinese propensity to eat living animals is disgusting. It just is
I like to think myself gastronomically adventurous but I was traumatised by the scenes of live rodent-eating in the mid 80s sci-fi drama “V”.
As far as Southend West, I thought it was wrong of the Labour, LD, Green and Reform UK parties not to stand candidates but that's another debate.
However, we have a series of "interesting" types from the darker recesses of the "far right" who are taking on the Conservative candidate. None of them make a scintilla of appeal and calling them "fruitcakes" would be an insult to cakes of all types.
I do exempt the Psychedelic Movement from this as I imagine "mushrooms" would be more their thing.
How this shows the strength of our democracy in the face of those who would seek to undermine it eludes me.
Given the Tories stood aside in the Batley by election when Jo Cox was murdered, etiquette also required Labour and the LDs to stand aside in Southend after David Amess was murdered
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
It won't, first NI has 2 nationalist parties as there is also the SDLP and second NI has full STV PR without even any constituencies at Stormont so a divided Unionist vote still produces a lot of Unionist MLAs.
Protestants would never consider voting for SF regardless of how competent it was, though of course SF is not economically competent anyway, its manifesto is basically Corbynite
You mean, like Mr Johnson's economic policy?
Still no income tax rises and still lower corporation tax than Corbyn proposed
Isn't the HSCL adjustment to dividend rates an income tax rise?
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
It won't, first NI has 2 nationalist parties as there is also the SDLP and second NI has full STV PR without even any constituencies at Stormont so a divided Unionist vote still produces a lot of Unionist MLAs.
Protestants would never consider voting for SF regardless of how competent it was, though of course SF is not economically competent anyway, its manifesto is basically Corbynite
You mean, like Mr Johnson's economic policy?
Still no income tax rises and still lower corporation tax than Corbyn proposed
But the national insurance rise = income tax especially and maliciously designed for non-Tory voters (who will be even less likely to vote Tory now, that's for sure).
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
Indeed, HYUFD is anticipating their destruction of the Stormont government.
But it won't make any difference in Ulster - the TUV are going to get enough votes to damage the DUP so SF are likely to be leading come the election.
Of more interest is how has SF managed to become the sane option over the last 15 years while the Unionists have gone further and further down a one way path towards naval gazing insanity and long term irrelevancy...
As far as Southend West, I thought it was wrong of the Labour, LD, Green and Reform UK parties not to stand candidates but that's another debate.
However, we have a series of "interesting" types from the darker recesses of the "far right" who are taking on the Conservative candidate. None of them make a scintilla of appeal and calling them "fruitcakes" would be an insult to cakes of all types.
I do exempt the Psychedelic Movement from this as I imagine "mushrooms" would be more their thing.
How this shows the strength of our democracy in the face of those who would seek to undermine it eludes me.
Yeah, stupid decision. Monstrously.
If there's a halfway sensible independent, they could rebadge themselves as the anti corruption, anti party party, offer to ask to take the LD or Lab whip if they win, and be in with a real shout
if those images are released, he lied at the despatch box
Does that provide proof though? "When I said I was horrified to find out about parties [or whatever] it didn't occur to me that the brief work event that I'm pictured at was a party and obviously I wasn't referring to that"... and so on
This now seems likely. If so arguably worst of all political worlds for No 10. We get SG after all with the potential political fallout and yet is impossible to fully draw a line and move on as there will be an outstanding and ongoing police investigation. https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1486000177223774212
Cummings has suggested there are photos.
I still don’t think Sue Gray + photo is survivable, never mind the ongoing Met investigation.
As for replacement, I think Rishi has had a poor week. I think the men (and women, and non-binary people) in grey suits are still trying to figure out who is has the right stuff. Step forward Ben Wallace.
Re last paragraph - maybe correct re Rishi unless it’s a very clever “clearing house” operation, float the crap out, see how it goes down and stop it from being an issue during any campaign…..
Bit like the drunken shrimp recipe I posted a little while ago.
Actually, we are expected to have the fastest growing G7 economy this year. Latest IMF forecasts, I believe - see today’s Guardian
This should not rescue Boris. The fact the government has done OK in the later stages of the pandemic cannot excuse this outrageous trolling of the nation. And I am the type that is minded to excuse Boris, on the whole
I'm told by Tory MPs that Johnson lieutenants are ringing round trying to convince them that Russia/Ukraine crisis means now would be worst time for leadership contest.
Some apparently agree. But one says: "It's at moments like this that we *don't* want him in charge".
One of the key things that did for Chamberlain in the Norway debate was his explicit call to his parliamentary 'friends' - i.e. Tory MPs - to support him.
The partisan appeal was completely at odds with the need for national unity.
I've had a minor thought on this every now and then over the last few days which I think does deserve a hearing as a possibility, albeit obviously not a central one.
Vladimir Putin was.a clear and open supporter of Brexit, and seems to have engaged a large amount of his social media offices on this front. This is because it was divisive to European unity.
At this crucial moment it probably serves Putin's interests for Johnson to remain.He represents European disunity and discord, and also possibly in the mind of Putin, and maybe in reality , keeps the Germans more suspicious and distanced from the American position.
Therefore it's not entirely inconceivable that Putin could have sped up parts of his operation at this particular time to help Johnson survive. I accept it's not likely to have been a central factor, but it's worth considering as a minor contributing factor, at least to the timings of things.
Totally O/t but tomorrow I am logging into a discussion about electric cars (etc) vs Internal Combustion Engines (ICE) ones. Some of the questions posed are: 1. I have heard that ICE cars cannot refuel at home while you sleep. How often do you have to refill elsewhere? Is this several times a year? Will there be a solution for refuelling at home?
2. Which parts will I need service on and how often? The car salesperson mentioned a box with gears in it. What is this, and will I receive a warning with an indicator when I need to change gear? What about mufflers, tailpipes, filters, oil, and pollution control equipment. The sales rep said I have to change those frequently.
3. Can I accelerate and brake with one pedal as I do today with my electric car?
4. Do I get fuel back when I slow down or drive downhill? I assume so, but need to ask to be sure.
5. The car I test drove seemed to have a delay from the time I pressed the accelerator pedal until it began to accelerate. Is that normal in petrol cars?
6. We currently pay about £2/100 kilometres to drive our electric car. I have heard that petrol can cost up to five times as much, so I reckon we will lose some money in the beginning. We drive about 20,000 kilometres a year. Let’s hope more people start using petrol so prices go down.
7. Is it true that petrol is flammable? Should I empty the tank and store the petrol somewhere else while the car is in the garage?
8. Is there an automatic system to prevent petrol from catching fire or exploding in a collision? What does this cost?
9. I’m told ICE cars are noisy. Will that upset my neighbours?
10. I understand the main ingredient in petrol is oil. Is it true that the extraction and refining of oil causes environmental problems as well as conflicts and major wars that over the last 100 years have cost millions of lives? Is there a solution to these problems?
I have a Tesla. I am almost as smug about that as Leon is about his foreign trips, but I do not feel the need to post on PB when I am driving it.
Tesla = the new Range Rover, BMW and Audi in one.
Are Tesla another manufacturer who only include indicators as expensive optional extras?
Nope. There are virtually no optional extras on Tesla. The colour is one and full autopilot is the other IIRC
Where’s my friend IshmaelZ? 😕 last I read he was losing it completely and marching on Downing Street. Did he not come back?
Maybe its a Long March from wherever he is 😆
Just in from a day on Dartmoor on a horse
I would bet my house to a nine bob note that Cressy did this because Bozza asked her to because he thought it would buy months of time. Happily the saintly Sue Gray seems to have scuppered that approach. You really have to feel for him.
Firstly WOW. I’ve never been on Dartmoor but I know what being on a horse on a moor is like. Bloody Brilliant! 🐴
So rather than marching then, your preparing the cavalry? 🤣.
Secondly, we still don’t agree remotely. Correct me where wrong, first rule of politics, don’t call it to a vote unless you know you win, second rule of politics, in votes on toppling those in power always vote with the winning side.
That’s why there hasn’t been a vonc as yet and my money saying not Q1 or Q2.
I’m softening my stance a bit. Although Boris is safe as houses for the coming months, probably enough backbenchers to decide a vonc will be watching carefully to see if his rating recover, because the blockage in the U bend right now is too many of them waiting to see if he can recover. So maybe this year (my old bet) or maybe after losing power in GE (my new bet placed yesterday).
To be straight with you, Boris and Conservative ratings likely WILL recover won’t they with rally round the flag War in Europe bounce, especially as it’s not a war Boris can suffer trouble in.
There is hope on that latter point though, I, MoonRabbit going to try to STOP the Ukraine War tomorrow, achieving Peace deal through the power of prayer 🙂
As far as Southend West, I thought it was wrong of the Labour, LD, Green and Reform UK parties not to stand candidates but that's another debate.
However, we have a series of "interesting" types from the darker recesses of the "far right" who are taking on the Conservative candidate. None of them make a scintilla of appeal and calling them "fruitcakes" would be an insult to cakes of all types.
I do exempt the Psychedelic Movement from this as I imagine "mushrooms" would be more their thing.
How this shows the strength of our democracy in the face of those who would seek to undermine it eludes me.
I don't agree. Terrorists and murderers should not be allowed to damage any Government by killing MPs leading to by-election reversals. It acts as an incentive . I thought the same when Ian Gow was assassinated. Seat should not have been contested.
I have to get out of this hotel. NOW. It has the best food per dollar I have ever encountered. Superb, freshly made curries for £4
I need to check into a hostel above a weirdly expensive McDonalds.
I recommend Geneva.
Where some of the cheaper dishes involve piles of bread dipped into a vast vat of melted cheese... or lake fish swamped in butter sauce with a pile of chips.
But yes, the worst value for money hotel I ever stayed in was in Geneva. £250 a night for something hovering around student halls of residence standards.
I had great food in Switzerland last summer, especially in the Italian bit, but my God, it was fucking expensive, luckily I wasn’t paying
For a diet surely the best place in the advanced world is Norway. Obscenely pricey AND it’s shit? Iceland close behind
If the only options were rotting shark then you would lose five stone in a month.
True story: when I was a young man doing my first gigs for the Flint Knappers Gazette I was sent to Iceland with a photographer friend (those were the days), My commission was: Oh just go and find something interesting . Literally (as I say those were the days!)
So I went and had a laugh and we met girls and it was all great and then we got a boat over the Arctic Ocean to the Vestman Islands, and we climbed a live volcano and I took out the two early Ecstasy tablet sI had smuggled in, via my sheepskin coat, and me and my tog friend had one each - this is when E was brilliant, late 80s - and we literally danced on the volcano until we were utterly exhausted with laughter and then we stomped down the lava off the volcano with an appetite like Daniel Lambert after a diet and we marched into the only restaurant to discover that the ONLY dish they were serving was…. Puffin
Two puffin each. Boiled. Beaks and claws on, and heads, everything.
Despite our ravenous hunger we could not eat a morsel. Puffin is disgusting. Like fishy liver, gone rancid.
I think we found a pizzeria the next day and forced them to open at about 10am
Rotted shark (Iceland) Snake blood (China) Snake bile (China) Drunken shrimp [ie live shrimp in a soup] (China)
= the worst culinary experiences of my life although I can taste each of those right this minute so I can't say they weren't memorable.
Balat - half formed chicken embryo in an egg - in Indonesia (actually delicious - meaty egg! - but the concept and the sight, OMG) Fried crickets in avocado dip - Mexico Puffin, like I say, Vestman Islands, Iceland Tarantula, in Skeon, Cambodia Mealy worm things - Australia
But worse, far worse, than any of these - worse even than the gunge-filled thorax of the tarantula in Skeon - was also in Cambodia. In Phnom Penh, bought at their central market
Dried frog
I can’t even begin to describe how bad it was. Like chewing the corpse of a mummified dolphin who had famously bad breath. Jesus
As far as Southend West, I thought it was wrong of the Labour, LD, Green and Reform UK parties not to stand candidates but that's another debate.
However, we have a series of "interesting" types from the darker recesses of the "far right" who are taking on the Conservative candidate. None of them make a scintilla of appeal and calling them "fruitcakes" would be an insult to cakes of all types.
I do exempt the Psychedelic Movement from this as I imagine "mushrooms" would be more their thing.
How this shows the strength of our democracy in the face of those who would seek to undermine it eludes me.
Given the Tories stood aside in the Batley by election when Jo Cox was murdered, etiquette also required Labour and the LDs to stand aside in Southend after David Amess was murdered
You make it sound so transactional and grubby.
It would have looked grubby, at best, had Labour not stood aside in reciprocation.
Everyone in the country knows the service isn't good enough. The question is, who will put the most effort into fixing it, someone who has always relied on it or someone who has chosen not to use it?
Well, for a start, effort isn't everything; a fool who has an obsession with purity but realises the service is poor might well put in a lot of effort, but a fat lot of good that effort will do if it's uninformed or blinded by ideology. What you want is someone with understanding of how huge organisations work, how to improve them, and how to get value for money from them, against the hugely difficult problems of political interference, the institutional inertia, the changing technology, and the reluctance to learn from best practice elsewhere.
Whether a candidate uses private healthcare is just about the most irrelevant criterion you could come up with, especially since nearly all qualified candidates will have done.
It might not the most relevant factor but neither is it anywhere near the least. Somebody who believes in public healthcare to the extent they don't go private despite being able to afford it is likely to be a better choice to run it than somebody with similar profile and abilities who lacks that strength of belief. Ditto with education. Double ditto with education in fact.
You clearly know very little about hiring if you think there are ever two equal profiles. People who support Labour need to grow up on the public sector/ private divide. It was clearly one of the things Blair never succeeded in changing. The approach you have borders on the fanatical. You are public sector puritans, where the public sector, and the NHS in particular is some repository of all virtue, and anyone that doesn't align is a heretic or infidel. Sorry to break it to you but there really are just as many selfish nasty self serving people in the public sector as there are in private. They just manifest their behaviours in slightly different ways. As for education, I can tell you as someone that went to a comp (a pretty bad one) and sent my kids privately, the public sector could learn a lot from the private, double ditto, if you like, but the puritans just don't want to hear it.
Similar not equal. And it's hardly fanatical to consider a strong & genuine belief in the thing they are looking to run to be one of the key attributes a candidate ought to have.
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
Indeed, HYUFD is anticipating their destruction of the Stormont government.
But it won't make any difference in Ulster - the TUV are going to get enough votes to damage the DUP so SF are likely to be leading come the election.
Of more interest is how has SF managed to become the sane option over the last 15 years while the Unionists have gone further and further down a one way path towards naval gazing insanity and long term irrelevancy...
But if the DUP throw a tantrum and close down Stormont, there's nothing to vote for. Or am I missing something?
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
Indeed, HYUFD is anticipating their destruction of the Stormont government.
But it won't make any difference in Ulster - the TUV are going to get enough votes to damage the DUP so SF are likely to be leading come the election.
Of more interest is how has SF managed to become the sane option over the last 15 years while the Unionists have gone further and further down a one way path towards naval gazing insanity and long term irrelevancy...
Not necessarily, 98% of TUV voters and 76% of DUP voters want Donaldson to collapse the NI Executive and withdraw from the Stormont Institutions before the NI assembly elections if the NI Protocol is not scrapped. Once he does so plenty of them will flood back to the DUP
Actually, we are expected to have the fastest growing G7 economy this year. Latest IMF forecasts, I believe - see today’s Guardian
This should not rescue Boris. The fact the government has done OK in the later stages of the pandemic cannot excuse this outrageous trolling of the nation. And I am the type that is minded to excuse Boris, on the whole
That’s a prediction, and of course the context (of the deepest trough, except maybe Italy) is critical.
On topic I was just wondering which "beaches where some of the small boats have come ashore" are near Southend?
As was I, so I checked. Dover is about 40 miles in a straight line from Southend, and more like 90 travelling by road. It's not exactly dinghy central.
Nor am I convinced that there's any real danger to the Tories in that by-election from the husk of Ukip (are the 18,000+ Labour and Lib Dem voters from the previous election going to back them just to kick the Government?), nor the collection of other obscure right-wing parties and independents arrayed against them.
As much disgust as there is about Boris Johnson, there needs to be some kind of credible alternative to vote for - and that's before factoring in the Amess sympathy vote.
I wonder how many people HYUFD has persuaded recently to vote Conservative?
Me, on the other hand have been seriously thinking about voting Labour (particularly if The Clown stays in charge) and then I have @kinabalu and @OnlyLivingBoy remind me just how prejudiced against anyone who choses private healthcare or independent schooling you have to be to vote Labour. Perhaps people only persuade people not to vote for a party rather than for them
I have to get out of this hotel. NOW. It has the best food per dollar I have ever encountered. Superb, freshly made curries for £4
I need to check into a hostel above a weirdly expensive McDonalds.
I recommend Geneva.
Where some of the cheaper dishes involve piles of bread dipped into a vast vat of melted cheese... or lake fish swamped in butter sauce with a pile of chips.
But yes, the worst value for money hotel I ever stayed in was in Geneva. £250 a night for something hovering around student halls of residence standards.
I had great food in Switzerland last summer, especially in the Italian bit, but my God, it was fucking expensive, luckily I wasn’t paying
For a diet surely the best place in the advanced world is Norway. Obscenely pricey AND it’s shit? Iceland close behind
If the only options were rotting shark then you would lose five stone in a month.
True story: when I was a young man doing my first gigs for the Flint Knappers Gazette I was sent to Iceland with a photographer friend (those were the days), My commission was: Oh just go and find something interesting . Literally (as I say those were the days!)
So I went and had a laugh and we met girls and it was all great and then we got a boat over the Arctic Ocean to the Vestman Islands, and we climbed a live volcano and I took out the two early Ecstasy tablet sI had smuggled in, via my sheepskin coat, and me and my tog friend had one each - this is when E was brilliant, late 80s - and we literally danced on the volcano until we were utterly exhausted with laughter and then we stomped down the lava off the volcano with an appetite like Daniel Lambert after a diet and we marched into the only restaurant to discover that the ONLY dish they were serving was…. Puffin
Two puffin each. Boiled. Beaks and claws on, and heads, everything.
Despite our ravenous hunger we could not eat a morsel. Puffin is disgusting. Like fishy liver, gone rancid.
I think we found a pizzeria the next day and forced them to open at about 10am
Rotted shark (Iceland) Snake blood (China) Snake bile (China) Drunken shrimp [ie live shrimp in a soup] (China)
= the worst culinary experiences of my life although I can taste each of those right this minute so I can't say they weren't memorable.
Balat - half formed chicken embryo in an egg - in Indonesia (actually delicious - meaty egg! - but the concept and the sight, OMG) Fried crickets in avocado dip - Mexico Puffin, like I say, Vestman Islands, Iceland Tarantula, in Skeon, Cambodia Mealy worm things - Australia
But worse, far worse, than any of these - worse even than the gunge-filled thorax of the tarantula in Skeon - was also in Cambodia. In Phnom Penh, bought at their central market
Dried frog
I can’t even begin to describe how bad it was. Like chewing the corpse of a mummified dolphin who had famously bad breath. Jesus
I had fried (I think) tree frog in China. Bit crunchy but OK. Quite small. Yours must have been a big frog, I guess.
Hmm. Wiki says re drunken shrimp:
'Another version is based on shrimp that are submerged in a bowl of rice wine. The rice wine forces the shrimp to expel their wastes. Once done, the shrimp are anesthetized and are taken from the bowl, de-shelled and eaten alive.[4][5]
Consuming uncooked freshwater shrimps may be a serious health hazard due to the risk of paragonimiasis.'
The Chinese propensity to eat living animals is disgusting. It just is
Okay, but we put
milk
into
tea
A filthy habit, which I now abhor. Also black tea is much healthier
But this really does not compare to what the Chinese do to animals. This might sound borderline racist but they seem to lack the compassion-for-animals gene, or meme, or something. Perhaps we are just sentimental westerners and they are morally coherent?
I dunno. They could easily argue that we are hypocrites, and we put our animal cruelty in factory farms and awful slaughterhouuses, and we do it on an industrial scale, but it is out of sight and out of mind. And that’s probably fair.
But I can’t get my head around people that can skin a living cat or fry a living dog in a wok because it tastes better. And they really do this
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
Indeed, HYUFD is anticipating their destruction of the Stormont government.
But it won't make any difference in Ulster - the TUV are going to get enough votes to damage the DUP so SF are likely to be leading come the election.
Of more interest is how has SF managed to become the sane option over the last 15 years while the Unionists have gone further and further down a one way path towards naval gazing insanity and long term irrelevancy...
But if the DUP throw a tantrum and close down Stormont, there's nothing to vote for. Or am I missing something?
As far as Southend West, I thought it was wrong of the Labour, LD, Green and Reform UK parties not to stand candidates but that's another debate.
However, we have a series of "interesting" types from the darker recesses of the "far right" who are taking on the Conservative candidate. None of them make a scintilla of appeal and calling them "fruitcakes" would be an insult to cakes of all types.
I do exempt the Psychedelic Movement from this as I imagine "mushrooms" would be more their thing.
How this shows the strength of our democracy in the face of those who would seek to undermine it eludes me.
I don't agree. Terrorists and murderers should not be allowed to damage any Government by killing MPs leading to by-election reversals. It acts as an incentive . I thought the same when Ian Gow was assassinated. Seat should not have been contested.
Disagree. It gives the Party a place and primacy it does not have in constitutional law (apart from the List in Holyrood, and that is shite for the same reason).
The voter must be allowed to choose. Even if there is only one candidate, 'not this plonker - try again properly' should be an automatic option.
Where’s my friend IshmaelZ? 😕 last I read he was losing it completely and marching on Downing Street. Did he not come back?
Maybe its a Long March from wherever he is 😆
Just in from a day on Dartmoor on a horse
I would bet my house to a nine bob note that Cressy did this because Bozza asked her to because he thought it would buy months of time. Happily the saintly Sue Gray seems to have scuppered that approach. You really have to feel for him.
Firstly WOW. I’ve never been on Dartmoor but I know what being on a horse on a moor is like. Bloody Brilliant! 🐴
So rather than marching then, your preparing the cavalry? 🤣.
Secondly, we still don’t agree remotely. Correct me where wrong, first rule of politics, don’t call it to a vote unless you know you win, second rule of politics, in votes on toppling those in power always vote with the winning side.
That’s why there hasn’t been a vonc as yet and my money saying not Q1 or Q2.
I’m softening my stance a bit. Although Boris is safe as houses for the coming months, probably enough backbenchers to decide a vonc will be watching carefully to see if his rating recover, because the blockage in the U bend right now is too many of them waiting to see if he can recover. So maybe this year (my old bet) or maybe after losing power in GE (my new bet placed yesterday).
To be straight with you, Boris and Conservative ratings likely WILL recover won’t they with rally round the flag War in Europe bounce, especially as it’s not a war Boris can suffer trouble in.
There is hope on that latter point though, I, MoonRabbit going to try to STOP the Ukraine War tomorrow, achieving Peace deal through the power of prayer 🙂
I have lost 25kg+ since summer by skipping breakfast, and moderately sticking to a regime of dinners before 7pm, lowish carb, lowish alcohol etc.
And running every second day.
Yep - exercise and lower calorie intake will do it for you. Or anyone.
The point is that apart from initially, and indeed during a week in Greece, I’ve barely watched what I eat.
I just try to follow the simple rules above. And if I don’t, there’s always tomorrow.
The weight continues to come off regardless.
It is why the diet book business is so lucrative. You could write a diet book saying eat hotdogs for breakfast, hamburgers for lunch and a bacon sandwich for supper and it would work because for the vast majority of people it is unregulated/snacking/grazing that increases their calorie intake while not satisfying them. So anything which regulates their food intake will almost always result in them eating less than they usually do regardless of what they actually eat.
Alcohol and fruit juices (if people consume them) is usually the easiest way to lose immediate weight.
Edit: and of course people lose weight by funky diets grazing through the day whatever but it almost always means they regulate their intake vs previously.
This is true. The last time I was this fat I lost it all in about 2 months, simply by watching - quite carefully - what I ate and refusing anything extra, from a biscuit to an extra bit of cheese. And skipping a meal a day. After a fortnight or so it became 2nd nature
I kick started it with a pretty intense fast, however, which really works, whatever dieticians say, because you lose a lot quickly. Sure, its just water or whatever, but it is highly encouraging when you lose 8 pounds in the first two weeks, and that encouragement gives you the enthusiasm to continue
A lot of diets fail because people get discouraged. They don’t see quick results. So: fast first, but then don’t return to your previous intake, stay at a reduced calorie level. And go for a walk instead of lunch
I accept I am speaking as a fat guy (at the moment) here, so it may sound like poor advice, but it isn’t
Yeah, I've done that. It definitely works, and if you've the discipline you can keep it going. Not sure it's healthy, per se, but wasn't really my goal. Much easier to keep it off than the lose it, so my strategy was go hard, lose it quick and keep it off.
I am also speaking as a fat guy at the moment. COVID really sapped any discipline/habits I'd built. What was there other than food or drink? I admit I treated that time like a second studenthood and tried to enjoy it, but recently I'm back to my old ways. We'll see if it works again.
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
Indeed, HYUFD is anticipating their destruction of the Stormont government.
But it won't make any difference in Ulster - the TUV are going to get enough votes to damage the DUP so SF are likely to be leading come the election.
Of more interest is how has SF managed to become the sane option over the last 15 years while the Unionists have gone further and further down a one way path towards naval gazing insanity and long term irrelevancy...
But if the DUP throw a tantrum and close down Stormont, there's nothing to vote for. Or am I missing something?
Closing down Stormont won't stop the election.
Quite, but it'll stop SF from governing and gratify the DUP and their little helpers.
Jesus Christ I just weighed myself. I thought Sri Lankan food was meant to be healthy and, er, slimming?
it was one of those moments when you look down at the scales and scoff and think Surely not, what nonsense, that’s wrong, so you go find another set of scales and… it’s right.
OMG
I have renewed empathy for Boris “cheese and wine” Johnson, and I’m afraid you can expect weekly if not daily updates on my attempt, beginning after this next Martini but one, to shed the REDACTED pounds I have somehow put on since last summer
Ugh!
Your muscle/fat ratio is key though. If that's high you might still look ok despite the scales telling a horror story.
An example of a man with a high muscle/fat ratio is Cristiano Ronaldo.
Yes, I think you’re right. I started going to the gym about 5 years ago and I am much more “buff” (as much as you can be for a man of my advanced years) than I used to be. Toned, even. Also a tan at the moment
Before my gym days I would have noticed the serious weight gain earlier, as when I am fat my face turns into a football, right now it’s more kind of rugby ball
But it’s too much. It has to go. Time for some serious austerity. Sigh
Yes, if you let things go in late middle age you lose your facial features. This is worse than carrying a bit extra around the middle since there's no easy way to hide it. So it is worth making the effort, hard as it can be sometimes. And I say this with absolutely no insight or empathy as somebody who's weighed exactly the same - ten twelve - for the last 35 years.
Is that luck of the physiological draw or sheer discipline? Honest question
When I lost my real fat about 8 years ago I stayed disciplined for 6, it was fucking Covid that arsed it all up. The Lockdown lard. It’s been gyrating ever since
My fear is that in later middle age if you lose a ton you can also age 30 years. Happened to Nigel Lawson, as I recall, then he started dyeing his hair beetroot, to make up for it, which didn’t help
It must be the genes because I eat a lot. Yes, shedding pounds too rapidly can of itself make you look old (as in frail). Best to just keep a constant healthy weight if at all possible.
I'm told by Tory MPs that Johnson lieutenants are ringing round trying to convince them that Russia/Ukraine crisis means now would be worst time for leadership contest.
Some apparently agree. But one says: "It's at moments like this that we *don't* want him in charge".
One of the key things that did for Chamberlain in the Norway debate was his explicit call to his parliamentary 'friends' - i.e. Tory MPs - to support him.
The partisan appeal was completely at odds with the need for national unity.
I've had a minor thought on this every now and then over the last few days which I think does deserve a hearing as a possibility, albeit obviously not a central one.
Vladimir Putin was.a clear and open supporter of Brexit, and seems to have engaged a large amount of his social media offices on this front. This is because it was divisive to European unity.
At this crucial moment it probably serves Putin's interests for Johnson to remain.He represents European disunity and discord, and also possibly in the mind of Putin, and maybe in reality , keeps the Germans more suspicious and distanced from the American position.
Therefore it's not entirely inconceivable that Putin could have sped up parts of his operation at this particular time to help Johnson survive. I accept it's not likely to have been a central factor, but it's worth considering as a minor contributing factor, at least to the timings of things.
No, I don’t think so.
I generally believe that Russia’s influence on Brexit (and perhaps other things, like Sindy) is greater than officially accredited, but I doubt Putin is giving Boris more than a moment’s thought.
As far as Southend West, I thought it was wrong of the Labour, LD, Green and Reform UK parties not to stand candidates but that's another debate.
However, we have a series of "interesting" types from the darker recesses of the "far right" who are taking on the Conservative candidate. None of them make a scintilla of appeal and calling them "fruitcakes" would be an insult to cakes of all types.
I do exempt the Psychedelic Movement from this as I imagine "mushrooms" would be more their thing.
How this shows the strength of our democracy in the face of those who would seek to undermine it eludes me.
Pity the SNP didn't put someone up. At least the locals would have someone from the centre to vote for.
Don't know if there are SNP members in Southend, but HYUFD could certainly have stood as the Plaid Cymru candidate.
I have to get out of this hotel. NOW. It has the best food per dollar I have ever encountered. Superb, freshly made curries for £4
I need to check into a hostel above a weirdly expensive McDonalds.
I recommend Geneva.
Where some of the cheaper dishes involve piles of bread dipped into a vast vat of melted cheese... or lake fish swamped in butter sauce with a pile of chips.
But yes, the worst value for money hotel I ever stayed in was in Geneva. £250 a night for something hovering around student halls of residence standards.
I had great food in Switzerland last summer, especially in the Italian bit, but my God, it was fucking expensive, luckily I wasn’t paying
For a diet surely the best place in the advanced world is Norway. Obscenely pricey AND it’s shit? Iceland close behind
If the only options were rotting shark then you would lose five stone in a month.
True story: when I was a young man doing my first gigs for the Flint Knappers Gazette I was sent to Iceland with a photographer friend (those were the days), My commission was: Oh just go and find something interesting . Literally (as I say those were the days!)
So I went and had a laugh and we met girls and it was all great and then we got a boat over the Arctic Ocean to the Vestman Islands, and we climbed a live volcano and I took out the two early Ecstasy tablet sI had smuggled in, via my sheepskin coat, and me and my tog friend had one each - this is when E was brilliant, late 80s - and we literally danced on the volcano until we were utterly exhausted with laughter and then we stomped down the lava off the volcano with an appetite like Daniel Lambert after a diet and we marched into the only restaurant to discover that the ONLY dish they were serving was…. Puffin
Two puffin each. Boiled. Beaks and claws on, and heads, everything.
Despite our ravenous hunger we could not eat a morsel. Puffin is disgusting. Like fishy liver, gone rancid.
I think we found a pizzeria the next day and forced them to open at about 10am
Rotted shark (Iceland) Snake blood (China) Snake bile (China) Drunken shrimp [ie live shrimp in a soup] (China)
= the worst culinary experiences of my life although I can taste each of those right this minute so I can't say they weren't memorable.
Balat - half formed chicken embryo in an egg - in Indonesia (actually delicious - meaty egg! - but the concept and the sight, OMG) Fried crickets in avocado dip - Mexico Puffin, like I say, Vestman Islands, Iceland Tarantula, in Skeon, Cambodia Mealy worm things - Australia
But worse, far worse, than any of these - worse even than the gunge-filled thorax of the tarantula in Skeon - was also in Cambodia. In Phnom Penh, bought at their central market
Dried frog
I can’t even begin to describe how bad it was. Like chewing the corpse of a mummified dolphin who had famously bad breath. Jesus
I had fried (I think) tree frog in China. Bit crunchy but OK. Quite small. Yours must have been a big frog, I guess.
Hmm. Wiki says re drunken shrimp:
'Another version is based on shrimp that are submerged in a bowl of rice wine. The rice wine forces the shrimp to expel their wastes. Once done, the shrimp are anesthetized and are taken from the bowl, de-shelled and eaten alive.[4][5]
Consuming uncooked freshwater shrimps may be a serious health hazard due to the risk of paragonimiasis.'
The Chinese propensity to eat living animals is disgusting. It just is
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
Indeed, HYUFD is anticipating their destruction of the Stormont government.
But it won't make any difference in Ulster - the TUV are going to get enough votes to damage the DUP so SF are likely to be leading come the election.
Of more interest is how has SF managed to become the sane option over the last 15 years while the Unionists have gone further and further down a one way path towards naval gazing insanity and long term irrelevancy...
Not necessarily, 98% of TUV voters and 76% of DUP voters want Donaldson to collapse the NI Executive and withdraw from the Stormont Institutions before the NI assembly elections if the NI Protocol is not scrapped. Once he does so plenty of them will flood back to the DUP
That leaves about *61% of voters who actually want a functioning Executive. But I presume they don't count because they don't vote for allies of the Conservative and Unionist Parties?
[Edit: * more actually, on your figures, come to think of it.]
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
Indeed, HYUFD is anticipating their destruction of the Stormont government.
But it won't make any difference in Ulster - the TUV are going to get enough votes to damage the DUP so SF are likely to be leading come the election.
Of more interest is how has SF managed to become the sane option over the last 15 years while the Unionists have gone further and further down a one way path towards naval gazing insanity and long term irrelevancy...
But if the DUP throw a tantrum and close down Stormont, there's nothing to vote for. Or am I missing something?
Closing down Stormont won't stop the election.
Quite, but it'll stop SF from governing and gratify the DUP and their little helpers.
Would be interesting to watch the DUPs reaction as their continual delays to avoid abortions occurring would fail immediately as the UK Government final removed the DUP's blocks.
HYUFD will hate the fact that NI are finally reaching the 1970's when it comes to woman's health issues.
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
Indeed, HYUFD is anticipating their destruction of the Stormont government.
But it won't make any difference in Ulster - the TUV are going to get enough votes to damage the DUP so SF are likely to be leading come the election.
Of more interest is how has SF managed to become the sane option over the last 15 years while the Unionists have gone further and further down a one way path towards naval gazing insanity and long term irrelevancy...
But if the DUP throw a tantrum and close down Stormont, there's nothing to vote for. Or am I missing something?
Closing down Stormont won't stop the election.
Quite, but it'll stop SF from governing and gratify the DUP and their little helpers.
DUP will hope to maximise the harder line unionist support thereby, but it’s a bit like Brexit.
Over time, the growing and coming majority of people think it’s insane and you end up burning your own party into ashes.
Everyone in the country knows the service isn't good enough. The question is, who will put the most effort into fixing it, someone who has always relied on it or someone who has chosen not to use it?
Well, for a start, effort isn't everything; a fool who has an obsession with purity but realises the service is poor might well put in a lot of effort, but a fat lot of good that effort will do if it's uninformed or blinded by ideology. What you want is someone with understanding of how huge organisations work, how to improve them, and how to get value for money from them, against the hugely difficult problems of political interference, the institutional inertia, the changing technology, and the reluctance to learn from best practice elsewhere.
Whether a candidate uses private healthcare is just about the most irrelevant criterion you could come up with, especially since nearly all qualified candidates will have done.
It might not the most relevant factor but neither is it anywhere near the least. Somebody who believes in public healthcare to the extent they don't go private despite being able to afford it is likely to be a better choice to run it than somebody with similar profile and abilities who lacks that strength of belief. Ditto with education. Double ditto with education in fact.
You clearly know very little about hiring if you think there are ever two equal profiles. People who support Labour need to grow up on the public sector/ private divide. It was clearly one of the things Blair never succeeded in changing. The approach you have borders on the fanatical. You are public sector puritans, where the public sector, and the NHS in particular is some repository of all virtue, and anyone that doesn't align is a heretic or infidel. Sorry to break it to you but there really are just as many selfish nasty self serving people in the public sector as there are in private. They just manifest their behaviours in slightly different ways. As for education, I can tell you as someone that went to a comp (a pretty bad one) and sent my kids privately, the public sector could learn a lot from the private, double ditto, if you like, but the puritans just don't want to hear it.
Go easy on @kinabalu his favourite Labour politician is (now disgraced?) ex public schoolboy Haileyburian Bazza Gardener and he wrestles with that uncomfortable fact daily.
For once you're spot on. That was a genuine shock, the China thing. I still think he'd be great to have a night on the town with but I no longer champion him as a politician.
I have lost 25kg+ since summer by skipping breakfast, and moderately sticking to a regime of dinners before 7pm, lowish carb, lowish alcohol etc.
And running every second day.
Yep - exercise and lower calorie intake will do it for you. Or anyone.
The point is that apart from initially, and indeed during a week in Greece, I’ve barely watched what I eat.
I just try to follow the simple rules above. And if I don’t, there’s always tomorrow.
The weight continues to come off regardless.
It is why the diet book business is so lucrative. You could write a diet book saying eat hotdogs for breakfast, hamburgers for lunch and a bacon sandwich for supper and it would work because for the vast majority of people it is unregulated/snacking/grazing that increases their calorie intake while not satisfying them. So anything which regulates their food intake will almost always result in them eating less than they usually do regardless of what they actually eat.
Alcohol and fruit juices (if people consume them) is usually the easiest way to lose immediate weight.
Edit: and of course people lose weight by funky diets grazing through the day whatever but it almost always means they regulate their intake vs previously.
This is true. The last time I was this fat I lost it all in about 2 months, simply by watching - quite carefully - what I ate and refusing anything extra, from a biscuit to an extra bit of cheese. And skipping a meal a day. After a fortnight or so it became 2nd nature
I kick started it with a pretty intense fast, however, which really works, whatever dieticians say, because you lose a lot quickly. Sure, its just water or whatever, but it is highly encouraging when you lose 8 pounds in the first two weeks, and that encouragement gives you the enthusiasm to continue
A lot of diets fail because people get discouraged. They don’t see quick results. So: fast first, but then don’t return to your previous intake, stay at a reduced calorie level. And go for a walk instead of lunch
I accept I am speaking as a fat guy (at the moment) here, so it may sound like poor advice, but it isn’t
Yeah, I've done that. It definitely works, and if you've the discipline you can keep it going. Not sure it's healthy, per se, but wasn't really my goal. Much easier to keep it off than the lose it, so my strategy was go hard, lose it quick and keep it off.
I am also speaking as a fat guy at the moment. COVID really sapped any discipline/habits I'd built. What was there other than food or drink? I admit I treated that time like a second studenthood and tried to enjoy it, but recently I'm back to my old ways. We'll see if it works again.
Yep, we are exactly the same
I weighed myself regularly - twice a week - for many years before Covid and stayed at a good healthy weight. Not slim, I’m the rugby player type, but definitely not fat either
Then lockdown made everything seem irrelevant and I blobbed out and it has been a really struggle to master it, since then. As we - God willing - exit the pandemic, it is time to reapply myself. Sri Lanka is a good place to start (despite the tempting curries). Good weather, gyms in hotels, the sea to swim in
I have already been fasting for 6 hours without breaking! And so it begins
I have to get out of this hotel. NOW. It has the best food per dollar I have ever encountered. Superb, freshly made curries for £4
I need to check into a hostel above a weirdly expensive McDonalds.
I recommend Geneva.
Where some of the cheaper dishes involve piles of bread dipped into a vast vat of melted cheese... or lake fish swamped in butter sauce with a pile of chips.
But yes, the worst value for money hotel I ever stayed in was in Geneva. £250 a night for something hovering around student halls of residence standards.
I had great food in Switzerland last summer, especially in the Italian bit, but my God, it was fucking expensive, luckily I wasn’t paying
For a diet surely the best place in the advanced world is Norway. Obscenely pricey AND it’s shit? Iceland close behind
If the only options were rotting shark then you would lose five stone in a month.
True story: when I was a young man doing my first gigs for the Flint Knappers Gazette I was sent to Iceland with a photographer friend (those were the days), My commission was: Oh just go and find something interesting . Literally (as I say those were the days!)
So I went and had a laugh and we met girls and it was all great and then we got a boat over the Arctic Ocean to the Vestman Islands, and we climbed a live volcano and I took out the two early Ecstasy tablet sI had smuggled in, via my sheepskin coat, and me and my tog friend had one each - this is when E was brilliant, late 80s - and we literally danced on the volcano until we were utterly exhausted with laughter and then we stomped down the lava off the volcano with an appetite like Daniel Lambert after a diet and we marched into the only restaurant to discover that the ONLY dish they were serving was…. Puffin
Two puffin each. Boiled. Beaks and claws on, and heads, everything.
Despite our ravenous hunger we could not eat a morsel. Puffin is disgusting. Like fishy liver, gone rancid.
I think we found a pizzeria the next day and forced them to open at about 10am
Rotted shark (Iceland) Snake blood (China) Snake bile (China) Drunken shrimp [ie live shrimp in a soup] (China)
= the worst culinary experiences of my life although I can taste each of those right this minute so I can't say they weren't memorable.
Balat - half formed chicken embryo in an egg - in Indonesia (actually delicious - meaty egg! - but the concept and the sight, OMG) Fried crickets in avocado dip - Mexico Puffin, like I say, Vestman Islands, Iceland Tarantula, in Skeon, Cambodia Mealy worm things - Australia
But worse, far worse, than any of these - worse even than the gunge-filled thorax of the tarantula in Skeon - was also in Cambodia. In Phnom Penh, bought at their central market
Dried frog
I can’t even begin to describe how bad it was. Like chewing the corpse of a mummified dolphin who had famously bad breath. Jesus
I had fried (I think) tree frog in China. Bit crunchy but OK. Quite small. Yours must have been a big frog, I guess.
Hmm. Wiki says re drunken shrimp:
'Another version is based on shrimp that are submerged in a bowl of rice wine. The rice wine forces the shrimp to expel their wastes. Once done, the shrimp are anesthetized and are taken from the bowl, de-shelled and eaten alive.[4][5]
Consuming uncooked freshwater shrimps may be a serious health hazard due to the risk of paragonimiasis.'
The Chinese propensity to eat living animals is disgusting. It just is
Okay, but we put
milk
into
tea
A filthy habit, which I now abhor. Also black tea is much healthier
But this really does not compare to what the Chinese do to animals. This might sound borderline racist but they seem to lack the compassion-for-animals gene, or meme, or something. Perhaps we are just sentimental westerners and they are morally coherent?
I dunno. They could easily argue that we are hypocrites, and we put our animal cruelty in factory farms and awful slaughterhouuses, and we do it on an industrial scale, but it is out of sight and out of mind. And that’s probably fair.
But I can’t get my head around people that can skin a living cat or fry a living dog in a wok because it tastes better. And they really do this
So fuck knows what THEIR factory farming is like
I think the English used to pluck geese alive for culinary reasons? Bear in mind the chinese may have iphones but they are only just having their industrial revolution. They are in many ways a century off the pace.
I'm told by Tory MPs that Johnson lieutenants are ringing round trying to convince them that Russia/Ukraine crisis means now would be worst time for leadership contest.
Some apparently agree. But one says: "It's at moments like this that we *don't* want him in charge".
One of the key things that did for Chamberlain in the Norway debate was his explicit call to his parliamentary 'friends' - i.e. Tory MPs - to support him.
The partisan appeal was completely at odds with the need for national unity.
I've had a minor thought on this every now and then over the last few days which I think does deserve a hearing as a possibility, albeit obviously not a central one.
Vladimir Putin was.a clear and open supporter of Brexit, and seems to have engaged a large amount of his social media offices on this front. This is because it was divisive to European unity.
At this crucial moment it probably serves Putin's interests for Johnson to remain.He represents European disunity and discord, and also possibly in the mind of Putin, and maybe in reality , keeps the Germans more suspicious and distanced from the American position.
Therefore it's not entirely inconceivable that Putin could have sped up parts of his operation at this particular time to help Johnson survive. I accept it's not likely to have been a central factor, but it's worth considering as a minor contributing factor, at least to the timings of things.
No, I don’t think so.
I generally believe that Russia’s influence on Brexit (and perhaps other things, like Sindy) is greater than officially accredited, but I doubt Putin is giving Boris more than a moment’s thought.
I also accept it wouldn't be more than a moment's thought or very peripheral factor, but Johnson remaining in place, with his deeply toxic profile in Germany, certainly helps European disunity which is very important to Putin at the moment.
I have to get out of this hotel. NOW. It has the best food per dollar I have ever encountered. Superb, freshly made curries for £4
I need to check into a hostel above a weirdly expensive McDonalds.
I recommend Geneva.
Where some of the cheaper dishes involve piles of bread dipped into a vast vat of melted cheese... or lake fish swamped in butter sauce with a pile of chips.
But yes, the worst value for money hotel I ever stayed in was in Geneva. £250 a night for something hovering around student halls of residence standards.
I had great food in Switzerland last summer, especially in the Italian bit, but my God, it was fucking expensive, luckily I wasn’t paying
For a diet surely the best place in the advanced world is Norway. Obscenely pricey AND it’s shit? Iceland close behind
If the only options were rotting shark then you would lose five stone in a month.
True story: when I was a young man doing my first gigs for the Flint Knappers Gazette I was sent to Iceland with a photographer friend (those were the days), My commission was: Oh just go and find something interesting . Literally (as I say those were the days!)
So I went and had a laugh and we met girls and it was all great and then we got a boat over the Arctic Ocean to the Vestman Islands, and we climbed a live volcano and I took out the two early Ecstasy tablet sI had smuggled in, via my sheepskin coat, and me and my tog friend had one each - this is when E was brilliant, late 80s - and we literally danced on the volcano until we were utterly exhausted with laughter and then we stomped down the lava off the volcano with an appetite like Daniel Lambert after a diet and we marched into the only restaurant to discover that the ONLY dish they were serving was…. Puffin
Two puffin each. Boiled. Beaks and claws on, and heads, everything.
Despite our ravenous hunger we could not eat a morsel. Puffin is disgusting. Like fishy liver, gone rancid.
I think we found a pizzeria the next day and forced them to open at about 10am
Rotted shark (Iceland) Snake blood (China) Snake bile (China) Drunken shrimp [ie live shrimp in a soup] (China)
= the worst culinary experiences of my life although I can taste each of those right this minute so I can't say they weren't memorable.
Balat - half formed chicken embryo in an egg - in Indonesia (actually delicious - meaty egg! - but the concept and the sight, OMG) Fried crickets in avocado dip - Mexico Puffin, like I say, Vestman Islands, Iceland Tarantula, in Skeon, Cambodia Mealy worm things - Australia
But worse, far worse, than any of these - worse even than the gunge-filled thorax of the tarantula in Skeon - was also in Cambodia. In Phnom Penh, bought at their central market
Dried frog
I can’t even begin to describe how bad it was. Like chewing the corpse of a mummified dolphin who had famously bad breath. Jesus
I had fried (I think) tree frog in China. Bit crunchy but OK. Quite small. Yours must have been a big frog, I guess.
Hmm. Wiki says re drunken shrimp:
'Another version is based on shrimp that are submerged in a bowl of rice wine. The rice wine forces the shrimp to expel their wastes. Once done, the shrimp are anesthetized and are taken from the bowl, de-shelled and eaten alive.[4][5]
Consuming uncooked freshwater shrimps may be a serious health hazard due to the risk of paragonimiasis.'
The Chinese propensity to eat living animals is disgusting. It just is
Okay, but we put
milk
into
tea
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
We put tea into milk!
You might. Others...
One of the better jokes in Carry on up The Khyber
Kenneth Williams as "The Mad Khazi" is complaining that the siege of the Residence is getting nowhere "These British are impossible! Shell their cities, kill their women and they don't bat an eyelid, but put the tea in before the milk and they go berserk"
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
Indeed, HYUFD is anticipating their destruction of the Stormont government.
But it won't make any difference in Ulster - the TUV are going to get enough votes to damage the DUP so SF are likely to be leading come the election.
Of more interest is how has SF managed to become the sane option over the last 15 years while the Unionists have gone further and further down a one way path towards naval gazing insanity and long term irrelevancy...
But if the DUP throw a tantrum and close down Stormont, there's nothing to vote for. Or am I missing something?
Closing down Stormont won't stop the election.
Quite, but it'll stop SF from governing and gratify the DUP and their little helpers.
Would be interesting to watch the DUPs reaction as their continual delays to avoid abortions occurring would fail immediately as the UK Government final removed the DUP's blocks.
HYUFD will hate the fact that NI are finally reaching the 1970's when it comes to woman's health issues.
Even Jeremy Hunt wants to reduce the abortion time limit, as do many Tory MPs from Dorries to Rees Mogg.
Abortion is legal in NI now but there is no support for abortion on demand
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
Indeed, HYUFD is anticipating their destruction of the Stormont government.
But it won't make any difference in Ulster - the TUV are going to get enough votes to damage the DUP so SF are likely to be leading come the election.
Of more interest is how has SF managed to become the sane option over the last 15 years while the Unionists have gone further and further down a one way path towards naval gazing insanity and long term irrelevancy...
Not necessarily, 98% of TUV voters and 76% of DUP voters want Donaldson to collapse the NI Executive and withdraw from the Stormont Institutions before the NI assembly elections if the NI Protocol is not scrapped. Once he does so plenty of them will flood back to the DUP
That leaves about *61% of voters who actually want a functioning Executive. But I presume they don't count because they don't vote for allies of the Conservative and Unionist Parties?
[Edit: * more actually, on your figures, come to think of it.]
25-29% is enough for the DUP to still be largest party again, so SF would not get the FM post and there would be no Stormont executive either until the NI Protocol is removed
Remember that UUP chap Ladyt Davidson said would save the Union? Having a bit of a sticky time. (Interesting issue of whether he is also showing a failure of leadership. But certainly nobody at the UUP thought to do a bit of searching, it seems.)
'THE Ulster Unionist Party leader has asked colleagues whether he should resign amid a controversy over historical tweets.
Doug Beattie, who Ruth Davidson has said is "quite possibly" the man who'll save the Union, has faced accusations of misogyny and racism over the content of tweets posted before he entered political life.
The Upper Bann MLA conceded that the posts, the majority of which were written around a decade ago, were “horrendous and horrific”.
He told BBC Radio Ulster: “I will speak to my MLA group today and I will speak to my party officers through my chairman, Danny Kennedy, and if either group feels I should step down, then I will.
“Likewise, if they think I should refer myself to the party executive or the wider council on a vote of no confidence then I shall do that as well, and the party will decide whether or not they can follow my leadership.”'
As far as I can see the worst thing Doug Beattie did was insult Edwin Poot's wife.
As his main target voters are middle class soft Unionist Alliance voters he may even end up with a poll bounce from that! (Even if he shouldn't have done it)
"A series of derogatory messages came to light referring to women, Muslims, members of the Travelling community and people with mental health issues."
Care to do a word by word analysis of your comparison with that rather nasty tweet about Mrs Poots? And why should middle class and relatively centrist voters be at all impressed by the Mrs Poots joke? Which was extremely personal - look at it.
As Poots is a hardline DUPer.
Beattie at the end of the day is only targeting a small pool of voters ie relatively wealthy, middle class soft Unionists who might swing between UUP and Alliance.
Nationalists and leftwingers in NI will vote SF or SDLP, hardline Unionists will vote DUP or TUV so he will never win either of those groups whatever he tweets
Their children, as they become voting adults, on the other hand......
And I have a little knowledge of which I speak.
Will still not vote SF or SDLP if Protestants
SDLP...... possible. More likely to vote Alliance, though.
Plenty of young Catholics will also vote Alliance, the long term growth party in NI is Alliance, not SF or DUP, followed by UUP and SDLP.
That is more a shift to moderation than to Nationalists
Obviously you’re a NI expert, but I’d suggest there are three things happening at once.
1. A split in Unionism, occasioned by Brexit 2. A shift to moderation, probably generational 3. A de-toxification of Sinn Fein, perhaps aided by success south of the border, although this has allowed them to “stabilise” their vote rather than increase it.
Quite a complex picture.
I had assumed that Unionists - appalled by the prospect of a Sinn Fein FM - would “swing back” to the DUP or perhaps rally around the UUP, but it doesn’t seem to be happening.
Unionists, especially those now voting TUV, will only swing back to DUP once Donaldson has collapsed the Stormont Executive.
That will happen if the UK government has not triggered Article 16 by April
The great risk for unionists is that Sinn Fein governs well and appears to be non-mental, attracting votes from SDLP/Alliance etc.
See SNP for details.
SF-led governments both N and S or the Border could well have 'interesting' consequences.
I also suspect that a SF led government would govern rather well South of the Border - up north the DUP will just be throwing boulders to avoid anything occurring that SF can take credit for.
Indeed, HYUFD is anticipating their destruction of the Stormont government.
But it won't make any difference in Ulster - the TUV are going to get enough votes to damage the DUP so SF are likely to be leading come the election.
Of more interest is how has SF managed to become the sane option over the last 15 years while the Unionists have gone further and further down a one way path towards naval gazing insanity and long term irrelevancy...
But if the DUP throw a tantrum and close down Stormont, there's nothing to vote for. Or am I missing something?
Closing down Stormont won't stop the election.
Quite, but it'll stop SF from governing and gratify the DUP and their little helpers.
Would be interesting to watch the DUPs reaction as their continual delays to avoid abortions occurring would fail immediately as the UK Government final removed the DUP's blocks.
HYUFD will hate the fact that NI are finally reaching the 1970's when it comes to woman's health issues.
Even Jeremy Hunt wants to reduce the abortion time limit, as do many Tory MPs from Dorries to Rees Mogg.
Abortion is legal in NI now but there is no support for abortion on demand
The DUP are still blocking hospitals from providing abortions - the fact you weren't aware of that point shows you can't see one of the reasons why closing Stormont isn't as easy as you think.
Beyond that the only reason I mentioned it was I know it's an issue you get hot and bothered over but the point is that the DUP / TUV are really a bunch of dinosaurs chasing an era that went 50 years ago and one where Eire is now way more progressive and comfortable with.
Finally thanks for confirming once again that you believe your believes override the well being of over 50%+ of this country.
Everyone in the country knows the service isn't good enough. The question is, who will put the most effort into fixing it, someone who has always relied on it or someone who has chosen not to use it?
Well, for a start, effort isn't everything; a fool who has an obsession with purity but realises the service is poor might well put in a lot of effort, but a fat lot of good that effort will do if it's uninformed or blinded by ideology. What you want is someone with understanding of how huge organisations work, how to improve them, and how to get value for money from them, against the hugely difficult problems of political interference, the institutional inertia, the changing technology, and the reluctance to learn from best practice elsewhere.
Whether a candidate uses private healthcare is just about the most irrelevant criterion you could come up with, especially since nearly all qualified candidates will have done.
It might not the most relevant factor but neither is it anywhere near the least. Somebody who believes in public healthcare to the extent they don't go private despite being able to afford it is likely to be a better choice to run it than somebody with similar profile and abilities who lacks that strength of belief. Ditto with education. Double ditto with education in fact.
You clearly know very little about hiring if you think there are ever two equal profiles. People who support Labour need to grow up on the public sector/ private divide. It was clearly one of the things Blair never succeeded in changing. The approach you have borders on the fanatical. You are public sector puritans, where the public sector, and the NHS in particular is some repository of all virtue, and anyone that doesn't align is a heretic or infidel. Sorry to break it to you but there really are just as many selfish nasty self serving people in the public sector as there are in private. They just manifest their behaviours in slightly different ways. As for education, I can tell you as someone that went to a comp (a pretty bad one) and sent my kids privately, the public sector could learn a lot from the private, double ditto, if you like, but the puritans just don't want to hear it.
Similar not equal. And it's hardly fanatical to consider a strong & genuine belief in the thing they are looking to run to be one of the key attributes a candidate ought to have.
So when did he say he didn't? I am quite happy to "believe" in the NHS IF it provides a good service, but if I have to wait for 6 months to see a consultant, because the system allows consultants to moonlight (yep it was Labour that allowed such a ludicrous system) then I chose a different system does that make me a heretic in your eyes? The fundamental is choice. I think people should be allowed it and you don't. You think you should be allowed to go on holidays to the Maldives, or whatever else your middle class salary allows you to do, but I shouldn't be allowed to spend my surplus cash on providing what is without any shadow of doubt in my mind a better education for my kids than I had? That is the fundamental philosophical problem with Labour supporters. They are judgmental and bossy.
I wonder how many people HYUFD has persuaded recently to vote Conservative?
Me, on the other hand have been seriously thinking about voting Labour (particularly if The Clown stays in charge) and then I have @kinabalu and @OnlyLivingBoy remind me just how prejudiced against anyone who choses private healthcare or independent schooling you have to be to vote Labour. Perhaps people only persuade people not to vote for a party rather than for them
It's Keir Starmer in charge, Nigel, not me or OLB, and he wants your vote, no question. He'll be busting a gut to get it.
That as many as 14 on Labour's NEC still think Corbyn should have the whip is no laughing matter.
Starmer I can disagree with politically but respect but Labour is still not detoxified by any means and if he falls it's plausible a Corbynite could take over.
Definitely think I'd vote for LDs next time. Labour still is not fit.
The opposite (mine) is the better take. That the leader until just 21 months ago has been denied the whip back by a vote which wasn't even close shows the extent to which he's been junked and the strength of the grip Starmer now has on the party.
Not at all.
It would only take a swing of five votes to get the alternative result and a change of leader as we saw with both Corbyn and Starmer could easily swing more than five votes.
Five votes out of 38 people being the swing needed shows how much of a sway Corbyn and Corbynism still has in the party.
A key plot device in Peter May's mystery The Black House is a bird that tastes of fish and is farmed annually by Scottish fishermen who stay for several days killing it on a rock covered in seagull shit.
That said, it's supposed to be a major delicacy in the Western Isles.
I have lost 25kg+ since summer by skipping breakfast, and moderately sticking to a regime of dinners before 7pm, lowish carb, lowish alcohol etc.
And running every second day.
Yep - exercise and lower calorie intake will do it for you. Or anyone.
The point is that apart from initially, and indeed during a week in Greece, I’ve barely watched what I eat.
I just try to follow the simple rules above. And if I don’t, there’s always tomorrow.
The weight continues to come off regardless.
It is why the diet book business is so lucrative. You could write a diet book saying eat hotdogs for breakfast, hamburgers for lunch and a bacon sandwich for supper and it would work because for the vast majority of people it is unregulated/snacking/grazing that increases their calorie intake while not satisfying them. So anything which regulates their food intake will almost always result in them eating less than they usually do regardless of what they actually eat.
Alcohol and fruit juices (if people consume them) is usually the easiest way to lose immediate weight.
Edit: and of course people lose weight by funky diets grazing through the day whatever but it almost always means they regulate their intake vs previously.
This is true. The last time I was this fat I lost it all in about 2 months, simply by watching - quite carefully - what I ate and refusing anything extra, from a biscuit to an extra bit of cheese. And skipping a meal a day. After a fortnight or so it became 2nd nature
I kick started it with a pretty intense fast, however, which really works, whatever dieticians say, because you lose a lot quickly. Sure, its just water or whatever, but it is highly encouraging when you lose 8 pounds in the first two weeks, and that encouragement gives you the enthusiasm to continue
A lot of diets fail because people get discouraged. They don’t see quick results. So: fast first, but then don’t return to your previous intake, stay at a reduced calorie level. And go for a walk instead of lunch
I accept I am speaking as a fat guy (at the moment) here, so it may sound like poor advice, but it isn’t
Yeah, I've done that. It definitely works, and if you've the discipline you can keep it going. Not sure it's healthy, per se, but wasn't really my goal. Much easier to keep it off than the lose it, so my strategy was go hard, lose it quick and keep it off.
I am also speaking as a fat guy at the moment. COVID really sapped any discipline/habits I'd built. What was there other than food or drink? I admit I treated that time like a second studenthood and tried to enjoy it, but recently I'm back to my old ways. We'll see if it works again.
Yep, we are exactly the same
I weighed myself regularly - twice a week - for many years before Covid and stayed at a good healthy weight. Not slim, I’m the rugby player type, but definitely not fat either
Then lockdown made everything seem irrelevant and I blobbed out and it has been a really struggle to master it, since then. As we - God willing - exit the pandemic, it is time to reapply myself. Sri Lanka is a good place to start (despite the tempting curries). Good weather, gyms in hotels, the sea to swim in
I have already been fasting for 6 hours without breaking! And so it begins
Read that as "...6 hours without breaking wind..."
Everyone in the country knows the service isn't good enough. The question is, who will put the most effort into fixing it, someone who has always relied on it or someone who has chosen not to use it?
Well, for a start, effort isn't everything; a fool who has an obsession with purity but realises the service is poor might well put in a lot of effort, but a fat lot of good that effort will do if it's uninformed or blinded by ideology. What you want is someone with understanding of how huge organisations work, how to improve them, and how to get value for money from them, against the hugely difficult problems of political interference, the institutional inertia, the changing technology, and the reluctance to learn from best practice elsewhere.
Whether a candidate uses private healthcare is just about the most irrelevant criterion you could come up with, especially since nearly all qualified candidates will have done.
It might not the most relevant factor but neither is it anywhere near the least. Somebody who believes in public healthcare to the extent they don't go private despite being able to afford it is likely to be a better choice to run it than somebody with similar profile and abilities who lacks that strength of belief. Ditto with education. Double ditto with education in fact.
You clearly know very little about hiring if you think there are ever two equal profiles. People who support Labour need to grow up on the public sector/ private divide. It was clearly one of the things Blair never succeeded in changing. The approach you have borders on the fanatical. You are public sector puritans, where the public sector, and the NHS in particular is some repository of all virtue, and anyone that doesn't align is a heretic or infidel. Sorry to break it to you but there really are just as many selfish nasty self serving people in the public sector as there are in private. They just manifest their behaviours in slightly different ways. As for education, I can tell you as someone that went to a comp (a pretty bad one) and sent my kids privately, the public sector could learn a lot from the private, double ditto, if you like, but the puritans just don't want to hear it.
Similar not equal. And it's hardly fanatical to consider a strong & genuine belief in the thing they are looking to run to be one of the key attributes a candidate ought to have.
So when did he say he didn't? I am quite happy to "believe" in the NHS IF it provides a good service, but if I have to wait for 6 months to see a consultant, because the system allows consultants to moonlight (yep it was Labour that allowed such a ludicrous system) then I chose a different system does that make me a heretic in your eyes? The fundamental is choice. I think people should be allowed it and you don't. You think you should be allowed to go on holidays to the Maldives, or whatever else your middle class salary allows you to do, but I shouldn't be allowed to spend my surplus cash on providing what is without any shadow of doubt in my mind a better education for my kids than I had? That is the fundamental philosophical problem with Labour supporters. They are judgmental and bossy.
I look around me and I see two fundamental facts. First, our public services are falling apart, starved of cash, failing. Second, many, maybe most, of the powerful and influential people involved in running the country don't actually use these services themselves. It strikes me as rather plausible that these two facts are related. It's got nothing to do with being judgemental. I would just like to live in a country with well funded, functioning public services. FWIW I would do whatever I needed to do in the interests of my family as anyone else would, and I don't judge those who make different choices to me.
Everyone in the country knows the service isn't good enough. The question is, who will put the most effort into fixing it, someone who has always relied on it or someone who has chosen not to use it?
Well, for a start, effort isn't everything; a fool who has an obsession with purity but realises the service is poor might well put in a lot of effort, but a fat lot of good that effort will do if it's uninformed or blinded by ideology. What you want is someone with understanding of how huge organisations work, how to improve them, and how to get value for money from them, against the hugely difficult problems of political interference, the institutional inertia, the changing technology, and the reluctance to learn from best practice elsewhere.
Whether a candidate uses private healthcare is just about the most irrelevant criterion you could come up with, especially since nearly all qualified candidates will have done.
It might not the most relevant factor but neither is it anywhere near the least. Somebody who believes in public healthcare to the extent they don't go private despite being able to afford it is likely to be a better choice to run it than somebody with similar profile and abilities who lacks that strength of belief. Ditto with education. Double ditto with education in fact.
You clearly know very little about hiring if you think there are ever two equal profiles. People who support Labour need to grow up on the public sector/ private divide. It was clearly one of the things Blair never succeeded in changing. The approach you have borders on the fanatical. You are public sector puritans, where the public sector, and the NHS in particular is some repository of all virtue, and anyone that doesn't align is a heretic or infidel. Sorry to break it to you but there really are just as many selfish nasty self serving people in the public sector as there are in private. They just manifest their behaviours in slightly different ways. As for education, I can tell you as someone that went to a comp (a pretty bad one) and sent my kids privately, the public sector could learn a lot from the private, double ditto, if you like, but the puritans just don't want to hear it.
Go easy on @kinabalu his favourite Labour politician is (now disgraced?) ex public schoolboy Haileyburian Bazza Gardener and he wrestles with that uncomfortable fact daily.
For once you're spot on. That was a genuine shock, the China thing. I still think he'd be great to have a night on the town with but I no longer champion him as a politician.
Just like Boris he was and is the same person before and after the fall. Either your legendary judgement is faulty or you should continue to support him.
I wonder how many people HYUFD has persuaded recently to vote Conservative?
Me, on the other hand have been seriously thinking about voting Labour (particularly if The Clown stays in charge) and then I have @kinabalu and @OnlyLivingBoy remind me just how prejudiced against anyone who choses private healthcare or independent schooling you have to be to vote Labour. Perhaps people only persuade people not to vote for a party rather than for them
It's Keir Starmer in charge, Nigel, not me or OLB, and he wants your vote, no question. He'll be busting a gut to get it.
He will not get mine and if Boris goes I will rejoin the conservatives, otherwise it is abstain or the lib dems
I'm told by Tory MPs that Johnson lieutenants are ringing round trying to convince them that Russia/Ukraine crisis means now would be worst time for leadership contest.
Some apparently agree. But one says: "It's at moments like this that we *don't* want him in charge".
One of the key things that did for Chamberlain in the Norway debate was his explicit call to his parliamentary 'friends' - i.e. Tory MPs - to support him.
The partisan appeal was completely at odds with the need for national unity.
I've had a minor thought on this every now and then over the last few days which I think does deserve a hearing as a possibility, albeit obviously not a central one.
Vladimir Putin was.a clear and open supporter of Brexit, and seems to have engaged a large amount of his social media offices on this front. This is because it was divisive to European unity.
At this crucial moment it probably serves Putin's interests for Johnson to remain.He represents European disunity and discord, and also possibly in the mind of Putin, and maybe in reality , keeps the Germans more suspicious and distanced from the American position.
Therefore it's not entirely inconceivable that Putin could have sped up parts of his operation at this particular time to help Johnson survive. I accept it's not likely to have been a central factor, but it's worth considering as a minor contributing factor, at least to the timings of things.
No, I don’t think so.
I generally believe that Russia’s influence on Brexit (and perhaps other things, like Sindy) is greater than officially accredited, but I doubt Putin is giving Boris more than a moment’s thought.
I also accept it wouldn't be more than a moment's thought or very peripheral factor, but Johnson remaining in place, with his deeply toxic profile in Germany, certainly helps European disunity which is very important to Putin at the moment.
Getting Turkey on board, home of some of Boris' ancestors, is more important to NATO than Germany in military terms.
I for one will be relieved for the report and photographs to be published and to listen to Boris statement after pmqs tomorrow as just reported by Sky
You're a different kind of loyalist from HYUFD, BigG. You want to see the best in people and give them the benefit of the doubt, whereas I think HYUFD sees it more in terms of an abstract principle that's it's very important to defend.
I wonder how many people HYUFD has persuaded recently to vote Conservative?
Me, on the other hand have been seriously thinking about voting Labour (particularly if The Clown stays in charge) and then I have @kinabalu and @OnlyLivingBoy remind me just how prejudiced against anyone who choses private healthcare or independent schooling you have to be to vote Labour. Perhaps people only persuade people not to vote for a party rather than for them
It's Keir Starmer in charge, Nigel, not me or OLB, and he wants your vote, no question. He'll be busting a gut to get it.
He will not get mine and if Boris goes I will rejoin the conservatives, otherwise it is abstain or the lib dems
So glad the Scottish Government has a salaried Gaelic officer, who trusts Google Translate to know the difference between heat burns (losgadh) and the surname Burns (Burns).
I have lost 25kg+ since summer by skipping breakfast, and moderately sticking to a regime of dinners before 7pm, lowish carb, lowish alcohol etc.
And running every second day.
Yep - exercise and lower calorie intake will do it for you. Or anyone.
The point is that apart from initially, and indeed during a week in Greece, I’ve barely watched what I eat.
I just try to follow the simple rules above. And if I don’t, there’s always tomorrow.
The weight continues to come off regardless.
It is why the diet book business is so lucrative. You could write a diet book saying eat hotdogs for breakfast, hamburgers for lunch and a bacon sandwich for supper and it would work because for the vast majority of people it is unregulated/snacking/grazing that increases their calorie intake while not satisfying them. So anything which regulates their food intake will almost always result in them eating less than they usually do regardless of what they actually eat.
Alcohol and fruit juices (if people consume them) is usually the easiest way to lose immediate weight.
Edit: and of course people lose weight by funky diets grazing through the day whatever but it almost always means they regulate their intake vs previously.
This is true. The last time I was this fat I lost it all in about 2 months, simply by watching - quite carefully - what I ate and refusing anything extra, from a biscuit to an extra bit of cheese. And skipping a meal a day. After a fortnight or so it became 2nd nature
I kick started it with a pretty intense fast, however, which really works, whatever dieticians say, because you lose a lot quickly. Sure, its just water or whatever, but it is highly encouraging when you lose 8 pounds in the first two weeks, and that encouragement gives you the enthusiasm to continue
A lot of diets fail because people get discouraged. They don’t see quick results. So: fast first, but then don’t return to your previous intake, stay at a reduced calorie level. And go for a walk instead of lunch
I accept I am speaking as a fat guy (at the moment) here, so it may sound like poor advice, but it isn’t
Yeah, I've done that. It definitely works, and if you've the discipline you can keep it going. Not sure it's healthy, per se, but wasn't really my goal. Much easier to keep it off than the lose it, so my strategy was go hard, lose it quick and keep it off.
I am also speaking as a fat guy at the moment. COVID really sapped any discipline/habits I'd built. What was there other than food or drink? I admit I treated that time like a second studenthood and tried to enjoy it, but recently I'm back to my old ways. We'll see if it works again.
Yep, we are exactly the same
I weighed myself regularly - twice a week - for many years before Covid and stayed at a good healthy weight. Not slim, I’m the rugby player type, but definitely not fat either
Then lockdown made everything seem irrelevant and I blobbed out and it has been a really struggle to master it, since then. As we - God willing - exit the pandemic, it is time to reapply myself. Sri Lanka is a good place to start (despite the tempting curries). Good weather, gyms in hotels, the sea to swim in
I have already been fasting for 6 hours without breaking! And so it begins
Whatever works for you, but I'm less than convinced of the benefits of the "crash diet by skipping meals and starving yourself thin" approach.
IMHO sustainable weight loss is primarily about breaking bad eating and drinking habits, as difficult as that may sometimes be. Once you do that then it may take a little while to shift the excess (though it's quicker with the aid of a more active lifestyle,) but there's absolutely no need to starve yourself. If you try to compensate by skipping meals then the risk is that you fail whilst attempting to lose weight because you get sick of being hungry, or after you lose weight because it starts piling back on as soon as you resume eating like you did before.
Everyone in the country knows the service isn't good enough. The question is, who will put the most effort into fixing it, someone who has always relied on it or someone who has chosen not to use it?
Well, for a start, effort isn't everything; a fool who has an obsession with purity but realises the service is poor might well put in a lot of effort, but a fat lot of good that effort will do if it's uninformed or blinded by ideology. What you want is someone with understanding of how huge organisations work, how to improve them, and how to get value for money from them, against the hugely difficult problems of political interference, the institutional inertia, the changing technology, and the reluctance to learn from best practice elsewhere.
Whether a candidate uses private healthcare is just about the most irrelevant criterion you could come up with, especially since nearly all qualified candidates will have done.
It might not the most relevant factor but neither is it anywhere near the least. Somebody who believes in public healthcare to the extent they don't go private despite being able to afford it is likely to be a better choice to run it than somebody with similar profile and abilities who lacks that strength of belief. Ditto with education. Double ditto with education in fact.
You clearly know very little about hiring if you think there are ever two equal profiles. People who support Labour need to grow up on the public sector/ private divide. It was clearly one of the things Blair never succeeded in changing. The approach you have borders on the fanatical. You are public sector puritans, where the public sector, and the NHS in particular is some repository of all virtue, and anyone that doesn't align is a heretic or infidel. Sorry to break it to you but there really are just as many selfish nasty self serving people in the public sector as there are in private. They just manifest their behaviours in slightly different ways. As for education, I can tell you as someone that went to a comp (a pretty bad one) and sent my kids privately, the public sector could learn a lot from the private, double ditto, if you like, but the puritans just don't want to hear it.
Similar not equal. And it's hardly fanatical to consider a strong & genuine belief in the thing they are looking to run to be one of the key attributes a candidate ought to have.
So when did he say he didn't? I am quite happy to "believe" in the NHS IF it provides a good service, but if I have to wait for 6 months to see a consultant, because the system allows consultants to moonlight (yep it was Labour that allowed such a ludicrous system) then I chose a different system does that make me a heretic in your eyes? The fundamental is choice. I think people should be allowed it and you don't. You think you should be allowed to go on holidays to the Maldives, or whatever else your middle class salary allows you to do, but I shouldn't be allowed to spend my surplus cash on providing what is without any shadow of doubt in my mind a better education for my kids than I had? That is the fundamental philosophical problem with Labour supporters. They are judgmental and bossy.
I look around me and I see two fundamental facts. First, our public services are falling apart, starved of cash, failing. Second, many, maybe most, of the powerful and influential people involved in running the country don't actually use these services themselves. It strikes me as rather plausible that these two facts are related. It's got nothing to do with being judgemental. I would just like to live in a country with well funded, functioning public services. FWIW I would do whatever I needed to do in the interests of my family as anyone else would, and I don't judge those who make different choices to me.
Exactly. That macro assessment - which I strongly share - does not devolve to slagging off individuals for their personal choices. It's very common for people to assume it does but it absolutely does not.
Comments
https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1486000177223774212
Sue Gray was given the pictures of people close together with wine bottles.
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1486029913387933697
.
I find your political predictions some of the most valuable on here - only you firmly predicted No 4th Lockdown, IIRC - you also have a dryly amusing take on late middle aged life which, I have to admit, sometimes strikes a chord. But with that comes the bien pensant whining and occasional Woke preening.
But all this is you, it’s @kinabalu - i accept this: it is the glory of the PB garden
Eg I am starting to find @Heatherner’s constant obsessive objections to my posts quite entertaining, in themselves
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1486030126139723785
https://twitter.com/Tony_Diver/status/1486011842715701251
I still don’t think Sue Gray + photo is survivable, never mind the ongoing Met investigation.
As for replacement, I think Rishi has had a poor week. I think the men (and women, and non-binary people) in grey suits are still trying to figure out who is has the right stuff. Step forward Ben Wallace.
Sam Coates Sky
@SamCoatesSky
Sky News understands that officials have handed over to investigators photos of parties in Downing Street which include images of Boris Johnson
Sue Gray was given the pictures of people close together with wine bottles.
Some apparently agree. But one says: "It's at moments like this that we *don't* want him in charge".
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1486011096804868106?s=20
Mr Herdson replies:
One of the key things that did for Chamberlain in the Norway debate was his explicit call to his parliamentary 'friends' - i.e. Tory MPs - to support him.
The partisan appeal was completely at odds with the need for national unity.
A biographer of Churchill should know this.
https://twitter.com/DavidHerdson/status/1486014209209077766?s=20
Protestants would never consider voting for SF regardless of how competent it was, though of course SF is not economically competent anyway, its manifesto is basically Corbynite
The latest tripe was his stuff about being the fastest growing economy in the G7, with record employment levels.
It still hooks the very gullible like @DavidL and @Big_G_NorthWales.
As far as Southend West, I thought it was wrong of the Labour, LD, Green and Reform UK parties not to stand candidates but that's another debate.
However, we have a series of "interesting" types from the darker recesses of the "far right" who are taking on the Conservative candidate. None of them make a scintilla of appeal and calling them "fruitcakes" would be an insult to cakes of all types.
I do exempt the Psychedelic Movement from this as I imagine "mushrooms" would be more their thing.
How this shows the strength of our democracy in the face of those who would seek to undermine it eludes me.
I would bet my house to a nine bob note that Cressy did this because Bozza asked her to because he thought it would buy months of time. Happily the saintly Sue Gray seems to have scuppered that approach. You really have to feel for him.
Grey Suits
or
Suse Gray?
So I’m gonna pass, thanks.
Of more interest is how has SF managed to become the sane option over the last 15 years while the Unionists have gone further and further down a one way path towards naval gazing insanity and long term irrelevancy...
If there's a halfway sensible independent, they could rebadge themselves as the anti corruption, anti party party, offer to ask to take the LD or Lab whip if they win, and be in with a real shout
This should not rescue Boris. The fact the government has done OK in the later stages of the pandemic cannot excuse this outrageous trolling of the nation. And I am the type that is minded to excuse Boris, on the whole
Vladimir Putin was.a clear and open supporter of Brexit, and seems to have engaged a large amount of his social media offices on this front. This is because it was divisive to European unity.
At this crucial moment it probably serves Putin's interests for Johnson to remain.He represents European disunity and discord, and also possibly in the mind of Putin, and maybe in reality , keeps the Germans more suspicious and distanced from the American position.
Therefore it's not entirely inconceivable that Putin could have sped up parts of his operation at this particular time to help Johnson survive. I accept it's not likely to have been a central factor, but it's worth considering as a minor contributing factor, at least to the timings of things.
So rather than marching then, your preparing the cavalry? 🤣.
Secondly, we still don’t agree remotely. Correct me where wrong, first rule of politics, don’t call it to a vote unless you know you win, second rule of politics, in votes on toppling those in power always vote with the winning side.
That’s why there hasn’t been a vonc as yet and my money saying not Q1 or Q2.
I’m softening my stance a bit. Although Boris is safe as houses for the coming months, probably enough backbenchers to decide a vonc will be watching carefully to see if his rating recover, because the blockage in the U bend right now is too many of them waiting to see if he can recover. So maybe this year (my old bet) or maybe after losing power in GE (my new bet placed yesterday).
To be straight with you, Boris and Conservative ratings likely WILL recover won’t they with rally round the flag War in Europe bounce, especially as it’s not a war Boris can suffer trouble in.
There is hope on that latter point though, I, MoonRabbit going to try to STOP the Ukraine War tomorrow, achieving Peace deal through the power of prayer 🙂
https://twitter.com/LucidTalk/status/1484937497046142981?s=20
https://twitter.com/LucidTalk/status/1484937497046142981?s=20
DUP and TUV combined are on 29% in the latest Stormont poll to 25% for SF but it is DUP 17% and TUV 12% apart.
https://twitter.com/LucidTalk/status/1484858732005793793?s=20
Nor am I convinced that there's any real danger to the Tories in that by-election from the husk of Ukip (are the 18,000+ Labour and Lib Dem voters from the previous election going to back them just to kick the Government?), nor the collection of other obscure right-wing parties and independents arrayed against them.
As much disgust as there is about Boris Johnson, there needs to be some kind of credible alternative to vote for - and that's before factoring in the Amess sympathy vote.
Sue Gray was given the pictures of people close together with wine bottles.
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1486029913387933697
Me, on the other hand have been seriously thinking about voting Labour (particularly if The Clown stays in charge) and then I have @kinabalu and @OnlyLivingBoy remind me just how prejudiced against anyone who choses private healthcare or independent schooling you have to be to vote Labour. Perhaps people only persuade people not to vote for a party rather than for them
But this really does not compare to what the Chinese do to animals. This might sound borderline racist but they seem to lack the compassion-for-animals gene, or meme, or something. Perhaps we are just sentimental westerners and they are morally coherent?
I dunno. They could easily argue that we are hypocrites, and we put our animal cruelty in factory farms and awful slaughterhouuses, and we do it on an industrial scale, but it is out of sight and out of mind. And that’s probably fair.
But I can’t get my head around people that can skin a living cat or fry a living dog in a wok because it tastes better. And they really do this
So fuck knows what THEIR factory farming is like
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1486030126139723785
The voter must be allowed to choose. Even if there is only one candidate, 'not this plonker - try again properly' should be an automatic option.
I am also speaking as a fat guy at the moment. COVID really sapped any discipline/habits I'd built. What was there other than food or drink? I admit I treated that time like a second studenthood and tried to enjoy it, but recently I'm back to my old ways. We'll see if it works again.
I generally believe that Russia’s influence on Brexit (and perhaps other things, like Sindy) is greater than officially accredited, but I doubt Putin is giving Boris more than a moment’s thought.
We put tea into milk!
[Edit: * more actually, on your figures, come to think of it.]
HYUFD will hate the fact that NI are finally reaching the 1970's when it comes to woman's health issues.
Oh, not that sort of spin.
Over time, the growing and coming majority of people think it’s insane and you end up burning your own party into ashes.
I weighed myself regularly - twice a week - for many years before Covid and stayed at a good healthy weight. Not slim, I’m the rugby player type, but definitely not fat either
Then lockdown made everything seem irrelevant and I blobbed out and it has been a really struggle to master it, since then. As we - God willing - exit the pandemic, it is time to reapply myself. Sri Lanka is a good place to start (despite the tempting curries). Good weather, gyms in hotels, the sea to swim in
I have already been fasting for 6 hours without breaking! And so it begins
Kenneth Williams as "The Mad Khazi" is complaining that the siege of the Residence is getting nowhere "These British are impossible! Shell their cities, kill their women and they don't bat an eyelid, but put the tea in before the milk and they go berserk"
Abortion is legal in NI now but there is no support for abortion on demand
Beyond that the only reason I mentioned it was I know it's an issue you get hot and bothered over but the point is that the DUP / TUV are really a bunch of dinosaurs chasing an era that went 50 years ago and one where Eire is now way more progressive and comfortable with.
Finally thanks for confirming once again that you believe your believes override the well being of over 50%+ of this country.
It would only take a swing of five votes to get the alternative result and a change of leader as we saw with both Corbyn and Starmer could easily swing more than five votes.
Five votes out of 38 people being the swing needed shows how much of a sway Corbyn and Corbynism still has in the party.
Well done that man!
You can put coffee into your milk, or milk into your coffee, it just depends which style of coffee you want. Neither option is "wrong".
It's got nothing to do with being judgemental. I would just like to live in a country with well funded, functioning public services. FWIW I would do whatever I needed to do in the interests of my family as anyone else would, and I don't judge those who make different choices to me.
The Turks have a far bigger military than Germany
I will continue to put the milk in before the tea cos that's the way I was brung up.
https://twitter.com/rogermiles/status/1486023503187001347?s=21
IMHO sustainable weight loss is primarily about breaking bad eating and drinking habits, as difficult as that may sometimes be. Once you do that then it may take a little while to shift the excess (though it's quicker with the aid of a more active lifestyle,) but there's absolutely no need to starve yourself. If you try to compensate by skipping meals then the risk is that you fail whilst attempting to lose weight because you get sick of being hungry, or after you lose weight because it starts piling back on as soon as you resume eating like you did before.