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Starmer is eminently beatable – politicalbetting.com

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  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,288
    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    Well Tallinn is pretty multi national and the turnover of people in the tech sector is pretty rapid. I think it is more a Scandi/Lutheran thing that honesty is just kind of expected. We has our summer last week, but bits of Estonia can be pretty idyllic and Tallinn of course is a blast.
    But you can have a Lutheran or Calvinist or whatever culture, if you import enough people who aren’t of that culture and who don;’t necessarily respect that culture and will not assimilate to that culture, then your culture is a bit fucked

    Cf Sweden and the rocketing problem of gang violence, rape etc


    And, for balance, see many countries invaded - peacefully or otherwise - by white Europeans

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,388

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-62113335

    Newly appointed minister repeats misogynistic slur against Rayner. The government really is just the dregs now isn't it. No class, no ideas, no ability.

    Even if she believes it to be true, just no need to say it. What is gained?
    We have certain proof of what a complete numpty she is.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559

    A senior Whitehall official gets in touch about Morduant and the maternity bill. “She fought AGAINST the change to ‘women’. The way she’s trying to rewrite history to suit her is despicable. While she’s supposedly campaigning on character and values. can’t believe the hypocrisy”

    https://twitter.com/shippersunbound/status/1546158477738971138?s=21&t=XNSlpfCF7_uMWYNStkmj3w

    So which PM hopeful (or sitting PM) is responsible for this tidbit, do you think?

    Scarcely likely to be prompted solely by righteous wrath, methinks.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,288
    Scott_xP said:

    End-of-day betting update via @smarkets:
    Sunak 37% chance +2
    Mordaunt 21% +4
    Truss 18% +5
    Tugendhat 6% -2
    Hunt 5% -2
    Javid 5% nc
    Zahawi 3% -1
    Braverman 3% nc
    Badenoch 3% -1
    https://smarkets.com/event/886716/politics/uk/uk-party-leaders/next-conservative-leader

    It’s coalescing. It’s one of those top three
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    edited July 2022
    rcs1000 said:

    Conservative Party Leadership betting:

    Sunak - big sell. I simply don't think he has either the charisma or the vision. And I think, should he make it to the final two, he'd lose badly to most of the other candidates. Unless it was Hunt.

    Morduant - small buy. I wouldn't wade in, but I think she's slightly underpriced for someone who polls well with the members, and who has had a pretty good initial run of endorsements.

    Truss - small buy. As with Morduant, she feels underpriced. She's popular with the grass roots, and although an ex-Remainer, has embraced Brexit.

    Patel - moderate buy. She's 100-1 for Chrissake. If she stands, she might well go far.

    Badenoch. The Foinavon of this National field. and the one who if PM will leave the UK a different country, in good ways, just be being who she is. Worth a toe dip.

    Contemplate those group photos of EU leaders at their gatherings, all standing there thinking "The UK is led by a black woman, and we thought they were insular little Englanders".

    Agree re Sunak. No chance. Several candidates are unappointable because of their close associations. It's too late to pretend.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,288
    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial.
    Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.

    You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.

    All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.

    It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.

    I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.

    Fair enough!

    I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
    I think it very much depends where in
    Switzerland, or even where in Geneva, you are. Rich places attract professional
    thieves, and there are certainly groups operating in places like Geneva. But the
    villages outside - I never once locked my house or car in 3 years.
    I wouldn’t even do it in the villages outside Geneva. I lived in Cologny and Corsier Port - so nice communes outside the city for those who understandably don’t know the place - and there was a problem with people - especially coming over the uncontrolled borders to hit people who thought they could do exactly that and get away easily sadly.

    You mean literally assault? As in "hit"?

    Sorry no (I clearly need writing lessons
    from you) - I meant come into the communes and break in, burgle, houses and cars etc. then they could be back into France in about four minutes.
    Merci. Is this why Switzerland wants to end Free Movement, in part?
    I doubt that’s the reason as it’s quite handy living somewhere expensive where you can go across millions of tiny unmanned borders and shop in French supermarkets for next to nothing.
    Good point. Yes
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Do Tory leadership candidates understand when they’re proposing crazy things that any “mandate” given to them in a Tory leadership election does overrule a mandate given to the Tory Party in a General Election?
  • Why does everyone who says mnemonic on the radio or tv say it like pneumonia?
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,041
    Jonathan said:

    Truss has been progressively shortening all weekend, ever so slowly. She was at 5.8 about 30 minutes ago.

    I find that interesting. There's no particular evidence in the public domain for this. So either someone knows something, and she's about to reveal 30 backers out of a hat and an eye-catching launch video, or this is pure anticipation built on sand.

    The smart candidate will not be wasting time on slick public videos this week it’s all about signing up MPs and developing momentum for the ballot. Obviously we do not know if Truss is doing this, but it’s pretty clear she is not eating time on Sunday chat shows or glossy videos. That comes later.
    There is only one Sunday chat sow before the final 2 are revealed on the 21st July
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,785
    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial.
    Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.

    You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.

    All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.

    It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.

    I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.

    Fair enough!
    I have been to Switzerland a lot and always

    I felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
    Geneva can be quite grim. Unfortunately from a very identifiable group who live there.

    I will never forget the look of relief on a very beautiful blonde English friend when she saw me walking towards her as she was surrounded by a group of about twenty chaps who were just standing there in a circle round her terrifying her. To escort her away to safety was luck and she still says to this day she has no idea what she would have done to get out of the situation on her own.

    Berne felt very safe but it’s all a bit toytown. Zürich always seemed like Geneva but not as bad in the centre.

    Fuck knows why the Montenegrins want to join the EU

    They are doing just fine, considering. They have such a beautiful sunny country with a tiny population they can make squillions as is. Meanwhile they seem as happy and content as anyone. if they join the EU they will have to open their precious borders to Free Movement and then they might easily import the problems of "inequality" that you describe in Geneva

    Right now they have almost zero minor/violent crime - the crime that really frightens people

    It's difficult to comprehend how idyllic it is until you come here
    I have a Serbian friend who cannot comprehend the UK acceptance of casual crime. I always had Serbia down in my vaguely 'gangsta paradise' bit of my mental map of Europe, but he really did insist that outside of _massive_ corruption there was very little day-to-day man-in-the-street crime happening.

    And it surprised me how pretty it was as a country too. Planning a trip next year.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    edited July 2022
    kjh said:

    Foxy said:

    kjh said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    Tom Tugendhat leaps to third place in Tory MPs endorsements behind Sunak and Mordaunt after Karen
    Bradley's backing

    https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1546162976104878081?s=20&t=6s-mAMl327v6ChyfYsFZWA

    I think this is starting to shape up very, very badly for the conservatives.

    The members are going to get a choice of tweedle dum or tweedle dee from the left of the party. Sunak plus one.

    However a Sunday Times poll today had Sunak, Mordaunt and Tugendhat polling equal best in the redwall seats of the Tory leadership contenders in terms of net approval.

    Even though Starmer polls better than all the Tory contenders now in the redwall with Boris gone

    https://twitter.com/thom_brooks/status/1546148929229692930?s=20&t=6s-mAMl327v6ChyfYsFZWA
    Do you ever have a view independent from your choice of polls

    Half the point of this site is polls
    Surely that poll is essentially driven by recognition. Most voters can name very few politicos, much less what they stand for.

    Nobody knows what Mordaunt and Tugendhat stand for. Not even the Spectator. They tried to find Mordaunt's policies in vain through the vacuous bullsh8t of her launch.

    I made that point earlier today, HYUFD didn't accept it.
    She laid out her ideas in her recent book. Not everything I would agree with, but a coherent philosophy.

    https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/greater-britain-after-the-storm-penny-mordaunt
    Sorry not the point I was referring to. My mistake for not making clear. I was referring to polls being driven by recognition. Actually as I have said as a LD she is my biggest fear as Tory leader.
    You are wrong on that.

    If you were correct Sunak followed by Hunt and Truss would be doing best on the net approval rating polls as the most well known candidates. Not Mordaunt and Tugendhat.

    Instead Hunt and Patel do worst on the net approval rating polls despite being amongst the best known candidates being a former Foreign Secretary and final round leadership contender and the current Home Secretary
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,719
    Blue on blue popcorn-tastic:


    "To some [tory members], a great man has been brought low by political pygmies – not to mention Remain fanatics, Emmanuel Macron, Bilderbergers, the bloke in the kimono with the baseball bat, globalists, Dominic Cummimgs, Davos-goers and hand-wringing Tory MPs. They will want revenge on the man most blamed in Johnson Central for bringing him down.

    Jacob Rees-Mogg has already torn a strip off Sunak; Nadine Dorries is always up for a rumble in the jungle. I doubt whether anything either of these two get up to is ordered by the Prime Minister. But by the same token, I can’t see Johnson being backward, were Sunak to make the membership stage, about coming forward."


    https://conservativehome.com/2022/07/10/dossiers-briefings-and-smears-if-the-winner-briefs-against-his-opponents-and-derides-johnsons-government-he-ll-inherit-not-office-but-a-wasteland/
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,288
    ohnotnow said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial.
    Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.

    You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.

    All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.

    It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.

    I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.

    Fair enough!
    I have been to Switzerland a lot and always

    I felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
    Geneva can be quite grim. Unfortunately from a very identifiable group who live there.

    I will never forget the look of relief on a very beautiful blonde English friend when she saw me walking towards her as she was surrounded by a group of about twenty chaps who were just standing there in a circle round her terrifying her. To escort her away to safety was luck and she still says to this day she has no idea what she would have done to get out of the situation on her own.

    Berne felt very safe but it’s all a bit toytown. Zürich always seemed like Geneva but not as bad in the centre.

    Fuck knows why the Montenegrins want to join the EU

    They are doing just fine, considering. They have such a beautiful sunny country with a tiny population they can make squillions as is. Meanwhile they seem as happy and content as anyone. if they join the EU they will have to open their precious borders to Free Movement and then they might easily import the problems of "inequality" that you describe in Geneva

    Right now they have almost zero minor/violent crime - the crime that really frightens people

    It's difficult to comprehend how idyllic it is until you come here
    I have a Serbian friend who cannot comprehend the UK acceptance of casual crime. I always had Serbia down in my vaguely 'gangsta paradise' bit of my mental map of Europe, but he really did insist that outside of _massive_ corruption there was very little day-to-day man-in-the-street crime happening.

    And it surprised me how pretty it was as a country too. Planning a trip next year.
    Western Europeans have been re-educated to accept what is, frankly, unacceptable
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    Scott_xP said:

    End-of-day betting update via @smarkets:
    Sunak 37% chance +2
    Mordaunt 21% +4
    Truss 18% +5
    Tugendhat 6% -2
    Hunt 5% -2
    Javid 5% nc
    Zahawi 3% -1
    Braverman 3% nc
    Badenoch 3% -1
    https://smarkets.com/event/886716/politics/uk/uk-party-leaders/next-conservative-leader

    That amounts to a 66% chance of appointing a banana, an extremist or tainted soiled goods with known associations with discredited persons. Some are all three.

  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-62113335

    Newly appointed minister repeats misogynistic slur against Rayner. The government really is just the dregs now isn't it. No class, no ideas, no ability.

    So Nici not so nice. What a shock from a member of a Boris Johnson government.

    Allegedly she's Under Sec. of State for Dept. of Levelling Up?

    Sounds more like she's attached to the Dept for Fucking Up.
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,052
    Wow. He’s bloody lucky this didn’t come out before the election.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62057321
    Transfer friendly from Tugenhat, Shapps, and Hunt? Suggests a “woke off between her and Rishi to get transfers from the others.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates

    One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs

    https://www.ft.com/content/51138078-4da2-4af7-95a8-f181cce49548
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,632
    💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates

    One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs

    https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1546214174883303427
  • El_CapitanoEl_Capitano Posts: 4,239
    edited July 2022
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial.
    Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.

    You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.

    All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.

    It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.

    I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.

    Fair enough!

    I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
    There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
    It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.

    Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc
  • MikeLMikeL Posts: 7,706
    edited July 2022
    Penny just got Caroline Dinenage and Duncan Baker to reach 21.

    Sunak 34
    Mordaunt 21
    Tugendhat 14
    Truss 13
    Hunt 13
    Zahawi 13
    Badenoch 12
    Patel 12
    Braverman 10
    Javid 10
    Shapps 8

    Over 40% of MPs have declared but what's notable is that everyone is very low.

    It's unlikely anyone will be miles ahead like May in 2016 or Boris in 2019 so realistically you will need approx at least 100 votes to make the Final - so basically nobody has really got anywhere yet.

    So it's going to boil down to transfers.
  • MPartridgeMPartridge Posts: 174
    biggles said:

    Wow. He’s bloody lucky this didn’t come out before the election.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62057321

    Transfer friendly from Tugenhat, Shapps, and Hunt? Suggests a “woke off between her and Rishi to get transfers from the others.
    I would suggest those two for the final two, but still 200+ MP's to declare, anything can change
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,288

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial.
    Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.

    You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.

    All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.

    It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.

    I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.

    Fair enough!

    I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
    There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
    It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.

    Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
    But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?

    That’s what marks out my experience
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,388

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,921
    kjh said:

    @hyufd. My apologies. I asked you a question this morning and then I buggered off before your reply. I didn't mean to ignore you.

    To reiterate I was commenting on the reports today of senior constitution experts and senior Conservatives who were very worried about Boris breaking the constitution apart. Gillian Shepherd relieved it survived. They were particularly concerned about him asking for a dissolution.

    I asked you whether you were concerned about this. You replied that we don't have a written constitution. I don't think I can let you get away with that. Written or not we do have a constitution and of all the people who post here I expect you to be the greatest defender of such. You post frequently such.

    So what do you think of these senior experts and Conservatives who were so worried about his behaviour. Surely they are your type of Conservative.

    As I posted we have a constitution based on crown in Parliament. Technically Boris was only the Queen’s chief minister, he had no power in government without the Queen's consent and no power to call a general election if the Queen disagreed.

    If he had asked for a general election it was still up to the Queen. Had she agreed that would have been within the constitution, had she disagreed and asked Parliament to confirm a snap general election that would also have been within the constitution
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,163
    Scott_xP said:

    💰 £13bn! £39bn! £49bn!

    The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.

    @FinancialTimes analysis with @ChrisGiles_ https://www.ft.com/content/11e6a49b-ec21-405d-8bf9-8644c4042d4e


    They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh

    First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.

    Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
  • OllyTOllyT Posts: 5,006
    Foxy said:

    OllyT said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    Tom Tugendhat leaps to third place in Tory MPs endorsements behind Sunak and Mordaunt after Karen
    Bradley's backing

    https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1546162976104878081?s=20&t=6s-mAMl327v6ChyfYsFZWA

    I think this is starting to shape up very, very badly for the conservatives.

    The members are going to get a choice of tweedle dum or tweedle dee from the left of the party. Sunak plus one.

    Perhaps the MPs have wised up to the fact that they daren't give the members the opportunity to choose a loony
    The flaw in that plan is that there are a fair few that are barking mad in the Parliamentary party...
    True but they do need to number just over a third and coalesce around one candidate. The barking mad don't always agree with other
  • StillWatersStillWaters Posts: 8,258

    Yokes said:

    I did reckon earlier this week that there was going to be an incoming hatchet job on Zahawi. Is the leak that HMRC are looking into him it or is their more?

    I'd bet on more

    I’m amazed that HMRC investigating the incumbent Chancellor hasn’t gained more traction in the media.
    It appears he has denied the HMRC are investigating him
    I think he said he didn’t know that they were investigating him… which is certainly possible
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    edited July 2022

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Er... McDermid's book was 1979 when I read it.

    Edit: Just realised 1989 is the follow-up, although in my defence, McDermid's website doesn't mention it.

    https://www.valmcdermid.com/all-books/
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    edited July 2022

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-62113335

    Newly appointed minister repeats misogynistic slur against Rayner. The government really is just the dregs now isn't it. No class, no ideas, no ability.

    It's ghastly. All politics is relative. Without changing at all Rayner has gone, in my estimation, from another Prescott who calls Tories scum to a rather modest class act who graces Glyndebourne and (rightly) thinks Figaro is worth attention on class grounds (as well as being the most sublime music ever written).

    Next: perhaps revisit whether actually 'scum' is a pretty modest epithet all things considered. Does anyone stop to think that treating a woman in public life in this way is repellent?

  • El_CapitanoEl_Capitano Posts: 4,239
    edited July 2022
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial.
    Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.

    You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.

    All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.

    It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.

    I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.

    Fair enough!

    I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
    There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
    It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.

    Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
    But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?

    That’s what marks out my experience
    Interesting question! No, you're right - I wouldn't.

    But I would be honestly surprised if someone nicked it. Most likely outcome is that someone would see it and hand it in at the bar.

    I do now and then leave stuff at the pub after too much Old Rosie so this is a good thing.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
  • bigglesbiggles Posts: 6,052

    biggles said:

    Wow. He’s bloody lucky this didn’t come out before the election.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62057321

    Transfer friendly from Tugenhat, Shapps, and Hunt? Suggests a “woke off between her and Rishi to get transfers from the others.
    I would suggest those two for the final two, but still 200+ MP's to declare, anything can change
    Those two plus Tugendhat as PM/CX/Foreign Sec feels fairly grown up if that’s how it ends up.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Er... McDermid's book was 1979 when I read it.

    Edit: Just realised 1989 is the follow-up, although in my defence, McDermid's website doesn't mention it.

    https://www.valmcdermid.com/all-books/
    Instagram pic very clear on that point! 😄
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial.
    Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.

    You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.

    All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.

    It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.

    I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.

    Fair enough!

    I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
    There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
    It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.

    Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
    But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?

    That’s what marks out my experience
    Yes but... who really gives a shit about your experience?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 57,154
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial.
    Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.

    You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.

    All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.

    It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.

    I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.

    Fair enough!

    I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
    There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
    It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.

    Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
    But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?

    That’s what marks out my experience
    I wouldn't leave my phone for 40 minutes, even if it was locked in a safe.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Er... McDermid's book was 1979 when I read it.

    Edit: Just realised 1989 is the follow-up, although in my defence, McDermid's website doesn't mention it.

    https://www.valmcdermid.com/all-books/
    All correct. 1979 is a book. (Enjoyed it too). 1989 is also a book, publication date 18 August 2022. Quick reader.

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,863
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    There are lots of places where you *can* leave your bag, and it is 99.9% likely to be safe.

    But very few people are willing to do so..

    You can be sitting at a bar at a hotel in Vegas, and you can leave your bag or smartphone while you go to the toilet, because nobody in their right minds would attempt to steal in a place where security is so ubiquitious.

    In many rural places, you can leave a bag, because they are such small communities, that you literally know every single person that is likely to pass.

    I've always found the Middle East - Dubai, Saudi, Iran and Israel - to be places where you can leave your possessions, and find they are fine.

    But would you do it at a bar in New York or London or Sydney or even Tokyo? Nope.
    This is the first time I've experienced this level of trust in a bustling resort in Europe, it is pretty rare

    I wonder if the legacy of communism is at work? Capitalism (billionaire playgrounds apart) is weaker here. The profit motive not so apparent. eg Tipping (which we have discussed before). Tipping is almost non-existent in Montenegro. They don't work for tips, and they definitely don't expect them. I've tried to tip waiters with cards but they can't be arsed with the faff and they visibly sigh, so I've given up

    They are some of the nicest people I've ever met. They have the ebullience of the Italians with the dark humour of the Russians with the amazing looks of all the eastern Slavs and the warm generosity of most people in small neglected countries. They enjoy life but they really want you to enjoy it too. Zero arrogance

    They can seem blunt and rude but I've realised it's just their way of speaking, they are loud and direct, and if you show that you are feeling offended they become stricken with guilt

    What did they say to make you look offended?

    It’s hard to believe that someone came up to you and asked whether you were that twat off Politicalbetting…
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,719

    Scott_xP said:

    💰 £13bn! £39bn! £49bn!

    The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.

    @FinancialTimes analysis with @ChrisGiles_ https://www.ft.com/content/11e6a49b-ec21-405d-8bf9-8644c4042d4e


    They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh

    First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.

    Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
    Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,388

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,103
    MikeL said:

    Penny just got Caroline Dinenage and Duncan Baker to reach 21.

    Sunak 34
    Mordaunt 21
    Tugendhat 14
    Truss 13
    Hunt 13
    Zahawi 13
    Badenoch 12
    Patel 12
    Braverman 10
    Javid 10
    Shapps 8

    Over 40% of MPs have declared but what's notable is that everyone is very low.

    It's unlikely anyone will be miles ahead like May in 2016 or Boris in 2019 so realistically you will need approx at least 100 votes to make the Final - so basically nobody has really got anywhere yet.

    So it's going to boil down to transfers.

    Excellent - it means they will really need to persuade their fellow MPs, there won't be much pressure to fall into line.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,163
    algarkirk said:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-62113335

    Newly appointed minister repeats misogynistic slur against Rayner. The government really is just the dregs now isn't it. No class, no ideas, no ability.

    It's ghastly. All politics is relative. Without changing at all Rayner has gone, in my estimation, from another Prescott who calls Tories scum to a rather modest class act who graces Glyndebourne and (rightly) thinks Figaro is worth attention on class grounds (as well as being the most sublime music ever written).

    Next: perhaps revisit whether actually 'scum' is a pretty modest epithet all things considered. Does anyone stop to think that treating a woman in public life in this way is repellent?

    Politicians used to maintain at least the fiction of being polite to each other and that is why the "Tory scum" slur upset and annoyed so many. However the current Cabinet and senior Tories seem determined to make the slur true. From the old video of Rishi talking about the poor to this incident to the new Education Secretary (Minister??) giving people the finger...

    They are fast turning into a bunch of slobs.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Does anyone else find it odd, that Tory leadership contest as commenced, without any actual rules yet being established to govern it?

    The fix is already in? Or just in process of being put in?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,103

    💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates

    One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs

    https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1546214174883303427

    Apologies if I have missed this while being a long way up a misty moody Norwegian fjord but has the timetable been set yet?
    It will be announced tomorrow. Sounds like it may be formal nominations in by Weds, get it down to the final 2 by the end of July, and a new leader in place for early September.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,821

    💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates

    One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs

    https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1546214174883303427

    Apologies if I have missed this while being a long way up a misty moody Norwegian fjord but has the timetable been set yet?

    Oldevatnet, Norway:
    image
    It looks OK :)
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?



    The whitepaper for example...
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Er... McDermid's book was 1979 when I read it.

    Edit: Just realised 1989 is the follow-up, although in my defence, McDermid's website doesn't mention it.

    https://www.valmcdermid.com/all-books/
    Instagram pic very clear on that point! 😄
    What is this 'Instagram' thing of which you speak?
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497

    Scott_xP said:

    💰 £13bn! £39bn! £49bn!

    The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.

    @FinancialTimes analysis with @ChrisGiles_ https://www.ft.com/content/11e6a49b-ec21-405d-8bf9-8644c4042d4e


    They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh

    First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.

    Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
    Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
    Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.

    100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.

  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,103

    Does anyone else find it odd, that Tory leadership contest as commenced, without any actual rules yet being established to govern it?

    The fix is already in? Or just in process of being put in?

    I don't know why you'd assume a fix on the basis they've started their campaigning before knowing the timetable or entry criteria (it's not like other rules are going to be changed much).

    They know it is happening, and they know they will need the support of fellow MPs to get on the ballot, they can start that process before knowing anything else.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,388

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    I'm sure you read many books, Stuart.
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,639
    Can't say I feel much enthusiasm for any of the candidates at the moment!

    👿👿👿
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Er... McDermid's book was 1979 when I read it.

    Edit: Just realised 1989 is the follow-up, although in my defence, McDermid's website doesn't mention it.

    https://www.valmcdermid.com/all-books/
    Instagram pic very clear on that point! 😄
    What is this 'Instagram' thing of which you speak?
    Old hat.

    The kidz are on TikTok. It is their main source of… news(!!)… believe it or not.

  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,078
    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial. Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    Well Tallinn is pretty multi national and the turnover of people in the tech sector is pretty rapid. I think it is more a Scandi/Lutheran thing that honesty is just kind of expected. We has our summer last week, but bits of Estonia can be pretty idyllic and Tallinn of course is a blast.
    But you can have a Lutheran or Calvinist or whatever culture, if you import enough people who aren’t of that culture and who don;’t necessarily respect that culture and will not assimilate to that culture, then your culture is a bit fucked

    Cf Sweden and the rocketing problem of gang violence, rape etc


    And, for balance, see many countries invaded - peacefully or otherwise - by white Europeans

    On the other hand, if they *do* respect the home culture then the trust expands, rather than diminishes, and I think people here do indeed respect the Estonian way of doing things. Not least because it self evidently works.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 19,913
    That's why 97% of the advertising industry voted to Remain according to polls. . We were indisputably the second most successful advertising industry in the world and probably rated the most creative. British crews and production were in demand everywhere which had knock on effects all over the place.

    The film business flourished as did British studios which meant model making special effects music studios construction etc. Germany always had the best equiptment but we had a hugely successful service industry

    In 2016 we wantonly committed harakiri. I still find it unbelievable
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,103

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    Read my first ever P G Wodehouse earlier today. It was fairly entertaining, but more importantly I can now rest easy should I ever meet Hugh Laurie or Stephen Fry.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    I'm sure you read many books, Stuart.
    PB used to be the go-to place for insults. It’s just not the same these days.
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,163
    algarkirk said:

    Scott_xP said:

    💰 £13bn! £39bn! £49bn!

    The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.

    @FinancialTimes analysis with @ChrisGiles_ https://www.ft.com/content/11e6a49b-ec21-405d-8bf9-8644c4042d4e


    They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh

    First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.

    Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
    Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
    Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.

    100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.

    So it is partly my fault for not joining the Tory party? It is not free to join and I disagree profoundly with their aims and policies.

    Am I also supposed to be a member of the LibDems and of Labour to make sure that I can shape their policies?

    When am I allowed to stop joining parties?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    TOP EXCL in today's Paper
    Tory big beast (and king maker?) @michaelgove BACKS @KemiBadenoch to be the next Tory leader and PM.

    Writing for @TheSun he says Kemi has the "right stuff" to lead the UK

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/19155009/gove-backs-badenoch-tory-leadership/
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    kle4 said:

    💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates

    One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs

    https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1546214174883303427

    Apologies if I have missed this while being a long way up a misty moody Norwegian fjord but has the timetable been set yet?
    It will be announced tomorrow. Sounds like it may be formal nominations in by Weds, get it down to the final 2 by the end of July, and a new leader in place for early September.
    Thanks but, Jeez, why so long?

    By the end of August the leading candidates will be promising tax cuts equal to twice the GDP, all refugees to be packed off the the British Antarctic Territory before they leave France, and the Magna Carta to be repealed (rules created by nasty foreign barons from Normandy).
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    100% agree. Glad to see NS reads books. She is a tremendously good politician as well. Though from my point of view of course with the downside that she is in a party that shouldn't exist with policies that would put an EU land border up the road from me. Them's the breaks. Vive democracy.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    kle4 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    Read my first ever P G Wodehouse earlier today. It was fairly entertaining, but more importantly I can now rest easy should I ever meet Hugh Laurie or Stephen Fry.
    Fantastic!

    Once you’ve got the Plum bug you have a very pleasant decade of fine comedic reading ahead of you.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664

    algarkirk said:

    Scott_xP said:

    💰 £13bn! £39bn! £49bn!

    The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.

    @FinancialTimes analysis with @ChrisGiles_ https://www.ft.com/content/11e6a49b-ec21-405d-8bf9-8644c4042d4e


    They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh

    First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.

    Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
    Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
    Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.

    100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.

    So it is partly my fault for not joining the Tory party? It is not free to join and I disagree profoundly with their aims and policies.

    Am I also supposed to be a member of the LibDems and of Labour to make sure that I can shape their policies?

    When am I allowed to stop joining parties?
    During lockdown?
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 35,990
    🔴 PM told not to pick Lord Hogan-Howe, who led catastrophic Operation Midland child sex abuse investigation, in ‘death throes’ of premiership https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/07/10/boris-johnson-urged-not-give-friend-top-crime-fighting-role/?utm_content=politics&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1657478457-3
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559

    Scott_xP said:

    💰 £13bn! £39bn! £49bn!

    The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.

    @FinancialTimes analysis with @ChrisGiles_ https://www.ft.com/content/11e6a49b-ec21-405d-8bf9-8644c4042d4e


    They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh

    First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.

    Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
    Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
    How certain are PBers, esp. those who regard themselves as Conservatives ("true" or not) that powers-that-be responsible for maintaining membership lists, are on the up-and-up, on ethical OR competency basis?

    Not (necessarily) accusing Tories or anything (or not). FYI (also BTW) a while back, yours truly got an email from my local party politburo with salutation "Dear Leslie" which is NOT my name. which BTW (also FYI) is reflected in the email they were using to contact "Leslie".

    Honest error rate for any membership-based organization's membership list with significant number of members bound to be more than zero. With potential for fiddling by those who have very strong interest, are compulsive fiddlers, and all of the above, somewhat greater, depending upon opportunity AND scrutiny.
  • If the new PM were to offer Home Secretary to Kemi, should she take it?

    May made it to PM from there, but it's generally known as a political graveyard. She would be harder to argue against, as an African schoolgirl, on the Rwanda policy. But it really could be a poisoned chalice for her.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,786
    edited July 2022
    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    @hyufd. My apologies. I asked you a question this morning and then I buggered off before your reply. I didn't mean to ignore you.

    To reiterate I was commenting on the reports today of senior constitution experts and senior Conservatives who were very worried about Boris breaking the constitution apart. Gillian Shepherd relieved it survived. They were particularly concerned about him asking for a dissolution.

    I asked you whether you were concerned about this. You replied that we don't have a written constitution. I don't think I can let you get away with that. Written or not we do have a constitution and of all the people who post here I expect you to be the greatest defender of such. You post frequently such.

    So what do you think of these senior experts and Conservatives who were so worried about his behaviour. Surely they are your type of Conservative.

    As I posted we have a constitution based on crown in Parliament. Technically Boris was only the Queen’s chief minister, he had no power in government without the Queen's consent and no power to call a general election if the Queen disagreed.

    If he had asked for a general election it was still up to the Queen. Had she agreed that would have been within the constitution, had she disagreed and asked Parliament to confirm a snap general election that would also have been within the constitution
    Thanks for the reply @HYUFD

    OK but there is still my initial question which seems even more pertinent now: Why were constitutional experts and senior Tories so worried then that Boris has been destroying the constitution? Lord Peter Hennessy and Baroness Gillian Shephard are both highly respected and are both conservative with a big and little 'c' and they both disagree with you.

    Also and related surely the Queen should never be put into such a position. She does not do politics. As soon as she does you are on the slippery slope to republicanism surely which is not what you want.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497

    algarkirk said:

    Scott_xP said:

    💰 £13bn! £39bn! £49bn!

    The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.

    @FinancialTimes analysis with @ChrisGiles_ https://www.ft.com/content/11e6a49b-ec21-405d-8bf9-8644c4042d4e


    They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh

    First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.

    Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
    Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
    Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.

    100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.

    So it is partly my fault for not joining the Tory party? It is not free to join and I disagree profoundly with their aims and policies.

    Am I also supposed to be a member of the LibDems and of Labour to make sure that I can shape their policies?

    When am I allowed to stop joining parties?
    Read it more carefully. I am not making a moral point, and said so clearly.

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,863
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial.
    Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.

    You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.

    All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.

    It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.

    I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.

    Fair enough!

    I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
    There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
    It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.

    Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
    But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?

    That’s what marks out my experience
    Having spent last night in Banbury, I would avoid busy pubs there period. The one I was staying in, with rooms, was hosting a private party for some middle aged people celebrating a wedding anniversary; the Birdie Song and Agadoo pumped out at maximum volume from the marquee behind the hotel was enough to send me out into the town in search of a quiet drink; Banbury, contrary to first impressions, on a Saturday night is host to large groups of younger people staggering about drunk and urinating in the street, with pubs that open to 2 am and lots of them pumping out party music. Who knew?

    I feel sorry for any foreign tourists who imagine they might be wandering the streets of a historic English town, taking in the atmosphere and stopping by a quiet bar or restaurant, as I was in similar sized places in Italy last month.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,635
    Scott_xP said:

    TOP EXCL in today's Paper
    Tory big beast (and king maker?) @michaelgove BACKS @KemiBadenoch to be the next Tory leader and PM.

    Writing for @TheSun he says Kemi has the "right stuff" to lead the UK

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/19155009/gove-backs-badenoch-tory-leadership/

    That's a big endorsement. It will be interesting to see how the voting pans out.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    algarkirk said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    100% agree. Glad to see NS reads books. She is a tremendously good politician as well. Though from my point of view of course with the downside that she is in a party that shouldn't exist with policies that would put an EU land border up the road from me. Them's the breaks. Vive democracy.
    I agree that the party shouldn’t need to exist.
    And I’d like to see England, Ireland, Man, Scotland and Wales all in the EU.

  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,163
    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    Scott_xP said:

    💰 £13bn! £39bn! £49bn!

    The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.

    @FinancialTimes analysis with @ChrisGiles_ https://www.ft.com/content/11e6a49b-ec21-405d-8bf9-8644c4042d4e


    They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh

    First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.

    Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
    Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
    Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.

    100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.

    So it is partly my fault for not joining the Tory party? It is not free to join and I disagree profoundly with their aims and policies.

    Am I also supposed to be a member of the LibDems and of Labour to make sure that I can shape their policies?

    When am I allowed to stop joining parties?
    Read it more carefully. I am not making a moral point, and said so clearly.

    But you do seem to be saying that everyone in the country should join every party so that policy and leaders is controlled better.

    I thought that was rationale behind General Elections rather than Party membership
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Can't say I feel much enthusiasm for any of the candidates at the moment!

    👿👿👿

    Are any of them better than Davey, Price, Starmer or Sturgeon?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    I'm sure you read many books, Stuart.
    Not all of them illustrated.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,388

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    I'm sure you read many books, Stuart.
    PB used to be the go-to place for insults. It’s just not the same these days.
    You're right, that was truly feeble. But keep trying, you might get back to your old standard.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 96,103

    kle4 said:

    💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates

    One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs

    https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1546214174883303427

    Apologies if I have missed this while being a long way up a misty moody Norwegian fjord but has the timetable been set yet?
    It will be announced tomorrow. Sounds like it may be formal nominations in by Weds, get it down to the final 2 by the end of July, and a new leader in place for early September.
    Thanks but, Jeez, why so long?

    By the end of August the leading candidates will be promising tax cuts equal to twice the GDP, all refugees to be packed off the the British Antarctic Territory before they leave France, and the Magna Carta to be repealed (rules created by nasty foreign barons from Normandy).
    It will take probably a couple of weeks to print and dispatch all the postal ballots to the the membership (they seem to be able to arrange it faster than me though), and they want to give them a reasonable amount of time to hear from the candidates, but I'd agree with you.

    Even taking it slow, I'd say

    11 July - rules announced
    13 July - closing date of nominations
    18 July - First ballot
    20 July - second ballot
    22 July - third and subsequent ballots as needed - final two announced
    1 August - postal ballots out
    19 August - closing date
    22 August - new leader announced, takes over

    Gives them a couple of weeks to prepare ahead of the first PMQs

  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497
    kle4 said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    Read my first ever P G Wodehouse earlier today. It was fairly entertaining, but more importantly I can now rest easy should I ever meet Hugh Laurie or Stephen Fry.

    “Mr. Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own."

    Evelyn Waugh 1961. Exactly right.
    The question that hasn't been seriously addressed (lit crit being snobbish about very popular stuff) is whether in fact the Wodehouse oeuvre has a deeper message or sub-text. It's too good to be without meaning.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial.
    Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.

    You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.

    All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.

    It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.

    I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.

    Fair enough!

    I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
    There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
    It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.

    Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
    But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?

    That’s what marks out my experience
    Having spent last night in Banbury, I would avoid busy pubs there period. The one I was staying in, with rooms, was hosting a private party for some middle aged people celebrating a wedding anniversary; the Birdie Song and Agadoo pumped out at maximum volume from the marquee behind the hotel was enough to send me out into the town in search of a quiet drink; Banbury, contrary to first impressions, on a Saturday night is host to large groups of younger people staggering about drunk and urinating in the street, with pubs that open to 2 am and lots of them pumping out party music. Who knew?

    I feel sorry for any foreign tourists who imagine they might be wandering the streets of a historic English town, taking in the atmosphere and stopping by a quiet bar or restaurant, as I was in similar sized places in Italy last month.
    I'd certainly feel sorry for any foreign tourists who end up in Banbury. They should sue the holiday company.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,388
    edited July 2022
    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    I'm sure you read many books, Stuart.
    Not all of them illustrated.
    Hey, I've got a book chock full of illustrations. It's called 'The Burgundians' and it's very interesting.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    I'm sure you read many books, Stuart.
    Not all of them illustrated.
    De Pfeffel got a very sympathetic treatment in Kenneth Grahame’s illustrated classic.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,388

    IanB2 said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    boulay said:

    Leon said:

    Cicero said:

    Leon said:

    Let me sketch again what I witnessed in Rose, Montenegro

    It’s a sizeable, very pretty seaside village, with one large resort hotel, several smaller hotels, a little marina, water sports, half a dozen bustling bars and restaurants. I imagine in winter it is deeply quiet but on a summer Sunday it was rammed with tourists, with people parked all the way up the hill behind

    The beaches were crowded but I wasn’t on a beach, I was 20 metres away in a big well-known seafood restaurant which was also rammed with lunchers and drinkers, mainly Montenegrin/Croatian/Serb tourists but I heard some Germans, French etc

    The table next to me was hosting a crowd of people in their late 20s. One by one they got up to head off, mostly to go swimming (I saw them). They were gone 40 minutes at least (by that time I had to go myself, so they might have been gone for much longer), they left behind everything, quite casually: phones, bags, purses, money, sunnies, everything (as the picture shows)

    I do not believe you would do this in a big pub in a crowded holiday village anywhere in the UK, nor anywhere I know in the rest of Western Europe, with the POSSIBLE exception of Switzerland. No one leaves behind their phone in a big bustling bar for 40 minutes (minimum). It is not a thing

    The Wikipedia article you posted says that there are only 10 people who live in Rose off season, (Montenegro is pretty small, of course) which may not challenge your thinking, but which does suggest that the village is mostly incomers at this time of year. Estonia is also pretty small (though more than twice the size of MNE) and similar levels of trust seem to apply here. Trust societies are so much more pleasent to live in.
    Eastern Europe is doing much better at retaining that high trust cohesiveness. And it’s not *just* smallness. It helps to be ethnically and culturally homogenous. If you know everyone around and they all know you, it is much harder to get away with crime. And if you are also probably related to the person you steal from or reliant on them in some way, that is another big disincentive for crime

    Big transient individualistic multicultural “western” societies have much more crime

    The one outlier is possibly Switzerland? Which has very low crime, yet is not smal, and is quite individualistic (but also officious) and multicultural and multiracial.
    Perhaps it is so rich no one needs to steal? or maybe it is Calvinism

    I can absolutely assure you that you would never leave your belongings unattended in a bar or cafe in Geneva - even though supremely Calvinistic.

    You have to be careful with your belongings in your pockets there yet alone on the table.

    All my female friends there would have to be very careful with their bags whilst out to ensure they were safely under the table even when we were sitting there.

    It’s the only place I’ve ever been mugged (attempted as my friend and I delivered a beating to the two muggers) and I had a friend there who had been mugged five times in three years living there.

    I would think that other larger cities in Switzerland are similar so it’s not the bucolic land of people respecting the law you might think.

    Fair enough!

    I have been to Switzerland a lot and always felt remarkably safe, but that's interesting to hear
    There's a massive rural / urban split in most countries. If you are in a small village in Switzerland, then you could probably leave your possessions on a table in a restaraunt for hours without worry. But at a crowded bar in Geneva, not a chance.
    It's exactly the same here: I'm 15 miles from Oxford in a (very) small rural town and would happily leave my phone/wallet on the table in the pub while I went to the toilet. When people lock their bikes up outside the pub they get laughed at.

    Last time I locked my bike outside the pub in Oxford, I came out half an hour later to find someone wheeling it up the road, bolt-cutters in the other arm.
    But you wouldn’t leave your phone on the table for FORTY MINUTES in a big busy pub, even in rural Oxon, would you?

    That’s what marks out my experience
    Having spent last night in Banbury, I would avoid busy pubs there period. The one I was staying in, with rooms, was hosting a private party for some middle aged people celebrating a wedding anniversary; the Birdie Song and Agadoo pumped out at maximum volume from the marquee behind the hotel was enough to send me out into the town in search of a quiet drink; Banbury, contrary to first impressions, on a Saturday night is host to large groups of younger people staggering about drunk and urinating in the street, with pubs that open to 2 am and lots of them pumping out party music. Who knew?

    I feel sorry for any foreign tourists who imagine they might be wandering the streets of a historic English town, taking in the atmosphere and stopping by a quiet bar or restaurant, as I was in similar sized places in Italy last month.
    I'd certainly feel sorry for any foreign tourists who end up in Banbury. They should sue the holiday company.
    Would they be Cross?
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,497

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    Scott_xP said:

    💰 £13bn! £39bn! £49bn!

    The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.

    @FinancialTimes analysis with @ChrisGiles_ https://www.ft.com/content/11e6a49b-ec21-405d-8bf9-8644c4042d4e


    They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh

    First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.

    Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
    Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
    Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.

    100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.

    So it is partly my fault for not joining the Tory party? It is not free to join and I disagree profoundly with their aims and policies.

    Am I also supposed to be a member of the LibDems and of Labour to make sure that I can shape their policies?

    When am I allowed to stop joining parties?
    Read it more carefully. I am not making a moral point, and said so clearly.

    But you do seem to be saying that everyone in the country should join every party so that policy and leaders is controlled better.

    I thought that was rationale behind General Elections rather than Party membership
    No seeming, no shoulds. Read what I said.

  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,526
    Roger said:

    That's why 97% of the advertising industry voted to Remain according to polls. . We were indisputably the second most successful advertising industry in the world and probably rated the most creative. British crews and production were in demand everywhere which had knock on effects all over the place.

    The film business flourished as did British studios which meant model making special effects music studios construction etc. Germany always had the best equiptment but we had a hugely successful service industry

    In 2016 we wantonly committed harakiri. I still find it unbelievable
    Really?

    According to the film and TV industry itself the UK now has the fastest growing film and TV sector in the world with a massive growth in inward investment. It was worth $7.6 billion in 2021 and is predicted to be worth $9.4 billion in 2025.

    The idea that post Brexit we are losing market share or that the film and TV industry is failing is utter garbage.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,388

    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    I'm sure you read many books, Stuart.
    Not all of them illustrated.
    De Pfeffel got a very sympathetic treatment in Kenneth Grahame’s illustrated classic.
    As the rat, the toad, the weasel or the mole?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Roger said:

    That's why 97% of the advertising industry voted to Remain according to polls. . We were indisputably the second most successful advertising industry in the world and probably rated the most creative. British crews and production were in demand everywhere which had knock on effects all over the place.

    The film business flourished as did British studios which meant model making special effects music studios construction etc. Germany always had the best equiptment but we had a hugely successful service industry

    In 2016 we wantonly committed harakiri. I still find it unbelievable
    Really?

    According to the film and TV industry itself the UK now has the fastest growing film and TV sector in the world with a massive growth in inward investment. It was worth $7.6 billion in 2021 and is predicted to be worth $9.4 billion in 2025.

    The idea that post Brexit we are losing market share or that the film and TV industry is failing is utter garbage.

    9.4 billion in 2025 being the price of a Mars bar.
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,163
    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    Scott_xP said:

    💰 £13bn! £39bn! £49bn!

    The huge tax pledges of Liz Truss, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid are going to be expensive - with few explanations of how it’s going to be paid for. All part of their plans to win MPs.

    @FinancialTimes analysis with @ChrisGiles_ https://www.ft.com/content/11e6a49b-ec21-405d-8bf9-8644c4042d4e


    They are going to trash each other to try and get the gig. Labour will just watch and laugh

    First it was "Party before Country" as the Tories used Brexit to get the UKIP tanks off their lawn.

    Now it is just naked, personal ambition which comes ahead of Party interests with the country in a poor 3rd place. They will promise anything to become PM, even if the result of their promises is massively increasing the national debt or just trashing their Party's chances in the next election.
    Do we know the latest tory membership figures? It seems to me that an ageing, Brexit-obsessed cohort whose prime political memory is of Thatcher's time of what maybe 150k people will decide the next PM?
    Yes, but there is a sort of gap in the reasoning. Let's say 150,000 people get to choose the next PM. If this is terrible the reason is nothing whatever to do with those people. They are the only people not responsible for the problem.

    100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not.

    So it is partly my fault for not joining the Tory party? It is not free to join and I disagree profoundly with their aims and policies.

    Am I also supposed to be a member of the LibDems and of Labour to make sure that I can shape their policies?

    When am I allowed to stop joining parties?
    Read it more carefully. I am not making a moral point, and said so clearly.

    But you do seem to be saying that everyone in the country should join every party so that policy and leaders is controlled better.

    I thought that was rationale behind General Elections rather than Party membership
    No seeming, no shoulds. Read what I said.

    You said: "100% of the responsibility (which is not the same as blame) lies with the other 58,000,000 (or whatever number) who could be members but are not."

    So according to you, we all have a responsibility to be Tory members. That is exactly what that says. What other interpretation is there?
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,717
    ydoethur said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    I'm sure you read many books, Stuart.
    Not all of them illustrated.
    De Pfeffel got a very sympathetic treatment in Kenneth Grahame’s illustrated classic.
    As the rat, the toad, the weasel or the mole?
    Parp parp.

  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    💥 NEW: Senior Tories want to rapidly thin out the field of leadership candidates

    One senior MP close to 1922 committee it was “likely” candidates must secure the support of at least 10% of the parliamentary party to get on to the ballot paper - 36 MPs

    https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1546214174883303427

    Apologies if I have missed this while being a long way up a misty moody Norwegian fjord but has the timetable been set yet?
    It will be announced tomorrow. Sounds like it may be formal nominations in by Weds, get it down to the final 2 by the end of July, and a new leader in place for early September.
    Thanks but, Jeez, why so long?

    By the end of August the leading candidates will be promising tax cuts equal to twice the GDP, all refugees to be packed off the the British Antarctic Territory before they leave France, and the Magna Carta to be repealed (rules created by nasty foreign barons from Normandy).
    It will take probably a couple of weeks to print and dispatch all the postal ballots to the the membership (they seem to be able to arrange it faster than me though), and they want to give them a reasonable amount of time to hear from the candidates, but I'd agree with you.

    Even taking it slow, I'd say

    11 July - rules announced
    13 July - closing date of nominations
    18 July - First ballot
    20 July - second ballot
    22 July - third and subsequent ballots as needed - final two announced
    1 August - postal ballots out
    19 August - closing date
    22 August - new leader announced, takes over

    Gives them a couple of weeks to prepare ahead of the first PMQs

    Why not daily or twice-daily MP ballots?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    edited July 2022
    ydoethur said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    I'm sure you read many books, Stuart.
    Not all of them illustrated.
    De Pfeffel got a very sympathetic treatment in Kenneth Grahame’s illustrated classic.
    As the rat, the toad, the weasel or the mole?
    Even you can work that one out. But I won’t badger you.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,388
    edited July 2022

    ydoethur said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Do any other party leaders do book reviews?

    Nicola Sturgeon on Instagram: “📚 Time for a mid-year book review. My top ten novels of 2022 so far 📚”

    Val McDermid, 1989
    Douglas Stuart, Young Mungo
    Jenni Fagan, Hex
    Ali Smith, Companion piece
    Emilie Pine, Ruth & Pen
    etc

    Perhaps they're too busy running their countries?
    Huh?
    What country is Keir Starmer running?!
    So she's even less busy than somebody who has nothing to do?
    Only people with “nothing to do” read books?

    That would certainly explain the number of complete ignorants in public life.
    I'm sure you read many books, Stuart.
    Not all of them illustrated.
    De Pfeffel got a very sympathetic treatment in Kenneth Grahame’s illustrated classic.
    As the rat, the toad, the weasel or the mole?
    Even you can work that one out. But I won’t badger you.

    Possibly, but I will keep badgering you until you answer.

    Edit - damn it, you beat me to the pun with that edit. You had to bargee in there.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 13,874
    Evening all :)

    Mrs Stodge in far from a happy mood after the fortnightly shop at our local Sainsbury's, Not the prices so much - an occasional seethe but as I pay for the scoff, that's my problem.

    What irritated her was the 25 minutes it took from joining one of the checkout queues to actually paying.

    Just three tills open on a busy Sunday - it seems as with so many other places there is a desperate shortage of staff and those left cannot cope with the customer demand.

    It did occur to me one way to alleviate the problem was to suspend the Sunday Trading Laws for 6 months to allow businesses to adapt, adjust and recruit.

    It also occurred to me we could all cope with having a quieter day to each week - perhaps a winning message for a social conservative (or perhaps not).

    Where have all the workers gone?
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 32,526

    Roger said:

    That's why 97% of the advertising industry voted to Remain according to polls. . We were indisputably the second most successful advertising industry in the world and probably rated the most creative. British crews and production were in demand everywhere which had knock on effects all over the place.

    The film business flourished as did British studios which meant model making special effects music studios construction etc. Germany always had the best equiptment but we had a hugely successful service industry

    In 2016 we wantonly committed harakiri. I still find it unbelievable
    Really?

    According to the film and TV industry itself the UK now has the fastest growing film and TV sector in the world with a massive growth in inward investment. It was worth $7.6 billion in 2021 and is predicted to be worth $9.4 billion in 2025.

    The idea that post Brexit we are losing market share or that the film and TV industry is failing is utter garbage.

    9.4 billion in 2025 being the price of a Mars bar.
    You think the value of the dollar is going to collapse? Brave suggestion.
  • TomsToms Posts: 2,478
    When I took a "grand tour" all over Britain in 1962 on my Norton ES2 500 cc motorbike, I would often visit churches, large and small. During the day they were invariably open, but during week days the lesser ones usually deserted.
    I never confuse Gypsys with Travelers.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Friend of mine just gave me a copy of 1902 edition of "Boys Own Annual" full of fine, improving stuff!

    For instance:

    "The Boyhood of W. R. Grace"

    "Baden-Powell on Football"

    "Queer Adventure on an Italian Lake"

    "Old English Sports and Pastimes"

    "Scouting for Girls" by His Majesty Edward VII

  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,664
    edited July 2022
    stodge said:

    Evening all :)

    Mrs Stodge in far from a happy mood after the fortnightly shop at our local Sainsbury's, Not the prices so much - an occasional seethe but as I pay for the scoff, that's my problem.

    What irritated her was the 25 minutes it took from joining one of the checkout queues to actually paying.

    Just three tills open on a busy Sunday - it seems as with so many other places there is a desperate shortage of staff and those left cannot cope with the customer demand.

    It did occur to me one way to alleviate the problem was to suspend the Sunday Trading Laws for 6 months to allow businesses to adapt, adjust and recruit.

    It also occurred to me we could all cope with having a quieter day to each week - perhaps a winning message for a social conservative (or perhaps not).

    Where have all the workers gone?

    Back home to the EU?

    Seriously though, don't Sainsbury's do self-check as you shop, like Waitrose?

    Edit: is this the same Sainsbury's who have rejected a proposal to pay all staff at least the Living Wage?

    https://news.sky.com/story/sainsburys-can-breathe-sigh-of-relief-as-real-living-wage-motion-is-rejected-12647626
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 60,447

    Scott_xP said:

    TOP EXCL in today's Paper
    Tory big beast (and king maker?) @michaelgove BACKS @KemiBadenoch to be the next Tory leader and PM.

    Writing for @TheSun he says Kemi has the "right stuff" to lead the UK

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/19155009/gove-backs-badenoch-tory-leadership/

    That's a big endorsement. It will be interesting to see how the voting pans out.
    Badenoch now shorter than Hunt for next Conservative leader
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,786
    edited July 2022
    HYUFD said:

    kjh said:

    Foxy said:

    kjh said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    MISTY said:

    HYUFD said:

    Tom Tugendhat leaps to third place in Tory MPs endorsements behind Sunak and Mordaunt after Karen
    Bradley's backing

    https://twitter.com/GuidoFawkes/status/1546162976104878081?s=20&t=6s-mAMl327v6ChyfYsFZWA

    I think this is starting to shape up very, very badly for the conservatives.

    The members are going to get a choice of tweedle dum or tweedle dee from the left of the party. Sunak plus one.

    However a Sunday Times poll today had Sunak, Mordaunt and Tugendhat polling equal best in the redwall seats of the Tory leadership contenders in terms of net approval.

    Even though Starmer polls better than all the Tory contenders now in the redwall with Boris gone

    https://twitter.com/thom_brooks/status/1546148929229692930?s=20&t=6s-mAMl327v6ChyfYsFZWA
    Do you ever have a view independent from your choice of polls

    Half the point of this site is polls
    Surely that poll is essentially driven by recognition. Most voters can name very few politicos, much less what they stand for.

    Nobody knows what Mordaunt and Tugendhat stand for. Not even the Spectator. They tried to find Mordaunt's policies in vain through the vacuous bullsh8t of her launch.

    I made that point earlier today, HYUFD didn't accept it.
    She laid out her ideas in her recent book. Not everything I would agree with, but a coherent philosophy.

    https://www.londonreviewbookshop.co.uk/stock/greater-britain-after-the-storm-penny-mordaunt
    Sorry not the point I was referring to. My mistake for not making clear. I was referring to polls being driven by recognition. Actually as I have said as a LD she is my biggest fear as Tory leader.
    You are wrong on that.

    If you were correct Sunak followed by Hunt and Truss would be doing best on the net approval rating polls as the most well known candidates. Not Mordaunt and Tugendhat.

    Instead Hunt and Patel do worst on the net approval rating polls despite being amongst the best known candidates being a former Foreign Secretary and final round leadership contender and the current Home Secretary
    No I am not. You can't deduce that at all. You are making assumptions, which you shouldn't do. As I posted earlier today recognition can work both ways. So for example Boris compared to A N Other may get a good score because he is recognised or a bad score because people don't like him, whereas they don't know the other person. Or it can be a mix of both. The numbers can be anything so you can deduce nothing.

    When carrying out a statistical test for say light bulb longevity you only have the MOE and the probability that it will be within the MOE to worry about. So typically 95% sure it will be within 5% of the result.

    However as soon as you poll people you have other variables with regard to the sample you select and the question you ask. Both can completely bugger up a result. Hence polling companies do so much work on this, and still get it wrong.

    A question on popularity when some are significantly more well known than others is intrinsically flawed and you don't know in which direction the flaws are going to apply, so your assumption about the results above is worthless.

    It is fun, hence they are done, and maybe you can make a gut deduction from it, from what you perceive as commonsense. as you have done, but you must be aware it is mathematically useless.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,388

    Scott_xP said:

    TOP EXCL in today's Paper
    Tory big beast (and king maker?) @michaelgove BACKS @KemiBadenoch to be the next Tory leader and PM.

    Writing for @TheSun he says Kemi has the "right stuff" to lead the UK

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/19155009/gove-backs-badenoch-tory-leadership/

    That's a big endorsement. It will be interesting to see how the voting pans out.
    Badenoch now shorter than Hunt for next Conservative leader
    Will she end up shorter than Sunak?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    stodge said:

    Evening all :)

    Mrs Stodge in far from a happy mood after the fortnightly shop at our local Sainsbury's, Not the prices so much - an occasional seethe but as I pay for the scoff, that's my problem.

    What irritated her was the 25 minutes it took from joining one of the checkout queues to actually paying.

    Just three tills open on a busy Sunday - it seems as with so many other places there is a desperate shortage of staff and those left cannot cope with the customer demand.

    It did occur to me one way to alleviate the problem was to suspend the Sunday Trading Laws for 6 months to allow businesses to adapt, adjust and recruit.

    It also occurred to me we could all cope with having a quieter day to each week - perhaps a winning message for a social conservative (or perhaps not).

    Where have all the workers gone?

    Or just increase the wages for checkout staff.

    Why does everyone miss out the obvious solution?
This discussion has been closed.