Morning all! "He's toast" seems to be the narrative, with even the remaining amoral Tories willing to back lies and criminality now doing so on the back foot. The utter collapse of the "lets front it out" strategy yesterday leaves only defensive plays and there are so few of those left.
They now face a mullering in the locals. Followed swiftly by the avalanche of PCNs (and worse?) from the Met, followed swiftly by the unredacted Grey report, followed swiftly by the Privilege Committee sitting to look through an absolute mountain of damning evidence.
He only got to carry on by blustering it out with the party backing him. That ended yesterday.
So, who replaces him. Sunak has been torpedoed below the water line and supposedly almost quit. Truss is an Instagram Thatcher tribute with nothing to offer. Gove is off his tits. Raab loses his seat at the election and doesn't show any signs of brain activity. Tugenwho?
I know that high thinking moral giants like HY have insisted the party would only vote for a Brexiteer, but there aren't any. And the party is going to left so reeling by Borisgate over the next few months that electing another high risk wazzock won't look sensible.
Step forward Jeremy Hunt. Your time has come.
- “They now face a mullering in the locals.”
How’s it looking on the ground in your patch? I keep reading how well the SCons are doing (outwith Edinburgh), but reading between the lines of Robert Smithson’s post last night about one naughty PBer using a blacklisted ip address and other Mod-posts, it seems the distributor of this information may not be… ahem… entirely reliable.
I honestly can't say. The vibe is that there is a lot of infighting, quite often between candidates in the same ward. Many candidates cling to David Duguid MP but I think he's seen as skating on thin ice with anyone connected with farming and fishing and energy.
The problem is that they are running against the SNP - specifically that SNP priorities are not your priorities. With regards to funding local projects. Its just that they didn't fund the big CCS project up here (and the MP even praised the PM for awarding the money to England) and Brexit has harmed agriculture so I don't get their point.
A baronet is standing against the Tories in next month's council elections after claiming he has been expelled from the Scottish Conservative Party. Sir James Angus Rhoderick Neil McGrigor, known to everyone as "Jamie", is contesting the Oban South and Isles ward in Argyll and Bute as an independent, a council seat he had held for the Tories since 2017. Prior to that, he had been a Conservative MSP for the Highlands and Islands, serving in Holyrood from 1999 to 2016.
I know him a bit, though not seen him for 10 years. No enemy of the distilling industry.
Morning all! "He's toast" seems to be the narrative, with even the remaining amoral Tories willing to back lies and criminality now doing so on the back foot. The utter collapse of the "lets front it out" strategy yesterday leaves only defensive plays and there are so few of those left.
They now face a mullering in the locals. Followed swiftly by the avalanche of PCNs (and worse?) from the Met, followed swiftly by the unredacted Grey report, followed swiftly by the Privilege Committee sitting to look through an absolute mountain of damning evidence.
He only got to carry on by blustering it out with the party backing him. That ended yesterday.
So, who replaces him. Sunak has been torpedoed below the water line and supposedly almost quit. Truss is an Instagram Thatcher tribute with nothing to offer. Gove is off his tits. Raab loses his seat at the election and doesn't show any signs of brain activity. Tugenwho?
I know that high thinking moral giants like HY have insisted the party would only vote for a Brexiteer, but there aren't any. And the party is going to left so reeling by Borisgate over the next few months that electing another high risk wazzock won't look sensible.
Step forward Jeremy Hunt. Your time has come.
- “They now face a mullering in the locals.”
How’s it looking on the ground in your patch? I keep reading how well the SCons are doing (outwith Edinburgh), but reading between the lines of Robert Smithson’s post last night about one naughty PBer using a blacklisted ip address and other Mod-posts, it seems the distributor of this information may not be… ahem… entirely reliable.
I honestly can't say. The vibe is that there is a lot of infighting, quite often between candidates in the same ward. Many candidates cling to David Duguid MP but I think he's seen as skating on thin ice with anyone connected with farming and fishing and energy.
The problem is that they are running against the SNP - specifically that SNP priorities are not your priorities. With regards to funding local projects. Its just that they didn't fund the big CCS project up here (and the MP even praised the PM for awarding the money to England) and Brexit has harmed agriculture so I don't get their point.
Teesside Tories were just as bad. It ended up with the Houchen / Vickers cabal running everything and anyone who wasn't them kicked out. OK so thanks to the Johnson / Corbyn pact they picked up a stack of seats, but they're going to lose most of them next time.
London Tory candidates stand as ‘Local Conservatives’ in election in bid to deflect partygate
More than 400 London Tories will stand as “Local Conservatives” in the upcoming elections in what has been branded an attempt to distance themselves from the woes of the national party.
Dozens of prospective candidates in Birmingham will also be listed under the label on the ballot paper on May 5 for the first time.
The ‘No to Nato’ campaign is showing signs of life in Sweden. At least we’re now going to have a proper debate. Sweden’s ‘alliansfriheten’ seems to have much deeper ideological roots than Finland’s.
Presumably because the Swedes haven't faced anyone in open war for hundreds of years, while for Finns the Russian threat is one that is rooted in living memory.
Chicken n Egg conundrum. Is Sweden peaceful because we are free, or are we free because we are peaceful?
What on earth makes you think Swedes aren’t very well aware of Russian threats, both historic and contemporary? Swedish media has reported and commented such threats since time immemorial. Swedes are not unaffected by the experiences of our Nordic brothers in Finland, Norway, Iceland and Denmark, nor the rest of humanity.
I was not seeking to knock the Swedes. Giving up a position of neutrality after generations observing it is a very, very big deal. I can understand entirely why it is such a tough call that will involve a lot of soul searching - despite the self-evident threats the country faces. My point was that Finnish history is very different, as is Finland's experience of Russia and, before and after that, the Soviet Union. Sweden's place in the Nordic family is also very interesting, IMO. In my experience, it is the one that the others define themselves against.
An insightful post.
Yes, Sweden is sometimes seen as the benchmark, the lodestar. Not just because we are twice the size of our immediate neighbours, and our central location, but for a complex range of other reasons.
This is a grossly flawed analogy, but one could propose:
Nordic cf Atlantic countries
Sweden = England Finland = Wales Norway = Scotland Denmark = Ireland Iceland = Mann
Again, my experience only is that Iceland sits a little apart. People there seem to look to Denmark, to the Faeroes and perhaps to Greenland. I don't think they feel an equally close affinity with Norway, Sweden and Finland. They are step-brothers rather than blood brothers.
The way I see it is that Sweden is the bigger Nordic brother that the rest of them admire, slightly mistrust and relentlessly and affectionately take the piss out of.
And vice versa. Swedes (in private) can be brutal about their neighbours. Can’t immediately think of any grossly flawed analogies…
Leavers knew this and were clearly comfortable with an influx of Indian workers, as presumably did RedWall Johnsonian voters. And good on 'em!
"Replace your Polish neighbours with Indians" is not what was on the side of the bus, or that NHS ad, or Fucking Farage's poster.
But to be fair to Johnson he didn't lie all those years ago. So if the bigoted Brexiteer faction (calm down, I don't mean you, PB Brexiteers) didn't like the idea they should have read and understood Johnson's small print.
Stupid NIMBY, are you saying that there's plenty of housing in this country, no housing shortages and prices are nice and low in the cities due to the abundance of homes for people who need to get on the ladder to buy?
Do you ever stop to think for one second, or are you just permanently outraged regardless of reason?
If the old house building targets haven't been met then that will leave a shortage of homes that need to be made up so the house building target should be increased and met at an even higher level. Not cut the target. If you ever actually stopped to think for yourself for two seconds you might be able to understand that.
NIMBY Councils need to stop moaning about "unrealistic" targets and JFDI get it done.
Surprised both main parties lose a point and conservative still at the 34% mark
I would have expected a wider gap
There have been no new allegations, people already know whats happened, Labour may be pushing Partygate to far. The amount of time and money that is being wasted on it may be grating people, especially with the annoucement of yet another enquiry yesterday.
What date will the Nuremberg type trials of Partygate take place?
Johnson will never resign, no matter what this standards committee comes up with.
Only a VONC will get him out.
Never say never.
All leaders eventually depart office, there's no exceptions to that (except possibly Labour's John Smith) and almost all of them via resignation rather than waiting for a VONC to push them out.
History suggests that when Boris eventually departs, it will be via resigning, one way or another.
You were his biggest fan. In another guise I remember you saying he was the greatest Prime Minister since Thatcher and would possibly end up the best since the war. Surely a piece of birthday cake shouldn't deny the country the possibility of such talent and leadership?
"Were" is the operative word. Though I'll correct you, I never said that he could possibly end up the best since the war, there was never a chance he could be better than Thacher.
All leaders have a best-before date and some may come sooner than later. Thatcher was herself the greatest Prime Minister since Churchill but that didn't mean that it was wrong to ultimately oust her.
The fact that Thatcher had to leave office doesn't diminish her achievements. She was still a great PM, but ultimately she had to go. The same goes for Boris, he's been a great PM but been is past-tense, it is well past the point for him to go now.
That opinion - "Boris Johnson has been a great PM" - is very very bad. It's so bad that I think we need a different word than "opinion" to describe it. I'll work on this and revert soonest.
Gloomy data: UK retail sales dropped 1.4% in March - more than the 0.3% fall economists expected - as Brits cut back on discretionary spending and non-essential journeys to deal with the cost of living (which is only set to rise...)
Meanwhile, @GfK says consumer confidence sank for a 5th straight month in April, with Brits more pessimistic about the outlook for their personal finances and the economy than during the financial crisis - it's the level synonymous with recession:
This is what is going to doom the Tories, unless they get a handle on it, the cost of living crisis. A genuine cost of living crisis is going on right now.
I am not surprised consumer confidence is falling and if gas prices don't fall then the price cap when it is renewed will either go up or stay the same.
Alot of the stuff that excited the political anoraks failed to resonate with the general public. The proverbial pound in the pocket is going to be one that really hits home.
Yes. People may even think it's the anorak stuff that is driving them, when were it not for cost of living they might not react to the same issues at all.
As the circumstance changes, the same events can be seen differently.
Most people have more sense than to interact with the news in detail.
But If the money runs out before the month does, everyone notices. Which is why the "not our fault" stuff doesn't work- most people don't get to hear it.
And of course the Tories have made theur very special contribution to the money running out by bumping up NI. Unless one is a wealthyt pensioner Tory voter obvs.
It will be interesting to see reactions to payday next week.
Although Rishi has raised the NIC threshold so lower paid workers will see an apparent payrise in a couple of months time.
Indeed, anyone earning under £34,000 will see a cut in the NIC they pay. With those earning over £100,000 seeing the biggest rise.
Plus the state pension is rising below inflation too so pensioners are not immune from rising inflation
Your core vote. That is not good for you. Especially for those on a fixed income.
Rory Stewart really did shit the bed. Self destructing his career just as it was getting going, over a point of principle that was really irrelevant in the grand course.
The other what-if is Osborne. He might have stayed quietly on the backbenchers biding his time. A few sensible comments through the pandemic, don’t get drawn into the Brexit wars. He’d now be the slam dunk choice.
Osborne is the personification of austerity. Not what's needed. Nor are tax hikes. We need to run deficits and fiscal drag for the next decade with inflation allowed to run at rates we haven't seen for a generation. It's going to happen anyway. Time to accept the new paradigm, and be honest with voters. Not boosterism.
In all fairness to Johnson he did suggest many, many years ago (I believe during the EURef campaign, although that may be wrong) that once the detested by some Leavers, Eastern Europeans had left post Brexit, any employment shortfalls could be made up by "our friends from the Indian subcontinent". Leavers knew this and were clearly comfortable with an influx of Indian workers, as presumably did RedWall Johnsonian voters. And good on 'em!
Wont they have to go through the great clearing house that is Rwanda?
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
The Russian army has shelled the Memorial to the Victims of Totalitarianism in Kharkiv damaging a part of the memorial tablets... The Memorial commemorates 3806 Polish officers and 500 Polish civilians murdered by Soviet secret police in Kharkiv as part of the Katyn massacre in 1940 as well as 2746 Kharkiv residents murdered in 1937-1938 https://mobile.twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1517376430694445059
I don’t know the physical nature of the memorial but this story could be either “Russia deliberate targeted memorial” or “Memorial collateral damage in shelling of town”
Stupid NIMBY, are you saying that there's plenty of housing in this country, no housing shortages and prices are nice and low in the cities due to the abundance of homes for people who need to get on the ladder to buy?
Do you ever stop to think for one second, or are you just permanently outraged regardless of reason?
If the old house building targets haven't been met then that will leave a shortage of homes that need to be made up so the house building target should be increased and met at an even higher level. Not cut the target. If you ever actually stopped to think for yourself for two seconds you might be able to understand that.
NIMBY Councils need to stop moaning about "unrealistic" targets and JFDI get it done.
Increased housebuilding in, say, Central London, will not help even a little bit with levelling up. If the government is serious about levelling up, it needs to stimulate economic activity in new towns or in those that have fallen behind. The easiest way to do this is by building new homes and refurbishing old ones. This is itself will get local economies moving, and new, cheap housing will attract people to move there.
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
Surprised both main parties lose a point and conservative still at the 34% mark
I would have expected a wider gap
There have been no new allegations, people already know whats happened, Labour may be pushing Partygate to far. The amount of time and money that is being wasted on it may be grating people, especially with the annoucement of yet another enquiry yesterday.
What date will the Nuremberg type trials of Partygate take place?
Well Boris could solve all of that couldn't he by resigning.
Morning all! "He's toast" seems to be the narrative, with even the remaining amoral Tories willing to back lies and criminality now doing so on the back foot. The utter collapse of the "lets front it out" strategy yesterday leaves only defensive plays and there are so few of those left.
They now face a mullering in the locals. Followed swiftly by the avalanche of PCNs (and worse?) from the Met, followed swiftly by the unredacted Grey report, followed swiftly by the Privilege Committee sitting to look through an absolute mountain of damning evidence.
He only got to carry on by blustering it out with the party backing him. That ended yesterday.
So, who replaces him. Sunak has been torpedoed below the water line and supposedly almost quit. Truss is an Instagram Thatcher tribute with nothing to offer. Gove is off his tits. Raab loses his seat at the election and doesn't show any signs of brain activity. Tugenwho?
I know that high thinking moral giants like HY have insisted the party would only vote for a Brexiteer, but there aren't any. And the party is going to left so reeling by Borisgate over the next few months that electing another high risk wazzock won't look sensible.
Step forward Jeremy Hunt. Your time has come.
- “They now face a mullering in the locals.”
How’s it looking on the ground in your patch? I keep reading how well the SCons are doing (outwith Edinburgh), but reading between the lines of Robert Smithson’s post last night about one naughty PBer using a blacklisted ip address and other Mod-posts, it seems the distributor of this information may not be… ahem… entirely reliable.
I honestly can't say. The vibe is that there is a lot of infighting, quite often between candidates in the same ward. Many candidates cling to David Duguid MP but I think he's seen as skating on thin ice with anyone connected with farming and fishing and energy.
The problem is that they are running against the SNP - specifically that SNP priorities are not your priorities. With regards to funding local projects. Its just that they didn't fund the big CCS project up here (and the MP even praised the PM for awarding the money to England) and Brexit has harmed agriculture so I don't get their point.
Teesside Tories were just as bad. It ended up with the Houchen / Vickers cabal running everything and anyone who wasn't them kicked out. OK so thanks to the Johnson / Corbyn pact they picked up a stack of seats, but they're going to lose most of them next time.
London Tory candidates stand as ‘Local Conservatives’ in election in bid to deflect partygate
More than 400 London Tories will stand as “Local Conservatives” in the upcoming elections in what has been branded an attempt to distance themselves from the woes of the national party.
Dozens of prospective candidates in Birmingham will also be listed under the label on the ballot paper on May 5 for the first time.
Stupid NIMBY, are you saying that there's plenty of housing in this country, no housing shortages and prices are nice and low in the cities due to the abundance of homes for people who need to get on the ladder to buy?
Do you ever stop to think for one second, or are you just permanently outraged regardless of reason?
If the old house building targets haven't been met then that will leave a shortage of homes that need to be made up so the house building target should be increased and met at an even higher level. Not cut the target. If you ever actually stopped to think for yourself for two seconds you might be able to understand that.
NIMBY Councils need to stop moaning about "unrealistic" targets and JFDI get it done.
Increased housebuilding in, say, Central London, will not help even a little bit with levelling up. If the government is serious about levelling up, it needs to stimulate economic activity in new towns or in those that have fallen behind. The easiest way to do this is by building new homes and refurbishing old ones. This is itself will get local economies moving, and new, cheap housing will attract people to move there.
New homes should be built where they're needed, not in order to validate a party slogan. We're not the Soviet Union.
Stupid NIMBY, are you saying that there's plenty of housing in this country, no housing shortages and prices are nice and low in the cities due to the abundance of homes for people who need to get on the ladder to buy?
Do you ever stop to think for one second, or are you just permanently outraged regardless of reason?
If the old house building targets haven't been met then that will leave a shortage of homes that need to be made up so the house building target should be increased and met at an even higher level. Not cut the target. If you ever actually stopped to think for yourself for two seconds you might be able to understand that.
NIMBY Councils need to stop moaning about "unrealistic" targets and JFDI get it done.
Increased housebuilding in, say, Central London, will not help even a little bit with levelling up. If the government is serious about levelling up, it needs to stimulate economic activity in new towns or in those that have fallen behind. The easiest way to do this is by building new homes and refurbishing old ones. This is itself will get local economies moving, and new, cheap housing will attract people to move there.
But that will do absolutely nothing to aid the renters in London who are struggling to get on the property ladder and is an argument primarily made by NIMBYs who selfishly think that London's exorbitant house prices is a good thing since its swelling their assets and not a serious problem that needs addressing.
Gloomy data: UK retail sales dropped 1.4% in March - more than the 0.3% fall economists expected - as Brits cut back on discretionary spending and non-essential journeys to deal with the cost of living (which is only set to rise...)
Meanwhile, @GfK says consumer confidence sank for a 5th straight month in April, with Brits more pessimistic about the outlook for their personal finances and the economy than during the financial crisis - it's the level synonymous with recession:
This is what is going to doom the Tories, unless they get a handle on it, the cost of living crisis. A genuine cost of living crisis is going on right now.
I am not surprised consumer confidence is falling and if gas prices don't fall then the price cap when it is renewed will either go up or stay the same.
Alot of the stuff that excited the political anoraks failed to resonate with the general public. The proverbial pound in the pocket is going to be one that really hits home.
Yes. People may even think it's the anorak stuff that is driving them, when were it not for cost of living they might not react to the same issues at all.
As the circumstance changes, the same events can be seen differently.
Most people have more sense than to interact with the news in detail.
But If the money runs out before the month does, everyone notices. Which is why the "not our fault" stuff doesn't work- most people don't get to hear it.
And of course the Tories have made theur very special contribution to the money running out by bumping up NI. Unless one is a wealthyt pensioner Tory voter obvs.
It will be interesting to see reactions to payday next week.
Although Rishi has raised the NIC threshold so lower paid workers will see an apparent payrise in a couple of months time.
Indeed, anyone earning under £34,000 will see a cut in the NIC they pay. With those earning over £100,000 seeing the biggest rise.
Plus the state pension is rising below inflation too so pensioners are not immune from rising inflation
Your core vote. That is not good for you. Especially for those on a fixed income.
Depends if they own property or not, renting pensioners on the state pension are not the Tory core vote.
Homeowning pensioners are and they usually have private pensions too and will be able to keep more of their assets from care costs now
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
Cough. Sir Antony Eden. Cough. Although he did resign later when clearly ill.
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
So what. If you see a shop lifter getting away with it do you decide it is ok for you to shop lift or do you decide it is wrong? Again I ask where is your moral compass?
Gloomy data: UK retail sales dropped 1.4% in March - more than the 0.3% fall economists expected - as Brits cut back on discretionary spending and non-essential journeys to deal with the cost of living (which is only set to rise...)
Meanwhile, @GfK says consumer confidence sank for a 5th straight month in April, with Brits more pessimistic about the outlook for their personal finances and the economy than during the financial crisis - it's the level synonymous with recession:
This is what is going to doom the Tories, unless they get a handle on it, the cost of living crisis. A genuine cost of living crisis is going on right now.
I am not surprised consumer confidence is falling and if gas prices don't fall then the price cap when it is renewed will either go up or stay the same.
Alot of the stuff that excited the political anoraks failed to resonate with the general public. The proverbial pound in the pocket is going to be one that really hits home.
Yes. People may even think it's the anorak stuff that is driving them, when were it not for cost of living they might not react to the same issues at all.
As the circumstance changes, the same events can be seen differently.
Most people have more sense than to interact with the news in detail.
But If the money runs out before the month does, everyone notices. Which is why the "not our fault" stuff doesn't work- most people don't get to hear it.
And of course the Tories have made theur very special contribution to the money running out by bumping up NI. Unless one is a wealthyt pensioner Tory voter obvs.
It will be interesting to see reactions to payday next week.
Although Rishi has raised the NIC threshold so lower paid workers will see an apparent payrise in a couple of months time.
Indeed, anyone earning under £34,000 will see a cut in the NIC they pay. With those earning over £100,000 seeing the biggest rise.
Plus the state pension is rising below inflation too so pensioners are not immune from rising inflation
Your core vote. That is not good for you. Especially for those on a fixed income.
Depends if they own property or not, renting pensioners on the state pension are not the Tory core vote.
Homeowning pensioners are and they usually have private pensions too and will be able to keep more of their assets from care costs now
The Tory electoral proposition has now shrunk to shielding the elderly from the economic decline they voted for.
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
So what. If you see a shop lifter getting away with it do you decide it is ok for you to shop lift or do you decide it is wrong? Again I ask where is your moral compass?
Elections are rarely won by Saints.
If you want a leader who is a purely moral one look to the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury
Morning all! "He's toast" seems to be the narrative, with even the remaining amoral Tories willing to back lies and criminality now doing so on the back foot. The utter collapse of the "lets front it out" strategy yesterday leaves only defensive plays and there are so few of those left.
They now face a mullering in the locals. Followed swiftly by the avalanche of PCNs (and worse?) from the Met, followed swiftly by the unredacted Grey report, followed swiftly by the Privilege Committee sitting to look through an absolute mountain of damning evidence.
He only got to carry on by blustering it out with the party backing him. That ended yesterday.
So, who replaces him. Sunak has been torpedoed below the water line and supposedly almost quit. Truss is an Instagram Thatcher tribute with nothing to offer. Gove is off his tits. Raab loses his seat at the election and doesn't show any signs of brain activity. Tugenwho?
I know that high thinking moral giants like HY have insisted the party would only vote for a Brexiteer, but there aren't any. And the party is going to left so reeling by Borisgate over the next few months that electing another high risk wazzock won't look sensible.
Step forward Jeremy Hunt. Your time has come.
How on earth does Jeremy Hunt get past the UKIP membership the Tories now have?
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
I think it's KNOWINGLY mislead parliament which TB didn't do. Incidentally is using TB the new directive from Guto?
Yesterday’s Labour motion was not a Humble Address, but the party’s tactics and the Government’s response echoed the interplay I describe above. The Opposition motion referring the Prime Minister to the Privileges Committee was designed to expose Tory MPs during the run-up to the local elections.
The Conservative whips sought to draw the sting by tabling an amendment to it the view of which about a Privileges Committee referral was like St Augustine’s on chastity: give me an inquiry, but not yet. They will surely have believed when tabling the amendment that Tory MPs would enable it to pass.
This position collapsed. Why? Because many of those MPs are unwilling to commit themselves in the chamber to defending Johnson before they know how many fixed penalty notices he will be served with, and what Sue Gray’s report into Downing Street social gatherings will say. No wonder the whips ran out of supportive Tory speakers.
So the amendment wasn’t moved and Conservative MPs were unwhipped. They won’t be embarrassed during the run-up to May’s elections (at least any more than they are already). And Johnson is, after Gray reports, at the mercy of the Privileges Committee, which has the power to suspend or even expel him from the Commons.
Morning all! "He's toast" seems to be the narrative, with even the remaining amoral Tories willing to back lies and criminality now doing so on the back foot. The utter collapse of the "lets front it out" strategy yesterday leaves only defensive plays and there are so few of those left.
They now face a mullering in the locals. Followed swiftly by the avalanche of PCNs (and worse?) from the Met, followed swiftly by the unredacted Grey report, followed swiftly by the Privilege Committee sitting to look through an absolute mountain of damning evidence.
He only got to carry on by blustering it out with the party backing him. That ended yesterday.
So, who replaces him. Sunak has been torpedoed below the water line and supposedly almost quit. Truss is an Instagram Thatcher tribute with nothing to offer. Gove is off his tits. Raab loses his seat at the election and doesn't show any signs of brain activity. Tugenwho?
I know that high thinking moral giants like HY have insisted the party would only vote for a Brexiteer, but there aren't any. And the party is going to left so reeling by Borisgate over the next few months that electing another high risk wazzock won't look sensible.
Step forward Jeremy Hunt. Your time has come.
How on earth does Jeremy Hunt get past the UKIP membership the Tories now have?
In February Boris Johnson promised his MPs a new broom was sweeping through his operation, and the chaotic energy of the OPatz affair wouldn’t happen again.
A lot of those MPs decided to give him another chance and wait and see if he could pull it off.
And a lot of them will have looked at the chaos of yesterday and decided nothing has changed.
A defenestration might not be imminent, but yesterday felt like a shift in mood.
Stupid NIMBY, are you saying that there's plenty of housing in this country, no housing shortages and prices are nice and low in the cities due to the abundance of homes for people who need to get on the ladder to buy?
Do you ever stop to think for one second, or are you just permanently outraged regardless of reason?
If the old house building targets haven't been met then that will leave a shortage of homes that need to be made up so the house building target should be increased and met at an even higher level. Not cut the target. If you ever actually stopped to think for yourself for two seconds you might be able to understand that.
NIMBY Councils need to stop moaning about "unrealistic" targets and JFDI get it done.
Increased housebuilding in, say, Central London, will not help even a little bit with levelling up. If the government is serious about levelling up, it needs to stimulate economic activity in new towns or in those that have fallen behind. The easiest way to do this is by building new homes and refurbishing old ones. This is itself will get local economies moving, and new, cheap housing will attract people to move there.
But that will do absolutely nothing to aid the renters in London who are struggling to get on the property ladder and is an argument primarily made by NIMBYs who selfishly think that London's exorbitant house prices is a good thing since its swelling their assets and not a serious problem that needs addressing.
One problem in London is that the top of the market is dominated by foreign buyers looking for boltholes or investments. Ludicrously high prices then trickle down.
Aren’t council election predictions difficult as the headline polling hides large regional variations where Labour would be miles ahead of the Tories . Most council seats are taking place in Labour friendly areas .
"The final irony for the people-pleaser may be that he ends up pleasing no one: he remains in post, weakened but too strong to depose, waiting for his legendary ballot box appeal to run out once and for all"
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
So what. If you see a shop lifter getting away with it do you decide it is ok for you to shop lift or do you decide it is wrong? Again I ask where is your moral compass?
Elections are rarely won by Saints.
If you want a leader who is a purely moral one look to the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury
Ah yes the Church is purely moral. No feathering their own pockets, covering their own buildings in gold or protecting paedophile priests from them - no sirree purely moral they are.
The Church exists to make politicians look good in contrast.
Surprised both main parties lose a point and conservative still at the 34% mark
I would have expected a wider gap
There have been no new allegations, people already know whats happened, Labour may be pushing Partygate to far. The amount of time and money that is being wasted on it may be grating people, especially with the annoucement of yet another enquiry yesterday.
What date will the Nuremberg type trials of Partygate take place?
For accuracy I believe the 34% in that poll is the same as the last poll and not -1%
Surprised both main parties lose a point and conservative still at the 34% mark
I would have expected a wider gap
If the Tories stay at 34%+ then Boris likely survives
Nope. Sea change this week. All over.
It won't be, 34%+ means even if there is a VONC Boris survives it as he is keeping the core vote. Much as leftwingers might wish otherwise
Left-wingers might prefer to keep Boris in place as he at least nominally is in favour of public investment unlike the austerity hawks likely to replace him.
In February Boris Johnson promised his MPs a new broom was sweeping through his operation, and the chaotic energy of the OPatz affair wouldn’t happen again.
A lot of those MPs decided to give him another chance and wait and see if he could pull it off.
And a lot of them will have looked at the chaos of yesterday and decided nothing has changed.
A defenestration might not be imminent, but yesterday felt like a shift in mood.
Surprised both main parties lose a point and conservative still at the 34% mark
I would have expected a wider gap
There have been no new allegations, people already know whats happened, Labour may be pushing Partygate to far. The amount of time and money that is being wasted on it may be grating people, especially with the annoucement of yet another enquiry yesterday.
What date will the Nuremberg type trials of Partygate take place?
That may be right, but they have also come to a conclusion as to best way to knock partygate on the head
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
So what. If you see a shop lifter getting away with it do you decide it is ok for you to shop lift or do you decide it is wrong? Again I ask where is your moral compass?
Elections are rarely won by Saints.
If you want a leader who is a purely moral one look to the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury
Gloomy data: UK retail sales dropped 1.4% in March - more than the 0.3% fall economists expected - as Brits cut back on discretionary spending and non-essential journeys to deal with the cost of living (which is only set to rise...)
Meanwhile, @GfK says consumer confidence sank for a 5th straight month in April, with Brits more pessimistic about the outlook for their personal finances and the economy than during the financial crisis - it's the level synonymous with recession:
This is what is going to doom the Tories, unless they get a handle on it, the cost of living crisis. A genuine cost of living crisis is going on right now.
I am not surprised consumer confidence is falling and if gas prices don't fall then the price cap when it is renewed will either go up or stay the same.
Alot of the stuff that excited the political anoraks failed to resonate with the general public. The proverbial pound in the pocket is going to be one that really hits home.
Yes. People may even think it's the anorak stuff that is driving them, when were it not for cost of living they might not react to the same issues at all.
As the circumstance changes, the same events can be seen differently.
Most people have more sense than to interact with the news in detail.
But If the money runs out before the month does, everyone notices. Which is why the "not our fault" stuff doesn't work- most people don't get to hear it.
And of course the Tories have made theur very special contribution to the money running out by bumping up NI. Unless one is a wealthyt pensioner Tory voter obvs.
It will be interesting to see reactions to payday next week.
Although Rishi has raised the NIC threshold so lower paid workers will see an apparent payrise in a couple of months time.
Indeed, anyone earning under £34,000 will see a cut in the NIC they pay. With those earning over £100,000 seeing the biggest rise.
Plus the state pension is rising below inflation too so pensioners are not immune from rising inflation
Your core vote. That is not good for you. Especially for those on a fixed income.
Depends if they own property or not, renting pensioners on the state pension are not the Tory core vote.
Homeowning pensioners are and they usually have private pensions too and will be able to keep more of their assets from care costs now
The classic Tory “I’m alright Jack” justification. Repulsive.
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
So what. If you see a shop lifter getting away with it do you decide it is ok for you to shop lift or do you decide it is wrong? Again I ask where is your moral compass?
Elections are rarely won by Saints.
If you want a leader who is a purely moral one look to the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury
Gosh, I didn't realise those two were MPs.
The Pope is a Head of State and the ABC is a member of Parliament, via the Lords...
Surprised both main parties lose a point and conservative still at the 34% mark
I would have expected a wider gap
There have been no new allegations, people already know whats happened, Labour may be pushing Partygate to far. The amount of time and money that is being wasted on it may be grating people, especially with the annoucement of yet another enquiry yesterday.
What date will the Nuremberg type trials of Partygate take place?
No need for Nuremberg style trials if FPNs are accepted and paid.
FPNs are good enough for me, and it would appear for many Conservative MPs too.
Stupid NIMBY, are you saying that there's plenty of housing in this country, no housing shortages and prices are nice and low in the cities due to the abundance of homes for people who need to get on the ladder to buy?
Do you ever stop to think for one second, or are you just permanently outraged regardless of reason?
If the old house building targets haven't been met then that will leave a shortage of homes that need to be made up so the house building target should be increased and met at an even higher level. Not cut the target. If you ever actually stopped to think for yourself for two seconds you might be able to understand that.
NIMBY Councils need to stop moaning about "unrealistic" targets and JFDI get it done.
Increased housebuilding in, say, Central London, will not help even a little bit with levelling up. If the government is serious about levelling up, it needs to stimulate economic activity in new towns or in those that have fallen behind. The easiest way to do this is by building new homes and refurbishing old ones. This is itself will get local economies moving, and new, cheap housing will attract people to move there.
New homes should be built where they're needed, not in order to validate a party slogan. We're not the Soviet Union.
New homes should be built in line with government policy, not to benefit property speculators. An overheated London and left behind regions is no good to anyone. Nor is building new towns a revolutionary idea. Conservative governments used to do it.
Latest Odoxa poll shows a much tighter race than any other pollster.
Fieldwork 20/21 April
Macron 53 Le Pen 47
No change on their previous poll.
All polls still have Le Pen over 40% including fully post debate ones.
In some ways it suits her to have Macron in front, Brexit and Trump were won from being behind in the polls but still in range. If she was ahead or tied with Macron most Melenchon voters for instance would make the effort to hold their nose and vote for Macron, as it is many will stay home if he looks safe.
The odds favour a solid Macron win but it will still be closer than 2017 and a shock Le Pen narrow win is not impossible on a low turnout
Firstly, it never really suits a candidate to be behind. It's just the sort of thing people who are behind say.
On your examples, Leave was ahead in several polls running up to polling day in 2016 - it was behind on average, and the average was wrong, but it isn't a close comparison to the French Presidential election now. Trump was likewise ahead in some polls but behind on average and, let's not forget, in the vote itself (by some three million votes). He won the election in 2016, and that's fine under the US rules... but under the French electoral system, he'd have lost.
For all the hysterics on PB, the French Presidential election is turning out exactly as anyone sensible predicted - a Macron/Le Pen run-off, with Macron winning by a decent margin (albeit one which Le Pen will claim as progress given it'll be less than last time).
Yesterday’s Labour motion was not a Humble Address, but the party’s tactics and the Government’s response echoed the interplay I describe above. The Opposition motion referring the Prime Minister to the Privileges Committee was designed to expose Tory MPs during the run-up to the local elections.
The Conservative whips sought to draw the sting by tabling an amendment to it the view of which about a Privileges Committee referral was like St Augustine’s on chastity: give me an inquiry, but not yet. They will surely have believed when tabling the amendment that Tory MPs would enable it to pass.
This position collapsed. Why? Because many of those MPs are unwilling to commit themselves in the chamber to defending Johnson before they know how many fixed penalty notices he will be served with, and what Sue Gray’s report into Downing Street social gatherings will say. No wonder the whips ran out of supportive Tory speakers.
So the amendment wasn’t moved and Conservative MPs were unwhipped. They won’t be embarrassed during the run-up to May’s elections (at least any more than they are already). And Johnson is, after Gray reports, at the mercy of the Privileges Committee, which has the power to suspend or even expel him from the Commons.
No it doesn't, it can only recommend things to the House
Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the defence select committee, said the prime minister was facing a “steady trickle” of resignations and letters of no confidence.
Stupid NIMBY, are you saying that there's plenty of housing in this country, no housing shortages and prices are nice and low in the cities due to the abundance of homes for people who need to get on the ladder to buy?
Do you ever stop to think for one second, or are you just permanently outraged regardless of reason?
If the old house building targets haven't been met then that will leave a shortage of homes that need to be made up so the house building target should be increased and met at an even higher level. Not cut the target. If you ever actually stopped to think for yourself for two seconds you might be able to understand that.
NIMBY Councils need to stop moaning about "unrealistic" targets and JFDI get it done.
Increased housebuilding in, say, Central London, will not help even a little bit with levelling up. If the government is serious about levelling up, it needs to stimulate economic activity in new towns or in those that have fallen behind. The easiest way to do this is by building new homes and refurbishing old ones. This is itself will get local economies moving, and new, cheap housing will attract people to move there.
New homes should be built where they're needed, not in order to validate a party slogan. We're not the Soviet Union.
New homes should be built in line with government policy, not to benefit property speculators. An overheated London and left behind regions is no good to anyone. Nor is building new towns a revolutionary idea. Conservative governments used to do it.
London is overheated due to a shortage of housing relative to the number of people living there, not because of an overabundance of constructed homes.
If new housing construction there sees prices come down so property speculators get burnt then I'd see that as a win/win, wouldn't you?
Rory Stewart really did shit the bed. Self destructing his career just as it was getting going, over a point of principle that was really irrelevant in the grand course.
The other what-if is Osborne. He might have stayed quietly on the backbenchers biding his time. A few sensible comments through the pandemic, don’t get drawn into the Brexit wars. He’d now be the slam dunk choice.
Osborne is the personification of austerity. Not what's needed. Nor are tax hikes. We need to run deficits and fiscal drag for the next decade with inflation allowed to run at rates we haven't seen for a generation. It's going to happen anyway. Time to accept the new paradigm, and be honest with voters. Not boosterism.
What sort of rates of inflation. 3%, 5%, 7.5% ?
Interest rated would also be going up I would presume to, at least, contain inflation.
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
So what. If you see a shop lifter getting away with it do you decide it is ok for you to shop lift or do you decide it is wrong? Again I ask where is your moral compass?
Elections are rarely won by Saints.
If you want a leader who is a purely moral one look to the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury
Again so what. Do you think this is ok? What is your view on my shoplifter question? How is it different? I wouldn't lie and Conservative leaders in the past may avoid the truth, but I can't think of any that blatantly lied. I always think of Michael Howard and that Paxman interview. He could have lied but he refused to do so to his cost and credit.
Surprised both main parties lose a point and conservative still at the 34% mark
I would have expected a wider gap
If the Tories stay at 34%+ then Boris likely survives
Nope. Sea change this week. All over.
It won't be, 34%+ means even if there is a VONC Boris survives it as he is keeping the core vote. Much as leftwingers might wish otherwise
I am not a leftwinger, but if I were I would be on my knees praying for Boris to survive, when I wasn't driving from church to church lighting candles for him.
Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the defence select committee, said the prime minister was facing a “steady trickle” of resignations and letters of no confidence.
Since we're talking NIMBYs, here's a piece I read recently suggesting that car-dependent suburbia tends to create NIMBY residents in a way that more traditional, higher density urbanism doesn't. It's American, but it's plausible;
The problem with a car-dependent place is that any development at all may be a net negative for the established residents of a neighborhood. There is effectively no concession the developer can offer that turns it into a net positive in the short run. In the long run, infill development is needed to improve the fiscal solvency of these places and to create opportunities to transition away from car-dependence. But in the short run? I get more traffic in front of my house, and with me on the roads I have to drive to the businesses I patronize or work at.
Rory Stewart really did shit the bed. Self destructing his career just as it was getting going, over a point of principle that was really irrelevant in the grand course.
The other what-if is Osborne. He might have stayed quietly on the backbenchers biding his time. A few sensible comments through the pandemic, don’t get drawn into the Brexit wars. He’d now be the slam dunk choice.
Osborne is the personification of austerity. Not what's needed. Nor are tax hikes. We need to run deficits and fiscal drag for the next decade with inflation allowed to run at rates we haven't seen for a generation. It's going to happen anyway. Time to accept the new paradigm, and be honest with voters. Not boosterism.
What sort of rates of inflation. 3%, 5%, 7.5% ?
Interest rated would also be going up I would presume to, at least, contain inflation.
None of those figures were particularly unusual under the blessed Margaret. Times have changed. The peace dividend is over. The only way to get inflation below 3% is by catastrophic retrenchment on a population who haven't had a real terms pay rise for over a decade. A much different baseline to the eighties. And, yes, interest rates will have to rise to near the rates of the last decades of last century.
Surprised both main parties lose a point and conservative still at the 34% mark
I would have expected a wider gap
If the Tories stay at 34%+ then Boris likely survives
Nope. Sea change this week. All over.
It won't be, 34%+ means even if there is a VONC Boris survives it as he is keeping the core vote. Much as leftwingers might wish otherwise
I am not a leftwinger, but if I were I would be on my knees praying for Boris to survive, when I wasn't driving from church to church lighting candles for him.
Morning all! "He's toast" seems to be the narrative, with even the remaining amoral Tories willing to back lies and criminality now doing so on the back foot. The utter collapse of the "lets front it out" strategy yesterday leaves only defensive plays and there are so few of those left.
They now face a mullering in the locals. Followed swiftly by the avalanche of PCNs (and worse?) from the Met, followed swiftly by the unredacted Grey report, followed swiftly by the Privilege Committee sitting to look through an absolute mountain of damning evidence.
He only got to carry on by blustering it out with the party backing him. That ended yesterday.
So, who replaces him. Sunak has been torpedoed below the water line and supposedly almost quit. Truss is an Instagram Thatcher tribute with nothing to offer. Gove is off his tits. Raab loses his seat at the election and doesn't show any signs of brain activity. Tugenwho?
I know that high thinking moral giants like HY have insisted the party would only vote for a Brexiteer, but there aren't any. And the party is going to left so reeling by Borisgate over the next few months that electing another high risk wazzock won't look sensible.
Step forward Jeremy Hunt. Your time has come.
How on earth does Jeremy Hunt get past the UKIP membership the Tories now have?
Simple - Remain is no longer an option.
Remain? I was told we'd already left.
Exactly. Which is why the next Tory leadership contest will have totally different dynamics to the last one...
Fall in retail sales, down 1.4% in March and the February figure has also been revised downwards.
I'm not sure if this will resonate with many pb'ers as I don't know your financials but it certainly tallies with my life. I've had to make a lot of cost saving decisions: cutting out previous staples entirely, changing brands to cheaper options, and stopping pretty much all non-essential purchases.
Johnson will never resign, no matter what this standards committee comes up with.
Only a VONC will get him out.
If its clear that they will no confidence him and that he will lose, he will go. His last line of defence collapsed yesterday.
I'm not convinced.
The Tories on that committee will slow things down some how or other and before we know it we into late summer and it'll be "too near a GE to have a leadership election" time.
It depends, who are the 4 Tories? If they're critics or sceptics of Boris then they might be sharpening their knives.
And I assume to be on such a Committee they presumably can't be a Minister, so aren't on the "Payroll Vote" so won't be loyalists to the PM?
Costa Jenkin Carter Farris. Neutral cool no comment cool per @AlastairMeeks in February
Thanks. So 2 cools and 2 neutrals doesn't look fertile ground there for Boris.
Very interesting to see the Member for Stone down as an "unknown". I get the strong impression from yesterday's debate that he'd like to see this done with, and doesn't particularly care how that is achieved.
Rory Stewart really did shit the bed. Self destructing his career just as it was getting going, over a point of principle that was really irrelevant in the grand course.
The other what-if is Osborne. He might have stayed quietly on the backbenchers biding his time. A few sensible comments through the pandemic, don’t get drawn into the Brexit wars. He’d now be the slam dunk choice.
This is George Osborne:
China’s poor human rights record and lack of democracy should not prevent the UK from becoming its closest economic ally in the West, George Osborne has said.
The Chancellor said China and the UK had “different political systems” but that Britain could be its “best partner in the West”.
Conservative MPs who have called the UK to take a tougher stance against China have been described by George Osborne as “hotheads” who should be “careful what you wish for”.
The former Chancellor, one of the architects of David Cameron’s government’s “golden era” of relations with Beijing, hit out at backbench critics of the Prime Minister’s new foreign and defence strategy.
Stupid NIMBY, are you saying that there's plenty of housing in this country, no housing shortages and prices are nice and low in the cities due to the abundance of homes for people who need to get on the ladder to buy?
Do you ever stop to think for one second, or are you just permanently outraged regardless of reason?
If the old house building targets haven't been met then that will leave a shortage of homes that need to be made up so the house building target should be increased and met at an even higher level. Not cut the target. If you ever actually stopped to think for yourself for two seconds you might be able to understand that.
NIMBY Councils need to stop moaning about "unrealistic" targets and JFDI get it done.
Do you ever think for a second. If they cannot meet low targets, what is the point of just raising the target so they can be even further behind. If you had any sense you woudl have said they should find out why targets were not being met and fix the problem. Anyone can throw out stupid targets to pretend tehy are doing something. Have those 40 hospitals been started by the way.
The ‘No to Nato’ campaign is showing signs of life in Sweden. At least we’re now going to have a proper debate. Sweden’s ‘alliansfriheten’ seems to have much deeper ideological roots than Finland’s.
If I remember rightly the last time Sweden and Russia went to war was when Russia annexed Finland in 1809. It maintained studious neutrality in both World Wars and refused to join NATO during the Cold War even though they entered into a number of unofficial or semi-official enterprises with it.
Meanwhile Finland has faced repeated threats from Russia ever since it regained its independence in 1917 and shares a long, problematic land border with a neighbour who appears to be suffering from enough collective paranoia to make the State of Israel blink.
I am not surprised that NATO membership is therefore more controversial in Sweden than in Finland. Whether that is ultimately sustainable without radical changes in Russia itself is a different question.
Point of information: Finland did not regain its independence in 1917. Remove the “re”.
Icelandic independence 1944 Finnish independence 1917 Norwegian independence 1905 Swedish independence 1523 Danish unification, first half of the 10th century
The Nordic states are mostly much younger than you’d initially suspect.
Yeah hence Amundsen beating that wazzock Scott to the s pole was even more important than you'd think. Like Scotland gaining independence and then winning the next world cup. As is very likely to happen.
Labour lead only 6%, still well below the 10% lead for Boris to be forced out
You really seem to live your whole life and political judgement around day to day opinion polls as if they are the new tablets of stone
In this crisis events will decide, not polls
Is the consensus that Johnson was wise to do a flit to India (and not have to haunt the corridors as it all fell apart) or unwise (as it gave people more freedom of action)?
Since we're talking NIMBYs, here's a piece I read recently suggesting that car-dependent suburbia tends to create NIMBY residents in a way that more traditional, higher density urbanism doesn't. It's American, but it's plausible;
The problem with a car-dependent place is that any development at all may be a net negative for the established residents of a neighborhood. There is effectively no concession the developer can offer that turns it into a net positive in the short run. In the long run, infill development is needed to improve the fiscal solvency of these places and to create opportunities to transition away from car-dependence. But in the short run? I get more traffic in front of my house, and with me on the roads I have to drive to the businesses I patronize or work at.
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
I think it's KNOWINGLY mislead parliament which TB didn't do. Incidentally is using TB the new directive from Guto?
I think that Blair knowingly exaggerated the degree of confidence he had in something that he believed to be true (but which turned out not to be). In my view that is quite different from saying something that you categorically know to be untrue.
The ‘No to Nato’ campaign is showing signs of life in Sweden. At least we’re now going to have a proper debate. Sweden’s ‘alliansfriheten’ seems to have much deeper ideological roots than Finland’s.
If I remember rightly the last time Sweden and Russia went to war was when Russia annexed Finland in 1809. It maintained studious neutrality in both World Wars and refused to join NATO during the Cold War even though they entered into a number of unofficial or semi-official enterprises with it.
Meanwhile Finland has faced repeated threats from Russia ever since it regained its independence in 1917 and shares a long, problematic land border with a neighbour who appears to be suffering from enough collective paranoia to make the State of Israel blink.
I am not surprised that NATO membership is therefore more controversial in Sweden than in Finland. Whether that is ultimately sustainable without radical changes in Russia itself is a different question.
Point of information: Finland did not regain its independence in 1917. Remove the “re”.
Icelandic independence 1944 Finnish independence 1917 Norwegian independence 1905 Swedish independence 1523 Danish unification, first half of the 10th century
The Nordic states are mostly much younger than you’d initially suspect.
Yeah hence Amundsen beating that wazzock Scott to the s pole was even more important than you'd think. Like Scotland gaining independence and then winning the next world cup. As is very likely to happen.
Stupid NIMBY, are you saying that there's plenty of housing in this country, no housing shortages and prices are nice and low in the cities due to the abundance of homes for people who need to get on the ladder to buy?
Do you ever stop to think for one second, or are you just permanently outraged regardless of reason?
If the old house building targets haven't been met then that will leave a shortage of homes that need to be made up so the house building target should be increased and met at an even higher level. Not cut the target. If you ever actually stopped to think for yourself for two seconds you might be able to understand that.
NIMBY Councils need to stop moaning about "unrealistic" targets and JFDI get it done.
Increased housebuilding in, say, Central London, will not help even a little bit with levelling up. If the government is serious about levelling up, it needs to stimulate economic activity in new towns or in those that have fallen behind. The easiest way to do this is by building new homes and refurbishing old ones. This is itself will get local economies moving, and new, cheap housing will attract people to move there.
New homes should be built where they're needed, not in order to validate a party slogan. We're not the Soviet Union.
New homes should be built in line with government policy, not to benefit property speculators. An overheated London and left behind regions is no good to anyone. Nor is building new towns a revolutionary idea. Conservative governments used to do it.
What chance Tories not feathering their chums/donors pockets. Their only policies are to enrich themselves and their chums.
Since we're talking NIMBYs, here's a piece I read recently suggesting that car-dependent suburbia tends to create NIMBY residents in a way that more traditional, higher density urbanism doesn't. It's American, but it's plausible;
The problem with a car-dependent place is that any development at all may be a net negative for the established residents of a neighborhood. There is effectively no concession the developer can offer that turns it into a net positive in the short run. In the long run, infill development is needed to improve the fiscal solvency of these places and to create opportunities to transition away from car-dependence. But in the short run? I get more traffic in front of my house, and with me on the roads I have to drive to the businesses I patronize or work at.
"Transitioning away from car-dependence" is not required.
But investment in better roads can improve existing roads for existing residents while freeing up land to be constructed upon to build more homes.
Case in point, Warrington has had major house building for decades and a lot of that has come with improved transport links. The M62 Junction 8 was opened only in 2002 and that freed up traffic for construction and redevelopment of the old RAF Burtonwood base while opening up a new access point to the motorway for existing residents. From memory, thousands if not more of new homes have been able to be constructed on that repurposed land.
Near to where I live was used as a rat-run to Liverpool which was heavily congested in rush hour. A new bypass has been built and traffic where I live has collapsed as they're now using the bypass instead and now new houses are getting constructed along where the extra transport links have been added.
All that is required is proper investment in roads, not thinking how do we drive people off the roads.
Rory Stewart really did shit the bed. Self destructing his career just as it was getting going, over a point of principle that was really irrelevant in the grand course.
The other what-if is Osborne. He might have stayed quietly on the backbenchers biding his time. A few sensible comments through the pandemic, don’t get drawn into the Brexit wars. He’d now be the slam dunk choice.
Osborne is the personification of austerity. Not what's needed. Nor are tax hikes. We need to run deficits and fiscal drag for the next decade with inflation allowed to run at rates we haven't seen for a generation. It's going to happen anyway. Time to accept the new paradigm, and be honest with voters. Not boosterism.
This 'being honest with voters' malarkey; how would it work?
"We propose to make you all poorer by making sure inflation runs away upwards for decades so that we can pay back the 2 trillion we have borrowed at about 0.3% interest in monopoly money, massively damaging the interests of savers, pensioners etc making them poorer still. So VOTE FOR US"
Morning all! "He's toast" seems to be the narrative, with even the remaining amoral Tories willing to back lies and criminality now doing so on the back foot. The utter collapse of the "lets front it out" strategy yesterday leaves only defensive plays and there are so few of those left.
They now face a mullering in the locals. Followed swiftly by the avalanche of PCNs (and worse?) from the Met, followed swiftly by the unredacted Grey report, followed swiftly by the Privilege Committee sitting to look through an absolute mountain of damning evidence.
He only got to carry on by blustering it out with the party backing him. That ended yesterday.
So, who replaces him. Sunak has been torpedoed below the water line and supposedly almost quit. Truss is an Instagram Thatcher tribute with nothing to offer. Gove is off his tits. Raab loses his seat at the election and doesn't show any signs of brain activity. Tugenwho?
I know that high thinking moral giants like HY have insisted the party would only vote for a Brexiteer, but there aren't any. And the party is going to left so reeling by Borisgate over the next few months that electing another high risk wazzock won't look sensible.
Step forward Jeremy Hunt. Your time has come.
- “They now face a mullering in the locals.”
How’s it looking on the ground in your patch? I keep reading how well the SCons are doing (outwith Edinburgh), but reading between the lines of Robert Smithson’s post last night about one naughty PBer using a blacklisted ip address and other Mod-posts, it seems the distributor of this information may not be… ahem… entirely reliable.
I honestly can't say. The vibe is that there is a lot of infighting, quite often between candidates in the same ward. Many candidates cling to David Duguid MP but I think he's seen as skating on thin ice with anyone connected with farming and fishing and energy.
The problem is that they are running against the SNP - specifically that SNP priorities are not your priorities. With regards to funding local projects. Its just that they didn't fund the big CCS project up here (and the MP even praised the PM for awarding the money to England) and Brexit has harmed agriculture so I don't get their point.
Teesside Tories were just as bad. It ended up with the Houchen / Vickers cabal running everything and anyone who wasn't them kicked out. OK so thanks to the Johnson / Corbyn pact they picked up a stack of seats, but they're going to lose most of them next time.
London Tory candidates stand as ‘Local Conservatives’ in election in bid to deflect partygate
More than 400 London Tories will stand as “Local Conservatives” in the upcoming elections in what has been branded an attempt to distance themselves from the woes of the national party.
Dozens of prospective candidates in Birmingham will also be listed under the label on the ballot paper on May 5 for the first time.
Evening Standard
Very League of Gentlemen.
Worked in Scotland where it was the Ruth Davidson Party , helped raise the London Tory seats in Holyrood.
Since we're talking NIMBYs, here's a piece I read recently suggesting that car-dependent suburbia tends to create NIMBY residents in a way that more traditional, higher density urbanism doesn't. It's American, but it's plausible;
The problem with a car-dependent place is that any development at all may be a net negative for the established residents of a neighborhood. There is effectively no concession the developer can offer that turns it into a net positive in the short run. In the long run, infill development is needed to improve the fiscal solvency of these places and to create opportunities to transition away from car-dependence. But in the short run? I get more traffic in front of my house, and with me on the roads I have to drive to the businesses I patronize or work at.
Also if you've bought a place on a new estate on the edge of town hoping to have easy access to the countryside the last thing you want is another development getting built and spoiling your views and access.
Tobias Ellwood, the chairman of the defence select committee, said the prime minister was facing a “steady trickle” of resignations and letters of no confidence.
2023 has the benefit of the Party letting* Boris say he will depart next year after we have done al we can for Ukraine but in time or a new leader to be in place for the 2023 Conference and still getting a honeymoon going into a May 2024 election on new boundaries.
*"letting" = not booting him out unceremoniously now
Stupid NIMBY, are you saying that there's plenty of housing in this country, no housing shortages and prices are nice and low in the cities due to the abundance of homes for people who need to get on the ladder to buy?
Do you ever stop to think for one second, or are you just permanently outraged regardless of reason?
If the old house building targets haven't been met then that will leave a shortage of homes that need to be made up so the house building target should be increased and met at an even higher level. Not cut the target. If you ever actually stopped to think for yourself for two seconds you might be able to understand that.
NIMBY Councils need to stop moaning about "unrealistic" targets and JFDI get it done.
Increased housebuilding in, say, Central London, will not help even a little bit with levelling up. If the government is serious about levelling up, it needs to stimulate economic activity in new towns or in those that have fallen behind. The easiest way to do this is by building new homes and refurbishing old ones. This is itself will get local economies moving, and new, cheap housing will attract people to move there.
New homes should be built where they're needed, not in order to validate a party slogan. We're not the Soviet Union.
New homes should be built in line with government policy, not to benefit property speculators. An overheated London and left behind regions is no good to anyone. Nor is building new towns a revolutionary idea. Conservative governments used to do it.
London is overheated due to a shortage of housing relative to the number of people living there, not because of an overabundance of constructed homes.
If new housing construction there sees prices come down so property speculators get burnt then I'd see that as a win/win, wouldn't you?
No it is overheated as it is a global city on a par with New York city or Paris or Singapore.
You can build more housing but it will only make a limited impact given people from all over the world will stay pay a lot of money to buy property in London. Plus you need to protect London's parks and greenspaces
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
I think it's KNOWINGLY mislead parliament which TB didn't do. Incidentally is using TB the new directive from Guto?
I think that Blair knowingly exaggerated the degree of confidence he had in something that he believed to be true (but which turned out not to be). In my view that is quite different from saying something that you categorically know to be untrue.
Much as I despise TB, in retrospect that is exactly what happened, WRT misleading Parliament.
The unacceptable part, for me, was the degree of pressure put on to Civil Servants (of various flavours) to re-work material to support that interpretation. But that is quite different - and not a comparable matter.
Since we're talking NIMBYs, here's a piece I read recently suggesting that car-dependent suburbia tends to create NIMBY residents in a way that more traditional, higher density urbanism doesn't. It's American, but it's plausible;
The problem with a car-dependent place is that any development at all may be a net negative for the established residents of a neighborhood. There is effectively no concession the developer can offer that turns it into a net positive in the short run. In the long run, infill development is needed to improve the fiscal solvency of these places and to create opportunities to transition away from car-dependence. But in the short run? I get more traffic in front of my house, and with me on the roads I have to drive to the businesses I patronize or work at.
Stupid NIMBY, are you saying that there's plenty of housing in this country, no housing shortages and prices are nice and low in the cities due to the abundance of homes for people who need to get on the ladder to buy?
Do you ever stop to think for one second, or are you just permanently outraged regardless of reason?
If the old house building targets haven't been met then that will leave a shortage of homes that need to be made up so the house building target should be increased and met at an even higher level. Not cut the target. If you ever actually stopped to think for yourself for two seconds you might be able to understand that.
NIMBY Councils need to stop moaning about "unrealistic" targets and JFDI get it done.
Increased housebuilding in, say, Central London, will not help even a little bit with levelling up. If the government is serious about levelling up, it needs to stimulate economic activity in new towns or in those that have fallen behind. The easiest way to do this is by building new homes and refurbishing old ones. This is itself will get local economies moving, and new, cheap housing will attract people to move there.
New homes should be built where they're needed, not in order to validate a party slogan. We're not the Soviet Union.
Pointless building more expensive rabbit hutches in London.
You might have missed the FDP claiming last week that Germany couldn't introduce speed limits on the motorways (to encourage lower Russian fossil fuel imports) because they didn't have enough signs.
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
So what. If you see a shop lifter getting away with it do you decide it is ok for you to shop lift or do you decide it is wrong? Again I ask where is your moral compass?
Elections are rarely won by Saints.
If you want a leader who is a purely moral one look to the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury
Gosh, I didn't realise those two were MPs.
They don't need to be, religious leaders are supposed to be near Saints, politicians aren't
You might have missed the FDP claiming last week that Germany couldn't introduce speed limits on the motorways (to encourage lower Russian fossil fuel imports) because they didn't have enough signs.
Total disgrace of a party.
Not seeing the issue there, if you want to stop Russia fossil fuel imports then sanction Russian fossil fuels and ban their imports, which other countries are doing.
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
So what. If you see a shop lifter getting away with it do you decide it is ok for you to shop lift or do you decide it is wrong? Again I ask where is your moral compass?
Elections are rarely won by Saints.
If you want a leader who is a purely moral one look to the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury
Ah yes the Church is purely moral. No feathering their own pockets, covering their own buildings in gold or protecting paedophile priests from them - no sirree purely moral they are.
The Church exists to make politicians look good in contrast.
Welby and Pope Francis are certainly far more personally moral than the average politician
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
So what. If you see a shop lifter getting away with it do you decide it is ok for you to shop lift or do you decide it is wrong? Again I ask where is your moral compass?
Elections are rarely won by Saints.
If you want a leader who is a purely moral one look to the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury
Ah yes the Church is purely moral. No feathering their own pockets, covering their own buildings in gold or protecting paedophile priests from them - no sirree purely moral they are.
The Church exists to make politicians look good in contrast.
Welby and Pope Francis are certainly far more personally moral than the average politician
Stupid NIMBY, are you saying that there's plenty of housing in this country, no housing shortages and prices are nice and low in the cities due to the abundance of homes for people who need to get on the ladder to buy?
Do you ever stop to think for one second, or are you just permanently outraged regardless of reason?
If the old house building targets haven't been met then that will leave a shortage of homes that need to be made up so the house building target should be increased and met at an even higher level. Not cut the target. If you ever actually stopped to think for yourself for two seconds you might be able to understand that.
NIMBY Councils need to stop moaning about "unrealistic" targets and JFDI get it done.
Increased housebuilding in, say, Central London, will not help even a little bit with levelling up. If the government is serious about levelling up, it needs to stimulate economic activity in new towns or in those that have fallen behind. The easiest way to do this is by building new homes and refurbishing old ones. This is itself will get local economies moving, and new, cheap housing will attract people to move there.
New homes should be built where they're needed, not in order to validate a party slogan. We're not the Soviet Union.
New homes should be built in line with government policy, not to benefit property speculators. An overheated London and left behind regions is no good to anyone. Nor is building new towns a revolutionary idea. Conservative governments used to do it.
London is overheated due to a shortage of housing relative to the number of people living there, not because of an overabundance of constructed homes.
If new housing construction there sees prices come down so property speculators get burnt then I'd see that as a win/win, wouldn't you?
No it is overheated as it is a global city on a par with New York city or Paris or Singapore.
You can build more housing but it will only make a limited impact given people from all over the world will stay pay a lot of money to buy property in London. Plus you need to protect London's parks and greenspaces
There is loads of potential for building more housing in London but it needs expensive infrastructure built alongside it. Eg down my way a huge slew of housing could be built on brownfield sites down the Old Kent Road but it can only happen with the extension of the Bakerloo Line to Lewisham (cost £3bn). From a pure cost benefit point of view it makes sense but finding a mechanism for recovering the infrastructure cost is difficult, and it's not helped by the new government dogma that spending money in London is bad.
You might have missed the FDP claiming last week that Germany couldn't introduce speed limits on the motorways (to encourage lower Russian fossil fuel imports) because they didn't have enough signs.
Total disgrace of a party.
Not seeing the issue there, if you want to stop Russia fossil fuel imports then sanction Russian fossil fuels and ban their imports, which other countries are doing.
Since we're talking NIMBYs, here's a piece I read recently suggesting that car-dependent suburbia tends to create NIMBY residents in a way that more traditional, higher density urbanism doesn't. It's American, but it's plausible;
The problem with a car-dependent place is that any development at all may be a net negative for the established residents of a neighborhood. There is effectively no concession the developer can offer that turns it into a net positive in the short run. In the long run, infill development is needed to improve the fiscal solvency of these places and to create opportunities to transition away from car-dependence. But in the short run? I get more traffic in front of my house, and with me on the roads I have to drive to the businesses I patronize or work at.
"Transitioning away from car-dependence" is not required.
But investment in better roads can improve existing roads for existing residents while freeing up land to be constructed upon to build more homes.
Case in point, Warrington has had major house building for decades and a lot of that has come with improved transport links. The M62 Junction 8 was opened only in 2002 and that freed up traffic for construction and redevelopment of the old RAF Burtonwood base while opening up a new access point to the motorway for existing residents. From memory, thousands if not more of new homes have been able to be constructed on that repurposed land.
Near to where I live was used as a rat-run to Liverpool which was heavily congested in rush hour. A new bypass has been built and traffic where I live has collapsed as they're now using the bypass instead and now new houses are getting constructed along where the extra transport links have been added.
All that is required is proper investment in roads, not thinking how do we drive people off the roads.
Driving people off the roads is very much the mentality of the urban rich and/or those who believe in increased state control of people's lives.
You might have missed the FDP claiming last week that Germany couldn't introduce speed limits on the motorways (to encourage lower Russian fossil fuel imports) because they didn't have enough signs.
Total disgrace of a party.
Not seeing the issue there, if you want to stop Russia fossil fuel imports then sanction Russian fossil fuels and ban their imports, which other countries are doing.
Not introduce speed limits.
You're an idiot
Oh really?
What's stopping Germany from sanctioning Russian oil imports as other countries are doing, including this one?
If instead of sanctioning Russian oil imports you're talking about speed limits instead then that's about as much use as a wet fart.
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
So what. If you see a shop lifter getting away with it do you decide it is ok for you to shop lift or do you decide it is wrong? Again I ask where is your moral compass?
Elections are rarely won by Saints.
If you want a leader who is a purely moral one look to the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury
Ah yes the Church is purely moral. No feathering their own pockets, covering their own buildings in gold or protecting paedophile priests from them - no sirree purely moral they are.
The Church exists to make politicians look good in contrast.
Welby and Pope Francis are certainly far more personally moral than the average politician
Tory MPs could not take the skin off a rice pudding.
The latest way they will try to rationalise it is by saying that he did not deliberatelymislead Parliament. He did it by accident or did not mean to or some such nonsense.
Apart from a few brave souls they are being pathetic, as pathetic as Labour MPs were with Corbyn. Have they learnt nothing from that? Apparently not.
Labour MPs did not remove Blair after he misled Parliament over WMD as the reason to take us to war in Iraq
That's alright then. A PM can do anything provided you can find someone else who did something wrong in the past and got away with it.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
Like or not Blair set the precedent that PMs do not automatically resign even if they misled Parliament
I think it's KNOWINGLY mislead parliament which TB didn't do. Incidentally is using TB the new directive from Guto?
I think that Blair knowingly exaggerated the degree of confidence he had in something that he believed to be true (but which turned out not to be). In my view that is quite different from saying something that you categorically know to be untrue.
Much as I despise TB, in retrospect that is exactly what happened, WRT misleading Parliament.
The unacceptable part, for me, was the degree of pressure put on to Civil Servants (of various flavours) to re-work material to support that interpretation. But that is quite different - and not a comparable matter.
Quite. I was against war, partly because WMDs seemed to be a thing which had come from nowhere and not as much of a worry as they were presented, but I never doubted, or heard anyone else doubt, their existence. I just thought Blix an incompetent loser for not finding them quicker.
Since we're talking NIMBYs, here's a piece I read recently suggesting that car-dependent suburbia tends to create NIMBY residents in a way that more traditional, higher density urbanism doesn't. It's American, but it's plausible;
The problem with a car-dependent place is that any development at all may be a net negative for the established residents of a neighborhood. There is effectively no concession the developer can offer that turns it into a net positive in the short run. In the long run, infill development is needed to improve the fiscal solvency of these places and to create opportunities to transition away from car-dependence. But in the short run? I get more traffic in front of my house, and with me on the roads I have to drive to the businesses I patronize or work at.
Put in place some decent public transport perhaps.
That's part of the point.
If you want decent public transport without it turning into a financial drain, you need a certain number of potential passengers near the bus/tram/tain stop. The sort of development patterns we had roughly pre-WW2 managed that pretty well, without needing rabbit hutch flats. Once you start having to leave ground space for 1 to 3 cars per household, it's much harder.
You might have missed the FDP claiming last week that Germany couldn't introduce speed limits on the motorways (to encourage lower Russian fossil fuel imports) because they didn't have enough signs.
Total disgrace of a party.
Not seeing the issue there, if you want to stop Russia fossil fuel imports then sanction Russian fossil fuels and ban their imports, which other countries are doing.
Comments
Do you ever stop to think for one second, or are you just permanently outraged regardless of reason?
If the old house building targets haven't been met then that will leave a shortage of homes that need to be made up so the house building target should be increased and met at an even higher level. Not cut the target. If you ever actually stopped to think for yourself for two seconds you might be able to understand that.
NIMBY Councils need to stop moaning about "unrealistic" targets and JFDI get it done.
What date will the Nuremberg type trials of Partygate take place?
We need to run deficits and fiscal drag for the next decade with inflation allowed to run at rates we haven't seen for a generation.
It's going to happen anyway.
Time to accept the new paradigm, and be honest with voters. Not boosterism.
Do you have no moral compass at all?
(* currently shortening)
Homeowning pensioners are and they usually have private pensions too and will be able to keep more of their assets from care costs now
If you want a leader who is a purely moral one look to the Pope or Archbishop of Canterbury
Yesterday’s Labour motion was not a Humble Address, but the party’s tactics and the Government’s response echoed the interplay I describe above. The Opposition motion referring the Prime Minister to the Privileges Committee was designed to expose Tory MPs during the run-up to the local elections.
The Conservative whips sought to draw the sting by tabling an amendment to it the view of which about a Privileges Committee referral was like St Augustine’s on chastity: give me an inquiry, but not yet. They will surely have believed when tabling the amendment that Tory MPs would enable it to pass.
This position collapsed. Why? Because many of those MPs are unwilling to commit themselves in the chamber to defending Johnson before they know how many fixed penalty notices he will be served with, and what Sue Gray’s report into Downing Street social gatherings will say. No wonder the whips ran out of supportive Tory speakers.
So the amendment wasn’t moved and Conservative MPs were unwhipped. They won’t be embarrassed during the run-up to May’s elections (at least any more than they are already). And Johnson is, after Gray reports, at the mercy of the Privileges Committee, which has the power to suspend or even expel him from the Commons.
A lot of those MPs decided to give him another chance and wait and see if he could pull it off.
And a lot of them will have looked at the chaos of yesterday and decided nothing has changed.
A defenestration might not be imminent, but yesterday felt like a shift in mood.
https://twitter.com/mikeysmith/status/1517420943429312512
Soz to re-up but feels relevant again:
https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnson-partygate-lockdown-scandal-conservative-london-mayor/
The Church exists to make politicians look good in contrast.
Bernard Jenkin tells committee he ‘can’t believe’ Boris Johnson nominated the son of a KGB officer for a peerage
Not a Johnson fan
Remember Johnson, karma's only a bitch if you are...
FPNs are good enough for me, and it would appear for many Conservative MPs too.
On your examples, Leave was ahead in several polls running up to polling day in 2016 - it was behind on average, and the average was wrong, but it isn't a close comparison to the French Presidential election now. Trump was likewise ahead in some polls but behind on average and, let's not forget, in the vote itself (by some three million votes). He won the election in 2016, and that's fine under the US rules... but under the French electoral system, he'd have lost.
For all the hysterics on PB, the French Presidential election is turning out exactly as anyone sensible predicted - a Macron/Le Pen run-off, with Macron winning by a decent margin (albeit one which Le Pen will claim as progress given it'll be less than last time).
“I fear it’s now when, not if a vote of confidence takes place,” he told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4
https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1517422645058359298
If new housing construction there sees prices come down so property speculators get burnt then I'd see that as a win/win, wouldn't you?
In this crisis events will decide, not polls
Interest rated would also be going up I would presume to, at least, contain inflation.
2022 2.2
2024 or later 2.38
2023 5.5
The problem with a car-dependent place is that any development at all may be a net negative for the established residents of a neighborhood. There is effectively no concession the developer can offer that turns it into a net positive in the short run. In the long run, infill development is needed to improve the fiscal solvency of these places and to create opportunities to transition away from car-dependence. But in the short run? I get more traffic in front of my house, and with me on the roads I have to drive to the businesses I patronize or work at.
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2022/4/20/herriges-rezoned-the-neighbors-dilemma
Times have changed. The peace dividend is over.
The only way to get inflation below 3% is by catastrophic retrenchment on a population who haven't had a real terms pay rise for over a decade.
A much different baseline to the eighties.
And, yes, interest rates will have to rise to near the rates of the last decades of last century.
I'm not sure if this will resonate with many pb'ers as I don't know your financials but it certainly tallies with my life. I've had to make a lot of cost saving decisions: cutting out previous staples entirely, changing brands to cheaper options, and stopping pretty much all non-essential purchases.
The cost of living situation is biting.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-61157856
China’s poor human rights record and lack of democracy should not prevent the UK from becoming its closest economic ally in the West, George Osborne has said.
The Chancellor said China and the UK had “different political systems” but that Britain could be its “best partner in the West”.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/george-osborne-downplays-china-s-human-rights-abuses-as-a-different-political-system-10512215.html
Conservative MPs who have called the UK to take a tougher stance against China have been described by George Osborne as “hotheads” who should be “careful what you wish for”.
The former Chancellor, one of the architects of David Cameron’s government’s “golden era” of relations with Beijing, hit out at backbench critics of the Prime Minister’s new foreign and defence strategy.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/integrated-review-tories-new-cold-war-china-hotheads-george-osborne-917981
George Osborne - the UK's equivalent of Gerhard Zhroder.
World Cup Winner
Scotland 500/1
Only joshing you
"Transitioning away from car-dependence" is not required.
But investment in better roads can improve existing roads for existing residents while freeing up land to be constructed upon to build more homes.
Case in point, Warrington has had major house building for decades and a lot of that has come with improved transport links. The M62 Junction 8 was opened only in 2002 and that freed up traffic for construction and redevelopment of the old RAF Burtonwood base while opening up a new access point to the motorway for existing residents. From memory, thousands if not more of new homes have been able to be constructed on that repurposed land.
Near to where I live was used as a rat-run to Liverpool which was heavily congested in rush hour. A new bypass has been built and traffic where I live has collapsed as they're now using the bypass instead and now new houses are getting constructed along where the extra transport links have been added.
All that is required is proper investment in roads, not thinking how do we drive people off the roads.
"We propose to make you all poorer by making sure inflation runs away upwards for decades so that we can pay back the 2 trillion we have borrowed at about 0.3% interest in monopoly money, massively damaging the interests of savers, pensioners etc making them poorer still. So VOTE FOR US"
2023 has the benefit of the Party letting* Boris say he will depart next year after we have done al we can for Ukraine but in time or a new leader to be in place for the 2023 Conference and still getting a honeymoon going into a May 2024 election on new boundaries.
*"letting" = not booting him out unceremoniously now
You can build more housing but it will only make a limited impact given people from all over the world will stay pay a lot of money to buy property in London. Plus you need to protect London's parks and greenspaces
The unacceptable part, for me, was the degree of pressure put on to Civil Servants (of various flavours) to re-work material to support that interpretation. But that is quite different - and not a comparable matter.
In urban areas the equivalent complaints are more congestion on public transport and among public facilities and services use generally.
Total disgrace of a party.
Not introduce speed limits.
What's stopping Germany from sanctioning Russian oil imports as other countries are doing, including this one?
If instead of sanctioning Russian oil imports you're talking about speed limits instead then that's about as much use as a wet fart.
If you want decent public transport without it turning into a financial drain, you need a certain number of potential passengers near the bus/tram/tain stop. The sort of development patterns we had roughly pre-WW2 managed that pretty well, without needing rabbit hutch flats. Once you start having to leave ground space for 1 to 3 cars per household, it's much harder.
Why ?