(Redfield & Wilton Strategies publishes polls of 37 constituencies won by the Conservatives in 2019 that had been held by Labour in 2010, 2015 and 2017; as well as Burnley, Redcar and Vale of Clwyd.)
UK GE 2019 result in these seats: Con 46.7% Lab 38.0% Ref 6.5% LD 4.5% Grn 1.4% PC 1.2% oth 1.7%
Watching the Daily Mail realise they've backed the wrong horse in Liz Truss and pivot to adoration of PM4PM will be a delight and hilarious in equal measure.
Yes
Why are they so anti-Mordaunt? She’s a tiny bit Woke but not enough to produce this bile
I think it’s snobbery, pure and simple. She’s from a working class background, went to Reading, etc. Fuck the Mail
You won't be appearing in "Travel Mail" anytime soon then?
So I watched Penny’s video in full last night for the launch.
I wouldn’t say she’s a bad speaker but she’s not exactly setting the world on fire. The stuff about Macca just sounded weird, like she hadn’t practiced it.
I honestly think she is just like Keir Starmer. Which is just fine by me
They've started to eat each other which is good for Starmer. Justin Webb has been taking lessons from Nick Robinson.
The killer question was 'what would you do with the Rwanda policy?' Poor Rishi had to say he agreed with it. He was in the cabinet when the devilish policy was agreed.
If Mordaunt says she doesn't then we might have a human being in Downing St again and Starmer could be in a contest.
(Redfield & Wilton Strategies publishes polls of 37 constituencies won by the Conservatives in 2019 that had been held by Labour in 2010, 2015 and 2017; as well as Burnley, Redcar and Vale of Clwyd.)
Average Con lead in those constituencies in 2019 was 8.7%.
This is all well and good. Webb was not a 'nice' man by the standards of our time. By the standards of the time he was living in, he was okay. But even for the standards of *our* time, he does not appear to have been an ogre. He also drove the projects that took America to the Moon, both in NASA and congress.
So keep it as the James Webb Space Telescope, but have conversations about how our society has changed over the years. And, importantly, how those changes can be reversed. Also, how people can be good and bad; and how much should the 'bad' discount the good they do?
Half a mo.
James Webb was not a scientist, he was an administrator, a government flunkey. He was a Hacker, an Appleby, a Woolley.
That is enough reason to change the name.
There is absolutely no reason to name a telescope after an administrator.
It the telescope is to be named after a person, let it be a scientist or an engineer.
He was the administrator who saw Apollo through. Yes, there are many scientists and engineers who deserve mentions. But I'd argue that without Webb, Apollo might have got cancelled after JFK died. He got congress on side - and kept it on side - and befriended Johnson. If Webb had failed, Apollo would have failed. After the Apollo 1 fire he took a lot of the blame personally, protecting both the administration and NASA.
So he was administrator at the time NASA did its most amazing and noteworthy feat, and he drove it until near the point of victory (he left NASA in 1968).
Reason enough to have something big named after him IMO.
'NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe made the decision to name the telescope after NASA administrator James E. Webb.'
Apart from the controversies surrounding Webb there must be no shortage of brilliant astronomers and astrophysicists to name the telescope after.
For example, I give you Henrietta Leavitt, whose work provided the key to understanding the scale of the universe. An unsung and worthy person to honour.
I'd still argue that Webb was worthy of the telescope's name.
But your last link has sent me down a little rabbit-hole. Henrietta Leavitt's dad was an engineer named 'Erasmus Darwin Leavitt Jr', who was born in 1836. Erasmus Darwin was an English physician and proto-scientitist who really deserves more recognition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Darwin
Erasmus' grandchildren included Charles Darwin and Francis Galton; it seems Erasmus Darwin Leavitt Jr must have been named after his dad (sr), who in turn must have been named after a fairly obscure English physician. Unless it was a coincidence...
ED has had quite a bit of attention from historians of science, not just because of his grandson. He was one of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, and he did publish, e.g. the long poem on plant sexuality. So not that obscure. But the link isn't obvious; this obit (admittedly at a remove) simply refers to admiration, but leaves open the personal connection thing. Though the Lunars did have their US links - Franklin for one. (I wonder if Erasmus and the original Leavitt were medical students together at Edinburgh? Quite a few North Americans trained there. I've seen the MD lists of that sort of period.)
No Remainer will ever take office for the next 30 years
Ahem. Some qualification needed. Scotland and NI. Already.
Sure, in council/parish elections, but they don’t count. In the supreme national elections I don’t believe Remainers will be electorally acceptable for a generation or two. The instinctive British reaction will be revulsion, like that for Catholics after the Reformation, and that lasted two centuries
We may see anti-Remainer riots like the Gordon Riots
You do talk a load of shit sometimes. Everyone with half a brain realises Brexit was a pile of poo. If you believe that any of the front runners genuinely believe in Brexit now you are as gullible as the most braindead caricature of a thickarse Leave fanatic. You will find that in as little as 2 years no-one will want to talk about it other than that brain of Britain, Nadine Dorries. They will all be talking about how we can maximise trading with Europe and trying to woo the younger voter.
I’m just trying to warn you, “Nigel”
You can expect brutal anti-Remainer urban violence in the next 10-20 years, as patriotic Brexiteers realise that Remainers are conspiring to undermine our Magnificent Brexit, the same way that evil Catholics conspired with Spain to overthrow Gloriana
The only reason Brexit hasn’t been 100% successful so far is because of Remainers secretly sabotaging it, in Whitehall and on PB. they need to be smoked out and driven into the Humber and the Clyde. I actually believe there should be a law against expressing Remainer sentiment on social media. You aren’t allowed to say “I want to kill the Queen with a stapler”, are you? Why should equivalent treachery of a europhile bent be allowed? Enuff
This view on Mordaunt is widely shared in Brussels - with one important qualification. One senior EU official tells me she "..was even less qualified than Frost"
This is all well and good. Webb was not a 'nice' man by the standards of our time. By the standards of the time he was living in, he was okay. But even for the standards of *our* time, he does not appear to have been an ogre. He also drove the projects that took America to the Moon, both in NASA and congress.
So keep it as the James Webb Space Telescope, but have conversations about how our society has changed over the years. And, importantly, how those changes can be reversed. Also, how people can be good and bad; and how much should the 'bad' discount the good they do?
Half a mo.
James Webb was not a scientist, he was an administrator, a government flunkey. He was a Hacker, an Appleby, a Woolley.
That is enough reason to change the name.
There is absolutely no reason to name a telescope after an administrator.
It the telescope is to be named after a person, let it be a scientist or an engineer.
He was the administrator who saw Apollo through. Yes, there are many scientists and engineers who deserve mentions. But I'd argue that without Webb, Apollo might have got cancelled after JFK died. He got congress on side - and kept it on side - and befriended Johnson. If Webb had failed, Apollo would have failed. After the Apollo 1 fire he took a lot of the blame personally, protecting both the administration and NASA.
So he was administrator at the time NASA did its most amazing and noteworthy feat, and he drove it until near the point of victory (he left NASA in 1968).
Reason enough to have something big named after him IMO.
'NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe made the decision to name the telescope after NASA administrator James E. Webb.'
Apart from the controversies surrounding Webb there must be no shortage of brilliant astronomers and astrophysicists to name the telescope after.
For example, I give you Henrietta Leavitt, whose work provided the key to understanding the scale of the universe. An unsung and worthy person to honour.
I'd still argue that Webb was worthy of the telescope's name.
But your last link has sent me down a little rabbit-hole. Henrietta Leavitt's dad was an engineer named 'Erasmus Darwin Leavitt Jr', who was born in 1836. Erasmus Darwin was an English physician and proto-scientitist who really deserves more recognition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Darwin
Erasmus' grandchildren included Charles Darwin and Francis Galton; it seems Erasmus Darwin Leavitt Jr must have been named after his dad (sr), who in turn must have been named after a fairly obscure English physician. Unless it was a coincidence...
Obscure = you had never heard of him. Loves Of The Plants was a massive bestseller.
Yep, veg porn (and his attempt to break Rule 34 two centuries avant la lettre).
@Cookie thanks to your reply yesterday re my woke question. Apologies for not acknowledging at the time. Interesting you were the only reply and you aren't typical of someone who is likely to bang on about this topic. I also noted you posted about your experience of your daughter's before so your experience is particularly interesting. My children are now several years out of school so I might be out of touch but we had no experience of this. Would love to hear from other parents. What does the school say when challenged?
To be clear, this is based on my shock from visiting schools we're considering for our daughter's senior school - she's still only 10. But it's universal: private and state, selective and non-selective. Which is odd, because the primary schools my daughters have been to are not perceptibly more woke than the state primary school I attended 30 years ago. I think it would be quite hard to challenge the school on this. It's easy to criticise the excesses of woke anonymously on an internet forum; much more risky in real life to a school which your children have to attend. You hear stories of quite hostile pushback to that sort of thing, and the last thing a parent wants to do is make life more difficult for their children.
This is all well and good. Webb was not a 'nice' man by the standards of our time. By the standards of the time he was living in, he was okay. But even for the standards of *our* time, he does not appear to have been an ogre. He also drove the projects that took America to the Moon, both in NASA and congress.
So keep it as the James Webb Space Telescope, but have conversations about how our society has changed over the years. And, importantly, how those changes can be reversed. Also, how people can be good and bad; and how much should the 'bad' discount the good they do?
Half a mo.
James Webb was not a scientist, he was an administrator, a government flunkey. He was a Hacker, an Appleby, a Woolley.
That is enough reason to change the name.
There is absolutely no reason to name a telescope after an administrator.
It the telescope is to be named after a person, let it be a scientist or an engineer.
He was the administrator who saw Apollo through. Yes, there are many scientists and engineers who deserve mentions. But I'd argue that without Webb, Apollo might have got cancelled after JFK died. He got congress on side - and kept it on side - and befriended Johnson. If Webb had failed, Apollo would have failed. After the Apollo 1 fire he took a lot of the blame personally, protecting both the administration and NASA.
So he was administrator at the time NASA did its most amazing and noteworthy feat, and he drove it until near the point of victory (he left NASA in 1968).
Reason enough to have something big named after him IMO.
'NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe made the decision to name the telescope after NASA administrator James E. Webb.'
Apart from the controversies surrounding Webb there must be no shortage of brilliant astronomers and astrophysicists to name the telescope after.
For example, I give you Henrietta Leavitt, whose work provided the key to understanding the scale of the universe. An unsung and worthy person to honour.
I'd still argue that Webb was worthy of the telescope's name.
But your last link has sent me down a little rabbit-hole. Henrietta Leavitt's dad was an engineer named 'Erasmus Darwin Leavitt Jr', who was born in 1836. Erasmus Darwin was an English physician and proto-scientitist who really deserves more recognition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Darwin
Erasmus' grandchildren included Charles Darwin and Francis Galton; it seems Erasmus Darwin Leavitt Jr must have been named after his dad (sr), who in turn must have been named after a fairly obscure English physician. Unless it was a coincidence...
ED has had quite a bit of attention from historians of science, not just because of his grandson. He was one of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, and he did publish, e.g. the long poem on plant sexuality. So not that obscure. But the link isn't obvious; this obit (admittedly at a remove) simply refers to admiration, but leaves open the personal connection thing. Though the Lunars did have their US links - Franklin for one. (I wonder if Erasmus and the original Leavitt were medical students together at Edinburgh? Quite a few North Americans trained there. I've seen the MD lists of that sort of period.)
Watching the Tory right suddenly shit themselves rigid over Mordaunt is remarkable. In no possible world could she be considered a moderate/leftie/Remainy candidate. They're completely lost, pursuing ever greater degrees of ideological purity.
It suggests that if anyone halfway decent/sane wins, the backbenchers will tear them apart.
This is all well and good. Webb was not a 'nice' man by the standards of our time. By the standards of the time he was living in, he was okay. But even for the standards of *our* time, he does not appear to have been an ogre. He also drove the projects that took America to the Moon, both in NASA and congress.
So keep it as the James Webb Space Telescope, but have conversations about how our society has changed over the years. And, importantly, how those changes can be reversed. Also, how people can be good and bad; and how much should the 'bad' discount the good they do?
Half a mo.
James Webb was not a scientist, he was an administrator, a government flunkey. He was a Hacker, an Appleby, a Woolley.
That is enough reason to change the name.
There is absolutely no reason to name a telescope after an administrator.
It the telescope is to be named after a person, let it be a scientist or an engineer.
He was the administrator who saw Apollo through. Yes, there are many scientists and engineers who deserve mentions. But I'd argue that without Webb, Apollo might have got cancelled after JFK died. He got congress on side - and kept it on side - and befriended Johnson. If Webb had failed, Apollo would have failed. After the Apollo 1 fire he took a lot of the blame personally, protecting both the administration and NASA.
So he was administrator at the time NASA did its most amazing and noteworthy feat, and he drove it until near the point of victory (he left NASA in 1968).
Reason enough to have something big named after him IMO.
'NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe made the decision to name the telescope after NASA administrator James E. Webb.'
Apart from the controversies surrounding Webb there must be no shortage of brilliant astronomers and astrophysicists to name the telescope after.
For example, I give you Henrietta Leavitt, whose work provided the key to understanding the scale of the universe. An unsung and worthy person to honour.
I'd still argue that Webb was worthy of the telescope's name.
But your last link has sent me down a little rabbit-hole. Henrietta Leavitt's dad was an engineer named 'Erasmus Darwin Leavitt Jr', who was born in 1836. Erasmus Darwin was an English physician and proto-scientitist who really deserves more recognition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Darwin
Erasmus' grandchildren included Charles Darwin and Francis Galton; it seems Erasmus Darwin Leavitt Jr must have been named after his dad (sr), who in turn must have been named after a fairly obscure English physician. Unless it was a coincidence...
ED has had quite a bit of attention from historians of science, not just because of his grandson. He was one of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, and he did publish, e.g. the long poem on plant sexuality. So not that obscure. But the link isn't obvious; this obit (admittedly at a remove) simply refers to admiration, but leaves open the personal connection thing. Though the Lunars did have their US links - Franklin for one. (I wonder if Erasmus and the original Leavitt were medical students together at Edinburgh? Quite a few North Americans trained there. I've seen the MD lists of that sort of period.)
Mordaunt needs to clear up this homeopathy thing if there's any chance I could support her. I mentioned last night that the EDM she signed on it was on the same day that she tabled her very first EDM, so she may have signed it as a quid pro quo to get others to sign hers (half that signed hers also signed the homeopathy EDM). But I need to know that she knows that the magic pills have no more effect than non-magic placebos.
I was rather amused to see what David Tredinnick, who tabled the homeopathy EDM, also believes, including, "Tredinnick is a supporter of astrology and its use in medical practice" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Tredinnick_(politician)
No Remainer will ever take office for the next 30 years
Ahem. Some qualification needed. Scotland and NI. Already.
Sure, in council/parish elections, but they don’t count. In the supreme national elections I don’t believe Remainers will be electorally acceptable for a generation or two. The instinctive British reaction will be revulsion, like that for Catholics after the Reformation, and that lasted two centuries
We may see anti-Remainer riots like the Gordon Riots
You do talk a load of shit sometimes. Everyone with half a brain realises Brexit was a pile of poo. If you believe that any of the front runners genuinely believe in Brexit now you are as gullible as the most braindead caricature of a thickarse Leave fanatic. You will find that in as little as 2 years no-one will want to talk about it other than that brain of Britain, Nadine Dorries. They will all be talking about how we can maximise trading with Europe and trying to woo the younger voter.
I’m just trying to warn you, “Nigel”
You can expect brutal anti-Remainer urban violence in the next 10-20 years, as patriotic Brexiteers realise that Remainers are conspiring to undermine our Magnificent Brexit, the same way that evil Catholics conspired with Spain to overthrow Gloriana
The only reason Brexit hasn’t been 100% successful so far is because of Remainers secretly sabotaging it, in Whitehall and on PB. they need to be smoked out and driven into the Humber and the Clyde. I actually believe there should be a law against expressing Remainer sentiment on social media. You aren’t allowed to say “I want to kill the Queen with a stapler”, are you? Why should equivalent treachery of a europhile bent be allowed? Enuff
If you think something is the greatest and most glorious achievement of your life you do not put JRM in charge of celebrating it.
Mordaunt's a terrific (!) betting result for me but, gosh, what a gamble it'd be for the Cons and for the country. Little relevant experience, not exactly Brain of Britain, and all of a sudden PM of the UK? Gosh isn't quite strong enough in fact. It merits a golly gosh. It's a massive upgrade from what we had, sure, but that is a bar the greatest limbo dancer in all of human history - can't remember the name now - would have found impossible to get under.
They've started to eat each other which is good for Starmer. Justin Webb has been taking lessons from Nick Robinson.
The killer question was 'what would you do with the Rwanda policy?' Poor Rishi had to say he agreed with it. He was in the cabinet when the devilish policy was agreed.
If Mordaunt says she doesn't then we might have a human being in Downing St again and Starmer could be in a contest.
Mordaunt's solution is to stop the traffickers from getting fuel and spending money stopping it in the Med - see my post earlier today.
This is all well and good. Webb was not a 'nice' man by the standards of our time. By the standards of the time he was living in, he was okay. But even for the standards of *our* time, he does not appear to have been an ogre. He also drove the projects that took America to the Moon, both in NASA and congress.
So keep it as the James Webb Space Telescope, but have conversations about how our society has changed over the years. And, importantly, how those changes can be reversed. Also, how people can be good and bad; and how much should the 'bad' discount the good they do?
Half a mo.
James Webb was not a scientist, he was an administrator, a government flunkey. He was a Hacker, an Appleby, a Woolley.
That is enough reason to change the name.
There is absolutely no reason to name a telescope after an administrator.
It the telescope is to be named after a person, let it be a scientist or an engineer.
He was the administrator who saw Apollo through. Yes, there are many scientists and engineers who deserve mentions. But I'd argue that without Webb, Apollo might have got cancelled after JFK died. He got congress on side - and kept it on side - and befriended Johnson. If Webb had failed, Apollo would have failed. After the Apollo 1 fire he took a lot of the blame personally, protecting both the administration and NASA.
So he was administrator at the time NASA did its most amazing and noteworthy feat, and he drove it until near the point of victory (he left NASA in 1968).
Reason enough to have something big named after him IMO.
'NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe made the decision to name the telescope after NASA administrator James E. Webb.'
Apart from the controversies surrounding Webb there must be no shortage of brilliant astronomers and astrophysicists to name the telescope after.
For example, I give you Henrietta Leavitt, whose work provided the key to understanding the scale of the universe. An unsung and worthy person to honour.
I'd still argue that Webb was worthy of the telescope's name.
But your last link has sent me down a little rabbit-hole. Henrietta Leavitt's dad was an engineer named 'Erasmus Darwin Leavitt Jr', who was born in 1836. Erasmus Darwin was an English physician and proto-scientitist who really deserves more recognition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Darwin
Erasmus' grandchildren included Charles Darwin and Francis Galton; it seems Erasmus Darwin Leavitt Jr must have been named after his dad (sr), who in turn must have been named after a fairly obscure English physician. Unless it was a coincidence...
Obscure = you had never heard of him. Loves Of The Plants was a massive bestseller.
I had very much heard of him, and have even mentioned him on here in the past. My point is that it seems odd that an American couple chose to name their child after him, though.
I am just going out but it interesting to question are the MPS going to prevent the one members overwhelmingly want being put forward to them, ie Penny
I notice the Mail has completely lost it and are so out of touch with public opinion I just do not know how they will come round to either Rishi or Penny winning the vote
No Remainer will ever take office for the next 30 years
Ahem. Some qualification needed. Scotland and NI. Already.
Sure, in council/parish elections, but they don’t count. In the supreme national elections I don’t believe Remainers will be electorally acceptable for a generation or two. The instinctive British reaction will be revulsion, like that for Catholics after the Reformation, and that lasted two centuries
We may see anti-Remainer riots like the Gordon Riots
You do talk a load of shit sometimes. Everyone with half a brain realises Brexit was a pile of poo. If you believe that any of the front runners genuinely believe in Brexit now you are as gullible as the most braindead caricature of a thickarse Leave fanatic. You will find that in as little as 2 years no-one will want to talk about it other than that brain of Britain, Nadine Dorries. They will all be talking about how we can maximise trading with Europe and trying to woo the younger voter.
I’m just trying to warn you, “Nigel”
You can expect brutal anti-Remainer urban violence in the next 10-20 years, as patriotic Brexiteers realise that Remainers are conspiring to undermine our Magnificent Brexit, the same way that evil Catholics conspired with Spain to overthrow Gloriana
The only reason Brexit hasn’t been 100% successful so far is because of Remainers secretly sabotaging it, in Whitehall and on PB. they need to be smoked out and driven into the Humber and the Clyde. I actually believe there should be a law against expressing Remainer sentiment on social media. You aren’t allowed to say “I want to kill the Queen with a stapler”, are you? Why should equivalent treachery of a europhile bent be allowed? Enuff
As it seems likely it is either Rishi or Sunak or Liz, let me make an obvious point.
Rishi, Lincoln College, Oxford, PPE Liz, Merton College, Oxford, PPE
They need to go the same way as Jeremy Hunt (Magdalen Oxford, PPE) or David Cameron (Brasenose College, Oxford, PPE) or Ed Miliband (Corpus Christi College, Oxford, PPE).
We know what these wankers are like. PPE = bluffers and duffers and bullshitters.
I can't remember where I saw it, but someone commented on the diversity of the candidates.
Rishi and Liz will be the first graduates from either of those Oxford colleges to be PM IIRC...
If the wind blows in a sensible direction in due course the leader of Labour - Streeting - and of the SNP - Kate Forbes - would both be Selwyn historians.
The idea that the EU has an opinion on Penny Mordaunt is supremely absurd
They have no idea who she is. If they do, they dislike her simply because she’s a Leaver. Next
If I was an EU official, I'd be hoping for someone not massively loony and antagonistic, but also not for a rejoiner. Could really do without the headache of UK looking to rejoin. Can you imagine? Start negotiations, wish for unicorns, change mind, finally do a deal, then probably elect someone to tear it up. UK outside EU but sticking to the withdrawal agreement for a bit would be a massive relief, I would think.
Mordaunt needs to clear up this homeopathy thing if there's any chance I could support her. I mentioned last night that the EDM she signed on it was on the same day that she tabled her very first EDM, so she may have signed it as a quid pro quo to get others to sign hers (half that signed hers also signed the homeopathy EDM). But I need to know that she knows that the magic pills have no more effect than non-magic placebos.
I was rather amused to see what David Tredinnick, who tabled the homeopathy EDM, also believes, including, "Tredinnick is a supporter of astrology and its use in medical practice" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Tredinnick_(politician)
Her wiki page says "she is a supporter of homeopathy". Now, I am aware anyone can edit that, but I'd be pretty keen to take that down sharpish were I about to become PM when the vast majority of the country hasn't even heard of me. Unless she's happy with that description.
Does both parents being teachers make you working class?
Almost certainly makes you middle class, at least until you grow up and get a job of your own. If that job is a fruit packer or some such, then you are WC, despite your upbringing.
@Cookie thanks to your reply yesterday re my woke question. Apologies for not acknowledging at the time. Interesting you were the only reply and you aren't typical of someone who is likely to bang on about this topic. I also noted you posted about your experience of your daughter's before so your experience is particularly interesting. My children are now several years out of school so I might be out of touch but we had no experience of this. Would love to hear from other parents. What does the school say when challenged?
To be clear, this is based on my shock from visiting schools we're considering for our daughter's senior school - she's still only 10. But it's universal: private and state, selective and non-selective. Which is odd, because the primary schools my daughters have been to are not perceptibly more woke than the state primary school I attended 30 years ago. I think it would be quite hard to challenge the school on this. It's easy to criticise the excesses of woke anonymously on an internet forum; much more risky in real life to a school which your children have to attend. You hear stories of quite hostile pushback to that sort of thing, and the last thing a parent wants to do is make life more difficult for their children.
Society can be divided into two types of people
Those who do not believe Woke is a problem = those who have not yet encountered it in work or life
Those who realise Woke is a problem = those who have now encountered it. Parents of kids age 10-15 are a classic case, because they can suddenly see it running rampant in schools
(Redfield & Wilton Strategies publishes polls of 37 constituencies won by the Conservatives in 2019 that had been held by Labour in 2010, 2015 and 2017; as well as Burnley, Redcar and Vale of Clwyd.)
Average Con lead in those constituencies in 2019 was 8.7%.
Yes, thanks. I edited the post to add:
UK GE 2019 result in these seats: Con 46.7% Lab 38.0% Ref 6.5% LD 4.5% Grn 1.4% PC 1.2% oth 1.7%
if Sunak did somehow win it would mean a permanent, de facto Tory split until his removal - so ongoing and brutal civil war between the vaguely rational and the ERG. Truss could quite easily start an actual war, so it does look like Mordaunt will be the new Tory leader. Then, over the next 18 months or so, we will learn that she is a lightweight fantasist who is prone to fibbing and who got the job because of who she isn't. Looking form the outside in, Badenoch seems to be the only coherent, intelligent candidate in the pack - but she is very far to the right on economics and so is likely to crash Tory support in the Red Wall. The culture war stuff will cement the 30% of diehards but it will only work beyond that with more a practical acknowledgement that most people think austerity has gone too far already. The Tories need smart people like Badenoch in high office, but to be successful electorally they probably don't need them in either the Treasury or Number 10.
I think the Tories best chance is with PM.
Sunak is hated for being realistic on government finances. Truss is too erratic and a poor speaker. Badenoch is too far to the right on economics and social policy and too simplistic. Any of those 3 puts Starmer in Number 10 in a couple of years time.
PM may belly flop, but she does at least have the potential to unite the party and put up a strong fight. She is the only one who can retain a Tory majority IMO.
I'd agree with that. It's possible she'll be a dud, as SO suggests, but there's a chance she might not.
I note the business of pots of cash to be distributed by MPs, which I was the first to note, seems to be undergoing modification to a rather less dodgy local development funding idea. We'll see. Of all of the candidates, she seems best placed to triangulate on social policy. @Cyclefree might be right to call it dishonest, but I'm inclined to be more optimistic on the point. I've had my fill of culture warriors.
I've had my fill of culture warriors too - those trying to take away my rights as a woman and who attack me in crude and aggressive ways when I object. I've had my fill of liars too.
Mordaunt needs to clear up this homeopathy thing if there's any chance I could support her. I mentioned last night that the EDM she signed on it was on the same day that she tabled her very first EDM, so she may have signed it as a quid pro quo to get others to sign hers (half that signed hers also signed the homeopathy EDM). But I need to know that she knows that the magic pills have no more effect than non-magic placebos.
I was rather amused to see what David Tredinnick, who tabled the homeopathy EDM, also believes, including, "Tredinnick is a supporter of astrology and its use in medical practice" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Tredinnick_(politician)
David Tredinnick was one of my favourite politicians and proof the electorate vote for the colour of the rosette. He believed blood thickens with a full moon was one of my favourite theories of his. It is also worth reading what scientists say of him. All brilliantly understated.
The idea that the EU has an opinion on Penny Mordaunt is supremely absurd
They have no idea who she is. If they do, they dislike her simply because she’s a Leaver. Next
But it fits the whole David Frost smear narrative. Perhaps Penny was trying to hide from Frost and his woeful deal
That was my thought. She was bright enough to recognise that the whole thing was a cross between mission impossible and a poisoned chalice, and tried to stay well clear. Indeed getting moved off the team may have been astute.
Mordaunt's a terrific (!) betting result for me but, gosh, what a gamble it'd be for the Cons and for the country. Little relevant experience, not exactly Brain of Britain, and all of a sudden PM of the UK? Gosh isn't quite strong enough in fact. It merits a golly gosh. It's a massive upgrade from what we had, sure, but that is a bar the greatest limbo dancer in all of human history - can't remember the name now - would have found impossible to get under.
More experience than Starmer, of course.
She's been in the cabinet. And was elected in 2010, five years before Starmer.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 50m Sunak like David Miliband: sounds as if he can’t believe party is taking Mordaunt/his brother seriously
===
As I have posted here before, in jest, Sunak is their party's David Miliband.
The party establishment seem massively confused that Rishi isn’t winning this by a landslide. Fox on BBC just now desperately trying to shore him up, claiming Hunts endorsement was massively important for his chances.
Mordaunt's a terrific (!) betting result for me but, gosh, what a gamble it'd be for the Cons and for the country. Little relevant experience, not exactly Brain of Britain, and all of a sudden PM of the UK? Gosh isn't quite strong enough in fact. It merits a golly gosh. It's a massive upgrade from what we had, sure, but that is a bar the greatest limbo dancer in all of human history - can't remember the name now - would have found impossible to get under.
More experience than Starmer, of course.
She's been in the cabinet. And was elected in 2010, five years before Starmer.
Starmer though ran the CPS and actually did jobs outside of politics. That was a big criticism of Ed M for instance
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 50m Sunak like David Miliband: sounds as if he can’t believe party is taking Mordaunt/his brother seriously
===
As I have posted here before, in jest, Sunak is their party's David Miliband.
The party establishment seem massively confused that Rishi isn’t winning this by a landslide. Fox on BBC just now desperately trying to shore him up, claiming Hunts endorsement was massively important for his chances.
I see being endorsed by McVey did Hunt no good, and being endorsed by JRM and Dorries did Truss no good. There are some endorsements that you don't really want....
This is all well and good. Webb was not a 'nice' man by the standards of our time. By the standards of the time he was living in, he was okay. But even for the standards of *our* time, he does not appear to have been an ogre. He also drove the projects that took America to the Moon, both in NASA and congress.
So keep it as the James Webb Space Telescope, but have conversations about how our society has changed over the years. And, importantly, how those changes can be reversed. Also, how people can be good and bad; and how much should the 'bad' discount the good they do?
Half a mo.
James Webb was not a scientist, he was an administrator, a government flunkey. He was a Hacker, an Appleby, a Woolley.
That is enough reason to change the name.
There is absolutely no reason to name a telescope after an administrator.
It the telescope is to be named after a person, let it be a scientist or an engineer.
He was the administrator who saw Apollo through. Yes, there are many scientists and engineers who deserve mentions. But I'd argue that without Webb, Apollo might have got cancelled after JFK died. He got congress on side - and kept it on side - and befriended Johnson. If Webb had failed, Apollo would have failed. After the Apollo 1 fire he took a lot of the blame personally, protecting both the administration and NASA.
So he was administrator at the time NASA did its most amazing and noteworthy feat, and he drove it until near the point of victory (he left NASA in 1968).
Reason enough to have something big named after him IMO.
'NASA administrator Sean O'Keefe made the decision to name the telescope after NASA administrator James E. Webb.'
Apart from the controversies surrounding Webb there must be no shortage of brilliant astronomers and astrophysicists to name the telescope after.
For example, I give you Henrietta Leavitt, whose work provided the key to understanding the scale of the universe. An unsung and worthy person to honour.
I'd still argue that Webb was worthy of the telescope's name.
But your last link has sent me down a little rabbit-hole. Henrietta Leavitt's dad was an engineer named 'Erasmus Darwin Leavitt Jr', who was born in 1836. Erasmus Darwin was an English physician and proto-scientitist who really deserves more recognition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erasmus_Darwin
Erasmus' grandchildren included Charles Darwin and Francis Galton; it seems Erasmus Darwin Leavitt Jr must have been named after his dad (sr), who in turn must have been named after a fairly obscure English physician. Unless it was a coincidence...
ED has had quite a bit of attention from historians of science, not just because of his grandson. He was one of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, and he did publish, e.g. the long poem on plant sexuality. So not that obscure. But the link isn't obvious; this obit (admittedly at a remove) simply refers to admiration, but leaves open the personal connection thing. Though the Lunars did have their US links - Franklin for one. (I wonder if Erasmus and the original Leavitt were medical students together at Edinburgh? Quite a few North Americans trained there. I've seen the MD lists of that sort of period.)
I am booked in for a Zoom lecture on the Lunar Society of Birmingham at the end of the month. For information and to register for the zoom link - email history@u3acommunities.org If it's anything like past meetings of this organisation it will be very good!
@Cookie thanks to your reply yesterday re my woke question. Apologies for not acknowledging at the time. Interesting you were the only reply and you aren't typical of someone who is likely to bang on about this topic. I also noted you posted about your experience of your daughter's before so your experience is particularly interesting. My children are now several years out of school so I might be out of touch but we had no experience of this. Would love to hear from other parents. What does the school say when challenged?
To be clear, this is based on my shock from visiting schools we're considering for our daughter's senior school - she's still only 10. But it's universal: private and state, selective and non-selective. Which is odd, because the primary schools my daughters have been to are not perceptibly more woke than the state primary school I attended 30 years ago. I think it would be quite hard to challenge the school on this. It's easy to criticise the excesses of woke anonymously on an internet forum; much more risky in real life to a school which your children have to attend. You hear stories of quite hostile pushback to that sort of thing, and the last thing a parent wants to do is make life more difficult for their children.
Society can be divided into two types of people
Those who do not believe Woke is a problem = those who have not yet encountered it in work or life
Those who realise Woke is a problem = those who have now encountered it. Parents of kids age 10-15 are a classic case, because they can suddenly see it running rampant in schools
A third and larger group = people who have encountered what you describe as "woke" and are totally fine with it. Eg at my kids' school - one family objected to PSHE lessons discussing race and gender and they got quoted in the Sunday Times, the Mail and the Sun. All the other families were totally fine with it meanwhile. I wonder what would happen if I called up the Sun and told them my daughter had had these lessons and found them interesting and useful? Do you think they would run that story? No, because they have an agenda and have abandoned any pretence at balanced reporting on this issue.
This is exactly the sort of western military forklift is what wins artillery heavy wars...
...& no one in Western military intelligence noticed that Russia has practiced "unilateral forklift disarmament" for 80 years, until Ukraine war tweets rubbed that fact in their faces🤦♂️👇
One of the amusing things about this is seeing 'experts' referring to telehandlers as 'forklifts'. they're very different, and the vehicle shown is most definitely a telehandler.
Experts, eh?
Otherwise known as reach forklift. The example shown is very much a forklift - just a subset of the general category.
I told you all, it’s CoL. And the Tories are going to go the same way as Australia otherwise.
Key takeaways from this (mainly Conservative inclined group)
-terror/fury about economy, about winter to come. -short shrift for ‘culture war’ issues in that context: “what’s that got to do with me?” Sole focus cost of living -desperate to hear about policies to deal with it.
The Tory Party is completely out of touch, this feels very much like pre 2005 Howard vibes
@Cookie thanks to your reply yesterday re my woke question. Apologies for not acknowledging at the time. Interesting you were the only reply and you aren't typical of someone who is likely to bang on about this topic. I also noted you posted about your experience of your daughter's before so your experience is particularly interesting. My children are now several years out of school so I might be out of touch but we had no experience of this. Would love to hear from other parents. What does the school say when challenged?
To be clear, this is based on my shock from visiting schools we're considering for our daughter's senior school - she's still only 10. But it's universal: private and state, selective and non-selective. Which is odd, because the primary schools my daughters have been to are not perceptibly more woke than the state primary school I attended 30 years ago. I think it would be quite hard to challenge the school on this. It's easy to criticise the excesses of woke anonymously on an internet forum; much more risky in real life to a school which your children have to attend. You hear stories of quite hostile pushback to that sort of thing, and the last thing a parent wants to do is make life more difficult for their children.
Cheers. I remember you saying this before so I wasn't surprised by your reply. Rather worrying.
It seems to me that you have tainted but competent in Sunak or unknown in Penny.
Don't write Truss off yet. She would win against Sunak, if they both make it to the member ballot. She was only 17 behind Mordaunt on nominations in the first round.
"Treasury Chief Secretary, Liz Truss, conquered the weekend headlines when she suggested that the Conservative party should be breaking ground on the Green Belt. Truss told The Mail on Sunday that the Conservatives should build a million homes on the Green Belt, which she believes would allow the under 40s to own their own home.
Truss was quoted as saying: “We need to build a million homes on the London Green Belt near railway stations, and around other growing cities, specifically to allow the under 40s to be able to own their homes. We should allow villages to expand by four or five houses a year without having to go through the planning system, so people can afford to live locally.”
My take, for what it's worth, is that it looks to be two of Penny Mordaunt, Rishi Sunak, and Kemi Badenoch to be put to the members.
And there could be attempted silly buggers by any candidate with the most MPs behind them (realistically Sunak, but may be one of the others depending on how things unfold over the next few rounds) to try to "select" the opponent. Which could blow up as ironically as it did with Portillo in 2001.
Mordaunt appears to be in pole position with the members, but taking pole doesn't guarantee a win. A bad first lap, or a blown engine (such as Andrea Leadsom in 2016) could see it all change. The danger with someone who's little known is that they can damage the image projected upon them.
I also think that the field looks poor. I would say this, I suppose, but they all strike me as lightweights or near-unknowns who have never been properly tested, and they're about to become Prime Minister during huge turmoil (cost of living crisis, post-covid with an endemic disease, Ukraine, Brexit still a running sore).
Whilst I get that Mordaunt and Badenoch are gambles, I reckon one of them will win - and will end up heavily disappointing. (How Badenoch could not disappoint at least some of those who back her when that ranges from Neil O'Brien to Toby Young looks impossible).
Which means there could be another leadership contest before the next election.
John Rentoul @JohnRentoul · 50m Sunak like David Miliband: sounds as if he can’t believe party is taking Mordaunt/his brother seriously
===
As I have posted here before, in jest, Sunak is their party's David Miliband.
What I can't believe is that he sticks closer than a brother next door to Boris during Patersongate and all the stuff thereafter, including green Card and non-dom, fails to resign on principle at least 6 months ago when he had an open goal and then expects us to support him.
It's not that there are other decent candidates (now Hunt has come last!!), it's that Rishi is absolutely out of the running on moral grounds. Labour and the electorate would demolish him.
Simon Clarke MP @SimonClarkeMP Lord Frost’s warning is a really serious one. @Conservatives - and far more importantly our country - need a leader who is tested and ready.
"Treasury Chief Secretary, Liz Truss, conquered the weekend headlines when she suggested that the Conservative party should be breaking ground on the Green Belt. Truss told The Mail on Sunday that the Conservatives should build a million homes on the Green Belt, which she believes would allow the under 40s to own their own home.
Truss was quoted as saying: “We need to build a million homes on the London Green Belt near railway stations, and around other growing cities, specifically to allow the under 40s to be able to own their homes. We should allow villages to expand by four or five houses a year without having to go through the planning system, so people can afford to live locally.”
The problem for Truss is she’s continuity Johnson and will embark on the same nationalism on steroids and divisiveness of her predecessor.
She would of course be a gift to Labour and I should want her to win but really can’t stomach another two years of Bozo in a dress .
The fact that the DM is going after Mordaunt and Dorries and JRM will be shown the door if she wins is a big plus IMO!
I don't think it was necessarily Johnson's nationalist politics that was unpopular, but his lying and rule-breaking.
One of the reasons I said some time ago that I thought Truss had potential as a replacement for Johnson is that I thought she had the chutzpah to follow Johnson's approach, but was a bit more competent, and less naturally dishonest.
Remembering that Johnson won the largest election victory for anyone since 2001, and it would seem that a PM who was Johnson, minus his most egregious personal failings, might have a decent chance of success. Much as it would cause a degree of anguish for a leftie like me.
@Cookie thanks to your reply yesterday re my woke question. Apologies for not acknowledging at the time. Interesting you were the only reply and you aren't typical of someone who is likely to bang on about this topic. I also noted you posted about your experience of your daughter's before so your experience is particularly interesting. My children are now several years out of school so I might be out of touch but we had no experience of this. Would love to hear from other parents. What does the school say when challenged?
To be clear, this is based on my shock from visiting schools we're considering for our daughter's senior school - she's still only 10. But it's universal: private and state, selective and non-selective. Which is odd, because the primary schools my daughters have been to are not perceptibly more woke than the state primary school I attended 30 years ago. I think it would be quite hard to challenge the school on this. It's easy to criticise the excesses of woke anonymously on an internet forum; much more risky in real life to a school which your children have to attend. You hear stories of quite hostile pushback to that sort of thing, and the last thing a parent wants to do is make life more difficult for their children.
My daughters have both gone state, private, state and have experience of six schools between them. I've noticed a few times that they come our with some outlandish stuff which I gently challenge by engaging them with facts and logic - and on enquiry the bullshit they are sometimes fed comes via social media not their schools as far as I can tell. Maybe I'm being naive.
The picture quality for Liz's launch is dreadful, is this coming from a nuclear shelter or did she just want to support British potatoes by using potatovision?
I told you all, it’s CoL. And the Tories are going to go the same way as Australia otherwise.
Key takeaways from this (mainly Conservative inclined group)
-terror/fury about economy, about winter to come. -short shrift for ‘culture war’ issues in that context: “what’s that got to do with me?” Sole focus cost of living -desperate to hear about policies to deal with it.
The Tory Party is completely out of touch, this feels very much like pre 2005 Howard vibes
It's an interesting read - especially the multiple comments regarding Sunak - none of Westminster had a clue about how bad things were on cost of living but he was most out of touch of all. Non-dom issue regarding his wife came up as well.
If anyone is reading this - the only tax cut that makes sense at the moment is Fuel Duty - if you cut Corporation Tax that isn't going to help people fill their car as they drive to work in November
Oh god she’s pausing for applause and none is coming.
Truss sounds as if she has not rehearsed or even seen the speech before, and that it has been badly formatted on the autocue so that she pauses in all the wrong places.
I told you all, it’s CoL. And the Tories are going to go the same way as Australia otherwise.
Key takeaways from this (mainly Conservative inclined group)
-terror/fury about economy, about winter to come. -short shrift for ‘culture war’ issues in that context: “what’s that got to do with me?” Sole focus cost of living -desperate to hear about policies to deal with it.
The Tory Party is completely out of touch, this feels very much like pre 2005 Howard vibes
It's an interesting read - especially the multiple comments regarding Sunak - none of Westminster had a clue about how bad things were on cost of living but he was most out of touch of all. Non-dom issue regarding his wife came up as well.
If anyone is reading this - the only tax cut that makes sense at the moment is Fuel Duty - if you cut Corporation Tax that isn't going to help people fill their car as they drive to work in November
What is staggering is why Labour has not already announced they will cut full duty
I told you all, it’s CoL. And the Tories are going to go the same way as Australia otherwise.
Key takeaways from this (mainly Conservative inclined group)
-terror/fury about economy, about winter to come. -short shrift for ‘culture war’ issues in that context: “what’s that got to do with me?” Sole focus cost of living -desperate to hear about policies to deal with it.
The Tory Party is completely out of touch, this feels very much like pre 2005 Howard vibes
I told people this a day or two OK, but got nothing but pushback in response from the culture war true believers on here.
Voters, Tory or otherwise, are not going to be interested in arguments over the definition of “woman” when they’re struggling to a) heat their homes in the middle of winter and b) pay for food. It doesn”t matter which side of the culture war you’re on - if you spend time on this argument instead of the CoL crisis voters are just going to think that you’re completely out of touch.
The fact that this isn’t entirely obvious to people astounds me.
Mordaunt needs to clear up this homeopathy thing if there's any chance I could support her. I mentioned last night that the EDM she signed on it was on the same day that she tabled her very first EDM, so she may have signed it as a quid pro quo to get others to sign hers (half that signed hers also signed the homeopathy EDM). But I need to know that she knows that the magic pills have no more effect than non-magic placebos.
I was rather amused to see what David Tredinnick, who tabled the homeopathy EDM, also believes, including, "Tredinnick is a supporter of astrology and its use in medical practice" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Tredinnick_(politician)
Her wiki page says "she is a supporter of homeopathy". Now, I am aware anyone can edit that, but I'd be pretty keen to take that down sharpish were I about to become PM when the vast majority of the country hasn't even heard of me. Unless she's happy with that description.
Wikipedia also tells me she owns 4 Burmese cats. That's going to be interesting if she moves into No. 10 what with Larry.
@Cookie thanks to your reply yesterday re my woke question. Apologies for not acknowledging at the time. Interesting you were the only reply and you aren't typical of someone who is likely to bang on about this topic. I also noted you posted about your experience of your daughter's before so your experience is particularly interesting. My children are now several years out of school so I might be out of touch but we had no experience of this. Would love to hear from other parents. What does the school say when challenged?
To be clear, this is based on my shock from visiting schools we're considering for our daughter's senior school - she's still only 10. But it's universal: private and state, selective and non-selective. Which is odd, because the primary schools my daughters have been to are not perceptibly more woke than the state primary school I attended 30 years ago. I think it would be quite hard to challenge the school on this. It's easy to criticise the excesses of woke anonymously on an internet forum; much more risky in real life to a school which your children have to attend. You hear stories of quite hostile pushback to that sort of thing, and the last thing a parent wants to do is make life more difficult for their children.
Society can be divided into two types of people
Those who do not believe Woke is a problem = those who have not yet encountered it in work or life
Those who realise Woke is a problem = those who have now encountered it. Parents of kids age 10-15 are a classic case, because they can suddenly see it running rampant in schools
If woke is rampant why haven't we encountered it in work or life then like you say? Your statement doesn't make sense therefore does it? Maybe we have encountered it and in most cases find it irritating but irrelevant. As I said yesterday we just think pillocks and move on.
Note I asked you a question about this yesterday and you didn't reply. Only @cookie did and I find his reply disturbing. You keep banging on about it but don't say how it affects your life.
I told you all, it’s CoL. And the Tories are going to go the same way as Australia otherwise.
Key takeaways from this (mainly Conservative inclined group)
-terror/fury about economy, about winter to come. -short shrift for ‘culture war’ issues in that context: “what’s that got to do with me?” Sole focus cost of living -desperate to hear about policies to deal with it.
The Tory Party is completely out of touch, this feels very much like pre 2005 Howard vibes
It's an interesting read - especially the multiple comments regarding Sunak - none of Westminster had a clue about how bad things were on cost of living but he was most out of touch of all. Non-dom issue regarding his wife came up as well.
If anyone is reading this - the only tax cut that makes sense at the moment is Fuel Duty - if you cut Corporation Tax that isn't going to help people fill their car as they drive to work in November
What is staggering is why Labour has not already announced they will cut full duty
Firstly they would be attacked as uncosted - and then the idea would be stolen a few weeks later.
It's one reason why I'm happy Labour aren't announcing policies now - although there are some exceptions - where you want the idea in the air to avoid a Teresa May Death Tax situation. For instance if you want to move Parliament out of London best to air the idea now so it's not a complete surprise when it appears in your Manifesto
I didn't realise she was from Leeds. I will have a punt that part of her unnatural cadence comes from concealing any trace of Yorkshire in her voice.
One of my friends went to the University of Leeds in the last few years and was taught by her father, he's a very left wing Maths professor and despises the Tories.
Liz also managed to piss off the city council last night.
I didn't realise she was from Leeds. I will have a punt that part of her unnatural cadence comes from concealing any trace of Yorkshire in her voice.
Pretending to be a Southern will just annoy both Southerners and Yorkshiremen / women. It's not like she has Jess Phillips issue of a Birmingham accent.
Comments
Lab 46% (nc)
Con 32% (-3)
LD 10% (+2)
Ref 7% (+4)
Grn 4% (+1)
PC 0 (-1)
oth 1% (-1)
(Redfield & Wilton Strategies; 11 July; 1,500; +/- change from 26-27 June)
(Redfield & Wilton Strategies publishes polls of 37 constituencies won by the Conservatives in 2019 that had been held by Labour in 2010, 2015 and 2017; as well as Burnley, Redcar and Vale of Clwyd.)
UK GE 2019 result in these seats:
Con 46.7%
Lab 38.0%
Ref 6.5%
LD 4.5%
Grn 1.4%
PC 1.2%
oth 1.7%
You won't be appearing in "Travel Mail" anytime soon then?
I wouldn’t say she’s a bad speaker but she’s not exactly setting the world on fire. The stuff about Macca just sounded weird, like she hadn’t practiced it.
I honestly think she is just like Keir Starmer. Which is just fine by me
The killer question was 'what would you do with the Rwanda policy?' Poor Rishi had to say he agreed with it. He was in the cabinet when the devilish policy was agreed.
If Mordaunt says she doesn't then we might have a human being in Downing St again and Starmer could be in a contest.
There are no Remainers any more, except those Remoaners who constantly battle out Brexit with Leaver patriots in your mind.
https://twitter.com/hyperplanes/status/1547196967951949824
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20025723#metadata_info_tab_contents
You can expect brutal anti-Remainer urban violence in the next 10-20 years, as patriotic Brexiteers realise that Remainers are conspiring to undermine our Magnificent Brexit, the same way that evil Catholics conspired with Spain to overthrow Gloriana
The only reason Brexit hasn’t been 100% successful so far is because of Remainers secretly sabotaging it, in Whitehall and on PB. they need to be smoked out and driven into the Humber and the Clyde. I actually believe there should be a law against expressing Remainer sentiment on social media. You aren’t allowed to say “I want to kill the Queen with a stapler”, are you? Why should equivalent treachery of a europhile bent be allowed? Enuff
There's an excellent book that touched on Erasmus Darwin: the Lunar Men by Jenny Uglow
https://lunarsociety.org.uk/lunar-men-an-introduction/
They have no idea who she is. If they do, they dislike her simply because she’s a Leaver. Next
I was rather amused to see what David Tredinnick, who tabled the homeopathy EDM, also believes, including,
"Tredinnick is a supporter of astrology and its use in medical practice"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Tredinnick_(politician)
I just don't see either bit working..
I am just going out but it interesting to question are the MPS going to prevent the one members overwhelmingly want being put forward to them, ie Penny
I notice the Mail has completely lost it and are so out of touch with public opinion I just do not know how they will come round to either Rishi or Penny winning the vote
John Rentoul
@JohnRentoul
·
50m
Sunak like David Miliband: sounds as if he can’t believe party is taking Mordaunt/his brother seriously
===
As I have posted here before, in jest, Sunak is their party's David Miliband.
Kate Forbes is 12/5 to be next SNP leader
Both probably a bit too short?
Now, I am aware anyone can edit that, but I'd be pretty keen to take that down sharpish were I about to become PM when the vast majority of the country hasn't even heard of me.
Unless she's happy with that description.
...is my view.
Those who do not believe Woke is a problem = those who have not yet encountered it in work or life
Those who realise Woke is a problem = those who have now encountered it. Parents of kids age 10-15 are a classic case, because they can suddenly see it running rampant in schools
UK GE 2019 result in these seats:
Con 46.7%
Lab 38.0%
Ref 6.5%
LD 4.5%
Grn 1.4%
PC 1.2%
oth 1.7%
We could do better.
She would of course be a gift to Labour and I should want her to win but really can’t stomach another two years of Bozo in a dress .
The fact that the DM is going after Mordaunt and Dorries and JRM will be shown the door if she wins is a big plus IMO!
She's been in the cabinet. And was elected in 2010, five years before Starmer.
If it's anything like past meetings of this organisation it will be very good!
I assure PB that this temporary recklessness will not be repeated unless bribed in the fullest of measure.
I wonder what would happen if I called up the Sun and told them my daughter had had these lessons and found them interesting and useful? Do you think they would run that story? No, because they have an agenda and have abandoned any pretence at balanced reporting on this issue.
The example shown is very much a forklift - just a subset of the general category.
I told you all, it’s CoL. And the Tories are going to go the same way as Australia otherwise.
Key takeaways from this (mainly Conservative inclined group)
-terror/fury about economy, about winter to come.
-short shrift for ‘culture war’ issues in that context: “what’s that got to do with me?” Sole focus cost of living
-desperate to hear about policies to deal with it.
The Tory Party is completely out of touch, this feels very much like pre 2005 Howard vibes
Some people have been doing some light digging on Liz Truss and found this, from a few years ago.
https://www.showhouse.co.uk/news/liz-truss-says-tories-need-to-build-1m-homes-on-green-belt/
"Treasury Chief Secretary, Liz Truss, conquered the weekend headlines when she suggested that the Conservative party should be breaking ground on the Green Belt. Truss told The Mail on Sunday that the Conservatives should build a million homes on the Green Belt, which she believes would allow the under 40s to own their own home.
Truss was quoted as saying: “We need to build a million homes on the London Green Belt near railway stations, and around other growing cities, specifically to allow the under 40s to be able to own their homes. We should allow villages to expand by four or five houses a year without having to go through the planning system, so people can afford to live locally.”
And there could be attempted silly buggers by any candidate with the most MPs behind them (realistically Sunak, but may be one of the others depending on how things unfold over the next few rounds) to try to "select" the opponent. Which could blow up as ironically as it did with Portillo in 2001.
Mordaunt appears to be in pole position with the members, but taking pole doesn't guarantee a win. A bad first lap, or a blown engine (such as Andrea Leadsom in 2016) could see it all change. The danger with someone who's little known is that they can damage the image projected upon them.
I also think that the field looks poor. I would say this, I suppose, but they all strike me as lightweights or near-unknowns who have never been properly tested, and they're about to become Prime Minister during huge turmoil (cost of living crisis, post-covid with an endemic disease, Ukraine, Brexit still a running sore).
Whilst I get that Mordaunt and Badenoch are gambles, I reckon one of them will win - and will end up heavily disappointing. (How Badenoch could not disappoint at least some of those who back her when that ranges from Neil O'Brien to Toby Young looks impossible).
Which means there could be another leadership contest before the next election.
Tugendhat out to 70, Badenoch staying at 20.
It's not that there are other decent candidates (now Hunt has come last!!), it's that Rishi is absolutely out of the running on moral grounds. Labour and the electorate would demolish him.
@SimonClarkeMP
Lord Frost’s warning is a really serious one.
@Conservatives
- and far more importantly our country - need a leader who is tested and ready.
This is, at least, a start.
One of the reasons I said some time ago that I thought Truss had potential as a replacement for Johnson is that I thought she had the chutzpah to follow Johnson's approach, but was a bit more competent, and less naturally dishonest.
Remembering that Johnson won the largest election victory for anyone since 2001, and it would seem that a PM who was Johnson, minus his most egregious personal failings, might have a decent chance of success. Much as it would cause a degree of anguish for a leftie like me.
She is obviously the heir to Brown.
If anyone is reading this - the only tax cut that makes sense at the moment is Fuel Duty - if you cut Corporation Tax that isn't going to help people fill their car as they drive to work in November
I will have a punt that part of her unnatural cadence comes from concealing any trace of Yorkshire in her voice.
Voters, Tory or otherwise, are not going to be interested in arguments over the definition of “woman” when they’re struggling to a) heat their homes in the middle of winter and b) pay for food. It doesn”t matter which side of the culture war you’re on - if you spend time on this argument instead of the CoL crisis voters are just going to think that you’re completely out of touch.
The fact that this isn’t entirely obvious to people astounds me.
Her father was/is a maths prof at the world beating Leeds University.
1.89 Penny Mordaunt 53%
4.5 Rishi Sunak 22%
5.2 Liz Truss 19%
22 Kemi Badenoch 5%
70 Tom Tugendhat
240 Dominic Raab
300 Suella Braverman
They have entirely retreated into comfort land and are no longer facing the country. Labour needs to do something and fast
However...
Note I asked you a question about this yesterday and you didn't reply. Only @cookie did and I find his reply disturbing. You keep banging on about it but don't say how it affects your life.
It's one reason why I'm happy Labour aren't announcing policies now - although there are some exceptions - where you want the idea in the air to avoid a Teresa May Death Tax situation. For instance if you want to move Parliament out of London best to air the idea now so it's not a complete surprise when it appears in your Manifesto
Liz also managed to piss off the city council last night.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/13/liz-truss-criticised-for-saying-her-leeds-school-let-down-children
Keir Starmer couldn’t have a better chance to be the change candidate and to be on the side of normal people. Get on with it