Riiight…. so this is the returning officer for the Hartlepool elections tomorrow openly endorsing the Tory Mayor & his purdah-breaking announcement today….
However, Painter added, the person who breached the court’s confidences should face professional consequences if identified.
“If a justice intentionally did it, I think that justice could be impeached and removed from office,” he said. “If a clerk did it, they could be dismissed and there might be implications at the bar.”...
Would be hilarious if it turns out to be Alito - though if it were him, the inquiry would likely be perfunctory and fail to reach a conclusion.
Imo definitely leaked by supporters of The scrapping of wade v row in June, either over excited oneupmanship, or calculated in making Junes change a fait accompli and yesterdays news.
Does Biden actually have the power to appoint two additional judges? If so all the pressure will pile on Biden to do that to stop it, and Biden becomes the fall guy wether roe v wade is saved or is dumped.
Not unilaterally, the power is with Congress. I suspect there are enough Democtratic Senators who realise how foolish it would be to do so, given that the political pendulum will inevitably swing again.
That is a way to stop the scrapping of Wade v `roe, what other options does Biden have?
Let Wade v Roe be scrapped, and use it as a great motivator to get the vote out in November?
Legal abortion (and RvW) is supported by about 70% of voters. If the Republicans manage to move the debate from "Woke" and towards women's reproductive rights, they will have scored an enormous own goal.
Yes. Courts are not places for closing down the debate in contested issues. That is the job of politics in a democratic society. The same people who support a court process when it is on their side suddenly start attacking the process when it isn't. This is logical nonsense. Only the process of politics, voters, mandates and accountability can sort it.
BTW on abortion, both extremes want to pretend it isn't a contested issue because the truth is obvious. It's, in a way, like Brexit/Remain. There is such a strong case on BOTH sides that each side needs to be in denial about it.
This thing about abortion being a "finely balanced issue with strong arguments on both sides". I don't think so. Let's unpack it.
One side wants to retain a woman's access to safe and legal abortion but with controls. ie to strike a balance between the rights of the woman and those of the unborn child. The case for this is strong conceptually (it's an underpinning of female empowerment) and also pragmatically (it's status quo, plus all the harm resulting to women who are unhappily pregnant and lacking means and options).
The other side wants a complete ban. ie to subjugate the rights of the woman to those of the unborn child. No balance. Subjugation of the woman. This is EXTREME and the case for it rests on one thing only - a dogmatic ideological assertion that a full fat human life is created from the moment of conception and to abort it is therefore "murder". That's it. There's nothing else. These people can't debate the issue. All they can do is repeat that assertion like a robot. They're dead from the neck up.
So, I'm sorry and all, but "strong argument on both sides" my arse. It sounds all nuanced and thoughtful and reasonable to say that but it's utter horseshit. There's no equivalence at all.
The actual case before SCotUS is IIRC to restrict abortion to within 15 weeks in Mississippi.
Which is longer than what the law in, for example, France and Germany allows.
The oddity is that the passing of the Texas six week law effectively puts much greater restrictions on abortion than the Mississippi law that has caused the uproar.
Six weeks is - of course - a misnomer. Because the date is measured from the last period. So, six weeks really means "ten days after a missed period".
Bloody hell. It is genuinely frightening that a country that is run like that is so powerful. I have repeatedly said, even before the Ukraine fiasco, that Russia was a joke as an international power with a small and pilaged economy based on raw resources, an army that was not nearly as powerful as it claimed and a demographic disaster that it has been unable to address. China is not funny, not funny at all.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
If that was legal, then how is what Keir did a problem?
Starmer has struggled to close this down all week to the point every interview with him and other labour politicians across the media questions his account of events
He should have closed this down long ago but hasn't
Bloody hell. It is genuinely frightening that a country that is run like that is so powerful. I have repeatedly said, even before the Ukraine fiasco, that Russia was a joke as an international power with a small and pilaged economy based on raw resources, an army that was not nearly as powerful as it claimed and a demographic disaster that it has been unable to address. China is not funny, not funny at all.
Yet you're still a fan of George Osborne - the wannabe Chinese equivalent to Russia's Gerhard Zchroeder.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
If that was legal, then how is what Keir did a problem?
Starmer has struggled to close this down all week to the point every interview with him and other labour politicians across the media questions his account of events
He should have closed this down long ago but hasn't
He can't close it down if certain newspapers just keep on repeating the same story regardless. He's not the editor of those newspapers.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Why attack the messenger when this story features across the media not least Sky and BBC
Bloody hell. It is genuinely frightening that a country that is run like that is so powerful. I have repeatedly said, even before the Ukraine fiasco, that Russia was a joke as an international power with a small and pilaged economy based on raw resources, an army that was not nearly as powerful as it claimed and a demographic disaster that it has been unable to address. China is not funny, not funny at all.
Yet you're still a fan of George Osborne - the wannabe Chinese equivalent to Russia's Gerhard Zchroeder.
There is a very big difference between selling some financial services and putting yourself in a position where your country freezes if the gas is turned off. Its what London does. Allowing capital investment in our infrastructure, on the other hand, such as Hinkley Point, was a very bad idea.
Late to this party, missed the beer and the curry by the look of it. But as someone who travels our nation each day I am happy to give my tuppence worth. Collumpton and Bridgewater on the M5 are notable 0/10s.
Here in Wales, Pont Abraham is a notable mention best avoided, although with the exception of Reading, Leigh Delamere and Darn everywhere else on the M4 is pretty desperate.
Come to think of it UK Motorway services are with the exception of the Tebay/Gloucester services are generally an utter disgrace.
I used to drive a lot in the 80s and 90s and particularly to Cornwall from London. I knew every Little Chef on the A303 and the A30 and used to stop at Victoria (the one in Cornwall) for a late dinner at 8.30pm. Just me, the night and the music all the way from Exeter.
If I had more time, I'd treat myself to an overnight at the Taunton Deane Road Chef or at Sowton or at Whidden Down. The Little Chef artery-clogging Olympic Breakfast was a British institution along with The Archers, losing at cricket and warm beer but the unhealthy capitalist obsession with profit and loss ended all that - there's more to life than profit and loss after all.
I'm told the Little Chefs became Starbucks - I've tried their coffee, slightly brackish in taste but better than drinking mud.
Love the Olympic breakfast! You just don't get fried bread these days!
Some places don't do it and many don't do it well. There are a few gems out there - my local cafe in the Barking Road is very good. There's a place in central Epsom which does a really good fried slice.
Fried bread! Those were the days. Replaced with yucky hash browns almost everywhere now - ugh!
Frost has been frozen out of standing for Tiverton and Honiton by the party
A rare moment of good sense from the conservative party together with the news tonight that they want to negotiate with the EU over NI and not serve A16
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Didn't want to like this post as I respect Big_G, but I have to agree.
There remains no new evidence not viewed by the police. Who have already dismissed it. So a week and more of media war demanding all kinds of things. That the police launch their own investigation. That the police haul Starmer in for interview. That Starmer be forced to produce the proof it was legal.
What Big_G is endorsing is a police state. Where you don't break the law but get hauled in by the political police who need not consider you broke the law or offer any evidence for your non-crime. Where its prosecution by political cabal and billionaire newspaper owners.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Yeah yeah yeah. The political game in the UK may be (indeed, is) bent, but it's the only game in town. SKS is no doubt a virtuous and law-abiding man, but he is also fucking useless at it.
They’r being made to look quite ordinary. Real should have scored at least once, maybe twice
I was working on the proposition that if this match was half as good as the last one it would still be one of the games of the season. But it isn't. Both sides seem increasingly nervy and careless.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Didn't want to like this post as I respect Big_G, but I have to agree.
There remains no new evidence not viewed by the police. Who have already dismissed it. So a week and more of media war demanding all kinds of things. That the police launch their own investigation. That the police haul Starmer in for interview. That Starmer be forced to produce the proof it was legal.
What Big_G is endorsing is a police state. Where you don't break the law but get hauled in by the political police who need not consider you broke the law or offer any evidence for your non-crime. Where its prosecution by political cabal and billionaire newspaper owners.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Didn't want to like this post as I respect Big_G, but I have to agree.
There remains no new evidence not viewed by the police. Who have already dismissed it. So a week and more of media war demanding all kinds of things. That the police launch their own investigation. That the police haul Starmer in for interview. That Starmer be forced to produce the proof it was legal.
What Big_G is endorsing is a police state. Where you don't break the law but get hauled in by the political police who need not consider you broke the law or offer any evidence for your non-crime. Where its prosecution by political cabal and billionaire newspaper owners.
Frost has been frozen out of standing for Tiverton and Honiton by the party
A rare moment of good sense from the conservative party together with the news tonight that they want to negotiate with the EU over NI and not serve A16
Awwww. I was really, really looking forward to Lord Frost standing. It would have been so popular.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Yeah yeah yeah. The political game in the UK may be (indeed, is) bent, but it's the only game in town. SKS is no doubt a virtuous and law-abiding man, but he is also fucking useless at it.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Why attack the messenger when this story features across the media not least Sky and BBC
Because on these pages you have been a lone voice quoting serial lockdown maverick, Key Burley.
The BBC have reported Starmer's belated denial to Susanna Reid today. Starmer can be criticised because he abjectly failed to put this story to bed days ago.
You are desperately hoping (and you may be fortunate with the outcome) that Starmer is hanged which to Johnsonians mean Johnson is fully vindicated for potentially attending up to eight full on parties in Downing Street, and misled Parliament.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Why attack the messenger when this story features across the media not least Sky and BBC
Because you keep dragging it into PB, like a cat with a dead rat into the kitchen floor?
Good article by Curtice and Fisher on their Project National Share for local elections and how that may differ from the National Equivalent Vote by Rallings and Thrasher
That sentence is like chum in a piranha pool to election nerds, and means absolutely nothing to normal people.
Who let the normal people into PB?
Don't worry, they won't be around for long.
But it’s good though because it is the mistake I made last week, misunderstanding projected national from raw vote, maybe there is still a bit of Normal left in me. 😇
I still remain sceptical exactly how you do a big opinion poll of just Labour areas and few Tory areas, and can extrapolatte that into a reasonable accurate claim as if every area had voted. To start with, those who gave Boris landslide win could soften but still support Boris whilst those voting against Boris in 19 could harden from soft to hard and hard to harder, which is actually a big change in peoples views, but virtually unmeasurable in terms of voting and polling isn’t it?
I think the answer is that it is not an opinion poll.
No it’s real votes from mainly labour territory extrapolated, and obviously wouldn’t be the same levels in Tory areas but how on earth do you extrapolate remotely accurately, my point being votes that aren’t votes could have soften a lot, but still be a vote non vote if soften or hardened (likely softened). Does that make it clearer for you?
I can ask the question very clear like that, but don’t have an answer I’m afraid.
There's no need to get tetchy. All I'm saying is the final set of percentages is just a comparison tool, not an opinion poll. I'm sure no-one in their right mind believes the next election result will be anything like it. It's just a comparison tool that's all. I would be cockahoop if the libdems reached 16/17%., but I know that's going to be very difficult to do in a general election.
I know what you are saying “just a bit of fun, just a bit of fun, here we go into our virtual commons chamber, and whose prime minister? Ed Davey, the first Liberal government since 2, 000, 000 BC. And here’s the yellows, all round these benches, around the corner, around here too. And whose leader of the opposition? It’s two benches of Green Joint party leaders. Just a bit of fun. Just a bit of fun.”
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Yeah yeah yeah. The political game in the UK may be (indeed, is) bent, but it's the only game in town. SKS is no doubt a virtuous and law-abiding man, but he is also fucking useless at it.
I don't care about whether Starmer is useless at politics or not. This is way beyond party politics. I do care that you appear to be endorsing a police state where no evidence is needed and people are guilty until proven innocent.
This story will move on. The precedent it sets will stick. I do not think I should be able to complain about you to the police, provide no evidence of your supposed crimes and then you have to prove your innocence of not having committed something the police say isn't an offence.
They’r being made to look quite ordinary. Real should have scored at least once, maybe twice
I was working on the proposition that if this match was half as good as the last one it would still be one of the games of the season. But it isn't. Both sides seem increasingly nervy and careless.
High stakes, I guess
Man City look increasingly content to defend their fragile lead. Hmm
As we were driving home this evening from an event, the little 'un saw a banner for the election outside a house, and said: "Where do they think they are, Pompeii?"
I was quite proud that he made the reference. (*)
And would 79AD PB threaders state: "Vesuvius eruption: does it mean Titus's reign is coming to an end? Sponsio reads the entrails..."
(*) Pompeii's ruins feature election graffiti, such as :""I beg you to elect Aulus Suettius Verus as magistrate for the care of roads, sacred buildings and public buildings, he is a good man, worthy of public office"."
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Yeah yeah yeah. The political game in the UK may be (indeed, is) bent, but it's the only game in town. SKS is no doubt a virtuous and law-abiding man, but he is also fucking useless at it.
I don't care about whether Starmer is useless at politics or not. This is way beyond party politics. I do care that you appear to be endorsing a police state where no evidence is needed and people are guilty until proven innocent.
This story will move on. The precedent it sets will stick. I do not think I should be able to complain about you to the police, provide no evidence of your supposed crimes and then you have to prove your innocence of not having committed something the police say isn't an offence.
I don't see that the police are driving this in any way at all. it's about the press being the press and Starmer being clueless
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Yeah yeah yeah. The political game in the UK may be (indeed, is) bent, but it's the only game in town. SKS is no doubt a virtuous and law-abiding man, but he is also fucking useless at it.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Didn't want to like this post as I respect Big_G, but I have to agree.
There remains no new evidence not viewed by the police. Who have already dismissed it. So a week and more of media war demanding all kinds of things. That the police launch their own investigation. That the police haul Starmer in for interview. That Starmer be forced to produce the proof it was legal.
What Big_G is endorsing is a police state. Where you don't break the law but get hauled in by the political police who need not consider you broke the law or offer any evidence for your non-crime. Where its prosecution by political cabal and billionaire newspaper owners.
This is not a world we want to live in.
Put it another way- what could Starmer have said that would have shut this story down? What is the brilliant zinger that would have persuaded The Mail to call off the dogs?
In the old days, this sort of thing was called the "Have you stopped beating your wife" question. And everyone agreed that it was a dumb nasty question to ask.
Russian celebrations planned for 9th May. Helsingin Sanomat:
Russia is likely to consider the capture of Mariupol to be its greatest success. Now, Ukraine's military intelligence claims that Russia is concentrating the festivities there.
“Mariupol will become the center of‘ celebration ’. The streets in the city center are currently being cleaned of rubbish, corpses and munitions, ”the official account of the military intelligence reports on social media.
“A large-scale propaganda campaign is planned. The Russians are shown stories of the ‘joy’ of the locals when they meet the conquerors. ”
Nice that they are clearing away the corpses, cadavers and various strewn body parts of dead Ukrainians. Guess they might put a dent in the “joyousness”
How has Russia become this ludicrous tragicomic caricature of Nazi Germany in about 2 months?
Lots of buildup.
I’m not so sure there was. There were indications Russia was increasingly autocratic and aggressive, from Grozny to Aleppo to Crimea, but nonetheless Russia and Russians seemed essentially sane. Greedy, imperialist, punchy, but sane
In 2022 it appears to have gone quite mad, almost overnight, from the Nazi sloganizing to Putin’s crazy long tables, As if Putin’s allegedly-terminal paranoia has infected the whole nation
Apart from the genocide and seizing of other countries territory, the jailing of political opponents and the mad ranting about the decadent homosexual west there was literally no sign that Russia and Putin might be a bad 'un.
I don't think Litvinenko or the people of Salisbury would completely agree with that but I appreciate the sentiment.
Bloody hell. It is genuinely frightening that a country that is run like that is so powerful. I have repeatedly said, even before the Ukraine fiasco, that Russia was a joke as an international power with a small and pilaged economy based on raw resources, an army that was not nearly as powerful as it claimed and a demographic disaster that it has been unable to address. China is not funny, not funny at all.
Yet you're still a fan of George Osborne - the wannabe Chinese equivalent to Russia's Gerhard Zchroeder.
There is a very big difference between selling some financial services and putting yourself in a position where your country freezes if the gas is turned off. Its what London does. Allowing capital investment in our infrastructure, on the other hand, such as Hinkley Point, was a very bad idea.
The Chinese and the French can't actually turn Hinckley Point off, though. They might own it, but it could be summarily nationalised if need be.
A bigger objection to HPC is that it is going to be late, over budget, and unreliable.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Yeah yeah yeah. The political game in the UK may be (indeed, is) bent, but it's the only game in town. SKS is no doubt a virtuous and law-abiding man, but he is also fucking useless at it.
I don't care about whether Starmer is useless at politics or not. This is way beyond party politics. I do care that you appear to be endorsing a police state where no evidence is needed and people are guilty until proven innocent.
This story will move on. The precedent it sets will stick. I do not think I should be able to complain about you to the police, provide no evidence of your supposed crimes and then you have to prove your innocence of not having committed something the police say isn't an offence.
I don't see that the police are driving this in any way at all. it's about the press being the press and Starmer being clueless
But how is Starmer being clueless? He responds to the questions the press ask him, and they keep going on about it anyway.
As we were driving home this evening from an event, the little 'un saw a banner for the election outside a house, and said: "Where do they think they are, Pompeii?"
I was quite proud that he made the reference. (*)
And would 79AD PB threaders state: "Vesuvius eruption: does it mean Titus's reign is coming to an end? Sponsio reads the entrails..."
(*) Pompeii's ruins feature election graffiti, such as :""I beg you to elect Aulus Suettius Verus as magistrate for the care of roads, sacred buildings and public buildings, he is a good man, worthy of public office"."
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Why attack the messenger when this story features across the media not least Sky and BBC
Because on these pages you have been a lone voice quoting serial lockdown maverick, Key Burley.
The BBC have reported Starmer's belated denial to Susanna Reid today. Starmer can be criticised because he abjectly failed to put this story to bed days ago.
You are desperately hoping (and you may be fortunate with the outcome) that Starmer is hanged which to Johnsonians mean Johnson is fully vindicated for potentially attending up to eight full on parties in Downing Street, and misled Parliament.
There's a small part of me that thinks Starmer should resign, saying his position is untenable. How stupid would that make Johnson look?
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
If that was legal, then how is what Keir did a problem?
Starmer has struggled to close this down all week to the point every interview with him and other labour politicians across the media questions his account of events
He should have closed this down long ago but hasn't
I think Ishmael Z agrees with you on the last sentence, Labour should be more streetwise and rebut nonsense like this more effectively.
I think there’s a smarter answer. Politicians are supposed to make themselves available for grilling and tough interviews (if they havn’t locked themselves in fridges) if the grillers arn’t asking this question (CCHQ are pushing) what other tough questions could they ask Labour right now? No one’s got anything on Starmer.
As we were driving home this evening from an event, the little 'un saw a banner for the election outside a house, and said: "Where do they think they are, Pompeii?"
I was quite proud that he made the reference. (*)
And would 79AD PB threaders state: "Vesuvius eruption: does it mean Titus's reign is coming to an end? Sponsio reads the entrails..."
(*) Pompeii's ruins feature election graffiti, such as :""I beg you to elect Aulus Suettius Verus as magistrate for the care of roads, sacred buildings and public buildings, he is a good man, worthy of public office"."
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Yeah yeah yeah. The political game in the UK may be (indeed, is) bent, but it's the only game in town. SKS is no doubt a virtuous and law-abiding man, but he is also fucking useless at it.
I don't care about whether Starmer is useless at politics or not. This is way beyond party politics. I do care that you appear to be endorsing a police state where no evidence is needed and people are guilty until proven innocent.
This story will move on. The precedent it sets will stick. I do not think I should be able to complain about you to the police, provide no evidence of your supposed crimes and then you have to prove your innocence of not having committed something the police say isn't an offence.
I don't see that the police are driving this in any way at all. it's about the press being the press and Starmer being clueless
But how is Starmer being clueless? He responds to the questions the press ask him, and they keep going on about it anyway.
Because he let the misinformation about Ange being there go unchallenged
Because he behaves so utterly shiftily when questioned about it, e.g. (I understand, I didn't see this) refusing 3 times to say whether Durham police had spoken to him recently
Because this is the 5th straight day we are still talking about this
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Didn't want to like this post as I respect Big_G, but I have to agree.
There remains no new evidence not viewed by the police. Who have already dismissed it. So a week and more of media war demanding all kinds of things. That the police launch their own investigation. That the police haul Starmer in for interview. That Starmer be forced to produce the proof it was legal.
What Big_G is endorsing is a police state. Where you don't break the law but get hauled in by the political police who need not consider you broke the law or offer any evidence for your non-crime. Where its prosecution by political cabal and billionaire newspaper owners.
This is not a world we want to live in.
Put it another way- what could Starmer have said that would have shut this story down? What is the brilliant zinger that would have persuaded The Mail to call off the dogs?
In the old days, this sort of thing was called the "Have you stopped beating your wife" question. And everyone agreed that it was a dumb nasty question to ask.
That was the old days.
he doesn't need to. Detailed polling demonstrates that people simply aren't buying the story. They still think the crook Johnson is a crook and that Starmer isn't a crook. And every single day this story roles on with the Tories making the same allegation day after day after day the media report it but always link it back to the fines issued to Johnson.
Every day in the final week of the campaign has Johnson breaking the law in the headlines. To the point where the final week leaflets issued in places like Hartlepool say "don't punish us for Westminster". Where in Wandsworth the Tories describe themselves as Local Conservatives with green posters.
If you are Starmer, with the Tory punches only harming themselves, would you bother to stop them? Harsh reality is that people aren't as stupid as Tory politicians and newspapers think they are.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Why attack the messenger when this story features across the media not least Sky and BBC
Because on these pages you have been a lone voice quoting serial lockdown maverick, Key Burley.
The BBC have reported Starmer's belated denial to Susanna Reid today. Starmer can be criticised because he abjectly failed to put this story to bed days ago.
You are desperately hoping (and you may be fortunate with the outcome) that Starmer is hanged which to Johnsonians mean Johnson is fully vindicated for potentially attending up to eight full on parties in Downing Street, and misled Parliament.
There's a small part of me that thinks Starmer should resign, saying his position is untenable. How stupid would that make Johnson look?
Johnson doesn't mind looking stupid. He does it professionally.
Bloody hell. It is genuinely frightening that a country that is run like that is so powerful. I have repeatedly said, even before the Ukraine fiasco, that Russia was a joke as an international power with a small and pilaged economy based on raw resources, an army that was not nearly as powerful as it claimed and a demographic disaster that it has been unable to address. China is not funny, not funny at all.
Yet you're still a fan of George Osborne - the wannabe Chinese equivalent to Russia's Gerhard Zchroeder.
There is a very big difference between selling some financial services and putting yourself in a position where your country freezes if the gas is turned off. Its what London does. Allowing capital investment in our infrastructure, on the other hand, such as Hinkley Point, was a very bad idea.
There really was no difference.
Profits for business and bungs for politicians were the things wanted.
And things such as national security or human rights were inconveniences to be ignored.
George Osborne has been praised by Chinese state media for not mentioning human rights during his visit, which one campaigner called "an appalling new low" in unwillingness to confront the issue.
The chancellor was praised by government-run The Global Times, which said he was "The first Western official in recent years who focused on business potential rather than raising a magnifying glass to the 'human rights issue," according to the BBC.
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”.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Yeah yeah yeah. The political game in the UK may be (indeed, is) bent, but it's the only game in town. SKS is no doubt a virtuous and law-abiding man, but he is also fucking useless at it.
I don't care about whether Starmer is useless at politics or not. This is way beyond party politics. I do care that you appear to be endorsing a police state where no evidence is needed and people are guilty until proven innocent.
This story will move on. The precedent it sets will stick. I do not think I should be able to complain about you to the police, provide no evidence of your supposed crimes and then you have to prove your innocence of not having committed something the police say isn't an offence.
I don't see that the police are driving this in any way at all. it's about the press being the press and Starmer being clueless
But how is Starmer being clueless? He responds to the questions the press ask him, and they keep going on about it anyway.
Spot on. You can’t shut it down if they insist on asking it.
The bottom line is they ask this as they got no other attack lines. Just repeating “big curry, you didn’t go back to work afterwards I bet” is all they got 🤣
Bloody hell. It is genuinely frightening that a country that is run like that is so powerful. I have repeatedly said, even before the Ukraine fiasco, that Russia was a joke as an international power with a small and pilaged economy based on raw resources, an army that was not nearly as powerful as it claimed and a demographic disaster that it has been unable to address. China is not funny, not funny at all.
Yet you're still a fan of George Osborne - the wannabe Chinese equivalent to Russia's Gerhard Zchroeder.
There is a very big difference between selling some financial services and putting yourself in a position where your country freezes if the gas is turned off. Its what London does. Allowing capital investment in our infrastructure, on the other hand, such as Hinkley Point, was a very bad idea.
The Chinese and the French can't actually turn Hinckley Point off, though. They might own it, but it could be summarily nationalised if need be.
A bigger objection to HPC is that it is going to be late, over budget, and unreliable.
Oh yes, its still nowhere near as bad as Nordstream 2 but I do not like them having that level of influence on such key infrastructure.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Why attack the messenger when this story features across the media not least Sky and BBC
Because on these pages you have been a lone voice quoting serial lockdown maverick, Key Burley.
The BBC have reported Starmer's belated denial to Susanna Reid today. Starmer can be criticised because he abjectly failed to put this story to bed days ago.
You are desperately hoping (and you may be fortunate with the outcome) that Starmer is hanged which to Johnsonians mean Johnson is fully vindicated for potentially attending up to eight full on parties in Downing Street, and misled Parliament.
There's a small part of me that thinks Starmer should resign, saying his position is untenable. How stupid would that make Johnson look?
Johnson doesn't mind looking stupid. He does it professionally.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Didn't want to like this post as I respect Big_G, but I have to agree.
There remains no new evidence not viewed by the police. Who have already dismissed it. So a week and more of media war demanding all kinds of things. That the police launch their own investigation. That the police haul Starmer in for interview. That Starmer be forced to produce the proof it was legal.
What Big_G is endorsing is a police state. Where you don't break the law but get hauled in by the political police who need not consider you broke the law or offer any evidence for your non-crime. Where its prosecution by political cabal and billionaire newspaper owners.
This is not a world we want to live in.
Put it another way- what could Starmer have said that would have shut this story down? What is the brilliant zinger that would have persuaded The Mail to call off the dogs?
In the old days, this sort of thing was called the "Have you stopped beating your wife" question. And everyone agreed that it was a dumb nasty question to ask.
That was the old days.
Isn’t it the “did you have sex with pigs?” question you love to hear your opponent having to deny?
I love pigs, but I think all sex with animals is abuse.
Bloody hell. It is genuinely frightening that a country that is run like that is so powerful. I have repeatedly said, even before the Ukraine fiasco, that Russia was a joke as an international power with a small and pilaged economy based on raw resources, an army that was not nearly as powerful as it claimed and a demographic disaster that it has been unable to address. China is not funny, not funny at all.
Yet you're still a fan of George Osborne - the wannabe Chinese equivalent to Russia's Gerhard Zchroeder.
There is a very big difference between selling some financial services and putting yourself in a position where your country freezes if the gas is turned off. Its what London does. Allowing capital investment in our infrastructure, on the other hand, such as Hinkley Point, was a very bad idea.
There really was no difference.
Profits for business and bungs for politicians were the things wanted.
And things such as national security or human rights were inconveniences to be ignored.
George Osborne has been praised by Chinese state media for not mentioning human rights during his visit, which one campaigner called "an appalling new low" in unwillingness to confront the issue.
The chancellor was praised by government-run The Global Times, which said he was "The first Western official in recent years who focused on business potential rather than raising a magnifying glass to the 'human rights issue," according to the BBC.
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”.
Much of the Conservative party has developed a shameful yearning for dubious foreign money.
That needs to be acknowledged by its supporters before it damages the party, and more importantly the country, even further.
If you cannot see the difference between being dependent on a country for something as essential as gas and making a few quid buying and selling Chinese currency then this conversation is really pointless. As usual, you are taking a fair point to an absurd conclusion.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Why attack the messenger when this story features across the media not least Sky and BBC
Because on these pages you have been a lone voice quoting serial lockdown maverick, Key Burley.
The BBC have reported Starmer's belated denial to Susanna Reid today. Starmer can be criticised because he abjectly failed to put this story to bed days ago.
You are desperately hoping (and you may be fortunate with the outcome) that Starmer is hanged which to Johnsonians mean Johnson is fully vindicated for potentially attending up to eight full on parties in Downing Street, and misled Parliament.
There's a small part of me that thinks Starmer should resign, saying his position is untenable. How stupid would that make Johnson look?
It wouldn't bother Johnson for one moment, other than he could claim another scalp to the tally.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Yeah yeah yeah. The political game in the UK may be (indeed, is) bent, but it's the only game in town. SKS is no doubt a virtuous and law-abiding man, but he is also fucking useless at it.
I don't care about whether Starmer is useless at politics or not. This is way beyond party politics. I do care that you appear to be endorsing a police state where no evidence is needed and people are guilty until proven innocent.
This story will move on. The precedent it sets will stick. I do not think I should be able to complain about you to the police, provide no evidence of your supposed crimes and then you have to prove your innocence of not having committed something the police say isn't an offence.
I don't see that the police are driving this in any way at all. it's about the press being the press and Starmer being clueless
But how is Starmer being clueless? He responds to the questions the press ask him, and they keep going on about it anyway.
Spot on. You can’t shut it down if they insist on asking it.
The bottom line is they ask this as they got no other attack lines. Just repeating “big curry, you didn’t go back to work afterwards I bet” is all they got 🤣
Of course you can shut it down. You get asked, was the FHT* there, you say Yes. If you say No by mistake, you go straight back and say Sorry, she was. And that means the DM can't go with day after day of headlines about LABOUR LIES.
This is not difficult, but it is too difficult for Sir Beer.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Didn't want to like this post as I respect Big_G, but I have to agree.
There remains no new evidence not viewed by the police. Who have already dismissed it. So a week and more of media war demanding all kinds of things. That the police launch their own investigation. That the police haul Starmer in for interview. That Starmer be forced to produce the proof it was legal.
What Big_G is endorsing is a police state. Where you don't break the law but get hauled in by the political police who need not consider you broke the law or offer any evidence for your non-crime. Where its prosecution by political cabal and billionaire newspaper owners.
This is not a world we want to live in.
Put it another way- what could Starmer have said that would have shut this story down? What is the brilliant zinger that would have persuaded The Mail to call off the dogs?
In the old days, this sort of thing was called the "Have you stopped beating your wife" question. And everyone agreed that it was a dumb nasty question to ask.
That was the old days.
Isn’t it the “did you have sex with pigs?” question you love to hear your opponent having to deny?
I love pigs, but I think all sex with animals is abuse.
Bloody hell. It is genuinely frightening that a country that is run like that is so powerful. I have repeatedly said, even before the Ukraine fiasco, that Russia was a joke as an international power with a small and pilaged economy based on raw resources, an army that was not nearly as powerful as it claimed and a demographic disaster that it has been unable to address. China is not funny, not funny at all.
Yet you're still a fan of George Osborne - the wannabe Chinese equivalent to Russia's Gerhard Zchroeder.
There is a very big difference between selling some financial services and putting yourself in a position where your country freezes if the gas is turned off. Its what London does. Allowing capital investment in our infrastructure, on the other hand, such as Hinkley Point, was a very bad idea.
The Chinese and the French can't actually turn Hinckley Point off, though. They might own it, but it could be summarily nationalised if need be.
A bigger objection to HPC is that it is going to be late, over budget, and unreliable.
I note we’re now talking to the Koreans about additional nuclear power plants.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Didn't want to like this post as I respect Big_G, but I have to agree.
There remains no new evidence not viewed by the police. Who have already dismissed it. So a week and more of media war demanding all kinds of things. That the police launch their own investigation. That the police haul Starmer in for interview. That Starmer be forced to produce the proof it was legal.
What Big_G is endorsing is a police state. Where you don't break the law but get hauled in by the political police who need not consider you broke the law or offer any evidence for your non-crime. Where its prosecution by political cabal and billionaire newspaper owners.
This is not a world we want to live in.
Put it another way- what could Starmer have said that would have shut this story down? What is the brilliant zinger that would have persuaded The Mail to call off the dogs?
In the old days, this sort of thing was called the "Have you stopped beating your wife" question. And everyone agreed that it was a dumb nasty question to ask.
That was the old days.
Isn’t it the “did you have sex with pigs?” question you love to hear your opponent having to deny?
I love pigs, but I think all sex with animals is abuse.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Didn't want to like this post as I respect Big_G, but I have to agree.
There remains no new evidence not viewed by the police. Who have already dismissed it. So a week and more of media war demanding all kinds of things. That the police launch their own investigation. That the police haul Starmer in for interview. That Starmer be forced to produce the proof it was legal.
What Big_G is endorsing is a police state. Where you don't break the law but get hauled in by the political police who need not consider you broke the law or offer any evidence for your non-crime. Where its prosecution by political cabal and billionaire newspaper owners.
This is not a world we want to live in.
Put it another way- what could Starmer have said that would have shut this story down? What is the brilliant zinger that would have persuaded The Mail to call off the dogs?
In the old days, this sort of thing was called the "Have you stopped beating your wife" question. And everyone agreed that it was a dumb nasty question to ask.
That was the old days.
Isn’t it the “did you have sex with pigs?” question you love to hear your opponent having to deny?
I love pigs, but I think all sex with animals is abuse.
Really?
I can promise you I don't have (hur hur) a dog in this fight, but given that almost all domestic animals are routinely subject to false imprisonment, slavery, own-species rape, murder and cannibalism, it seems a bit arbitrary to draw a line at consensual sex. I expect the Woke to move on to this in the next decade or so.
As we were driving home this evening from an event, the little 'un saw a banner for the election outside a house, and said: "Where do they think they are, Pompeii?"
I was quite proud that he made the reference. (*)
And would 79AD PB threaders state: "Vesuvius eruption: does it mean Titus's reign is coming to an end? Sponsio reads the entrails..."
(*) Pompeii's ruins feature election graffiti, such as :""I beg you to elect Aulus Suettius Verus as magistrate for the care of roads, sacred buildings and public buildings, he is a good man, worthy of public office"."
Bloody hell. It is genuinely frightening that a country that is run like that is so powerful. I have repeatedly said, even before the Ukraine fiasco, that Russia was a joke as an international power with a small and pilaged economy based on raw resources, an army that was not nearly as powerful as it claimed and a demographic disaster that it has been unable to address. China is not funny, not funny at all.
Yet you're still a fan of George Osborne - the wannabe Chinese equivalent to Russia's Gerhard Zchroeder.
There is a very big difference between selling some financial services and putting yourself in a position where your country freezes if the gas is turned off. Its what London does. Allowing capital investment in our infrastructure, on the other hand, such as Hinkley Point, was a very bad idea.
There really was no difference.
Profits for business and bungs for politicians were the things wanted.
And things such as national security or human rights were inconveniences to be ignored.
George Osborne has been praised by Chinese state media for not mentioning human rights during his visit, which one campaigner called "an appalling new low" in unwillingness to confront the issue.
The chancellor was praised by government-run The Global Times, which said he was "The first Western official in recent years who focused on business potential rather than raising a magnifying glass to the 'human rights issue," according to the BBC.
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”.
Much of the Conservative party has developed a shameful yearning for dubious foreign money.
That needs to be acknowledged by its supporters before it damages the party, and more importantly the country, even further.
If you cannot see the difference between being dependent on a country for something as essential as gas and making a few quid buying and selling Chinese currency then this conversation is really pointless. As usual, you are taking a fair point to an absurd conclusion.
A political party favouring closing down industry to concentrate on finance is going to end up with selling off its core resoirces to foreign interests, and it has had decades to do this. So there is a very real connection.
The "journalists" rewriting the same beergate scandal story every day. Have they been promised their own show on a right wing TV network with no viewers if they do as they are told?
Bloody hell. It is genuinely frightening that a country that is run like that is so powerful. I have repeatedly said, even before the Ukraine fiasco, that Russia was a joke as an international power with a small and pilaged economy based on raw resources, an army that was not nearly as powerful as it claimed and a demographic disaster that it has been unable to address. China is not funny, not funny at all.
Yet you're still a fan of George Osborne - the wannabe Chinese equivalent to Russia's Gerhard Zchroeder.
There is a very big difference between selling some financial services and putting yourself in a position where your country freezes if the gas is turned off. Its what London does. Allowing capital investment in our infrastructure, on the other hand, such as Hinkley Point, was a very bad idea.
The Chinese and the French can't actually turn Hinckley Point off, though. They might own it, but it could be summarily nationalised if need be.
A bigger objection to HPC is that it is going to be late, over budget, and unreliable.
I note we’re now talking to the Koreans about additional nuclear power plants.
Once the UK built its own ... world-beating expertise ... world leader ...
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Didn't want to like this post as I respect Big_G, but I have to agree.
There remains no new evidence not viewed by the police. Who have already dismissed it. So a week and more of media war demanding all kinds of things. That the police launch their own investigation. That the police haul Starmer in for interview. That Starmer be forced to produce the proof it was legal.
What Big_G is endorsing is a police state. Where you don't break the law but get hauled in by the political police who need not consider you broke the law or offer any evidence for your non-crime. Where its prosecution by political cabal and billionaire newspaper owners.
This is not a world we want to live in.
Put it another way- what could Starmer have said that would have shut this story down? What is the brilliant zinger that would have persuaded The Mail to call off the dogs?
In the old days, this sort of thing was called the "Have you stopped beating your wife" question. And everyone agreed that it was a dumb nasty question to ask.
That was the old days.
Isn’t it the “did you have sex with pigs?” question you love to hear your opponent having to deny?
I love pigs, but I think all sex with animals is abuse.
Really?
I can promise you I don't have (hur hur) a dog in this fight, but given that almost all domestic animals are routinely subject to false imprisonment, slavery, own-species rape, murder and cannibalism, it seems a bit arbitrary to draw a line at consensual sex. I expect the Woke to move on to this in the next decade or so.
As we were driving home this evening from an event, the little 'un saw a banner for the election outside a house, and said: "Where do they think they are, Pompeii?"
I was quite proud that he made the reference. (*)
And would 79AD PB threaders state: "Vesuvius eruption: does it mean Titus's reign is coming to an end? Sponsio reads the entrails..."
(*) Pompeii's ruins feature election graffiti, such as :""I beg you to elect Aulus Suettius Verus as magistrate for the care of roads, sacred buildings and public buildings, he is a good man, worthy of public office"."
The "journalists" rewriting the same beergate scandal story every day. Have they been promised their own show on a right wing TV network with no viewers if they do as they are told?
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Didn't want to like this post as I respect Big_G, but I have to agree.
There remains no new evidence not viewed by the police. Who have already dismissed it. So a week and more of media war demanding all kinds of things. That the police launch their own investigation. That the police haul Starmer in for interview. That Starmer be forced to produce the proof it was legal.
What Big_G is endorsing is a police state. Where you don't break the law but get hauled in by the political police who need not consider you broke the law or offer any evidence for your non-crime. Where its prosecution by political cabal and billionaire newspaper owners.
This is not a world we want to live in.
Put it another way- what could Starmer have said that would have shut this story down? What is the brilliant zinger that would have persuaded The Mail to call off the dogs?
In the old days, this sort of thing was called the "Have you stopped beating your wife" question. And everyone agreed that it was a dumb nasty question to ask.
That was the old days.
Isn’t it the “did you have sex with pigs?” question you love to hear your opponent having to deny?
I love pigs, but I think all sex with animals is abuse.
As we were driving home this evening from an event, the little 'un saw a banner for the election outside a house, and said: "Where do they think they are, Pompeii?"
I was quite proud that he made the reference. (*)
And would 79AD PB threaders state: "Vesuvius eruption: does it mean Titus's reign is coming to an end? Sponsio reads the entrails..."
(*) Pompeii's ruins feature election graffiti, such as :""I beg you to elect Aulus Suettius Verus as magistrate for the care of roads, sacred buildings and public buildings, he is a good man, worthy of public office"."
For some reason that graffiti gets less attention than the ones with guys boasting about their genital prowess.
OTOH there are graffiti which are the equivalent of "The tarts of Soho support Francis Urquhart and urge you to vote for him". I'm not quite sure however that those aren't the Roman equivalent of the infamous Vote Green! leaflets by the C&UP up north.
Jim Pickard @PickardJE · 1h - legal regulations from March 29 2021 did allow indoors gatherings of workers if deemed “reasonably necessary” which is the essence of the Starmer defence
- but it doesn’t seem that the curry was in line with non-legally binding campaign guidance from March 25 2021, see below
FWIW I think Lab should now drop Partygate. Job done. 60% of the country think Johnson is a lying cad. The damage to Brand Johnson has been done, time to move on.
Now shut up and try and move the agenda onto cost of living, where there is a fecking lightyear's worth of political ground to be had. Get Reeves out there after local elections with a five point plan to actually make a difference. Front foot stuff. Genuine back of a pledge card stuff that could do something.
Labour can do this because they are in opposition and Johnson and Sunak do not agree over the most fundamental financial issues.
You are as tiresome as the Mail and the Telegraph on this issue.
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
Didn't want to like this post as I respect Big_G, but I have to agree.
There remains no new evidence not viewed by the police. Who have already dismissed it. So a week and more of media war demanding all kinds of things. That the police launch their own investigation. That the police haul Starmer in for interview. That Starmer be forced to produce the proof it was legal.
What Big_G is endorsing is a police state. Where you don't break the law but get hauled in by the political police who need not consider you broke the law or offer any evidence for your non-crime. Where its prosecution by political cabal and billionaire newspaper owners.
This is not a world we want to live in.
Put it another way- what could Starmer have said that would have shut this story down? What is the brilliant zinger that would have persuaded The Mail to call off the dogs?
In the old days, this sort of thing was called the "Have you stopped beating your wife" question. And everyone agreed that it was a dumb nasty question to ask.
That was the old days.
Isn’t it the “did you have sex with pigs?” question you love to hear your opponent having to deny?
I love pigs, but I think all sex with animals is abuse.
Grinding Peppa is assault
I agree with you Farooq
I honestly think that's my best post ever. Time to quit.
Comments
@PickardJE @JenWilliamsMEN @EchoNickG @campbellclaret @ElectoralCommUK @JayMitchinson @UKLabour @BylineTimes https://twitter.com/annaturley/status/1521932075896643585/photo/1
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/boris-johnson-celebrated-beer-indoors-26838978
If that was legal, then how is what Keir did a problem?
He should have closed this down long ago but hasn't
1. Starmer broke the law
or
2. Starmer is a shambolic, incompetent and poorly advised pillock for allowing the perception to arise that he broke the law
It is clearly a campaign (quite a successful one) by Team Johnson's Aussie boot boys.
Even if today's revelation means Starmer has to resign, it is unlikely it will be a fraction of Johnson's Partygate misbehaviour.
The Met have outrageously held off future Johnson prosecutions during purdah yet Team Johnson have used the Mail and Telegraph to crucify Starmer over a daily reheat of the same story.
Johnson is dragging political discourse down to Trump levels. You have bought into it.
I hope nobody turned up a day early at their polling station. Nothing worse than premature election.
A rare moment of good sense from the conservative party together with the news tonight that they want to negotiate with the EU over NI and not serve A16
There remains no new evidence not viewed by the police. Who have already dismissed it. So a week and more of media war demanding all kinds of things. That the police launch their own investigation. That the police haul Starmer in for interview. That Starmer be forced to produce the proof it was legal.
What Big_G is endorsing is a police state. Where you don't break the law but get hauled in by the political police who need not consider you broke the law or offer any evidence for your non-crime. Where its prosecution by political cabal and billionaire newspaper owners.
This is not a world we want to live in.
The BBC have reported Starmer's belated denial to Susanna Reid today. Starmer can be criticised because he abjectly failed to put this story to bed days ago.
You are desperately hoping (and you may be fortunate with the outcome) that Starmer is hanged which to Johnsonians mean Johnson is fully vindicated for potentially attending up to eight full on parties in Downing Street, and misled Parliament.
This story will move on. The precedent it sets will stick. I do not think I should be able to complain about you to the police, provide no evidence of your supposed crimes and then you have to prove your innocence of not having committed something the police say isn't an offence.
Man City look increasingly content to defend their fragile lead. Hmm
I was quite proud that he made the reference. (*)
And would 79AD PB threaders state: "Vesuvius eruption: does it mean Titus's reign is coming to an end? Sponsio reads the entrails..."
(*) Pompeii's ruins feature election graffiti, such as :""I beg you to elect Aulus Suettius Verus as magistrate for the care of roads, sacred buildings and public buildings, he is a good man, worthy of public office"."
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/elections-in-pompeii-national-archaeological-museum-of-naples/tgUBNHEcEscIJg?hl=en
In the old days, this sort of thing was called the "Have you stopped beating your wife" question. And everyone agreed that it was a dumb nasty question to ask.
That was the old days.
A bigger objection to HPC is that it is going to be late, over budget, and unreliable.
Nothing.
I think there’s a smarter answer. Politicians are supposed to make themselves available for grilling and tough interviews (if they havn’t locked themselves in fridges) if the grillers arn’t asking this question (CCHQ are pushing) what other tough questions could they ask Labour right now? No one’s got anything on Starmer.
First up London: YouGov say Wandsworth voters “leaning” Labour and they might pick up others reaching new highs compared to 2018
https://twitter.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1521950159319482374/photo/1
Because he behaves so utterly shiftily when questioned about it, e.g. (I understand, I didn't see this) refusing 3 times to say whether Durham police had spoken to him recently
Because this is the 5th straight day we are still talking about this
Every day in the final week of the campaign has Johnson breaking the law in the headlines. To the point where the final week leaflets issued in places like Hartlepool say "don't punish us for Westminster". Where in Wandsworth the Tories describe themselves as Local Conservatives with green posters.
If you are Starmer, with the Tory punches only harming themselves, would you bother to stop them? Harsh reality is that people aren't as stupid as Tory politicians and newspapers think they are.
Profits for business and bungs for politicians were the things wanted.
And things such as national security or human rights were inconveniences to be ignored.
George Osborne has been praised by Chinese state media for not mentioning human rights during his visit, which one campaigner called "an appalling new low" in unwillingness to confront the issue.
The chancellor was praised by government-run The Global Times, which said he was "The first Western official in recent years who focused on business potential rather than raising a magnifying glass to the 'human rights issue," according to the BBC.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/09/25/george-osborne-human-rights-abuses_n_8194420.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”.
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/integrated-review-tories-new-cold-war-china-hotheads-george-osborne-917981
Much of the Conservative party has developed a shameful yearning for dubious foreign money.
That needs to be acknowledged by its supporters before it damages the party, and more importantly the country, even further.
The bottom line is they ask this as they got no other attack lines. Just repeating “big curry, you didn’t go back to work afterwards I bet” is all they got 🤣
I love pigs, but I think all sex with animals is abuse.
This is not difficult, but it is too difficult for Sir Beer.
*Flame-haired temptress
Should be a good final
Does that mean champions league places go down to 5th ?
I can promise you I don't have (hur hur) a dog in this fight, but given that almost all domestic animals are routinely subject to false imprisonment, slavery, own-species rape, murder and cannibalism, it seems a bit arbitrary to draw a line at consensual sex. I expect the Woke to move on to this in the next decade or so.
this thread has drunk its beer in the last chance saloon