I had missed that apparently only one Tory MP failed to vote in the first round of the leadership contest, because they arrived too late. And that incompetent MP? Gavin Williamson.
Wiki says there were 2 abstentions in the second round, goodness knows who those were.
Is Britain ready for someone like that? I don’t think so.
Is that a serious question? We're bound to have had at least one teetotaller in the past, and even if people would think it unusual, how many people are ever going to know?
Like many of my posts, it was only half-serious.
Personally, though. I am highly suspicious of teetotallers.
Brown was at university at age 16. He's a smart guy for sure.
Yes, he is smart but, also in Scotland, at least at that time, you could go to university at 16 due to their exam system. Someone in our college was in the same situation. She was smart but she definitely wasn't knock-out genius
Brown was/is an intellectual. However he lost (maybe never had) the knack for retail politics and was plagued with self-doubt.
If Mordaunt, for example, became PM, she would certainly be the thickest PM in living memory.
They have all tended to be above average IQ, if not necessarily “intellectual”.
Mordaunt is clearly both brighter and more intellectually and emotionally flexible than May, I would say.
Emotionally flexible, sure, but not smarter, I’d say.
I suspect in terms of pure intellect, it goes.
1. Brown 2. Thatcher 3. Blair 4. Boris 5. Cameron / May / Major
Where is the evidence for Brown's great intellect?
He got a PhD, which requires some intellect… although sometimes I think it as much requires stubbornness!
He took forever to complete it (in fact he would now be kicked out of most PhD programmes these days for taking too long. Nobody will give you 10 years to complete at a good institution now) and it was the history of the Labour Party for a select few years...not at all impressive really.
He was doing it part-time. I have a good colleague who took that long. I had a student who took that long, and turned the work into a very successful business afterwards. If you don’t have some intellectual ability, no amount of time will be enough for a PhD. It still usually demonstrates some ability.
PhDs are generally on very specific topics. That’s academia.
I’ve not read Brown’s PhD. I don’t know what it was like. PhDs are funny things and I’ve seen some crappy ones get passed, so I’m not saying this is slam dunk evidence.
I've found Brown's PhD dissertation online. Skimming through it, it reads like 500 pages of HYUFD.
Actually that's true. Dan Brown is such a bad writer.
Maybe so, but he can entertain. I like to put his books next to some much more worthy books on the shelf so people do a double take when they see Deception Point next to Crime and Punishment.
Really? I read the De Vinci Code and was slack jawed in disbelief at how bad it was. It didn't even reach the so bad it's good threshold of eg Louise Bagshawe. It was just utterly shit.
Brown was/is an intellectual. However he lost (maybe never had) the knack for retail politics and was plagued with self-doubt.
If Mordaunt, for example, became PM, she would certainly be the thickest PM in living memory.
They have all tended to be above average IQ, if not necessarily “intellectual”.
Mordaunt is clearly both brighter and more intellectually and emotionally flexible than May, I would say.
Emotionally flexible, sure, but not smarter, I’d say.
I suspect in terms of pure intellect, it goes.
1. Brown 2. Thatcher 3. Blair 4. Boris 5. Cameron / May / Major
Where is the evidence for Brown's great intellect?
He got a PhD, which requires some intellect… although sometimes I think it as much requires stubbornness!
He took forever to complete it (in fact he would now be kicked out of most PhD programmes these days for taking too long. Nobody will give you 10 years to complete at a good institution now) and it was the history of the Labour Party for a select few years...not at all impressive really.
He was doing it part-time. I have a good colleague who took that long. I had a student who took that long, and turned the work into a very successful business afterwards. If you don’t have some intellectual ability, no amount of time will be enough for a PhD. It still usually demonstrates some ability.
PhDs are generally on very specific topics. That’s academia.
I’ve not read Brown’s PhD. I don’t know what it was like. PhDs are funny things and I’ve seen some crappy ones get passed, so I’m not saying this is slam dunk evidence.
I've found Brown's PhD dissertation online. Skimming through it, it reads like 500 pages of HYUFD.
Actually that's true. Dan Brown is such a bad writer.
Maybe so, but he can entertain. I like to put his books next to some much more worthy books on the shelf so people do a double take when they see Deception Point next to Crime and Punishment.
Really? I read the De Vinci Code and was slack jawed in disbelief at how bad it was. It didn't even reach the so bad it's good threshold of eg Louise Bagshawe. It was just utterly shit.
An unpopular opinion I know (albeit for an incredibly popular, or at least well selling, book). I do think it was so bad its good. Angels and Demons too (The Lost Symbol was not). Often they are unintentionally hilarious (Particularly ones following Inferno which seem to ignore its ending, IIRC). There's a place for such airport novels.
Edit: I did read one Tom Knox novel. Meh.
John Oliver did a 8 minute rant about the Da VInci Code, which described it as a novel about 'solving art crimes hornily', which was very good.
Is Britain ready for someone like that? I don’t think so.
Is that a serious question? We're bound to have had at least one teetotaller in the past, and even if people would think it unusual, how many people are ever going to know?
Like many of my posts, it was only half-serious.
Personally, though. I am highly suspicious of teetotallers.
I’ve come to the conclusion that it has to be Kemi for PM. I say that as someone who believes in enterprise, low tax, free speech & putting our country first. She represents a new era for our country & Party. #KemiForPM @kemibadenoch #C4LeaderDebate
You seriously had to f**k it up in the interview not to be offered a place given that acceptance rate and, as you say, Boris probably had a certain charm.
Hell, Trinity thought JRM was acceptable and they are supposed to be one of the better colleges. He only got a Third.
Re Boris, when he went to Oxford, it was quite a well known path that, if you weren't that bright but you did want to go to Oxford, you'd apply for Classics(or Literae Humaniores as they called it). There was an 80pc acceptance rate when BJ did it and, if you had any vague knowledge of Ancient Greek, you were in.
Hence, barely scrapping a second doesn't surprise me. I don't think it's a case of "bright but never did any work", more of a case of "not that bright (and never did any work)".
I don’t think Boris is “extremely intelligent”. He is naturally gifted, but lazy, and I think his curiosity about the world ended approx age 18.
He only scraped a second in Classics.
I doubt he is especially numerate, either
Why would he need to be, other people should pay for his stuff and he doesn't even bother to be curious about who is doing so.
Being incurious about finance did help him out a bit though when Livingstone seemingly presumed Boris fiddled his taxes.
I can believe that Boris probably did perfectly well in the interview as well. Confident bluffing and memorable. It is only when you get past that initial interaction you then go hold on a sec. Just like his turns doing after dinner speaking or his Telegraph columns, not thinking too hard, people will say that was entertaining, with some funny lines and a good tale, it only when people go hold on that claim he made, is that really true....you find he pulled it out his arse or didn't understand the some nuance around the actual facts.
I recall him well from the Oxford Union. Pretty much every time he stood up there was a collective groan from the cheap seats (including me).
As a distinctly naive grammar school boy, I had never seen such a creature before.
I'm glad that he seems as odd to everyone else now as he did to me then.
On the other side of the coin, there were quite a few others from that time that have turned up in front line politics and they were all pretty much instantly forgettable.
This tallies with a relative's memories of JRM at Oxford, that I've mentioned previously. Somethng of a circus act well-known around town, and a common talking point students would enjoy gawping at whenever they saw. An interestingly curious part of the architecture.
The Met Office website currently says London 35 , for Monday at least. I hope the BBC are just doing a bit of public service arse-covering, as some of our more Tory friends here might say.
Just sat through a very long YouGov survey about whether painting tennis courts a different colour would make them more inclusive and appealing (?), but at the end there was a further one about supporting or opposing Boris serving in a Cabinet position after he has stepped down as PM.
Just sat through a very long YouGov survey about whether painting tennis courts a different colour would make them more inclusive and appealing (?), but at the end there was a further one about supporting or opposing Boris serving in a Cabinet position after he has stepped down as PM.
What to say, what to say.
Earlier we learned parking meters are racist, now tennis court colours are exclusionary.
The Met Office website currently says London 35 , for Monday at least. I hope the BBC are just doing a bit of public service arse-covering, as some of our more Tory friends here might say.
Its a bit weird, because we have people from the same MET office doing videos and media talking about 40.
Just sat through a very long YouGov survey about whether painting tennis courts a different colour would make them more inclusive and appealing (?), but at the end there was a further one about supporting or opposing Boris serving in a Cabinet position after he has stepped down as PM.
What to say, what to say.
That tennis thing is the weirdist thing I've ever heard.
You seriously had to f**k it up in the interview not to be offered a place given that acceptance rate and, as you say, Boris probably had a certain charm.
Hell, Trinity thought JRM was acceptable and they are supposed to be one of the better colleges. He only got a Third.
Re Boris, when he went to Oxford, it was quite a well known path that, if you weren't that bright but you did want to go to Oxford, you'd apply for Classics(or Literae Humaniores as they called it). There was an 80pc acceptance rate when BJ did it and, if you had any vague knowledge of Ancient Greek, you were in.
Hence, barely scrapping a second doesn't surprise me. I don't think it's a case of "bright but never did any work", more of a case of "not that bright (and never did any work)".
I don’t think Boris is “extremely intelligent”. He is naturally gifted, but lazy, and I think his curiosity about the world ended approx age 18.
He only scraped a second in Classics.
I doubt he is especially numerate, either
Why would he need to be, other people should pay for his stuff and he doesn't even bother to be curious about who is doing so.
Being incurious about finance did help him out a bit though when Livingstone seemingly presumed Boris fiddled his taxes.
I can believe that Boris probably did perfectly well in the interview as well. Confident bluffing and memorable. It is only when you get past that initial interaction you then go hold on a sec. Just like his turns doing after dinner speaking or his Telegraph columns, not thinking too hard, people will say that was entertaining, with some funny lines and a good tale, it only when people go hold on that claim he made, is that really true....you find he pulled it out his arse or didn't understand the some nuance around the actual facts.
His Wikipedia page contains at least one glaring error:
It says "After graduating from the University of Oxford in 1991, Rees-Mogg worked for the Rothschild investment bank under Nils Taube before moving to Hong Kong in 1993[41] to join Lloyd George Management."
Well... I worked for Nils Taube, and I can tell you that he did not work at any time for "Rothschild investment bank".
The firm was called J Rothschild Investment Management (JRIM) - later Taube Hodson Stonex Partners - and was not in any way associated with NM Rothschild the investment bank.
The Met Office website currently says London 35 on Monday. I hope the BBC are doing a bit of public service arse-covering, as some of our Tory friends here might say.
The Met Office's own high resolution model - which at this timescale is the one to watch - still has 41C as the max on Tuesday, after 40C on Monday. The zone of maximum heat appears to be the Vale of York and the Humberhead Levels, which is coincidentally what I would refer to as the Flatlands. I have a weather station at 1m altitude right in the middle which if it was an official station would probably a prime site to record the highest temperature.
My guess is that Cawood near Selby (aka Stockbridge Technology Centre, an agricultural research station) will record the highest official temperature, but it is only a guess.
The extreme heat will be swept away on Tuesday but whilst everyone is staring at the models for this coming week, the Met Office long range model has sneaked in a repeat in the following week. I don't believe it will be quite as hot but this spell of weather will not end on Wednesday.
You seriously had to f**k it up in the interview not to be offered a place given that acceptance rate and, as you say, Boris probably had a certain charm.
Hell, Trinity thought JRM was acceptable and they are supposed to be one of the better colleges. He only got a Third.
Re Boris, when he went to Oxford, it was quite a well known path that, if you weren't that bright but you did want to go to Oxford, you'd apply for Classics(or Literae Humaniores as they called it). There was an 80pc acceptance rate when BJ did it and, if you had any vague knowledge of Ancient Greek, you were in.
Hence, barely scrapping a second doesn't surprise me. I don't think it's a case of "bright but never did any work", more of a case of "not that bright (and never did any work)".
I don’t think Boris is “extremely intelligent”. He is naturally gifted, but lazy, and I think his curiosity about the world ended approx age 18.
He only scraped a second in Classics.
I doubt he is especially numerate, either
Why would he need to be, other people should pay for his stuff and he doesn't even bother to be curious about who is doing so.
Being incurious about finance did help him out a bit though when Livingstone seemingly presumed Boris fiddled his taxes.
I can believe that Boris probably did perfectly well in the interview as well. Confident bluffing and memorable. It is only when you get past that initial interaction you then go hold on a sec. Just like his turns doing after dinner speaking or his Telegraph columns, not thinking too hard, people will say that was entertaining, with some funny lines and a good tale, it only when people go hold on that claim he made, is that really true....you find he pulled it out his arse or didn't understand the some nuance around the actual facts.
His Wikipedia page contains at least one glaring error:
It says "After graduating from the University of Oxford in 1991, Rees-Mogg worked for the Rothschild investment bank under Nils Taube before moving to Hong Kong in 1993[41] to join Lloyd George Management."
Well... I worked for Nils Taube, and I can tell you that he did not work at any time for "Rothschild investment bank".
The firm was called J Rothschild Investment Management (JRIM) - later Taube Hodson Stonex Partners - and was not in any way associated with NM Rothschild the investment bank.
Perhaps he cleaned the toilets in the middle of the night when you weren't there....
You seriously had to f**k it up in the interview not to be offered a place given that acceptance rate and, as you say, Boris probably had a certain charm.
Hell, Trinity thought JRM was acceptable and they are supposed to be one of the better colleges. He only got a Third.
Re Boris, when he went to Oxford, it was quite a well known path that, if you weren't that bright but you did want to go to Oxford, you'd apply for Classics(or Literae Humaniores as they called it). There was an 80pc acceptance rate when BJ did it and, if you had any vague knowledge of Ancient Greek, you were in.
Hence, barely scrapping a second doesn't surprise me. I don't think it's a case of "bright but never did any work", more of a case of "not that bright (and never did any work)".
I don’t think Boris is “extremely intelligent”. He is naturally gifted, but lazy, and I think his curiosity about the world ended approx age 18.
He only scraped a second in Classics.
I doubt he is especially numerate, either
Why would he need to be, other people should pay for his stuff and he doesn't even bother to be curious about who is doing so.
Being incurious about finance did help him out a bit though when Livingstone seemingly presumed Boris fiddled his taxes.
I can believe that Boris probably did perfectly well in the interview as well. Confident bluffing and memorable. It is only when you get past that initial interaction you then go hold on a sec. Just like his turns doing after dinner speaking or his Telegraph columns, not thinking too hard, people will say that was entertaining, with some funny lines and a good tale, it only when people go hold on that claim he made, is that really true....you find he pulled it out his arse or didn't understand the some nuance around the actual facts.
His Wikipedia page contains at least one glaring error:
It says "After graduating from the University of Oxford in 1991, Rees-Mogg worked for the Rothschild investment bank under Nils Taube before moving to Hong Kong in 1993[41] to join Lloyd George Management."
Well... I worked for Nils Taube, and I can tell you that he did not work at any time for "Rothschild investment bank".
The firm was called J Rothschild Investment Management (JRIM) - later Taube Hodson Stonex Partners - and was not in any way associated with NM Rothschild the investment bank.
Perhaps he cleaned the toilets in the middle of the night when you weren't there....
No, he did work - very briefly - for J Rothschild Investment Mangement. He just had nothing (and nor did Nils) have anything to do with "Rothschild Investment Bank" - aka NM Rothschild.
I had missed that apparently only one Tory MP failed to vote in the first round of the leadership contest, because they arrived too late. And that incompetent MP? Gavin Williamson.
Wiki says there were 2 abstentions in the second round, goodness knows who those were.
Had assumed one was Boris. Either out of tradition OR (more likely) judging himself irreplaceable.
You seriously had to f**k it up in the interview not to be offered a place given that acceptance rate and, as you say, Boris probably had a certain charm.
Hell, Trinity thought JRM was acceptable and they are supposed to be one of the better colleges. He only got a Third.
Re Boris, when he went to Oxford, it was quite a well known path that, if you weren't that bright but you did want to go to Oxford, you'd apply for Classics(or Literae Humaniores as they called it). There was an 80pc acceptance rate when BJ did it and, if you had any vague knowledge of Ancient Greek, you were in.
Hence, barely scrapping a second doesn't surprise me. I don't think it's a case of "bright but never did any work", more of a case of "not that bright (and never did any work)".
I don’t think Boris is “extremely intelligent”. He is naturally gifted, but lazy, and I think his curiosity about the world ended approx age 18.
He only scraped a second in Classics.
I doubt he is especially numerate, either
Why would he need to be, other people should pay for his stuff and he doesn't even bother to be curious about who is doing so.
Being incurious about finance did help him out a bit though when Livingstone seemingly presumed Boris fiddled his taxes.
I can believe that Boris probably did perfectly well in the interview as well. Confident bluffing and memorable. It is only when you get past that initial interaction you then go hold on a sec. Just like his turns doing after dinner speaking or his Telegraph columns, not thinking too hard, people will say that was entertaining, with some funny lines and a good tale, it only when people go hold on that claim he made, is that really true....you find he pulled it out his arse or didn't understand the some nuance around the actual facts.
His Wikipedia page contains at least one glaring error:
It says "After graduating from the University of Oxford in 1991, Rees-Mogg worked for the Rothschild investment bank under Nils Taube before moving to Hong Kong in 1993[41] to join Lloyd George Management."
Well... I worked for Nils Taube, and I can tell you that he did not work at any time for "Rothschild investment bank".
The firm was called J Rothschild Investment Management (JRIM) - later Taube Hodson Stonex Partners - and was not in any way associated with NM Rothschild the investment bank.
Perhaps he cleaned the toilets in the middle of the night when you weren't there....
Is Britain ready for someone like that? I don’t think so.
Is that a serious question? We're bound to have had at least one teetotaller in the past, and even if people would think it unusual, how many people are ever going to know?
Like many of my posts, it was only half-serious.
Personally, though. I am highly suspicious of teetotallers.
Not half as suspicious as we teetotallers are of pissheads....
The Met Office website currently says London 35 on Monday. I hope the BBC are doing a bit of public service arse-covering, as some of our Tory friends here might say.
The Met Office's own high resolution model - which at this timescale is the one to watch - still has 41C as the max on Tuesday, after 40C on Monday. The zone of maximum heat appears to be the Vale of York and the Humberhead Levels, which is coincidentally what I would refer to as the Flatlands. I have a weather station at 1m altitude right in the middle which if it was an official station would probably a prime site to record the highest temperature.
My guess is that Cawood near Selby (aka Stockbridge Technology Centre, an agricultural research station) will record the highest official temperature, but it is only a guess.
The extreme heat will be swept away on Tuesday but whilst everyone is staring at the models for this coming week, the Met Office long range model has sneaked in a repeat in the following week. I don't believe it will be quite as hot but this spell of weather will not end on Wednesday.
Put my postcode into their model - high of 41 and "feels like" 46 !!!
I haven’t seen the debate, although I just watched a very small clip online.
Sunak seems to be congratulated on here for rebutting Truss with “there’s no such thing as Covid debt, there’s just debt”.
In my view this is untrue and shows why he is not a good CoE.
Covid was clearly a one-off and the idea you should, in response, cut either capital investment or suppress economic activity via deflationary fiscal measures is just wrong.
Covid debt is the very definition of something you want to take time paying back, it’s not the same as debt accrued by an overrun in current expenditure.
Comments
Wiki says there were 2 abstentions in the second round, goodness knows who those were.
But not quite, though. Too smooth by half.
Edit: I did read one Tom Knox novel. Meh.
John Oliver did a 8 minute rant about the Da VInci Code, which described it as a novel about 'solving art crimes hornily', which was very good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xX5IV9n223M
@AdamAfriyie
I’ve come to the conclusion that it has to be Kemi for PM. I say that as someone who believes in enterprise, low tax, free speech & putting our country first. She represents a new era for our country & Party. #KemiForPM
@kemibadenoch
#C4LeaderDebate
9:31 PM · Jul 15, 2022"
https://twitter.com/AdamAfriyie/status/1548042711227240450
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/2638077
What to say, what to say.
It says "After graduating from the University of Oxford in 1991, Rees-Mogg worked for the Rothschild investment bank under Nils Taube before moving to Hong Kong in 1993[41] to join Lloyd George Management."
Well... I worked for Nils Taube, and I can tell you that he did not work at any time for "Rothschild investment bank".
The firm was called J Rothschild Investment Management (JRIM) - later Taube Hodson Stonex Partners - and was not in any way associated with NM Rothschild the investment bank.
My guess is that Cawood near Selby (aka Stockbridge Technology Centre, an agricultural research station) will record the highest official temperature, but it is only a guess.
The extreme heat will be swept away on Tuesday but whilst everyone is staring at the models for this coming week, the Met Office long range model has sneaked in a repeat in the following week. I don't believe it will be quite as hot but this spell of weather will not end on Wednesday.
Teetotallers and lefties are hugely overrepresented among US Presidents.
Continue smoking cessation efforts, a daily exercise program, healthy diet, moderation in alcohol intake,
https://www.theguardian.com/world/richard-adams-blog/2010/mar/01/barack-obama-smoking-alcohol-moderation
Not, to study, mind. Just for a brief visit.
In order
Biden - teetotal
Trump - teetotal
Obama - not teetotal
George W Bush - teetotal
Which Asian nation (and when) was the first to progress from the group stages of the football* World Cup?
* Soccer
"Could be......."
3 Rishi Sunak 33%
6.4 Liz Truss 16%
34 Kemi Badenoch
60 Tom Tugendhat
270 Dominic Raab
Betfair to make the final two:-
1.13 Rishi Sunak 88%
1.38 Penny Mordaunt 72%
2.74 Liz Truss 36%
17 Kemi Badenoch 6%
32 Tom Tugendhat