Poor old Starmer. he can't win. FFS, 99% of us haven't done anything that the public at large would find remotely interesting. Playing violin with Fat Boy Slim is a much better answer than telling us who he's had prosecuted, or proselytising about the McLibel trial. But it hardly matters.
A 42 year old with sod all experience at the higher levels and utterly untested under serious fire is possibly going to be fingering the nuclear button in six weeks or so time.
This country is having a nervous breakdown.
The Tory party certainly is. The rest of us don't get a say.
She is obsessed with the culture wars. Would be dreadful.
She just doesn't accept the premises of the other side.
No it's not that, she enflames it for no good reason.
Penny Morduant is the most sensible on this by a country mile.
No she isn't. She has lied about her position.
I don't mind Ms Mordaunt having different views on self-ID to mine but I do mind very much that she lies about them. She is now claiming, wrongly, that she was the one who fought to remove the gender neutral language in the Maternity Bill so that the word "woman" was used. This is a lie. She was the one who introduced the gender neutral language. It was the Lords who threw the gender neutral language out and she was forced to accept it.
...
This is what she actually tweeted:
"It was me that changed maternity legislation that was drafted in gender neutral language ( by another) to use female terms"
Carefully worded, no doubt (as any lawyer will surely appreciate) but what she wrote is not strictly a lie, and it's some distance short of "claiming, wrongly, that she was the one who fought to remove the gender neutral language in the Maternity Bill"
Exactly. I agree (as a Penny supporter) with the leaker's version (albeit a malicious leak) more than Penny's. But she hasn't lied. The legislation was no doubt drafted (with gender neutral langauge) by another, and it was no doubt Mordaunt who eventually re-worded it, (after the House of Lords insisted).
No - that's not correct. When Minister for Equalities she was signed up to the Stonewall agenda. That agenda is quite openly to remove the word "woman" from legislation and official documents, as various FoI requests have revealed. It is also to remove the sex based exemptions from the Equality Act and abolish the crime of rape by deception. If she had wanted the word "woman" in the legislation she could have insisted on it. She was challenged on it at the time by others but held firm.
She was forced to make the change. She did not do it voluntarily. She is now misrepresenting the position, doubtless because she realises that it may be a problem.
It seems to me to be an unforced error. Why not tell the truth? This has been easily picked up by opponents. It is the sort of mistake that Boris has been making. If she can't get her story straight on this.....
My view is that both her and Kemi and Tugendhat are too inexperienced to be PM though they all have something to commend them, if only because they are relatively fresh faced. Though Mordaunt is not that fresh faced: a bit two faced if anything.
None of them make the heart sing. But then Britain has become a giant Rotten Borough. We the great unwashed don't count and must wait to see what 200,000 Tory members inflict on us. Yay!
I was actually agreeing with your position, just stating that none of the statements in her Tweet is a lie.
Just checked the ComRes data tables. Even with Labour +15 overall they are still 12 points down among the over-65s.
I don't know if there's any way for Labour to win back the votes of the oldsters, or for the Tories to lose them, but if it happened without a balancing move in another demographic it would make 1997 look like a close contest.
In 1997 Blair and Labour won over 65s
25 years ago - so the youngest of them will now be 90 and / or dead
Corbyn eked his way onto the ballot with people who didn't think he was any good lending him their support, and then they realised what a mistake they had made when the members loved him.
Badenoch can get onto the ballot, but she still has to get probably 100 MPs to back her at least, probably more, just to get to the members. Sure, maybe she is everyone's second choice, and the MPs may not be any more savvy than the members, but it's still a lot of schmoozing and persuading to do for someone who won't know many of them.
Completely OT but even though I am not generally a big fan of George Monbiot, I am absolutely loving the way he is tearing a new one into Vodaphone for the way they have handled his parents.
Basically Mother died, father has dementia, Vodaphone refusing to cancel the account because the father cannot answer complex questions such as when the account was opened and what his wife's number was (he has dementia!), refusing to deal with Monbiot at all in spite of him submitting evidence and trying to work within their system and then setting debt collectors on the father when they cancelled the DD.
Monbiot is steaming and is not letting them back down now they have seen the bad publicity growing. Hopefully this will cost them a lot of customers.
Did Monbiot set up Lasting Power of Attorney for his father?
Presumably not, as with LPA, Monbiot would have the authority to take control of his father's affairs & deal with Vodafone.
If he did not set it up, then it is Monbiot's fault.
The rules are well known ... I had to obey them when my mother had dementia.
His father did not just get dementia overnight -- Monbiot had time to set up LPA.
Hmm.
(1) Don't underestimate how difficult some old folks can be, even if compos mentis. Sometimes they flatly refuse to be sensible. If dad did not want to play ball re setting up a LPA, then Monbiot could do nothing about a LPA till the need arose - by when it would by definition be too late except for the more rigorous procedure, and phone firms etc would be playing up anyway.
(2) The firms don't always play ball even with LPAs, especially if stuck a decade or two back - I had to physically retrieve the primary document with 3-D seals (Scottish equivalent< to be more precise) from the family lawyer in the big city and bring it into the bank to enable Mrs C to deal with my father's bank account, and he was still alive and compos mentis!!
I hesitate to comment in detail on Monbiot's case, as I don't know the full facts.
If Monbiot has an LPA, then I think Vodafone are clearly in the wrong.
And if Monbiot does not have an LPA, he should not be "tearing Vodafone a new one".
I agree it needs trust between family members for an elderly person to sign an LPA.
But why should his father's LPA be needed to deal with a deceased mother's account?
I would guess the account was jointly held by his mother & father.
When his mother died, the account was then in his father's name only.
(1) it;s her account, not joint. (2) Monbiot and his sister do have PAs.
Completely OT but even though I am not generally a big fan of George Monbiot, I am absolutely loving the way he is tearing a new one into Vodaphone for the way they have handled his parents.
Basically Mother died, father has dementia, Vodaphone refusing to cancel the account because the father cannot answer complex questions such as when the account was opened and what his wife's number was (he has dementia!), refusing to deal with Monbiot at all in spite of him submitting evidence and trying to work within their system and then setting debt collectors on the father when they cancelled the DD.
Monbiot is steaming and is not letting them back down now they have seen the bad publicity growing. Hopefully this will cost them a lot of customers.
I have my own horror story with Vodafone. In the end - after I metaphorically castrated them over the phone - I got a free mobile phone off them.
But that's the problem with such anecdotes. Thousands of people will have had dinner with Princess Anne. Possibly tens of thousands. But it sounds impressive.
With my previous anecdote, walking the coast; less than a hundred have done it in one go without a break (*); about the same again have done it in sections. It requires ten to twelve months of hard work, planning and dedication. Many times more people have summited Everest in one year than have walked the coast. But it does not sound as impressive.
(*) I was #25 or so. And yes, I'm sad enough to keep a record of them all...
It would be more impressive if you'd had dinner with Keir Starmer
I'm boring enough to spend a year walking.
I'm not boring enough to have dinner with the most grey and boring person alive...
*withdraws planned invitation to invite josiasjessop to dinner*
You know what? Boris is better than the fruitcakes and non-entities that the Tories have lined up to lead them and sadly us. In fact, he’s far better...
Cathy Newman asks Keir Starmer to tell her one interesting thing about himself. Without skipping a beat he replies: “I did violin lessons with fat boy slim back in the day.” @Channel4News
Riveting....I wouldn't say I have lived a SeanT crazed style lifestyle but can give you 10s of better anecdotes than that.
Throw a question like that at me and I'd freeze, no matter how interesting I am (spoiler alert, less interesting than SeanT). I'd have to fall back on a joke like winning a boring man competition, which is pretty interesting.
But SKS will (or at least should) have war gamed this as clearly he has been asked previously about being boring. Its like when MPs can't answer the old how much is a pint of milk / litre of petrol. You know its coming at some point, so you better have an answer.
Starmer's answer is great. Doing violin lessons with Fat Boy Slim is a great anecdote.
Lol
No, he is right. It is a great anecdote, not least for the revelation that Fat Boy Slim took violin lessons.
Just checked the ComRes data tables. Even with Labour +15 overall they are still 12 points down among the over-65s.
I don't know if there's any way for Labour to win back the votes of the oldsters, or for the Tories to lose them, but if it happened without a balancing move in another demographic it would make 1997 look like a close contest.
In 1997 Blair and Labour won over 65s
25 years ago - so the youngest of them will now be 90 and / or dead
Besides, the age gradient for voting intention was a lot shallower then.
A lot- and I mean a lot depends on whether today's fiftysomethings keep their currrent attitudes and VIs or flip in the way the cohort above them has.
I'm surprised that Zahawi is doing better than Javid. Is there an obvious reason for this?
Javid ran last time, and he's quit the Cabinet twice. For good reason, but he might look flakey. Zahawi did well as vaccines minister and has shown he is shameless enough to be PM.
Completely OT but even though I am not generally a big fan of George Monbiot, I am absolutely loving the way he is tearing a new one into Vodaphone for the way they have handled his parents.
Basically Mother died, father has dementia, Vodaphone refusing to cancel the account because the father cannot answer complex questions such as when the account was opened and what his wife's number was (he has dementia!), refusing to deal with Monbiot at all in spite of him submitting evidence and trying to work within their system and then setting debt collectors on the father when they cancelled the DD.
Monbiot is steaming and is not letting them back down now they have seen the bad publicity growing. Hopefully this will cost them a lot of customers.
Did Monbiot set up Lasting Power of Attorney for his father?
Presumably not, as with LPA, Monbiot would have the authority to take control of his father's affairs & deal with Vodafone.
If he did not set it up, then it is Monbiot's fault.
The rules are well known ... I had to obey them when my mother had dementia.
His father did not just get dementia overnight -- Monbiot had time to set up LPA.
Hmm.
(1) Don't underestimate how difficult some old folks can be, even if compos mentis. Sometimes they flatly refuse to be sensible. If dad did not want to play ball re setting up a LPA, then Monbiot could do nothing about a LPA till the need arose - by when it would by definition be too late except for the more rigorous procedure, and phone firms etc would be playing up anyway.
(2) The firms don't always play ball even with LPAs, especially if stuck a decade or two back - I had to physically retrieve the primary document with 3-D seals (Scottish equivalent< to be more precise) from the family lawyer in the big city and bring it into the bank to enable Mrs C to deal with my father's bank account, and he was still alive and compos mentis!!
I hesitate to comment in detail on Monbiot's case, as I don't know the full facts.
If Monbiot has an LPA, then I think Vodafone are clearly in the wrong.
And if Monbiot does not have an LPA, he should not be "tearing Vodafone a new one".
I agree it needs trust between family members for an elderly person to sign an LPA.
But why should his father's LPA be needed to deal with a deceased mother's account?
I would guess the account was jointly held by his mother & father.
When his mother died, the account was then in his father's name only.
(1) it;s her account, not joint. (2) Monbiot and his sister do have PAs.
Mogg is like Corbyn, no chance of becoming leader and PM in government but after a general election defeat or two in opposition much more in contention
Just checked the ComRes data tables. Even with Labour +15 overall they are still 12 points down among the over-65s.
I don't know if there's any way for Labour to win back the votes of the oldsters, or for the Tories to lose them, but if it happened without a balancing move in another demographic it would make 1997 look like a close contest.
In 1997 Blair and Labour won over 65s
25 years ago - so the youngest of them will now be 90 and / or dead
Besides, the age gradient for voting intention was a lot shallower then.
A lot- and I mean a lot depends on whether today's fiftysomethings keep their currrent attitudes and VIs or flip in the way the cohort above them has.
Poor old Starmer. he can't win. FFS, 99% of us haven't done anything that the public at large would find remotely interesting. Playing violin with Fat Boy Slim is a much better answer than telling us who he's had prosecuted, or proselytising about the McLibel trial. But it hardly matters.
He seems pretty normal. I know some leaders need more oomph than others, but being obviously weird is not the same thing, only a rare view cannot pull that off.
Actually, I'm not totally correct about Addington. There is one subsequent Prime Minister who technically was not a member of the cabinet and never had been at the time of his appointment.
However, as he had been a de facto member of the cabinet for 14 years, and arguably the number two in the government on many occasions, it's a very technical distinction.
That person was also mentioned earlier today - Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, who was Commander in Chief of the Army before becoming Prime Minister.
Was Master General of the Ordnance not considered a Cabinet post? Chief Secretary for Ireland seems to have been too.
The answer, as always, is it's complicated.
'Cabinet posts' could mean different things at different times, and essentially they were whoever the leading member of the government invited to attend whenever there was a meeting. Others would be summoned on an ad hoc basis. And, of course, being outside the cabinet didn't exclude people from influence - Addington may have been Speaker, but he had considerable sway in the councils of William Pitt the Younger, as did Wilberforce who never even got that far.
My understanding of Wellington's position is that he attended cabinet reasonably frequently to advise on military matters - bearing in mind under the Six Acts there was virtually a state of martial law in parts of the country - but his main role was as a conduit between the government and the Prince Regent, later George IV, due to his enormous personal prestige. For example, after Castlereagh's suicide it was Wellington who persuaded the King to reconstruct the government with Canning as Foreign Secretary, as Liverpool proved incapable of doing so.
Now, does that make him a cabinet member? Possibly. Indeed, as I note above, I would say he was in practice. That's why I would still say the answer to the initial question is Addington. But I've seen it argued convincingly the other way.
Bottom line is, whether you go for Wellington or Addington it hasn't happened since the Cabinet became a proper, organised executive body with clearly delineated ministerial responsibilities and powers, which happed in the time of, at the latest, Palmerston.
Cathy Newman asks Keir Starmer to tell her one interesting thing about himself. Without skipping a beat he replies: “I did violin lessons with fat boy slim back in the day.” @Channel4News
Riveting....I wouldn't say I have lived a SeanT crazed style lifestyle but can give you 10s of better anecdotes than that.
Throw a question like that at me and I'd freeze, no matter how interesting I am (spoiler alert, less interesting than SeanT). I'd have to fall back on a joke like winning a boring man competition, which is pretty interesting.
But SKS will (or at least should) have war gamed this as clearly he has been asked previously about being boring. Its like when MPs can't answer the old how much is a pint of milk / litre of petrol. You know its coming at some point, so you better have an answer.
Starmer's answer is great. Doing violin lessons with Fat Boy Slim is a great anecdote.
Lol
No, he is right. It is a great anecdote, not least for the revelation that Fat Boy Slim took violin lessons.
Not really, if you know even a tiny bit about Norman Cook you know he has been a total music nut his whole life and grew up in Reigate where he went to Grammar school, so its highly likely he got the chance to try all sorts of music lessons and went on to play different instruments in a number of different bands.
Mogg is like Corbyn, no chance of becoming leader and PM in government but after a general election defeat or two in opposition much more in contention
Just checked the ComRes data tables. Even with Labour +15 overall they are still 12 points down among the over-65s.
I don't know if there's any way for Labour to win back the votes of the oldsters, or for the Tories to lose them, but if it happened without a balancing move in another demographic it would make 1997 look like a close contest.
In 1997 Blair and Labour won over 65s
25 years ago - so the youngest of them will now be 90 and / or dead
Besides, the age gradient for voting intention was a lot shallower then.
A lot- and I mean a lot depends on whether today's fiftysomethings keep their currrent attitudes and VIs or flip in the way the cohort above them has.
That's a very nice graph, and a revealing one.
Every time I see it I cannot quite believe things have changed so much in such a short space of time. It seems like an immutale law of politics.
In fairness there have been some overseas elections challenging the idea that the young and old always vote as you'd expect in this country.
The Tory membership want a coup. They are largely favouring those drawn from outside government rather than those at its upper echelons. They have decided the Boris gang need to be excised.
This is a radical and novel idea because it requires parachuting someone with limited government experience into the leadership, something no party has ever really tried before whilst in government. It could do them the world of good, but it could also be seen as irresponsible.
Not in the UK, but one D Trump.....
Out of interest, who was the last PM to either have never previously served in the Cabinet or as LoTo? Has there been one (well aside from Walpole, obviously)?
The concept of a cabinet pre-dated Walpole's premiership, and he certainly held cabinet level posts, including Secretary at War and Chancellor of the Exchequer
Yes, you're quite right. He did hold ministerial offices prior to becoming PM.
Completely OT but even though I am not generally a big fan of George Monbiot, I am absolutely loving the way he is tearing a new one into Vodaphone for the way they have handled his parents.
Basically Mother died, father has dementia, Vodaphone refusing to cancel the account because the father cannot answer complex questions such as when the account was opened and what his wife's number was (he has dementia!), refusing to deal with Monbiot at all in spite of him submitting evidence and trying to work within their system and then setting debt collectors on the father when they cancelled the DD.
Monbiot is steaming and is not letting them back down now they have seen the bad publicity growing. Hopefully this will cost them a lot of customers.
Did Monbiot set up Lasting Power of Attorney for his father?
Presumably not, as with LPA, Monbiot would have the authority to take control of his father's affairs & deal with Vodafone.
If he did not set it up, then it is Monbiot's fault.
The rules are well known ... I had to obey them when my mother had dementia.
His father did not just get dementia overnight -- Monbiot had time to set up LPA.
Hmm.
(1) Don't underestimate how difficult some old folks can be, even if compos mentis. Sometimes they flatly refuse to be sensible. If dad did not want to play ball re setting up a LPA, then Monbiot could do nothing about a LPA till the need arose - by when it would by definition be too late except for the more rigorous procedure, and phone firms etc would be playing up anyway.
(2) The firms don't always play ball even with LPAs, especially if stuck a decade or two back - I had to physically retrieve the primary document with 3-D seals (Scottish equivalent< to be more precise) from the family lawyer in the big city and bring it into the bank to enable Mrs C to deal with my father's bank account, and he was still alive and compos mentis!!
I hesitate to comment in detail on Monbiot's case, as I don't know the full facts.
If Monbiot has an LPA, then I think Vodafone are clearly in the wrong.
And if Monbiot does not have an LPA, he should not be "tearing Vodafone a new one".
I agree it needs trust between family members for an elderly person to sign an LPA.
But why should his father's LPA be needed to deal with a deceased mother's account?
I would guess the account was jointly held by his mother & father.
When his mother died, the account was then in his father's name only.
(1) it;s her account, not joint. (2) Monbiot and his sister do have PAs.
Poor old Starmer. he can't win. FFS, 99% of us haven't done anything that the public at large would find remotely interesting. Playing violin with Fat Boy Slim is a much better answer than telling us who he's had prosecuted, or proselytising about the McLibel trial. But it hardly matters.
It *is* interesting. But it's really "I went to school with Fat Boy Slim".
It'd be interesting if they met one evening on a ferry from Wick to Ullapool and decided to grab a couple of violins off some Nuns for an impromptu jamming session with Paul McCartney and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It'd be interesting because it leads to loads of other questions and potential anecdotes. "Well, you see, the Nuns were really Mafia hitwomen, who were going after Paul McCartney because their Don hated Mull of Kintyre. I roped in my old school buddy Norm to help me foil the plot, along with Arnie, because everyone knows that the head of the CPS is really a cover for being 007. But it turned out they really were violin-playing nuns, and so we all had a jamming session as the ferry headed into Dover."
So what 'one interesting thing' about oneself would PBers use in a conversation with a stranger? Something a politician might use.
Mine would be: "I spent a year walking the coast of the mainland UK".
Yes, that's the best I can say for myself...
At my wedding our best man told our guests that he had lots of fantastic stories about us but very few that could be told in polite company and in front of our families. Make of that what you will
In terms of experience for dealing with international conflict, has there been any PM in the past 40 years with anything in their background to help with being a war leader?
Thatcher - chemist/barrister before Parliament, Education as only cabinet post Major - banker, in Cabinet very short terms as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor. Blair - lawyer, no government experience of any sort but a few years as LOTO Brown - academic, many years in No11 Cameron - PR and politics, again no government experience but a few years as LOTO May - Banking/finance, several years at the Home Office Johnson - journalism, 2 years as Foreign Secretary
Nothing in their backgrounds could reasonably be adequate preparation to be PM through a war.
Since the abolition of National Service/conscription, the number of politicians with direct experience of armed conflict has dropped significantly.
But even then, I am not sure that a military background gives you a particular advantage other than perhaps a better understanding of how to deal with high ranking officers.
What can prepare anyone to be a war leader? I honestly don't know. We have had war leaders who rose to the occasion and those who really didn't. But I don't think you can really be prepared for it. You can, however, surround yourself with good people and be ready to listen to argument.
That way you can use their wise counsel to come up with the right plans based on the best evidence.
Just checked the ComRes data tables. Even with Labour +15 overall they are still 12 points down among the over-65s.
I don't know if there's any way for Labour to win back the votes of the oldsters, or for the Tories to lose them, but if it happened without a balancing move in another demographic it would make 1997 look like a close contest.
In 1997 Blair and Labour won over 65s
25 years ago - so the youngest of them will now be 90 and / or dead
Besides, the age gradient for voting intention was a lot shallower then.
A lot- and I mean a lot depends on whether today's fiftysomethings keep their currrent attitudes and VIs or flip in the way the cohort above them has.
That's a very nice graph, and a revealing one.
Every time I see it I cannot quite believe things have changed so much in such a short space of time. It seems like an immutale law of politics.
In fairness there have been some overseas elections challenging the idea that the young and old always vote as you'd expect in this country.
I'd like to see a similar one for Scottish politics - Yes and No are very strongly functions of age though ISTR that the SNP have made inroads into the middle aged since Holyrood was set up. The interesting bit is the Labour vote/age function; back in 2010-15 it was similar to the Tory one, ie a partly geriatric one, Daily Record and Scottish DE readership. I'd like to see what i tis like now.
In terms of experience for dealing with international conflict, has there been any PM in the past 40 years with anything in their background to help with being a war leader?
Thatcher - chemist/barrister before Parliament, Education as only cabinet post Major - banker, in Cabinet very short terms as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor. Blair - lawyer, no government experience of any sort but a few years as LOTO Brown - academic, many years in No11 Cameron - PR and politics, again no government experience but a few years as LOTO May - Banking/finance, several years at the Home Office Johnson - journalism, 2 years as Foreign Secretary
Nothing in their backgrounds could reasonably be adequate preparation to be PM through a war.
Since the abolition of National Service/conscription, the number of politicians with direct experience of armed conflict has dropped significantly.
But even then, I am not sure that a military background gives you a particular advantage other than perhaps a better understanding of how to deal with high ranking officers.
What can prepare anyone to be a war leader? I honestly don't know. We have had war leaders who rose to the occasion and those who really didn't. But I don't think you can really be prepared for it. You can, however, surround yourself with good people and be ready to listen to argument.
That way you can use their wise counsel to come up with the right plans based on the best evidence.
Thatcher is said to have leaned heavily on Macmillan for guidance during the Falklands crisis, as somebody who had experienced politics during a war.
Mind you, Macmillan made the same claim about Kennedy over Cuba and that's always been treated with scepticism.
In terms of experience for dealing with international conflict, has there been any PM in the past 40 years with anything in their background to help with being a war leader?
Thatcher - chemist/barrister before Parliament, Education as only cabinet post Major - banker, in Cabinet very short terms as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor. Blair - lawyer, no government experience of any sort but a few years as LOTO Brown - academic, many years in No11 Cameron - PR and politics, again no government experience but a few years as LOTO May - Banking/finance, several years at the Home Office Johnson - journalism, 2 years as Foreign Secretary
Nothing in their backgrounds could reasonably be adequate preparation to be PM through a war.
Since the abolition of National Service/conscription, the number of politicians with direct experience of armed conflict has dropped significantly.
But even then, I am not sure that a military background gives you a particular advantage other than perhaps a better understanding of how to deal with high ranking officers.
What can prepare anyone to be a war leader? I honestly don't know. We have had war leaders who rose to the occasion and those who really didn't. But I don't think you can really be prepared for it. You can, however, surround yourself with good people and be ready to listen to argument.
That way you can use their wise counsel to come up with the right plans based on the best evidence.
I think this is a very good point. Its frustrating, as it is already very hard to try to assess if someone has good leadership qualities, particularly when factoring in governance ability, political nous and public presentation.
Adding in speculation as to who would do well in a war situation? Well, I cannot think what would demonstrate that - it's a rare person who would make a good PM even if they were a good General, or vice-versa.
In terms of experience for dealing with international conflict, has there been any PM in the past 40 years with anything in their background to help with being a war leader?
Thatcher - chemist/barrister before Parliament, Education as only cabinet post Major - banker, in Cabinet very short terms as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor. Blair - lawyer, no government experience of any sort but a few years as LOTO Brown - academic, many years in No11 Cameron - PR and politics, again no government experience but a few years as LOTO May - Banking/finance, several years at the Home Office Johnson - journalism, 2 years as Foreign Secretary
Nothing in their backgrounds could reasonably be adequate preparation to be PM through a war.
Since the abolition of National Service/conscription, the number of politicians with direct experience of armed conflict has dropped significantly.
But even then, I am not sure that a military background gives you a particular advantage other than perhaps a better understanding of how to deal with high ranking officers.
What can prepare anyone to be a war leader? I honestly don't know. We have had war leaders who rose to the occasion and those who really didn't. But I don't think you can really be prepared for it. You can, however, surround yourself with good people and be ready to listen to argument.
That way you can use their wise counsel to come up with the right plans based on the best evidence.
IIRC Mrs T's cabinet had experience of military life when younger because of conscription - even Archbish Runcie (not in cabinet, but part of the state through C of E). Though obvs not Mrs T. That generation was mucn more pro-EU than the one dominant in the Torty membership today.
Mogg is like Corbyn, no chance of becoming leader and PM in government but after a general election defeat or two in opposition much more in contention
And stuck in the past, and abrasively stupid
Corbyn at least has a less condescending manner, for what it is worth. He's smug, but not aggressively so.
In terms of experience for dealing with international conflict, has there been any PM in the past 40 years with anything in their background to help with being a war leader?
Thatcher - chemist/barrister before Parliament, Education as only cabinet post Major - banker, in Cabinet very short terms as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor. Blair - lawyer, no government experience of any sort but a few years as LOTO Brown - academic, many years in No11 Cameron - PR and politics, again no government experience but a few years as LOTO May - Banking/finance, several years at the Home Office Johnson - journalism, 2 years as Foreign Secretary
Nothing in their backgrounds could reasonably be adequate preparation to be PM through a war.
Since the abolition of National Service/conscription, the number of politicians with direct experience of armed conflict has dropped significantly.
But even then, I am not sure that a military background gives you a particular advantage other than perhaps a better understanding of how to deal with high ranking officers.
What can prepare anyone to be a war leader? I honestly don't know. We have had war leaders who rose to the occasion and those who really didn't. But I don't think you can really be prepared for it. You can, however, surround yourself with good people and be ready to listen to argument.
That way you can use their wise counsel to come up with the right plans based on the best evidence.
Ideal prep seems to be comedian, actor, producer. Zelensky.
So what 'one interesting thing' about oneself would PBers use in a conversation with a stranger? Something a politician might use.
Mine would be: "I spent a year walking the coast of the mainland UK".
Yes, that's the best I can say for myself...
At my wedding our best man told our guests that he had lots of fantastic stories about us but very few that could be told in polite company and in front of our families. Make of that what you will
Mogg is like Corbyn, no chance of becoming leader and PM in government but after a general election defeat or two in opposition much more in contention
Cathy Newman asks Keir Starmer to tell her one interesting thing about himself. Without skipping a beat he replies: “I did violin lessons with fat boy slim back in the day.” @Channel4News
Riveting....I wouldn't say I have lived a SeanT crazed style lifestyle but can give you 10s of better anecdotes than that.
Throw a question like that at me and I'd freeze, no matter how interesting I am (spoiler alert, less interesting than SeanT). I'd have to fall back on a joke like winning a boring man competition, which is pretty interesting.
But SKS will (or at least should) have war gamed this as clearly he has been asked previously about being boring. Its like when MPs can't answer the old how much is a pint of milk / litre of petrol. You know its coming at some point, so you better have an answer.
Starmer's answer is great. Doing violin lessons with Fat Boy Slim is a great anecdote.
Lol
No, he is right. It is a great anecdote, not least for the revelation that Fat Boy Slim took violin lessons.
Not really, if you know even a tiny bit about Norman Cook you know he has been a total music nut his whole life and grew up in Reigate where he went to Grammar school, so its highly likely he got the chance to try all sorts of music lessons and went on to play different instruments in a number of different bands.
Well yes, if you are a Fat Boy Slim fan you would already know that he had violin lessons with Kier Starmer — it is on FBS's wikipedia page for the past two years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatboy_Slim
In terms of experience for dealing with international conflict, has there been any PM in the past 40 years with anything in their background to help with being a war leader?
Thatcher - chemist/barrister before Parliament, Education as only cabinet post Major - banker, in Cabinet very short terms as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor. Blair - lawyer, no government experience of any sort but a few years as LOTO Brown - academic, many years in No11 Cameron - PR and politics, again no government experience but a few years as LOTO May - Banking/finance, several years at the Home Office Johnson - journalism, 2 years as Foreign Secretary
Nothing in their backgrounds could reasonably be adequate preparation to be PM through a war.
Since the abolition of National Service/conscription, the number of politicians with direct experience of armed conflict has dropped significantly.
But even then, I am not sure that a military background gives you a particular advantage other than perhaps a better understanding of how to deal with high ranking officers.
What can prepare anyone to be a war leader? I honestly don't know. We have had war leaders who rose to the occasion and those who really didn't. But I don't think you can really be prepared for it. You can, however, surround yourself with good people and be ready to listen to argument.
That way you can use their wise counsel to come up with the right plans based on the best evidence.
IIRC Mrs T's cabinet had experience of military life when younger because of conscription - even Archbish Runcie (not in cabinet, but part of the state through C of E). Though obvs not Mrs T. That generation was mucn more pro-EU than the one dominant in the Torty membership today.
Pym and Whitelaw both fought in WWII.
Interestingly they were the 'wets' of the war cabinet she set up to manage the Falklands campaign.
Nott was too young for WWII although he was an ex-soldier and saw action in Malaya, while Parkinson was something very obscure in the RAF for two years.
Mogg is like Corbyn, no chance of becoming leader and PM in government but after a general election defeat or two in opposition much more in contention
And stuck in the past, and abrasively stupid
Corbyn = Isaiah Berlin, compared to rees mogg
No, Jacob is a patriot and an old fashioned, traditional Tory.
In terms of experience for dealing with international conflict, has there been any PM in the past 40 years with anything in their background to help with being a war leader?
Thatcher - chemist/barrister before Parliament, Education as only cabinet post Major - banker, in Cabinet very short terms as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor. Blair - lawyer, no government experience of any sort but a few years as LOTO Brown - academic, many years in No11 Cameron - PR and politics, again no government experience but a few years as LOTO May - Banking/finance, several years at the Home Office Johnson - journalism, 2 years as Foreign Secretary
Nothing in their backgrounds could reasonably be adequate preparation to be PM through a war.
Since the abolition of National Service/conscription, the number of politicians with direct experience of armed conflict has dropped significantly.
But even then, I am not sure that a military background gives you a particular advantage other than perhaps a better understanding of how to deal with high ranking officers.
What can prepare anyone to be a war leader? I honestly don't know. We have had war leaders who rose to the occasion and those who really didn't. But I don't think you can really be prepared for it. You can, however, surround yourself with good people and be ready to listen to argument.
That way you can use their wise counsel to come up with the right plans based on the best evidence.
IIRC Mrs T's cabinet had experience of military life when younger because of conscription - even Archbish Runcie (not in cabinet, but part of the state through C of E). Though obvs not Mrs T. That generation was mucn more pro-EU than the one dominant in the Torty membership today.
That is rather the point I was trying to make. Who surrounds the incoming PM really does matter. And their willingness to set aside dogma to listen to argument and assess evidence.
Having military experience in your team is an asset. Having it yourself is less vital.
In terms of experience for dealing with international conflict, has there been any PM in the past 40 years with anything in their background to help with being a war leader?
Thatcher - chemist/barrister before Parliament, Education as only cabinet post Major - banker, in Cabinet very short terms as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor. Blair - lawyer, no government experience of any sort but a few years as LOTO Brown - academic, many years in No11 Cameron - PR and politics, again no government experience but a few years as LOTO May - Banking/finance, several years at the Home Office Johnson - journalism, 2 years as Foreign Secretary
Nothing in their backgrounds could reasonably be adequate preparation to be PM through a war.
Since the abolition of National Service/conscription, the number of politicians with direct experience of armed conflict has dropped significantly.
But even then, I am not sure that a military background gives you a particular advantage other than perhaps a better understanding of how to deal with high ranking officers.
What can prepare anyone to be a war leader? I honestly don't know. We have had war leaders who rose to the occasion and those who really didn't. But I don't think you can really be prepared for it. You can, however, surround yourself with good people and be ready to listen to argument.
That way you can use their wise counsel to come up with the right plans based on the best evidence.
Our system has always been that ministers are generalists and take advice from civil servants, despite all this recent boo-hooing that most chancellors are not trained economists. It is true that until about 50 years ago, most prime ministers will have been in wars but there was only one Duke of Wellington. The law officers used to be the exception to the rule.
So what 'one interesting thing' about oneself would PBers use in a conversation with a stranger? Something a politician might use.
Mine would be: "I spent a year walking the coast of the mainland UK".
Yes, that's the best I can say for myself...
At my wedding our best man told our guests that he had lots of fantastic stories about us but very few that could be told in polite company and in front of our families. Make of that what you will
Mogg is like Corbyn, no chance of becoming leader and PM in government but after a general election defeat or two in opposition much more in contention
And stuck in the past, and abrasively stupid
Corbyn = Isaiah Berlin, compared to rees mogg
No, Jacob is a patriot and an old fashioned, traditional Tory.
Corbyn was just a Marxist, West hater
He is a repulsive scumbag, in Moscow's pocket, and a thoroughly thick non posh person's idea of what a posh person is like. Patriot my arse.
"Braverman to look at cutting welfare Leadership hopeful Suella Braverman says there are "too many people" on benefits and plans to reduce the cost of the welfare state if she becomes prime minister."
Mogg is like Corbyn, no chance of becoming leader and PM in government but after a general election defeat or two in opposition much more in contention
And stuck in the past, and abrasively stupid
Corbyn = Isaiah Berlin, compared to rees mogg
No, Jacob is a patriot and an old fashioned, traditional Tory.
Corbyn was just a Marxist, West hater
If he is such a patriot, old fashioned and traditional, why does he repeatedly make up things about how our democratic systems work such as claiming MPs have no right to take down the PM?
Not the first time he's done it either. It's ok if he is a radical, but at least Corbyn is honest about being a revolutionary.
So what 'one interesting thing' about oneself would PBers use in a conversation with a stranger? Something a politician might use.
Mine would be: "I spent a year walking the coast of the mainland UK".
Yes, that's the best I can say for myself...
At my wedding our best man told our guests that he had lots of fantastic stories about us but very few that could be told in polite company and in front of our families. Make of that what you will
Mogg is like Corbyn, no chance of becoming leader and PM in government but after a general election defeat or two in opposition much more in contention
And stuck in the past, and abrasively stupid
Corbyn = Isaiah Berlin, compared to rees mogg
No, Jacob is a patriot and an old fashioned, traditional Tory.
Corbyn was just a Marxist, West hater
Anybody who thinks either of them is suitable for anything more than shampooing the carpets in a massage parlour after a busy Saturday night is seriously deluded.
You sweet innocent child, they don't have carpets in massage parlours, they use laminate flooring, much easier to clean up.
So what 'one interesting thing' about oneself would PBers use in a conversation with a stranger? Something a politician might use.
Mine would be: "I spent a year walking the coast of the mainland UK".
Yes, that's the best I can say for myself...
At my wedding our best man told our guests that he had lots of fantastic stories about us but very few that could be told in polite company and in front of our families. Make of that what you will
"Braverman to look at cutting welfare Leadership hopeful Suella Braverman says there are "too many people" on benefits and plans to reduce the cost of the welfare state if she becomes prime minister."
"Braverman to look at cutting welfare Leadership hopeful Suella Braverman says there are "too many people" on benefits and plans to reduce the cost of the welfare state if she becomes prime minister."
Mogg is like Corbyn, no chance of becoming leader and PM in government but after a general election defeat or two in opposition much more in contention
And stuck in the past, and abrasively stupid
Corbyn = Isaiah Berlin, compared to rees mogg
No, Jacob is a patriot and an old fashioned, traditional Tory.
Corbyn was just a Marxist, West hater
Anybody who thinks either of them is suitable for anything more than shampooing the carpets in a massage parlour after a busy Saturday night is seriously deluded.
You sweet innocent child, they don't have carpets in massage parlours, they use laminate flooring, much easier to clean up.
"Braverman to look at cutting welfare Leadership hopeful Suella Braverman says there are "too many people" on benefits and plans to reduce the cost of the welfare state if she becomes prime minister."
"Braverman to look at cutting welfare Leadership hopeful Suella Braverman says there are "too many people" on benefits and plans to reduce the cost of the welfare state if she becomes prime minister."
So what 'one interesting thing' about oneself would PBers use in a conversation with a stranger? Something a politician might use.
Mine would be: "I spent a year walking the coast of the mainland UK".
Yes, that's the best I can say for myself...
At my wedding our best man told our guests that he had lots of fantastic stories about us but very few that could be told in polite company and in front of our families. Make of that what you will
I also have a certificate for having completed a parachute jump, despite never having done so. And I made a TV commercial for a weight loss product in Taiwan. I played a member of an international scientific panel who nodded sagely. £750 for three hours "work"
So what 'one interesting thing' about oneself would PBers use in a conversation with a stranger? Something a politician might use.
Mine would be: "I spent a year walking the coast of the mainland UK".
Yes, that's the best I can say for myself...
At my wedding our best man told our guests that he had lots of fantastic stories about us but very few that could be told in polite company and in front of our families. Make of that what you will
I think Robert Smithson can boast being responsible for the largest corporate scandal before Enron.
Pah, that's nothing. I was responsible for investigating and putting behind bars the man who committed the UK's biggest fraud.
It's funny, we were talking about Kweku Adoboli today, in respect of leaving the ECHR.
One day I'll tell you all the stuff that was left out of the trial, especially about him.
There is no limit to my contempt for him.
After Losing $2.3 Billion at UBS He Now Seeks Redemption in Ghanaian Bonds Adoboli embraces new future in Ghana after U.K. deportation Ex-trader plans to help kick-start Ghana securitization market
Mogg is like Corbyn, no chance of becoming leader and PM in government but after a general election defeat or two in opposition much more in contention
And stuck in the past, and abrasively stupid
Corbyn = Isaiah Berlin, compared to rees mogg
No, Jacob is a patriot and an old fashioned, traditional Tory.
Corbyn was just a Marxist, West hater
He is a repulsive scumbag, in Moscow's pocket, and a thoroughly thick non posh person's idea of what a posh person is like. Patriot my arse.
You hate him, even better, the more you dislike a candidate the better they are for me!
He is also staunchly pro Ukraine and certainly not pro Moscow as Corbyn was
In terms of experience for dealing with international conflict, has there been any PM in the past 40 years with anything in their background to help with being a war leader?
Thatcher - chemist/barrister before Parliament, Education as only cabinet post Major - banker, in Cabinet very short terms as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor. Blair - lawyer, no government experience of any sort but a few years as LOTO Brown - academic, many years in No11 Cameron - PR and politics, again no government experience but a few years as LOTO May - Banking/finance, several years at the Home Office Johnson - journalism, 2 years as Foreign Secretary
Nothing in their backgrounds could reasonably be adequate preparation to be PM through a war.
Since the abolition of National Service/conscription, the number of politicians with direct experience of armed conflict has dropped significantly.
But even then, I am not sure that a military background gives you a particular advantage other than perhaps a better understanding of how to deal with high ranking officers.
What can prepare anyone to be a war leader? I honestly don't know. We have had war leaders who rose to the occasion and those who really didn't. But I don't think you can really be prepared for it. You can, however, surround yourself with good people and be ready to listen to argument.
That way you can use their wise counsel to come up with the right plans based on the best evidence.
IIRC Mrs T's cabinet had experience of military life when younger because of conscription - even Archbish Runcie (not in cabinet, but part of the state through C of E). Though obvs not Mrs T. That generation was mucn more pro-EU than the one dominant in the Torty membership today.
Pym and Whitelaw both fought in WWII.
Interestingly they were the 'wets' of the war cabinet she set up to manage the Falklands campaign.
Nott was too young for WWII although he was an ex-soldier and saw action in Malaya, while Parkinson was something very obscure in the RAF for two years.
Thanks - that's what I was dimly remembering, especially re WW. Tebbit was in the RAF too (Vampires, so postwar, presumably as a short service officer as he flew airliners later).
I see CP's obits are very noncommittal but say that he hated it and even thought of becoming a conscientious objector - even the ODNB just says "He won a scholarship to the Royal Lancaster Grammar School, which he attended from 1943 to 1950, before doing national service (which he detested) in the RAF from 1950 to 1952. He then went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he had intended to read divinity before becoming a clergyman. The RAF had changed his mind on that, and instead he read English [...]". Perhaps, like a friend of mine, he ended up as a storekeeper in Nissen huts on some windy East Anglian base with the snow piling up on one side of his boots. But it was all serving the country and sovereign, so odd he should be so quiet about it.
"Braverman to look at cutting welfare Leadership hopeful Suella Braverman says there are "too many people" on benefits and plans to reduce the cost of the welfare state if she becomes prime minister."
Mogg is like Corbyn, no chance of becoming leader and PM in government but after a general election defeat or two in opposition much more in contention
And stuck in the past, and abrasively stupid
Corbyn = Isaiah Berlin, compared to rees mogg
No, Jacob is a patriot and an old fashioned, traditional Tory.
Corbyn was just a Marxist, West hater
Anybody who thinks either of them is suitable for anything more than shampooing the carpets in a massage parlour after a busy Saturday night is seriously deluded.
You sweet innocent child, they don't have carpets in massage parlours, they use laminate flooring, much easier to clean up.
First hand experience ?
No.
When I moved to Manchester I looked at a few properties, one turned out to be an incall apartment for high class escorts.
Cathy Newman asks Keir Starmer to tell her one interesting thing about himself. Without skipping a beat he replies: “I did violin lessons with fat boy slim back in the day.” @Channel4News
Riveting....I wouldn't say I have lived a SeanT crazed style lifestyle but can give you 10s of better anecdotes than that.
Throw a question like that at me and I'd freeze, no matter how interesting I am (spoiler alert, less interesting than SeanT). I'd have to fall back on a joke like winning a boring man competition, which is pretty interesting.
But SKS will (or at least should) have war gamed this as clearly he has been asked previously about being boring. Its like when MPs can't answer the old how much is a pint of milk / litre of petrol. You know its coming at some point, so you better have an answer.
Starmer's answer is great. Doing violin lessons with Fat Boy Slim is a great anecdote.
Lol
No, he is right. It is a great anecdote, not least for the revelation that Fat Boy Slim took violin lessons.
Not really, if you know even a tiny bit about Norman Cook you know he has been a total music nut his whole life and grew up in Reigate where he went to Grammar school, so its highly likely he got the chance to try all sorts of music lessons and went on to play different instruments in a number of different bands.
So what 'one interesting thing' about oneself would PBers use in a conversation with a stranger? Something a politician might use.
Mine would be: "I spent a year walking the coast of the mainland UK".
Yes, that's the best I can say for myself...
At my wedding our best man told our guests that he had lots of fantastic stories about us but very few that could be told in polite company and in front of our families. Make of that what you will
Mogg is like Corbyn, no chance of becoming leader and PM in government but after a general election defeat or two in opposition much more in contention
And stuck in the past, and abrasively stupid
Corbyn = Isaiah Berlin, compared to rees mogg
No, Jacob is a patriot and an old fashioned, traditional Tory.
Corbyn was just a Marxist, West hater
Anybody who thinks either of them is suitable for anything more than shampooing the carpets in a massage parlour after a busy Saturday night is seriously deluded.
You sweet innocent child, they don't have carpets in massage parlours, they use laminate flooring, much easier to clean up.
The things one learns on PB. "100 Best DIY Hints from PoliticalBetting".
Cathy Newman asks Keir Starmer to tell her one interesting thing about himself. Without skipping a beat he replies: “I did violin lessons with fat boy slim back in the day.” @Channel4News
Riveting....I wouldn't say I have lived a SeanT crazed style lifestyle but can give you 10s of better anecdotes than that.
Throw a question like that at me and I'd freeze, no matter how interesting I am (spoiler alert, less interesting than SeanT). I'd have to fall back on a joke like winning a boring man competition, which is pretty interesting.
But SKS will (or at least should) have war gamed this as clearly he has been asked previously about being boring. Its like when MPs can't answer the old how much is a pint of milk / litre of petrol. You know its coming at some point, so you better have an answer.
Starmer's answer is great. Doing violin lessons with Fat Boy Slim is a great anecdote.
Lol
No, he is right. It is a great anecdote, not least for the revelation that Fat Boy Slim took violin lessons.
Not really, if you know even a tiny bit about Norman Cook you know he has been a total music nut his whole life and grew up in Reigate where he went to Grammar school, so its highly likely he got the chance to try all sorts of music lessons and went on to play different instruments in a number of different bands.
"Braverman to look at cutting welfare Leadership hopeful Suella Braverman says there are "too many people" on benefits and plans to reduce the cost of the welfare state if she becomes prime minister."
Cathy Newman asks Keir Starmer to tell her one interesting thing about himself. Without skipping a beat he replies: “I did violin lessons with fat boy slim back in the day.” @Channel4News
Riveting....I wouldn't say I have lived a SeanT crazed style lifestyle but can give you 10s of better anecdotes than that.
Throw a question like that at me and I'd freeze, no matter how interesting I am (spoiler alert, less interesting than SeanT). I'd have to fall back on a joke like winning a boring man competition, which is pretty interesting.
But SKS will (or at least should) have war gamed this as clearly he has been asked previously about being boring. Its like when MPs can't answer the old how much is a pint of milk / litre of petrol. You know its coming at some point, so you better have an answer.
Starmer's answer is great. Doing violin lessons with Fat Boy Slim is a great anecdote.
Lol
No, he is right. It is a great anecdote, not least for the revelation that Fat Boy Slim took violin lessons.
Not really, if you know even a tiny bit about Norman Cook you know he has been a total music nut his whole life and grew up in Reigate where he went to Grammar school, so its highly likely he got the chance to try all sorts of music lessons and went on to play different instruments in a number of different bands.
Cathy Newman asks Keir Starmer to tell her one interesting thing about himself. Without skipping a beat he replies: “I did violin lessons with fat boy slim back in the day.” @Channel4News
Riveting....I wouldn't say I have lived a SeanT crazed style lifestyle but can give you 10s of better anecdotes than that.
Throw a question like that at me and I'd freeze, no matter how interesting I am (spoiler alert, less interesting than SeanT). I'd have to fall back on a joke like winning a boring man competition, which is pretty interesting.
But SKS will (or at least should) have war gamed this as clearly he has been asked previously about being boring. Its like when MPs can't answer the old how much is a pint of milk / litre of petrol. You know its coming at some point, so you better have an answer.
Starmer's answer is great. Doing violin lessons with Fat Boy Slim is a great anecdote.
Lol
No, he is right. It is a great anecdote, not least for the revelation that Fat Boy Slim took violin lessons.
Not really, if you know even a tiny bit about Norman Cook you know he has been a total music nut his whole life and grew up in Reigate where he went to Grammar school, so its highly likely he got the chance to try all sorts of music lessons and went on to play different instruments in a number of different bands.
If this thread proves one thing, it's that coming up with an interesting thing about yourself is harder than it sounds.
Is it....I think pretty much everybody who has volunteered one has come up with a more interesting than grammar school lad had music lesson with c-list musician who went to the same school.
So what 'one interesting thing' about oneself would PBers use in a conversation with a stranger? Something a politician might use.
Mine would be: "I spent a year walking the coast of the mainland UK".
Yes, that's the best I can say for myself...
At my wedding our best man told our guests that he had lots of fantastic stories about us but very few that could be told in polite company and in front of our families. Make of that what you will
Cathy Newman asks Keir Starmer to tell her one interesting thing about himself. Without skipping a beat he replies: “I did violin lessons with fat boy slim back in the day.” @Channel4News
Riveting....I wouldn't say I have lived a SeanT crazed style lifestyle but can give you 10s of better anecdotes than that.
Throw a question like that at me and I'd freeze, no matter how interesting I am (spoiler alert, less interesting than SeanT). I'd have to fall back on a joke like winning a boring man competition, which is pretty interesting.
But SKS will (or at least should) have war gamed this as clearly he has been asked previously about being boring. Its like when MPs can't answer the old how much is a pint of milk / litre of petrol. You know its coming at some point, so you better have an answer.
Starmer's answer is great. Doing violin lessons with Fat Boy Slim is a great anecdote.
Lol
No, he is right. It is a great anecdote, not least for the revelation that Fat Boy Slim took violin lessons.
Not really, if you know even a tiny bit about Norman Cook you know he has been a total music nut his whole life and grew up in Reigate where he went to Grammar school, so its highly likely he got the chance to try all sorts of music lessons and went on to play different instruments in a number of different bands.
"Braverman to look at cutting welfare Leadership hopeful Suella Braverman says there are "too many people" on benefits and plans to reduce the cost of the welfare state if she becomes prime minister."
Mogg is like Corbyn, no chance of becoming leader and PM in government but after a general election defeat or two in opposition much more in contention
And stuck in the past, and abrasively stupid
Corbyn = Isaiah Berlin, compared to rees mogg
No, Jacob is a patriot and an old fashioned, traditional Tory.
Corbyn was just a Marxist, West hater
He is a repulsive scumbag, in Moscow's pocket, and a thoroughly thick non posh person's idea of what a posh person is like. Patriot my arse.
You hate him, even better, the more you dislike a candidate the better they are for me!
He is also staunchly pro Ukraine and certainly not pro Moscow as Corbyn was
I know more about both his finances and his social background than you do. Pro Ukraine? Giraffe.
"Braverman to look at cutting welfare Leadership hopeful Suella Braverman says there are "too many people" on benefits and plans to reduce the cost of the welfare state if she becomes prime minister."
Braverman also laying into part time workers getting benefits on top
What's Sue-Ellen's problem with this?
Part time work is better than no work and will presumably often help get people into full time work?
Removing in-work benefits would be seriously inflationary, too. And add to the labour shortage. Worsening two of the three most immediate economic issues at a stroke. Doubtless she would pay for this by putting up energy bills for the hat-trick?
If this thread proves one thing, it's that coming up with an interesting thing about yourself is harder than it sounds.
Is it....I think pretty much everybody who has volunteered one has come up with a more interesting than grammar school lad had music lesson with c-list musician who went to the same school.
OTOH can't be too bad if the musical chappie himself volunteered it in the first place.
If this thread proves one thing, it's that coming up with an interesting thing about yourself is harder than it sounds.
Is it....I think pretty much everybody who has volunteered one has come up with a more interesting than middle class lad had music lesson with c-list musician.
They're all either not interesting or interesting in the wrong way (i.e. not for giving in a TV interview).
I have to say mostly the former (although no criticism - I've not volunteered one for just that reason).
If this thread proves one thing, it's that coming up with an interesting thing about yourself is harder than it sounds.
Is it....I think pretty much everybody who has volunteered one has come up with a more interesting than grammar school lad had music lesson with c-list musician who went to the same school.
OTOH can't be too bad if the musical chappie himself volunteered it in the first place.
Did he? the link in the wikipedia is from a New Statesman puff piece 2 years ago about Starmer. I doubt Fat Boy Slim edits his own wikipedia to include random articles from the News Statesman.
So what 'one interesting thing' about oneself would PBers use in a conversation with a stranger? Something a politician might use.
Mine would be: "I spent a year walking the coast of the mainland UK".
Yes, that's the best I can say for myself...
At my wedding our best man told our guests that he had lots of fantastic stories about us but very few that could be told in polite company and in front of our families. Make of that what you will
I think Robert Smithson can boast being responsible for the largest corporate scandal before Enron.
Pah, that's nothing. I was responsible for investigating and putting behind bars the man who committed the UK's biggest fraud.
It's funny, we were talking about Kweku Adoboli today, in respect of leaving the ECHR.
One day I'll tell you all the stuff that was left out of the trial, especially about him.
There is no limit to my contempt for him.
After Losing $2.3 Billion at UBS He Now Seeks Redemption in Ghanaian Bonds Adoboli embraces new future in Ghana after U.K. deportation Ex-trader plans to help kick-start Ghana securitization market
"Braverman to look at cutting welfare Leadership hopeful Suella Braverman says there are "too many people" on benefits and plans to reduce the cost of the welfare state if she becomes prime minister."
Braverman also laying into part time workers getting benefits on top
What's Sue-Ellen's problem with this?
Part time work is better than no work and will presumably often help get people into full time work?
It's also odd, because many full time workers get benefit son top anyway , all very Speenhamland.
There is a case for scaling back in work benefits, but it would have to be part of a bigger package, for example raising the minimum wage, French style transferable tax allowances for children and a better way of funding housing.
If this thread proves one thing, it's that coming up with an interesting thing about yourself is harder than it sounds.
Is it....I think pretty much everybody who has volunteered one has come up with a more interesting than middle class lad had music lesson with c-list musician.
They're all either not interesting or interesting in the wrong way (i.e. not for giving in a TV interview).
I have to say mostly the former (although no criticism - I've not volunteered one for just that reason).
I once showed Italian DJ Robert Miles around a record pressing plant.
"Braverman to look at cutting welfare Leadership hopeful Suella Braverman says there are "too many people" on benefits and plans to reduce the cost of the welfare state if she becomes prime minister."
Comments
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.160663234
Badenoch can get onto the ballot, but she still has to get probably 100 MPs to back her at least, probably more, just to get to the members. Sure, maybe she is everyone's second choice, and the MPs may not be any more savvy than the members, but it's still a lot of schmoozing and persuading to do for someone who won't know many of them.
(2) Monbiot and his sister do have PAs.
https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1546507939359465473
A lot- and I mean a lot depends on whether today's fiftysomethings keep their currrent attitudes and VIs or flip in the way the cohort above them has.
I am pleased Monbiot has a PA, because it is not possible to help a parent with dementia without one.
'Cabinet posts' could mean different things at different times, and essentially they were whoever the leading member of the government invited to attend whenever there was a meeting. Others would be summoned on an ad hoc basis. And, of course, being outside the cabinet didn't exclude people from influence - Addington may have been Speaker, but he had considerable sway in the councils of William Pitt the Younger, as did Wilberforce who never even got that far.
My understanding of Wellington's position is that he attended cabinet reasonably frequently to advise on military matters - bearing in mind under the Six Acts there was virtually a state of martial law in parts of the country - but his main role was as a conduit between the government and the Prince Regent, later George IV, due to his enormous personal prestige. For example, after Castlereagh's suicide it was Wellington who persuaded the King to reconstruct the government with Canning as Foreign Secretary, as Liverpool proved incapable of doing so.
Now, does that make him a cabinet member? Possibly. Indeed, as I note above, I would say he was in practice. That's why I would still say the answer to the initial question is Addington. But I've seen it argued convincingly the other way.
Bottom line is, whether you go for Wellington or Addington it hasn't happened since the Cabinet became a proper, organised executive body with clearly delineated ministerial responsibilities and powers, which happed in the time of, at the latest, Palmerston.
In fairness there have been some overseas elections challenging the idea that the young and old always vote as you'd expect in this country.
It'd be interesting if they met one evening on a ferry from Wick to Ullapool and decided to grab a couple of violins off some Nuns for an impromptu jamming session with Paul McCartney and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It'd be interesting because it leads to loads of other questions and potential anecdotes. "Well, you see, the Nuns were really Mafia hitwomen, who were going after Paul McCartney because their Don hated Mull of Kintyre. I roped in my old school buddy Norm to help me foil the plot, along with Arnie, because everyone knows that the head of the CPS is really a cover for being 007. But it turned out they really were violin-playing nuns, and so we all had a jamming session as the ferry headed into Dover."
Thatcher - chemist/barrister before Parliament, Education as only cabinet post
Major - banker, in Cabinet very short terms as Foreign Secretary and Chancellor.
Blair - lawyer, no government experience of any sort but a few years as LOTO
Brown - academic, many years in No11
Cameron - PR and politics, again no government experience but a few years as LOTO
May - Banking/finance, several years at the Home Office
Johnson - journalism, 2 years as Foreign Secretary
Nothing in their backgrounds could reasonably be adequate preparation to be PM through a war.
Since the abolition of National Service/conscription, the number of politicians with direct experience of armed conflict has dropped significantly.
But even then, I am not sure that a military background gives you a particular advantage other than perhaps a better understanding of how to deal with high ranking officers.
What can prepare anyone to be a war leader? I honestly don't know. We have had war leaders who rose to the occasion and those who really didn't. But I don't think you can really be prepared for it. You can, however, surround yourself with good people and be ready to listen to argument.
That way you can use their wise counsel to come up with the right plans based on the best evidence.
Mind you, Macmillan made the same claim about Kennedy over Cuba and that's always been treated with scepticism.
Adding in speculation as to who would do well in a war situation? Well, I cannot think what would demonstrate that - it's a rare person who would make a good PM even if they were a good General, or vice-versa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatboy_Slim
Interestingly they were the 'wets' of the war cabinet she set up to manage the Falklands campaign.
Nott was too young for WWII although he was an ex-soldier and saw action in Malaya, while Parkinson was something very obscure in the RAF for two years.
Corbyn was just a Marxist, West hater
Having military experience in your team is an asset. Having it yourself is less vital.
Also knew the drummer in T'Pau.
"Braverman to look at cutting welfare
Leadership hopeful Suella Braverman says there are "too many people" on benefits and plans to reduce the cost of the welfare state if she becomes prime minister."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-62115347
Not the first time he's done it either. It's ok if he is a radical, but at least Corbyn is honest about being a revolutionary.
There is no limit to my contempt for him.
*compassion, empathy and communication skills.
And I made a TV commercial for a weight loss product in Taiwan. I played a member of an international scientific panel who nodded sagely. £750 for three hours "work"
Adoboli embraces new future in Ghana after U.K. deportation
Ex-trader plans to help kick-start Ghana securitization market
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-22/fallen-ubs-trader-adoboli-seeks-redemption-in-bond-market-deals#xj4y7vzkg
I think I will give Ghanaian Bonds a miss.....
He is also staunchly pro Ukraine and certainly not pro Moscow as Corbyn was
I see CP's obits are very noncommittal but say that he hated it and even thought of becoming a conscientious objector - even the ODNB just says "He won a scholarship to the Royal Lancaster Grammar School, which he attended from 1943 to 1950, before doing national service (which he detested) in the RAF from 1950 to 1952. He then went to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he had intended to read divinity before becoming a clergyman. The RAF had changed his mind on that, and instead he read English [...]". Perhaps, like a friend of mine, he ended up as a storekeeper in Nissen huts on some windy East Anglian base with the snow piling up on one side of his boots. But it was all serving the country and sovereign, so odd he should be so quiet about it.
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/man-who-went-never-ending-17753605
Part time work is better than no work and will presumably often help get people into full time work?
Out Out Out
When I moved to Manchester I looked at a few properties, one turned out to be an incall apartment for high class escorts.
My word there was laminate flooring everywhere.
E
I
R
I before E except after C?
Worsening two of the three most immediate economic issues at a stroke.
Doubtless she would pay for this by putting up energy bills for the hat-trick?
I have to say mostly the former (although no criticism - I've not volunteered one for just that reason).