All good things must come to an end, its a lot cooler, grey and overcast again today. 😞
Hopefully we get some more of yesterday's good, sunny weather again soon.
Move south
Mild, breezy and partly SUNNY here in Camden
Seriously. I think you have a form of SAD. You shouldn’t be in the NW
You are such a troll @leon. Quite amusing though. For you though @Leon, I recommend you get a second home in a nice seaside resort. When it gets too hot inland you can retreat to it like I did on Sunday. It is beautiful today, and it has been fantastic the last couple of days.
I tend to agree with @BartholomewRoberts on this issue. We have become such a bunch of snowflakes in this country. A little bit of hot weather or a few inches of snow and we totally lose perspective.
By the way. The only worse place in the UK to live IMO than rainy old Manchester is overrated, overpriced, over-polluted London. A good place to visit perhaps, or have a pied-à-terre, but live there? It is clearly sending you a bit deranged. Sell up and move somewhere more civilised.
Like most people, I’m in a few WhatsApp groups of fam and friends. The recent weather unpleasantness has of course been much discussed
I’ve noticed a pattern - those that have @BartholomewRoberts attitude - “oh get over it, stop being a snowflake, enjoy the sun, it’s summer!” ALL come from parts of the country which have shit weather (eg Scotland, NW England) or their region didn’t endure 40C+, or both
No one in the south or SE is saying these dismissive things. We experienced 40C
Talk Radio has been amusing this morning. Lots of climate sceptics saying it wasn’t that hot and it only lasted two days, England is due some better weather etc…
I realised a while ago that most people are unable to think dynamically, they can’t understand how factors affect each other over time. Where do these people think the current inhabitants of the Sahel, West Africa and South Asia are likely to end up, when their homes become uneconomic to inhabit thanks to climate change?
Does Bart want to concrete over the whole country to fit a new Lagos every year in future decades?
You do realise I'm in favour of tackling climate change, and always have been, don't you? 🤔
Doesn't mean that climate change is all bad though, change brings positives and negatives and we can adapt and enjoy the positives even as we pay to minimise the change and mitigate the negatives.
@AllisonPearson Penny Mordaunt has now deleted the Tweet in which she said that a vote for Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss would murder the Conservative Party
The Guardian has a piece: "Penny Mordaunt seems to be telling Tory MPs this morning that they will “murder” the Conservative party if they vote for one of her rivals. She posted a message on Twitter saying “Tory MPs – vote for Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss today and you’ll murder the party you love”, although the tweet now seems to have been deleted."
Make of that what you will!
Incidentally, what is a Conservative party member? Is it somebody who pays a specific subscription, or is it somebody who belongs to one of the many Conservative drinking clubs? If so the secretary of the local Labour Party has a vote!
All good things must come to an end, its a lot cooler, grey and overcast again today. 😞
Hopefully we get some more of yesterday's good, sunny weather again soon.
Though perhaps not the massive wildfires that burned people out of their homes in numerous places. But you were happy, so who cares about them?
Oh FFS, seriously? Some of you lot are absolutely joyless drones.
You must not go out and enjoy yourselves, some people might get Covid. We must not have good weather, some houses might burn.
Can you not allow joy and an element of risk in your lives? Must we stamp out everything that's pleasant in life in order to eliminate all risk?
Yes some houses burn from time to time, that's a shame for those it happens to but it is also what insurance is for. Besides, heat is less deadly than cold, but I don't hear you trying to change the climate in order to eliminate winter.
The London Fire Brigade had its busiest day since World War 2. Oh what a pleasant day it was!
A lovely cool breeze this morning. Long may it continue.
One of the key learnings from yesterday is that net zero by 2050 won't be enough. We need to create mechanisms for net negative or these 40 degree days go from being a once in a lifetime event to a regular occurrence and we exacerbate the situation by becoming more like the US where every home has air conditioning.
A smart government would set a big industrial challenge of achieving a profitable mechanism to extract and store greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. It is going to become urgent within 10 years.
Regarding extraction, I think one way will be to have a whole new focus on building in timber, in preference to concrete, steel, brick, stone etc. That captures the carbon and stores it indefinitely.
All good things must come to an end, its a lot cooler, grey and overcast again today. 😞
Hopefully we get some more of yesterday's good, sunny weather again soon.
Though perhaps not the massive wildfires that burned people out of their homes in numerous places. But you were happy, so who cares about them?
Oh FFS, seriously? Some of you lot are absolutely joyless drones.
You must not go out and enjoy yourselves, some people might get Covid. We must not have good weather, some houses might burn.
Can you not allow joy and an element of risk in your lives? Must we stamp out everything that's pleasant in life in order to eliminate all risk?
Yes some houses burn from time to time, that's a shame for those it happens to but it is also what insurance is for. Besides, heat is less deadly than cold, but I don't hear you trying to change the climate in order to eliminate winter.
The London Fire Brigade had its busiest day since World War 2. Oh what a pleasant day it was!
I bet there's a catch, this being the broken US, but good news anyway.
The more I think about it the more important this reform was. Giving people who happen to be gay the right to marry says very clearly to them, "you are not in any sense a problem, you are a totally normal part of society".
There was sniggering when Cameron claimed it was his biggest achievement in government but I think he was serious when he said it, and also quite correct.
Isn't the catch that it will also need to get through the Senate before it can actually become law?
@AllisonPearson Penny Mordaunt has now deleted the Tweet in which she said that a vote for Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss would murder the Conservative Party
All good things must come to an end, its a lot cooler, grey and overcast again today. 😞
Hopefully we get some more of yesterday's good, sunny weather again soon.
Move south
Mild, breezy and partly SUNNY here in Camden
Seriously. I think you have a form of SAD. You shouldn’t be in the NW
You are such a troll @leon. Quite amusing though. For you though @Leon, I recommend you get a second home in a nice seaside resort. When it gets too hot inland you can retreat to it like I did on Sunday. It is beautiful today, and it has been fantastic the last couple of days.
I tend to agree with @BartholomewRoberts on this issue. We have become such a bunch of snowflakes in this country. A little bit of hot weather or a few inches of snow and we totally lose perspective.
By the way. The only worse place in the UK to live IMO than rainy old Manchester is overrated, overpriced, over-polluted London. A good place to visit perhaps, or have a pied-à-terre, but live there? It is clearly sending you a bit deranged. Sell up and move somewhere more civilised.
Tired of London, tired of life.
He'd never heard of rush hour commuting on the tube.
I live in SE London so can only dream of such luxuries.
The Guardian has a piece: "Penny Mordaunt seems to be telling Tory MPs this morning that they will “murder” the Conservative party if they vote for one of her rivals. She posted a message on Twitter saying “Tory MPs – vote for Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss today and you’ll murder the party you love”, although the tweet now seems to have been deleted."
Make of that what you will!
Incidentally, what is a Conservative party member? Is it somebody who pays a specific subscription, or is it somebody who belongs to one of the many Conservative drinking clubs? If so the secretary of the local Labour Party has a vote!
Arguably the Tory party we know and might have very occasionally mustered a smidgeon of grudging respect for has already been murdered.
It's the 3-dimensional chess part of the campaign where Truss and Mordaunt are both angling for Sunak's tactical votes, so they both have to try to make themselves look incompetent and easy to beat.
- Penny Mordaunt vowed to turn generation rent into generation buy with interest-free loans for deposits & forcing ALL banks to take rent into account for credit scores
Radical blueprint for partial loans to repay within 36 months
Does anyone have a view on buying or selling Mordaunt at her current price ?
Hard to say because there are insiders that might be betting to personally profit or to manipulate the narrative. I still have a hunch that the Sunak members pilling might make some in his column so far think twice. It then depends if they’d rather have Truss (Cabinet experience) or Mordaunt (more obviously electable). And that I have no clue on.
Not only that - they’re likely to go for the worse candidate on those numbers. I do wonder if a 97 style result is incoming, with a very uninspiring lab leader
Further evidence Truss hands the next general election to Labour
A margin of error difference?
Anyway, so what if Labour win the next election, if Sunak's version of the Tories is raising taxes in order to further bloat out our already mammoth welfare bill?
@AllisonPearson Penny Mordaunt has now deleted the Tweet in which she said that a vote for Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss would murder the Conservative Party
Not only that - they’re likely to go for the worse candidate on those numbers. I do wonder if a 97 style result is incoming, with a very uninspiring lab leader
A 97 style result would need an inspiring Labour leader...
- Penny Mordaunt vowed to turn generation rent into generation buy with interest-free loans for deposits & forcing ALL banks to take rent into account for credit scores
Radical blueprint for partial loans to repay within 36 months
@AllisonPearson Penny Mordaunt has now deleted the Tweet in which she said that a vote for Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss would murder the Conservative Party
All this is a useful reminder that the public face of all politics is always analogous to advertising; while the lie direct is normally omitted, the use of meaningless terms and attacks, (murder the party), selected facts, distortion, equivocation, hiding behind small print are standard fare.
At this moment it is being done internally as well but for public consumption.
If it ends up being the chancellor versus the foreign secretary (ignoring recent upsets) we might look back at the precedents for succeeding a PM in office and wonder why all the other personalities along the way distracted us so successfully from this fundamental point?
If it’s a bad choice for the Tories and the country - as it may well prove to be - the fault lies with the clown for making those two his number two and three in the first place?
In the 300 years since the office was created there have been 55 prime ministers. And not one of them has fallen in the way Boris Johnson did. Yet a sense that the Conservative Party has been involved in — no, that is too passive and neutral — has been responsible for a historic disaster seems completely absent from the debate about its future leadership.
Accepting the catastrophe that has happened, and determining it will not happen again, also requires acknowledging that it was enabled by a weak cabinet. There were many good ministers in the government, but overall Johnson chose his ministers for their personal loyalty or because it annoyed the people he wished to annoy. As a result, many capable people were excluded or kept in junior posts while someone such as the manifestly unfit Nadine Dorries became a secretary of state.
Part of addressing the failure is for an aspiring prime minister to pledge to choose a strong ministerial team from across the breadth of the party.
"In the 300 years since the office was created there have been 55 prime ministers. And not one of them has fallen in the way Boris Johnson did."
Eh?
Boris Johnson was forced out by his colleagues.
That happens all the time.
Which PM was forced out of office having been acclaimed by his party for winning them their existing large parliamentary majority ?
Good point. Other than Blair, Thatcher, Macmillan and Eden this situation is completely unique in postwar politics.
And yet the utter personal disgrace Johnson brought to the office of Prime Minister which resulted in his fall seems unique.
Thatcher, McMillan and Eden fell from flawed policy decisions. Blair, to an extent did too, but his reputation collapsed after he left office. I suspect Johnson will follow Blair with a post- office downward trajectory. As we write he is still busy cementing his reputation.
Both McMillan and Eden were also quite ill at times of their political demise, which was certainly a factor even if not the sole decisive one. And Thatcher and Blair had been in office long enough for there to be a democratic case for a change without taking into account any other factor.
Johnson's case is probably only unique in the sense that all individuals are unique, but it's certainly unusual, and not in a good way.
@AllisonPearson Penny Mordaunt has now deleted the Tweet in which she said that a vote for Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss would murder the Conservative Party
Someone should start a book on when the SeanT troll factory is gonna STFU about the sunny weather.
You still haven’t explained why you, a person living in Sweden but holidaying in Cyprus, got so angry about the BBC mentioning the heatwave when it was just “15C in my home village” - presumably Scotland?
A truly bizarre psychology at work there. But I need more info to tease it out
The problem is who would want to be a politician now in this social media/24 hour news world. Thats why the quality of politicians will continue to get worse.
Boris Johnson! If you offered him another ten years in Downing Street, he'd bite your hand off.
He'd bite your hand off without any implied permission at all, if he thought it would give him another term.
- Penny Mordaunt vowed to turn generation rent into generation buy with interest-free loans for deposits & forcing ALL banks to take rent into account for credit scores
Radical blueprint for partial loans to repay within 36 months
Great so nothing about housing costs, just more bubble inflation. BUILD MORE HOUSES
If you get a loan for your deposit, in what way is that a deposit? It's just an interest free part of your mortgage, surely?
Say rent is £1000 a month. Mortgage is £700.
In theory that leaves you with £300 which could be used to rapidly repay the deposit loan...
Now it's possible that if you are paying rent you have enough spare cash to save for a deposit but I doubt it and this approach would provide a means of doing so.
Whether it's sane is a completely different matter but I can see how an interest free deposit could work.
The Guardian has a piece: "Penny Mordaunt seems to be telling Tory MPs this morning that they will “murder” the Conservative party if they vote for one of her rivals. She posted a message on Twitter saying “Tory MPs – vote for Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss today and you’ll murder the party you love”, although the tweet now seems to have been deleted."
Make of that what you will!
Incidentally, what is a Conservative party member? Is it somebody who pays a specific subscription, or is it somebody who belongs to one of the many Conservative drinking clubs? If so the secretary of the local Labour Party has a vote!
I think Penny is just digging an ever deeper hole for herself.
All good things must come to an end, its a lot cooler, grey and overcast again today. 😞
Hopefully we get some more of yesterday's good, sunny weather again soon.
Though perhaps not the massive wildfires that burned people out of their homes in numerous places. But you were happy, so who cares about them?
I think that is a little overdone, given the actual number and scale of fires. The sky is not falling in just yet, Goosey-Lucy.
The interesting story for me is that Chinese Flying Lanterns were observed, and are still legal. I think we also need some attention to fires and wild camping, perhaps.
Portable BBQs. Lit by morons on tinder-dry fields.
I was taught that rule one of camping fires is that when you leave them, the temperature should be that of the surroundings. And how to cut the turf, lift back, build your fire, put it out, replace turf…..
Mind you that advice was from a traveller (he referred to himself by a less politically correct moniker)….
“Russia is beginning to roll out a version of what you could call an annexation playbook, very similar to the one we saw in 2014,” John Kirby, the communications coordinator at the National Security Council told reporters. https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1549677939788333056
- Penny Mordaunt vowed to turn generation rent into generation buy with interest-free loans for deposits & forcing ALL banks to take rent into account for credit scores
Radical blueprint for partial loans to repay within 36 months
Great so nothing about housing costs, just more bubble inflation. BUILD MORE HOUSES
If you get a loan for your deposit, in what way is that a deposit? It's just an interest free part of your mortgage, surely?
Say rent is £1000 a month. Mortgage is £700.
In theory that leaves you with £300 which could be used to rapidly repay the deposit loan...
Now it's possible that if you are paying rent you have enough spare cash to save for a deposit but I doubt it and this approach would provide a means of doing so.
Whether it's sane is a completely different matter but I can see how an interest free deposit could work.
I understand that. But it isn't a deposit then, is it? It's just an extra loan.
Although Truss seems favourite to be next PM one never knows what dirt might come out once she gets into the final 2.
So we can but hope that some miracle happens and the country avoids another 2 years of divisive politics .
I read up on her on Wikipedia and was surprised to hear that she had an affair with a fellow-MP. I don't know whether this is something that is well known among the general public. I would imagine that might come to be counted against her, especially as women tend to be judged more harshly than men for this kind of thing. Speaking personally it would certainly make me less likely to vote for someone although I wouldn't be voting for Truss anyway.
I don't think it would affect my thinking much at all. If I'd already decided against someone then I expect it might be the sort of thing which would reinforce my view, but if I supported a politician for political reasons I don't see that mistakes in a personal life would sway me.
Maybe if there was some detail that indicated they dealt with the mistake badly - coercing a mistress into having an abortion, say - it would be different, but by the public account Truss and her husband have been able to put it behind them, which is suggestive of being able to deal with a difficult situation well.
Wow, she's very bitter she's going out today isn't she?
Not exactly lining herself up for a Cabinet post as a consolation prize it seems.
If any of them had any sense, they’d be wanting to stay away from any Truss cabinet. Will be toxic to anyones longer term ambitions
That is the conventional wisdom and it is wrong. Ask Jeremy Hunt who stayed out of Boris's Cabinet. Ask Yvette Cooper who steered clear of Jeremy Corbyn's Shadow Cabinet. You can't win after years of self-imposed isolation. Ironically, the only recent partial exception is Boris himself.
- Penny Mordaunt vowed to turn generation rent into generation buy with interest-free loans for deposits & forcing ALL banks to take rent into account for credit scores
Radical blueprint for partial loans to repay within 36 months
Great so nothing about housing costs, just more bubble inflation. BUILD MORE HOUSES
If you get a loan for your deposit, in what way is that a deposit? It's just an interest free part of your mortgage, surely?
Say rent is £1000 a month. Mortgage is £700.
In theory that leaves you with £300 which could be used to rapidly repay the deposit loan...
Now it's possible that if you are paying rent you have enough spare cash to save for a deposit but I doubt it and this approach would provide a means of doing so.
Whether it's sane is a completely different matter but I can see how an interest free deposit could work.
That analysis doesn't work; you need comparable comparables.
Rent covers a *hell* of a lot more than a mortgage payment.
What happens, for example, if the drains need rodding, or windows replacing, or broken rooftiles fixing?
Or the building insurance, or the gas safety certificate and maintenance, or the electrical inspection, or ...
Or as one of my Ts discovered two weeks ago, if Hedge Bindweed swamps everything in a very few days .
- Penny Mordaunt vowed to turn generation rent into generation buy with interest-free loans for deposits & forcing ALL banks to take rent into account for credit scores
Radical blueprint for partial loans to repay within 36 months
Great so nothing about housing costs, just more bubble inflation. BUILD MORE HOUSES
If you get a loan for your deposit, in what way is that a deposit? It's just an interest free part of your mortgage, surely?
Say rent is £1000 a month. Mortgage is £700.
In theory that leaves you with £300 which could be used to rapidly repay the deposit loan...
Now it's possible that if you are paying rent you have enough spare cash to save for a deposit but I doubt it and this approach would provide a means of doing so.
Whether it's sane is a completely different matter but I can see how an interest free deposit could work.
I understand that. But it isn't a deposit then, is it? It's just an extra loan.
Oh on many levels it's completely insane but if you want to keep house prices high you need to find first time buyers and there aren't many of them left with enough deposit to buy somewhere.
Splitting hairs in terms of the differences between them. But something that Sunak could still use against Truss in the member ballot. I can't see him lending any votes to Mordaunt today.
Regardless, the main news from this poll is that for the first time since their methodology change Opinium are coming up with double digit leads for Labour, whatever choice the Conservatives make.
Clearly Sir Keir Starmer is doing an even worse job than his PB Tory detractors (plus an unreconciled Mr J Owls) have consistently claimed and is leading Labour into inevitable electoral disaster.
Further evidence Truss hands the next general election to Labour
Morning all, i survived the great phew of 22 but boy was yesterday unpleasant in my upstairs flat with partial wraparound windows! Got to 31 inside, yuck.
These figures compare to a forced choice in 6 July opinium of 49 to 30 Starmer vs Johnson government on a VI lead of 5 so are suggestive of limuted bounceback whomever is selected. A forced choice lead of 11 for example feels about level pegging on VI as most (but by no means all) others break to Starmer/Labour
- Penny Mordaunt vowed to turn generation rent into generation buy with interest-free loans for deposits & forcing ALL banks to take rent into account for credit scores
Radical blueprint for partial loans to repay within 36 months
Great so nothing about housing costs, just more bubble inflation. BUILD MORE HOUSES
No no no - building more houses reduces inflation.
So there are a swathe of £300k "executive" style homes being built. They're shit, they're cramped, but they are being made available. The only problem is that you can't afford the deposit and besides which the value will be ripped out of them when the executive house bubble bursts quicker than the substandard Barrett plumbing does.
The solution apparently is even more £300k executive style houses that you can't afford. So that the country transforms from what it used to look like into these hellhole housing estates where kids run wild and neighbours engage in protracted disputes over twat parking.
A lovely cool breeze this morning. Long may it continue.
One of the key learnings from yesterday is that net zero by 2050 won't be enough. We need to create mechanisms for net negative or these 40 degree days go from being a once in a lifetime event to a regular occurrence and we exacerbate the situation by becoming more like the US where every home has air conditioning.
A smart government would set a big industrial challenge of achieving a profitable mechanism to extract and store greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. It is going to become urgent within 10 years.
Regarding extraction, I think one way will be to have a whole new focus on building in timber, in preference to concrete, steel, brick, stone etc. That captures the carbon and stores it indefinitely.
(Snip)
Timber buildings do not generally last as long. EiT would be able to give chapter and verse, but in Japan, where they build lots of home traditionally in timber, they are only designed to last two or three decades. Well-made brick or stone houses can last a century or more.
Also, what qualifies as a 'timbe' house is interesting. Some timber-framed buildings are going up on the new estate next to us. They're timber, but a brick shell is being laid around the exterior. Seems the worst of both worlds to me...
Depends on the quality of the building and of the subsequent maintanence. There are plenty of timber framed buildings which are centuries old, for example, most of Lavenham in Suffolk. Many neighbourhoods in Tallinn are 19th century wooden houses, and again if well looked after they are healthy, comfortable and warm places to live.
Modern processed structural timber is as strong as steel and about as fireproof. In Finland even quite large buildings use this material.
Unfortunately I have seen in Britain a tendency to build in untreated plywood and leave this to the elements before a light stucco finish. These buildings are not well built and certainly will decay within a very short period, not to mention providing homes for rodents and insects as the cladding, insulation and the timber itself decay. The local building regulations officers find it difficult to serve proper enforcement notices during construction and are generally so overstretched that they cannot monitor cowboy builders anyway. So Caveat Emptor.
Indeed, but there is a little bit of survivor bias with old buildings - the well-built ones tend to survive for longer. And I'd argue the old timber-framed buildings are *very* different to modern ones - processed timber compared to tree trunks split into timbers.
Both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak went to Oxford. Keir Starmer did his postgrad studies at Oxford.
Which means that if either Truss or Sunak wins, we're probably looking at another six years where the PM attended that institution.
That's not good for politics or the country.
False equivalence.
Keir Starmer gained postgraduate entry to Oxford by virtue of achieving a first class undergraduate degree in law at a redbrick university (Leeds). At every stage of his education, starting from the 11+, he got where he did purely by merit.
It's hardly the gilded path that the likes of Johnson and Sunak were propelled down.
Truss of course went to a comprehensive… excellent or failing depending on who is reporting… and so won her place at Oxford on merit, not according to "previous contacts "!
Dad was a maths professor, which might have had a bit to do with it. Children of academics tend to get pretty good training irrespective of the school they attend. I hadn't realised she was at primary school in Scotland.
Hilariously, the Truss camp has been claiming she had a lower middle class upbringing.
A source close to the family said: ‘Liz had a vibrant, character-forming childhood. With three older brothers, she had to fight for everything. It was a very solid, lower middle-class upbringing, with loads of friends on free school meals. It was a warm and supportive environment to grow up in.’
What on earth is "lower-middle class" anyway. Can we not move past this faux deference nonsense?
It's a bit Yorkshire reminiscence, isn't it? "It was a good breakfast when I could push my way between my brothers' legs to get two spoonfuls of porridge before they emptied the shared bowl."
spoonfuls? bowl? Luxury, I say
It were a teaspoon. And I say bowl, it were more of a thimble
All good things must come to an end, its a lot cooler, grey and overcast again today. 😞
Hopefully we get some more of yesterday's good, sunny weather again soon.
Move south
Mild, breezy and partly SUNNY here in Camden
Seriously. I think you have a form of SAD. You shouldn’t be in the NW
You are such a troll @leon. Quite amusing though. For you though @Leon, I recommend you get a second home in a nice seaside resort. When it gets too hot inland you can retreat to it like I did on Sunday. It is beautiful today, and it has been fantastic the last couple of days.
I tend to agree with @BartholomewRoberts on this issue. We have become such a bunch of snowflakes in this country. A little bit of hot weather or a few inches of snow and we totally lose perspective.
By the way. The only worse place in the UK to live IMO than rainy old Manchester is overrated, overpriced, over-polluted London. A good place to visit perhaps, or have a pied-à-terre, but live there? It is clearly sending you a bit deranged. Sell up and move somewhere more civilised.
Like most people, I’m in a few WhatsApp groups of fam and friends. The recent weather unpleasantness has of course been much discussed
I’ve noticed a pattern - those that have @BartholomewRoberts attitude - “oh get over it, stop being a snowflake, enjoy the sun, it’s summer!” ALL come from parts of the country which have shit weather (eg Scotland, NW England) or their region didn’t endure 40C+, or both
No one in the south or SE is saying these dismissive things. We experienced 40C
Wrong! I live in one of the hottest areas, well until I decamped to the seaside get away. Did I mention the seaside getaway? Oh whoops I mentioned it again. I only mention it, not so as to boast (don't want to be a @leon), but because us second homers turn @leon into a torment of Jeremy Corbyn style envy lol.
Although Truss seems favourite to be next PM one never knows what dirt might come out once she gets into the final 2.
So we can but hope that some miracle happens and the country avoids another 2 years of divisive politics .
I read up on her on Wikipedia and was surprised to hear that she had an affair with a fellow-MP. I don't know whether this is something that is well known among the general public. I would imagine that might come to be counted against her, especially as women tend to be judged more harshly than men for this kind of thing. Speaking personally it would certainly make me less likely to vote for someone although I wouldn't be voting for Truss anyway.
I don't think it would affect my thinking much at all. If I'd already decided against someone then I expect it might be the sort of thing which would reinforce my view, but if I supported a politician for political reasons I don't see that mistakes in a personal life would sway me.
Maybe if there was some detail that indicated they dealt with the mistake badly - coercing a mistress into having an abortion, say - it would be different, but by the public account Truss and her husband have been able to put it behind them, which is suggestive of being able to deal with a difficult situation well.
I don't know, I think it points to a dishonest and untrustworthy character. She had only been married for 3 years FFS. You shouldn't enter into wedding vows lightly.
Any idea what time the next round of results is today?
I'll be quite gutted now if Penny doesn't go out. Sorry Penny, more due to overwhelming positives for the others than negatives to her.
As the debates fade from memory, Mordaunt again becomes more attractive as PM. Surely the bunch of numpties that is the Parliamentary Conservative Party won't put the vacuous Truss into the final two...will it?
Considering Truss is the best candidate, hopefully they will.
I can understand though why lefties would be appalled at the Conservatives possibly putting into Downing Street someone who might actually believe in right wing economics, instead of Treasury orthodoxy and ratchetting taxes up to their highest levels in 74 years.
"Truss is the best candidate". Wow let's hope when the temperature drops the utter insanity of the Conservative Leadership electorate does too.
Mordaunt, I could vote for under duress, Sunak, less likely, Truss, I'd rather take the bullet than put her in No 10!
No shit you don't want her, you're a leftie.
I want her, for pretty much the reasons you don't. That's not insanity.
The real question for the Tories is which of the candidates is electable. You may like Truss because you think she will drive policy in the direction you want. But unless she can actually win votes, that won't last very long.
No government can bind the hands of its successors - as you know. But it can make things very difficult. And with inflation clearly now running away, we are about to see a second wave of the cost of living increasing permanently, and we're only a couple of years into this decade.
With Truss being as inept as she is, and with "borrow to cut taxes for the well off" being batshit economics, the economic bomb she will leave will be devastating for anyone like you who wants people to like your kind of politics.
Moderation, in all things. Get the bits that you can in a package the majority can accept. Or get nothing because your ideas are seen as terrible.
There's a bit more to it than that, surely. You might conclude that winning the next election is unlikely under any leader, and therefore you might as well get a leader who can do the things you want for the next 2-2.5 years.
I think ultimately the MPs will put forward both Rishi and Truss because they're the only ones qualified to do the job.
Penny might be more popular now but as she was found out (as they've already found out) she might put the party into an even worse position through ineptitude and incompetence.
I think MPs rationale will be - pick experience for now to steer through the choppiest waters. If either is a big problem roll the dice again in June 2024 and get a new leader for October prior to a late Autumn election.
The Tories are taking the piss if they think they can keep changing leaders every couple of years so and still expect people to keep voting for them.
If they keep making appalling decisions like choosing shit leaders, what on earth makes them think we should trust their judgment on anything else?
Comments
Doesn't mean that climate change is all bad though, change brings positives and negatives and we can adapt and enjoy the positives even as we pay to minimise the change and mitigate the negatives.
She’s at the rapidly deleted tweets level of desperation.
Neither of those are going to beat Labour ; she has a certain chance of it.
I can't see anything other than a Sunak victory coming up, personally.
Realistic target is prob to retain largest party in a hung parliament post GE2024 and then hopefully come back after a one-term rainbow coalition.
"Penny Mordaunt seems to be telling Tory MPs this morning that they will “murder” the Conservative party if they vote for one of her rivals. She posted a message on Twitter saying “Tory MPs – vote for Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss today and you’ll murder the party you love”, although the tweet now seems to have been deleted."
Make of that what you will!
Incidentally, what is a Conservative party member? Is it somebody who pays a specific subscription, or is it somebody who belongs to one of the many Conservative drinking clubs?
If so the secretary of the local Labour Party has a vote!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-says-losing-because-ukraine-104546288.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90LmNvLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAABF20S8oo86BWey3OgN803eWfQOduk2EskF81ftMLYc2-vlfyI0woHEM9lVqkFiaeHCKKxcfAXmIDWZ-jrv1hYDI_9xYTRKNi3NPiF--jWKk2QkQuK17hC_Y0oLVQj0vIJuh_Y0jHx0w1GfgqIB3HiepDjUGdNL-Qy4nJZeiH_Sv&guccounter=2
Bad weather tends to create floods.
There's swings and roundabouts at all extremes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-62232518
Radical blueprint for partial loans to repay within 36 months
from @hoffman_noa and me
Great so nothing about housing costs, just more bubble inflation. BUILD MORE HOUSES
Anyway, so what if Labour win the next election, if Sunak's version of the Tories is raising taxes in order to further bloat out our already mammoth welfare bill?
Including May and Mordaunt
https://twitter.com/lachlan_edi/status/1549404544097992707?s=21&t=dJrjRVzMeG3oy0IoTza5lQ
At this moment it is being done internally as well but for public consumption.
And Thatcher and Blair had been in office long enough for there to be a democratic case for a change without taking into account any other factor.
Johnson's case is probably only unique in the sense that all individuals are unique, but it's certainly unusual, and not in a good way.
Imagine what it will look like in December as the cost of living crisis really does take effect.
A truly bizarre psychology at work there. But I need more info to tease it out
In theory that leaves you with £300 which could be used to rapidly repay the deposit loan...
Now it's possible that if you are paying rent you have enough spare cash to save for a deposit but I doubt it and this approach would provide a means of doing so.
Whether it's sane is a completely different matter but I can see how an interest free deposit could work.
Mind you that advice was from a traveller (he referred to himself by a less politically correct moniker)….
https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1549677939788333056
It's just an extra loan.
At this rate we are going to see how John Smith would have performed.
Maybe if there was some detail that indicated they dealt with the mistake badly - coercing a mistress into having an abortion, say - it would be different, but by the public account Truss and her husband have been able to put it behind them, which is suggestive of being able to deal with a difficult situation well.
I've sold her down to break even, but no further, just because I can't be certain.
Rent covers a *hell* of a lot more than a mortgage payment.
What happens, for example, if the drains need rodding, or windows replacing, or broken rooftiles fixing?
Or the building insurance, or the gas safety certificate and maintenance, or the electrical inspection, or ...
Or as one of my Ts discovered two weeks ago, if Hedge Bindweed swamps everything in a very few days
Regardless, the main news from this poll is that for the first time since their methodology change Opinium are coming up with double digit leads for Labour, whatever choice the Conservatives make.
Clearly Sir Keir Starmer is doing an even worse job than his PB Tory detractors (plus an unreconciled Mr J Owls) have consistently claimed and is leading Labour into inevitable electoral disaster.
These figures compare to a forced choice in 6 July opinium of 49 to 30 Starmer vs Johnson government on a VI lead of 5 so are suggestive of limuted bounceback whomever is selected. A forced choice lead of 11 for example feels about level pegging on VI as most (but by no means all) others break to Starmer/Labour
new thread
So there are a swathe of £300k "executive" style homes being built. They're shit, they're cramped, but they are being made available. The only problem is that you can't afford the deposit and besides which the value will be ripped out of them when the executive house bubble bursts quicker than the substandard Barrett plumbing does.
The solution apparently is even more £300k executive style houses that you can't afford. So that the country transforms from what it used to look like into these hellhole housing estates where kids run wild and neighbours engage in protracted disputes over twat parking.
If they keep making appalling decisions like choosing shit leaders, what on earth makes them think we should trust their judgment on anything else?
So that has to be factored in to some extent