'“There’s not a single office tenant here,” he says. “Not one. They were trying to rent them out, then the pandemic happened and – poof! – we got ourselves a ghost town. A Job Centre finally opened here a few months ago, so at least I’ve got some company now.”
[...]
Today, the place has a Ballardian air. On a sunny weekday lunchtime, a ripped topless man is the sole inhabitant of the district’s central square, doing press-ups on the manicured lawn and admiring his reflection in the empty plate glass windows. After a long time walking the length of the blocks, trying doorways and pressing buzzers in search of life, I find another man sitting on a kerb sipping a coffee. An office worker, at last?
“We’re filming an advert for Marks & Spencer,” he tells me. “It’s an ideal location because there are never any people around. If we’re careful with the shots, we can sort of make it look like a normal place.”'
And yet there were similar articles about the Shard a few years after it was finished and "empty" - now it is a huge success
And multiple similar articles fastened on to Canary Wharf, in its struggling early days, it was called Thatcher's doomed vanity project, devoid of tenants, blah blah; look at it now
Indeed these accusations are themselves a rich part of London history. Two enormous houses were built in the mid Victorian era in Knightsbridge, kittycorner from Harrods. They were so big they were like palaces, and at first they were nicknamed "Malta and Gibraltar". Why? Because "like Malta and Gibraltar, they will never be taken". ie Never have a tenant
See also Tobacco Dock in Docklands
"After the London Docklands ceased seaborne trade, the warehouse and surrounding areas fell into dereliction until Tobacco Dock was turned into a shopping centre which opened in 1989. However, due to the early 1990s recession, it was forced to close two years later. In 2003 English Heritage placed it on its 'at risk' register, preventing many developers from attempting a rejuvenation of the former London Docklands site. For TWO DECADES Tobacco Dock stood largely empty; it was used as a barracks for military personnel providing security to the 2012 London Olympics."
"As part of their commercial launch, they will be exhibiting at the sold out Xerocon, at Tobacco Dock, London, on 20th and 21st July in partnership with leading accountancy app Xero."
'“There’s not a single office tenant here,” he says. “Not one. They were trying to rent them out, then the pandemic happened and – poof! – we got ourselves a ghost town. A Job Centre finally opened here a few months ago, so at least I’ve got some company now.”
[...]
Today, the place has a Ballardian air. On a sunny weekday lunchtime, a ripped topless man is the sole inhabitant of the district’s central square, doing press-ups on the manicured lawn and admiring his reflection in the empty plate glass windows. After a long time walking the length of the blocks, trying doorways and pressing buzzers in search of life, I find another man sitting on a kerb sipping a coffee. An office worker, at last?
“We’re filming an advert for Marks & Spencer,” he tells me. “It’s an ideal location because there are never any people around. If we’re careful with the shots, we can sort of make it look like a normal place.”'
And yet there were similar articles about the Shard a few years after it was finished and "empty" - now it is a huge success
And multiple similar articles fastened on to Canary Wharf, in its struggling early days, it was called Thatcher's doomed vanity project, devoid of tenants, blah blah; look at it now
Indeed these accusations are themselves a rich part of London history. Two enormous houses were built in the mid Victorian era in Knightsbridge, kittycorner from Harrods. They were so big they were like palaces, and at first they were nicknamed "Malta and Gibraltar". Why? Because "like Malta and Gibraltar, they will never be taken". ie Never have a tenant
See also Tobacco Dock in Docklands
"After the London Docklands ceased seaborne trade, the warehouse and surrounding areas fell into dereliction until Tobacco Dock was turned into a shopping centre which opened in 1989. However, due to the early 1990s recession, it was forced to close two years later. In 2003 English Heritage placed it on its 'at risk' register, preventing many developers from attempting a rejuvenation of the former London Docklands site. For TWO DECADES Tobacco Dock stood largely empty; it was used as a barracks for military personnel providing security to the 2012 London Olympics."
"As part of their commercial launch, they will be exhibiting at the sold out Xerocon, at Tobacco Dock, London, on 20th and 21st July in partnership with leading accountancy app Xero."
The development in question is right next to City Airport so hardly in the middle of nowhere. In ten years it will be buzzing.
Yes, this is exactly how London develops, in fits and spasms
During the boom times, it over reaches, and someone builds something mad which lies empty for yonks. But then on the next upward swing it is quickly taken up and becomes a success, and we forget it was ever a white elephant, meanwhile the next over-ambitious developer is having crazy dreams
Even the fucking Millennium Dome has ended up a big success (if you ignore the initial cost to us all)
In fact, it would be a bad sign for London is these things did NOT happen. It would men no one was gambling on the city's growth and future success
Everyone seems to be on anti-depressants these days.
Seriously, it’s getting to the point where to not be on them is becoming stubbornly retro, like refusing to have a television in the house.
In which case perhaps we need to ask whether it’s society itself which is sick, just like RD Laing suggested.
Social media has a lot to answer for....back in the day you might have heard there are rich people who live certain lives not available to you, but everything was really based in the reality of what you saw around yourself, now people are bombarded by (most faked) images of what seems like everybody else living these amazing lives....then you used to go to your local pub and chat up ladies and again there wasn't infinite bombardment of 10 out of 10 beautiful people...instead people on dating apps and unless you are a 10 out of 10 you are going to struggle to get a date with anybody but a 1...and of course you get bombarded by toxicity from every which way for the smallest step "out of line" is filmed and spread across social media.
Then all the stresses of modern western world with house prices, student debt, etc etc etc.
If you get sucked into that from a very early age not surprising people can be very down about their life.
The exaggeration of the “normal” level of “success” is compounded by the ludicrous rush to achieve said “success” in 60 seconds or less.
Success will soon equal able to turn the central heating on.
'“There’s not a single office tenant here,” he says. “Not one. They were trying to rent them out, then the pandemic happened and – poof! – we got ourselves a ghost town. A Job Centre finally opened here a few months ago, so at least I’ve got some company now.”
[...]
Today, the place has a Ballardian air. On a sunny weekday lunchtime, a ripped topless man is the sole inhabitant of the district’s central square, doing press-ups on the manicured lawn and admiring his reflection in the empty plate glass windows. After a long time walking the length of the blocks, trying doorways and pressing buzzers in search of life, I find another man sitting on a kerb sipping a coffee. An office worker, at last?
“We’re filming an advert for Marks & Spencer,” he tells me. “It’s an ideal location because there are never any people around. If we’re careful with the shots, we can sort of make it look like a normal place.”'
And yet there were similar articles about the Shard a few years after it was finished and "empty" - now it is a huge success
And multiple similar articles fastened on to Canary Wharf, in its struggling early days, it was called Thatcher's doomed vanity project, devoid of tenants, blah blah; look at it now
Indeed these accusations are themselves a rich part of London history. Two enormous houses were built in the mid Victorian era in Knightsbridge, kittycorner from Harrods. They were so big they were like palaces, and at first they were nicknamed "Malta and Gibraltar". Why? Because "like Malta and Gibraltar, they will never be taken". ie Never have a tenant
See also Tobacco Dock in Docklands
"After the London Docklands ceased seaborne trade, the warehouse and surrounding areas fell into dereliction until Tobacco Dock was turned into a shopping centre which opened in 1989. However, due to the early 1990s recession, it was forced to close two years later. In 2003 English Heritage placed it on its 'at risk' register, preventing many developers from attempting a rejuvenation of the former London Docklands site. For TWO DECADES Tobacco Dock stood largely empty; it was used as a barracks for military personnel providing security to the 2012 London Olympics."
"As part of their commercial launch, they will be exhibiting at the sold out Xerocon, at Tobacco Dock, London, on 20th and 21st July in partnership with leading accountancy app Xero."
The development in question is right next to City Airport so hardly in the middle of nowhere. In ten years it will be buzzing.
Yes, this is exactly how London develops, in fits and spasms
During the boom times, it over reaches, and someone builds something mad which lies empty for yonks. But then on the next upward swing it is quickly taken up and becomes a success, and we forget it was ever a white elephant, meanwhile the next over-ambitious developer is having crazy dreams
Even the fucking Millennium Dome has ended up a big success (if you ignore the initial cost to us all)
In fact, it would be a bad sign for London is these things did NOT happen. It would men no one was gambling on the city's growth and future success
It amazing how the Millennium Dome wasn't even supposed to be permanent.
Should add. I shared that article not in any way to diss anti-depressants. I've been on them myself for long periods. And needed to be. But because I take a keen interest in why I needed them then, but don't now?
I think that it also indicates that we need to study a lot more closely why they work. If it is not because they are boosting seratonin, for example (which may simply be boosted as an indirect result of whatever is working) what is the mechanism that helps? And, having found it, can we make that part work better?
People have tried!
One (serious) theory is that the problem is the opposite (too much serotonin, and drugs which induce even more kick start the brain into having a proper clear out of the stuff).
So far Truss has been running away from the tax rises and trying to avoid any responsibility.
This will change in the final 2 . She might be favourite but I don’t think it’s impossible for Sunak to overtake her .
I am still hopeful Penny makes final 2 and Lightweight Lizzy is knocked out today. I will laugh and dance all evening.
The way Truss went up yesterday was suspicious was it not. Sunak May feel he beats Penny more easily than Liz, so rigs todays vote. The best way to do this would have started yesterday is 20 Rishi supporters voting Liz yesterday to fool the right, and switching those plus ten or 15 more to Penny today - those 35 more for Penny knocks Truss out.
'“There’s not a single office tenant here,” he says. “Not one. They were trying to rent them out, then the pandemic happened and – poof! – we got ourselves a ghost town. A Job Centre finally opened here a few months ago, so at least I’ve got some company now.”
[...]
Today, the place has a Ballardian air. On a sunny weekday lunchtime, a ripped topless man is the sole inhabitant of the district’s central square, doing press-ups on the manicured lawn and admiring his reflection in the empty plate glass windows. After a long time walking the length of the blocks, trying doorways and pressing buzzers in search of life, I find another man sitting on a kerb sipping a coffee. An office worker, at last?
“We’re filming an advert for Marks & Spencer,” he tells me. “It’s an ideal location because there are never any people around. If we’re careful with the shots, we can sort of make it look like a normal place.”'
And yet there were similar articles about the Shard a few years after it was finished and "empty" - now it is a huge success
And multiple similar articles fastened on to Canary Wharf, in its struggling early days, it was called Thatcher's doomed vanity project, devoid of tenants, blah blah; look at it now
Indeed these accusations are themselves a rich part of London history. Two enormous houses were built in the mid Victorian era in Knightsbridge, kittycorner from Harrods. They were so big they were like palaces, and at first they were nicknamed "Malta and Gibraltar". Why? Because "like Malta and Gibraltar, they will never be taken". ie Never have a tenant
See also Tobacco Dock in Docklands
"After the London Docklands ceased seaborne trade, the warehouse and surrounding areas fell into dereliction until Tobacco Dock was turned into a shopping centre which opened in 1989. However, due to the early 1990s recession, it was forced to close two years later. In 2003 English Heritage placed it on its 'at risk' register, preventing many developers from attempting a rejuvenation of the former London Docklands site. For TWO DECADES Tobacco Dock stood largely empty; it was used as a barracks for military personnel providing security to the 2012 London Olympics."
"As part of their commercial launch, they will be exhibiting at the sold out Xerocon, at Tobacco Dock, London, on 20th and 21st July in partnership with leading accountancy app Xero."
The development in question is right next to City Airport so hardly in the middle of nowhere. In ten years it will be buzzing.
Yes, this is exactly how London develops, in fits and spasms
During the boom times, it over reaches, and someone builds something mad which lies empty for yonks. But then on the next upward swing it is quickly taken up and becomes a success, and we forget it was ever a white elephant, meanwhile the next over-ambitious developer is having crazy dreams
Even the fucking Millennium Dome has ended up a big success (if you ignore the initial cost to us all)
In fact, it would be a bad sign for London is these things did NOT happen. It would men no one was gambling on the city's growth and future success
It amazing how the Millennium Dome wasn't even supposed to be permanent.
'“There’s not a single office tenant here,” he says. “Not one. They were trying to rent them out, then the pandemic happened and – poof! – we got ourselves a ghost town. A Job Centre finally opened here a few months ago, so at least I’ve got some company now.”
[...]
Today, the place has a Ballardian air. On a sunny weekday lunchtime, a ripped topless man is the sole inhabitant of the district’s central square, doing press-ups on the manicured lawn and admiring his reflection in the empty plate glass windows. After a long time walking the length of the blocks, trying doorways and pressing buzzers in search of life, I find another man sitting on a kerb sipping a coffee. An office worker, at last?
“We’re filming an advert for Marks & Spencer,” he tells me. “It’s an ideal location because there are never any people around. If we’re careful with the shots, we can sort of make it look like a normal place.”'
And yet there were similar articles about the Shard a few years after it was finished and "empty" - now it is a huge success
And multiple similar articles fastened on to Canary Wharf, in its struggling early days, it was called Thatcher's doomed vanity project, devoid of tenants, blah blah; look at it now
Indeed these accusations are themselves a rich part of London history. Two enormous houses were built in the mid Victorian era in Knightsbridge, kittycorner from Harrods. They were so big they were like palaces, and at first they were nicknamed "Malta and Gibraltar". Why? Because "like Malta and Gibraltar, they will never be taken". ie Never have a tenant
See also Tobacco Dock in Docklands
"After the London Docklands ceased seaborne trade, the warehouse and surrounding areas fell into dereliction until Tobacco Dock was turned into a shopping centre which opened in 1989. However, due to the early 1990s recession, it was forced to close two years later. In 2003 English Heritage placed it on its 'at risk' register, preventing many developers from attempting a rejuvenation of the former London Docklands site. For TWO DECADES Tobacco Dock stood largely empty; it was used as a barracks for military personnel providing security to the 2012 London Olympics."
"As part of their commercial launch, they will be exhibiting at the sold out Xerocon, at Tobacco Dock, London, on 20th and 21st July in partnership with leading accountancy app Xero."
The development in question is right next to City Airport so hardly in the middle of nowhere. In ten years it will be buzzing.
Yes, this is exactly how London develops, in fits and spasms
During the boom times, it over reaches, and someone builds something mad which lies empty for yonks. But then on the next upward swing it is quickly taken up and becomes a success, and we forget it was ever a white elephant, meanwhile the next over-ambitious developer is having crazy dreams
Even the fucking Millennium Dome has ended up a big success (if you ignore the initial cost to us all)
In fact, it would be a bad sign for London is these things did NOT happen. It would men no one was gambling on the city's growth and future success
It amazing how the Millennium Dome wasn't even supposed to be permanent.
Ditto the London Eye and the Eiffel Tower
And Skylon. Which they sadly got rid of. But they should bring back.
'“There’s not a single office tenant here,” he says. “Not one. They were trying to rent them out, then the pandemic happened and – poof! – we got ourselves a ghost town. A Job Centre finally opened here a few months ago, so at least I’ve got some company now.”
[...]
Today, the place has a Ballardian air. On a sunny weekday lunchtime, a ripped topless man is the sole inhabitant of the district’s central square, doing press-ups on the manicured lawn and admiring his reflection in the empty plate glass windows. After a long time walking the length of the blocks, trying doorways and pressing buzzers in search of life, I find another man sitting on a kerb sipping a coffee. An office worker, at last?
“We’re filming an advert for Marks & Spencer,” he tells me. “It’s an ideal location because there are never any people around. If we’re careful with the shots, we can sort of make it look like a normal place.”'
And yet there were similar articles about the Shard a few years after it was finished and "empty" - now it is a huge success
And multiple similar articles fastened on to Canary Wharf, in its struggling early days, it was called Thatcher's doomed vanity project, devoid of tenants, blah blah; look at it now
Indeed these accusations are themselves a rich part of London history. Two enormous houses were built in the mid Victorian era in Knightsbridge, kittycorner from Harrods. They were so big they were like palaces, and at first they were nicknamed "Malta and Gibraltar". Why? Because "like Malta and Gibraltar, they will never be taken". ie Never have a tenant
See also Tobacco Dock in Docklands
"After the London Docklands ceased seaborne trade, the warehouse and surrounding areas fell into dereliction until Tobacco Dock was turned into a shopping centre which opened in 1989. However, due to the early 1990s recession, it was forced to close two years later. In 2003 English Heritage placed it on its 'at risk' register, preventing many developers from attempting a rejuvenation of the former London Docklands site. For TWO DECADES Tobacco Dock stood largely empty; it was used as a barracks for military personnel providing security to the 2012 London Olympics."
"As part of their commercial launch, they will be exhibiting at the sold out Xerocon, at Tobacco Dock, London, on 20th and 21st July in partnership with leading accountancy app Xero."
The development in question is right next to City Airport so hardly in the middle of nowhere. In ten years it will be buzzing.
Yes, this is exactly how London develops, in fits and spasms
During the boom times, it over reaches, and someone builds something mad which lies empty for yonks. But then on the next upward swing it is quickly taken up and becomes a success, and we forget it was ever a white elephant, meanwhile the next over-ambitious developer is having crazy dreams
Even the fucking Millennium Dome has ended up a big success (if you ignore the initial cost to us all)
In fact, it would be a bad sign for London is these things did NOT happen. It would men no one was gambling on the city's growth and future success
It amazing how the Millennium Dome wasn't even supposed to be permanent.
Ditto the London Eye and the Eiffel Tower
I thought the Dome structure was only built to last x years....did they end up reskinning it all, or at some point in the future they will have to do it?
The Eye was supposed to go on a tour if I remember correctly.
'“There’s not a single office tenant here,” he says. “Not one. They were trying to rent them out, then the pandemic happened and – poof! – we got ourselves a ghost town. A Job Centre finally opened here a few months ago, so at least I’ve got some company now.”
[...]
Today, the place has a Ballardian air. On a sunny weekday lunchtime, a ripped topless man is the sole inhabitant of the district’s central square, doing press-ups on the manicured lawn and admiring his reflection in the empty plate glass windows. After a long time walking the length of the blocks, trying doorways and pressing buzzers in search of life, I find another man sitting on a kerb sipping a coffee. An office worker, at last?
“We’re filming an advert for Marks & Spencer,” he tells me. “It’s an ideal location because there are never any people around. If we’re careful with the shots, we can sort of make it look like a normal place.”'
"Separately, the report said, the Chinese-born wife of a junior Home Office minister appeared to have played a role in supporting the bid, while at the same time donating considerable sums to the Conservative party. The programme said Xuelin Bates, a property developer who married the Tory peer Lord (Michael) Bates in 2012, had held talks in 2008 with Xu Weiping, and made at least one trip to China paid for by the Chinese company. She also formed a company called London China ABP, but dissolved it before it was due to file accounts, and has donated more than £206,000 to the Conservatives since 2010. Lady Bates said any donations she made were purely personal and London China ABP had no connection to the Chinese firm, which also denied any knowledge or involvement in her actions."
'“There’s not a single office tenant here,” he says. “Not one. They were trying to rent them out, then the pandemic happened and – poof! – we got ourselves a ghost town. A Job Centre finally opened here a few months ago, so at least I’ve got some company now.”
[...]
Today, the place has a Ballardian air. On a sunny weekday lunchtime, a ripped topless man is the sole inhabitant of the district’s central square, doing press-ups on the manicured lawn and admiring his reflection in the empty plate glass windows. After a long time walking the length of the blocks, trying doorways and pressing buzzers in search of life, I find another man sitting on a kerb sipping a coffee. An office worker, at last?
“We’re filming an advert for Marks & Spencer,” he tells me. “It’s an ideal location because there are never any people around. If we’re careful with the shots, we can sort of make it look like a normal place.”'
And yet there were similar articles about the Shard a few years after it was finished and "empty" - now it is a huge success
And multiple similar articles fastened on to Canary Wharf, in its struggling early days, it was called Thatcher's doomed vanity project, devoid of tenants, blah blah; look at it now
Indeed these accusations are themselves a rich part of London history. Two enormous houses were built in the mid Victorian era in Knightsbridge, kittycorner from Harrods. They were so big they were like palaces, and at first they were nicknamed "Malta and Gibraltar". Why? Because "like Malta and Gibraltar, they will never be taken". ie Never have a tenant
See also Tobacco Dock in Docklands
"After the London Docklands ceased seaborne trade, the warehouse and surrounding areas fell into dereliction until Tobacco Dock was turned into a shopping centre which opened in 1989. However, due to the early 1990s recession, it was forced to close two years later. In 2003 English Heritage placed it on its 'at risk' register, preventing many developers from attempting a rejuvenation of the former London Docklands site. For TWO DECADES Tobacco Dock stood largely empty; it was used as a barracks for military personnel providing security to the 2012 London Olympics."
"As part of their commercial launch, they will be exhibiting at the sold out Xerocon, at Tobacco Dock, London, on 20th and 21st July in partnership with leading accountancy app Xero."
The development in question is right next to City Airport so hardly in the middle of nowhere. In ten years it will be buzzing.
Yes, this is exactly how London develops, in fits and spasms
During the boom times, it over reaches, and someone builds something mad which lies empty for yonks. But then on the next upward swing it is quickly taken up and becomes a success, and we forget it was ever a white elephant, meanwhile the next over-ambitious developer is having crazy dreams
Even the fucking Millennium Dome has ended up a big success (if you ignore the initial cost to us all)
In fact, it would be a bad sign for London is these things did NOT happen. It would men no one was gambling on the city's growth and future success
It amazing how the Millennium Dome wasn't even supposed to be permanent.
Ditto the London Eye and the Eiffel Tower
I thought the Dome structure was only built to last x years....did they end up reskinning it all, or at some point in the future they will have to do it?
The Eye was supposed to go on a tour if I remember correctly.
I somehow remember the Eye was meant to go on a tour, then return to a less conspicuous place on the River Thames, down in Docklands. But it was such a hit from day one....
'“There’s not a single office tenant here,” he says. “Not one. They were trying to rent them out, then the pandemic happened and – poof! – we got ourselves a ghost town. A Job Centre finally opened here a few months ago, so at least I’ve got some company now.”
[...]
Today, the place has a Ballardian air. On a sunny weekday lunchtime, a ripped topless man is the sole inhabitant of the district’s central square, doing press-ups on the manicured lawn and admiring his reflection in the empty plate glass windows. After a long time walking the length of the blocks, trying doorways and pressing buzzers in search of life, I find another man sitting on a kerb sipping a coffee. An office worker, at last?
“We’re filming an advert for Marks & Spencer,” he tells me. “It’s an ideal location because there are never any people around. If we’re careful with the shots, we can sort of make it look like a normal place.”'
And yet there were similar articles about the Shard a few years after it was finished and "empty" - now it is a huge success
And multiple similar articles fastened on to Canary Wharf, in its struggling early days, it was called Thatcher's doomed vanity project, devoid of tenants, blah blah; look at it now
Indeed these accusations are themselves a rich part of London history. Two enormous houses were built in the mid Victorian era in Knightsbridge, kittycorner from Harrods. They were so big they were like palaces, and at first they were nicknamed "Malta and Gibraltar". Why? Because "like Malta and Gibraltar, they will never be taken". ie Never have a tenant
See also Tobacco Dock in Docklands
"After the London Docklands ceased seaborne trade, the warehouse and surrounding areas fell into dereliction until Tobacco Dock was turned into a shopping centre which opened in 1989. However, due to the early 1990s recession, it was forced to close two years later. In 2003 English Heritage placed it on its 'at risk' register, preventing many developers from attempting a rejuvenation of the former London Docklands site. For TWO DECADES Tobacco Dock stood largely empty; it was used as a barracks for military personnel providing security to the 2012 London Olympics."
"As part of their commercial launch, they will be exhibiting at the sold out Xerocon, at Tobacco Dock, London, on 20th and 21st July in partnership with leading accountancy app Xero."
The development in question is right next to City Airport so hardly in the middle of nowhere. In ten years it will be buzzing.
Yes, this is exactly how London develops, in fits and spasms
During the boom times, it over reaches, and someone builds something mad which lies empty for yonks. But then on the next upward swing it is quickly taken up and becomes a success, and we forget it was ever a white elephant, meanwhile the next over-ambitious developer is having crazy dreams
Even the fucking Millennium Dome has ended up a big success (if you ignore the initial cost to us all)
In fact, it would be a bad sign for London is these things did NOT happen. It would men no one was gambling on the city's growth and future success
It amazing how the Millennium Dome wasn't even supposed to be permanent.
Ditto the London Eye and the EiffelTower
I thought the Dome structure was only built to last x years....did they end up reskinning it all, or at some point in the future they will have to do it?
The Eye was supposed to go on a tour if I remember correctly.
Wasn’t there an impromptu reskin after the winds a few months back?
Italy. As the Senate moves towards a vote of confidence having listened to a statesmanlike Draghi speech on the political landscape this morning, the demands of each party seem as mutually exclusive as ever:
Draghi - as an extra political PM states he will only stay as PM in a genuine unity government with wide support and is not minded to remake a new Draghi led government with a smaller coalition
M5S - have a shopping list of spending demands on the slate of bills for the program of government. Their remaining representatives are split on whether to give confidence.
Forza, Lega - will not serve with M5S
Seems the only possible way out would be a further M5S split that renders them an irrelevance (a direction of travel they are on tbh, but probably not fast enough to save this government), so government continues minus a small M5S rump.
The odds remain on a likely 25th September GE therefore.
The European Commission has urged countries across the bloc to cut their gas use by 15% from August to March amid fears Russia could halt supplies. It says the target is voluntary but will become legally binding if Moscow turns off the taps this summer.
So far Truss has been running away from the tax rises and trying to avoid any responsibility.
This will change in the final 2 . She might be favourite but I don’t think it’s impossible for Sunak to overtake her .
I am still hopeful Penny makes final 2 and Lightweight Lizzy is knocked out today. I will laugh and dance all evening.
The way Truss went up yesterday was suspicious was it not. Sunak May feel he beats Penny more easily than Liz, so rigs todays vote. The best way to do this would have started yesterday is 20 Rishi supporters voting Liz yesterday to fool the right, and switching those plus ten or 15 more to Penny today - those 35 more for Penny knocks Truss out.
Remember you heard it here first.
It’s a dangerous risky game because his total could have dropped and the media would be all over him losing momentum .
'“There’s not a single office tenant here,” he says. “Not one. They were trying to rent them out, then the pandemic happened and – poof! – we got ourselves a ghost town. A Job Centre finally opened here a few months ago, so at least I’ve got some company now.”
[...]
Today, the place has a Ballardian air. On a sunny weekday lunchtime, a ripped topless man is the sole inhabitant of the district’s central square, doing press-ups on the manicured lawn and admiring his reflection in the empty plate glass windows. After a long time walking the length of the blocks, trying doorways and pressing buzzers in search of life, I find another man sitting on a kerb sipping a coffee. An office worker, at last?
“We’re filming an advert for Marks & Spencer,” he tells me. “It’s an ideal location because there are never any people around. If we’re careful with the shots, we can sort of make it look like a normal place.”'
And yet there were similar articles about the Shard a few years after it was finished and "empty" - now it is a huge success
And multiple similar articles fastened on to Canary Wharf, in its struggling early days, it was called Thatcher's doomed vanity project, devoid of tenants, blah blah; look at it now
Indeed these accusations are themselves a rich part of London history. Two enormous houses were built in the mid Victorian era in Knightsbridge, kittycorner from Harrods. They were so big they were like palaces, and at first they were nicknamed "Malta and Gibraltar". Why? Because "like Malta and Gibraltar, they will never be taken". ie Never have a tenant
See also Tobacco Dock in Docklands
"After the London Docklands ceased seaborne trade, the warehouse and surrounding areas fell into dereliction until Tobacco Dock was turned into a shopping centre which opened in 1989. However, due to the early 1990s recession, it was forced to close two years later. In 2003 English Heritage placed it on its 'at risk' register, preventing many developers from attempting a rejuvenation of the former London Docklands site. For TWO DECADES Tobacco Dock stood largely empty; it was used as a barracks for military personnel providing security to the 2012 London Olympics."
"As part of their commercial launch, they will be exhibiting at the sold out Xerocon, at Tobacco Dock, London, on 20th and 21st July in partnership with leading accountancy app Xero."
The development in question is right next to City Airport so hardly in the middle of nowhere. In ten years it will be buzzing.
Yes, this is exactly how London develops, in fits and spasms
During the boom times, it over reaches, and someone builds something mad which lies empty for yonks. But then on the next upward swing it is quickly taken up and becomes a success, and we forget it was ever a white elephant, meanwhile the next over-ambitious developer is having crazy dreams
Even the fucking Millennium Dome has ended up a big success (if you ignore the initial cost to us all)
In fact, it would be a bad sign for London is these things did NOT happen. It would men no one was gambling on the city's growth and future success
It amazing how the Millennium Dome wasn't even supposed to be permanent.
Ditto the London Eye and the Eiffel Tower
I thought the Dome structure was only built to last x years....did they end up reskinning it all, or at some point in the future they will have to do it?
The Eye was supposed to go on a tour if I remember correctly.
The government has granted development consent for the new Sizewell C nuclear power plant on the Suffolk coast.
The project, mainly funded by the French energy company EDF, is expected to cost in the region of £20bn.
Blimey, sounds quite cheap tbh.
Why do we outsource this stuff to the French govt rather than setting up our own national champion?
Because EDF is a company with a lot of expertise in this, its something they have a competitive advantage in and they'll do it for their best value for money.
Any state-owned "national champion" would be a bloated mess of a 'company' that would operate instead to the advantage of "stakeholders" and lobbyists and bailed out by the taxpayers time and again. 👎
But EDF is state-owned. And yet is "a company with a lot of expertise" who have found a "competitive advantage".
So there is no impediment whatsoever in being state-owned and commercially excellent. In your own words. Yet you oppose it...
Indeed this was exactly the point of my question. We threw the baby out with the bath water with privatisation and forgot that the benefits it brings are down to the implied incentive structure and little else. It’s perfectly possible to create an efficient state owned company if you’re careful about it, as is shown around the world.
Some countries understand strategic resilience and some don’t. Unfortunately we sold off our strategic resilience to fund our structural current account deficit. Sad.
By the way Bart, the “private sector” makes the key components for our nuclear powered subs. But really that’s a charade. It’s a ring fenced unit within Rolls Royce that decades after the Thatcher bail out, still benefits from cost plus govt contracts and has very little turnover of staff, because a) it’s such a cushy number, b) they have to be security cleared and pretty much only employ British nationals.
So it’s private sector but without the upside. And in a similar way, it’s possible to create state sector but without the downside. I’m a Tory at heart but at the first opportunity I’d be nationalising Gupta’s steel interests, as well as the oil refineries owned by Essar and Gary Klesch. Let more competent private sector people run them, with pay structures inversely proportional to the level of state subsidy required to keep them running in the national interest.
I can see where you're coming from, but it's an irrelevance in this case. Our nationalised power company would not have any expertise in building new nuclear power stations, as the government has not ordered any for thirty years. - and some governments were rather cold on nuclear power as well.
It's worth emphasising how crap we are at doing these sort of long term projects where long term knowledge / specialist skills are required.
Nuclear power stations is 1 example, unless you continually build them one after another you quickly lose the knowledge required to build them. Equally we treat railways as stop start one off projects when we really do need to be planning what occurs after HS2 so the specialists have their next project ready to go.
That's very true for railways. During the Thatcher / Major governments, many hundreds of miles of railways were electrified. During the 13 years of Labour government that followed, only 9 miles were electrified (Kidsgrove to Crewe). (*) Lots of useful skills and knowledge were lost.
The government should (and in fact, should still) commit to a rolling program, where one line is completed and people move onto the next. Instead, we get four major projects announced at once, and when the first runs into problems due to lack of experience, prices go up.
(*) Never trust Labour with the railways ...
Don't trust either of them. The Tories brought in a private franchising structure so stupid that nobody else in the world copied it, and sold off the infrastructure in such a lax way that the private sector killed a load of people then needed rescuing. And then Labour did little to change the stupid for less stupid.
BTW, the expertise was lost before Labour had the chance to fuck things up. The multi-year hiatus in ordering new trains was enough to bankrupt and close the train manufacturing industry (bar 1 factory), the Rail Technical Centre was sold off and lost, the engineers flitted away.
We then ended up not able to do the basics like string up wires. Or re-signal the "victorian infrastructure" that Shapps Green seems obsessed with. The lunacy of the proposed Manchester South scheme as one example.
What we need is professionals running the shop. Neither party have offered that for decades, so trying to blame one lot for not fixing the other lot's mess is partisan silliness - BOTH were bad.
Since 1979 Labour have had thirteen years to get the railways right. In that time the Conservatives have had thirty.
And in those 30 years what projects have the Tory parties not binned. The Electrification of the Leeds Manchester line should be finished now but thanks to 12 years of Government arsing about it's so far cost £1bn and wasted £190m. https://t.co/PDOnY8QiUk
I'm not fussed about electrification. I just want the Class 68s and Mark 5a sets operating instead of sitting around in the sidings. Goodness knows when the full TPE service will be restored.
'“There’s not a single office tenant here,” he says. “Not one. They were trying to rent them out, then the pandemic happened and – poof! – we got ourselves a ghost town. A Job Centre finally opened here a few months ago, so at least I’ve got some company now.”
[...]
Today, the place has a Ballardian air. On a sunny weekday lunchtime, a ripped topless man is the sole inhabitant of the district’s central square, doing press-ups on the manicured lawn and admiring his reflection in the empty plate glass windows. After a long time walking the length of the blocks, trying doorways and pressing buzzers in search of life, I find another man sitting on a kerb sipping a coffee. An office worker, at last?
“We’re filming an advert for Marks & Spencer,” he tells me. “It’s an ideal location because there are never any people around. If we’re careful with the shots, we can sort of make it look like a normal place.”'
And yet there were similar articles about the Shard a few years after it was finished and "empty" - now it is a huge success
And multiple similar articles fastened on to Canary Wharf, in its struggling early days, it was called Thatcher's doomed vanity project, devoid of tenants, blah blah; look at it now
Indeed these accusations are themselves a rich part of London history. Two enormous houses were built in the mid Victorian era in Knightsbridge, kittycorner from Harrods. They were so big they were like palaces, and at first they were nicknamed "Malta and Gibraltar". Why? Because "like Malta and Gibraltar, they will never be taken". ie Never have a tenant
See also Tobacco Dock in Docklands
"After the London Docklands ceased seaborne trade, the warehouse and surrounding areas fell into dereliction until Tobacco Dock was turned into a shopping centre which opened in 1989. However, due to the early 1990s recession, it was forced to close two years later. In 2003 English Heritage placed it on its 'at risk' register, preventing many developers from attempting a rejuvenation of the former London Docklands site. For TWO DECADES Tobacco Dock stood largely empty; it was used as a barracks for military personnel providing security to the 2012 London Olympics."
"As part of their commercial launch, they will be exhibiting at the sold out Xerocon, at Tobacco Dock, London, on 20th and 21st July in partnership with leading accountancy app Xero."
The development in question is right next to City Airport so hardly in the middle of nowhere. In ten years it will be buzzing.
Yes, this is exactly how London develops, in fits and spasms
During the boom times, it over reaches, and someone builds something mad which lies empty for yonks. But then on the next upward swing it is quickly taken up and becomes a success, and we forget it was ever a white elephant, meanwhile the next over-ambitious developer is having crazy dreams
Even the fucking Millennium Dome has ended up a big success (if you ignore the initial cost to us all)
In fact, it would be a bad sign for London is these things did NOT happen. It would men no one was gambling on the city's growth and future success
It amazing how the Millennium Dome wasn't even supposed to be permanent.
Ditto the London Eye and the Eiffel Tower
I thought the Dome structure was only built to last x years....did they end up reskinning it all, or at some point in the future they will have to do it?
The Eye was supposed to go on a tour if I remember correctly.
Didn’t the wind force them to re-skin a large part of it last winter?
I think it was only one panel.
I seemed to remember though the whole structure wasn't really designed to last permanently. No idea what happened when it was given away to private sector, a huge amount of work was undertaken, but I didn't follow what exactly they were doing.
As a non- Conservative it would be great news if she made the runoff, but as a citizen of the UK the thought that she might prevail is too shocking to contemplate.
You know, at the start of the contest I was excited about Penny (and Kemi) and felt it was a worthwhile gamble that could pay off for the Tories and lead to an exciting reinvention.
Now we’re down to the last 3 I’m increasingly of the view that none of them are magic bullets that are going to solve the Tories’ woes, and indeed it has to be highly possible that all 3 will lead them to GE disaster - for different reasons.
I am really disappointed that Penny turned out to be such a damp squib.
The only thing I can take away from this contest is that Kemi is most likely going to be the party leader someday.
So far Truss has been running away from the tax rises and trying to avoid any responsibility.
This will change in the final 2 . She might be favourite but I don’t think it’s impossible for Sunak to overtake her .
I am still hopeful Penny makes final 2 and Lightweight Lizzy is knocked out today. I will laugh and dance all evening.
The way Truss went up yesterday was suspicious was it not. Sunak May feel he beats Penny more easily than Liz, so rigs todays vote. The best way to do this would have started yesterday is 20 Rishi supporters voting Liz yesterday to fool the right, and switching those plus ten or 15 more to Penny today - those 35 more for Penny knocks Truss out.
Remember you heard it here first.
It’s a dangerous risky game because his total could have dropped and the media would be all over him losing momentum .
I’d do it.
You got to remember it’s not full 30 votes off Rishi total so he suddenly drops 30, if he has been sensibly lending them already. He’s got extra votes coming today as well as those available yet to be on his total yesterday cause he lent to Liz.
If Sunak has lent Liz votes yesterday as the comentors believe, it’s now in Sunak’s power and gift to knock Truss out today and bring Boris and continuity Boris to an end.
It would be naff politics from Rishi’s camp not to remove Truss from the ballot today, on that basis he will go for it, he will lend Penny about 30 votes to put Liz out.
This is a political betting site, we have to consider the likelihood that all the thoughtful ideas how it should go based on tribes and ideology can go out the window, because Sunak’s team do have both dozens to spare they can use and it would be dum not to use them.
If you are in it to win it, it would be dum not to game the system. So is it gamaable? Yes. Does he have the numbers to chose his opponent? Yes. So is his team too dumb or scared of the daily mail front page to do it?
So far Truss has been running away from the tax rises and trying to avoid any responsibility.
This will change in the final 2 . She might be favourite but I don’t think it’s impossible for Sunak to overtake her .
I am still hopeful Penny makes final 2 and Lightweight Lizzy is knocked out today. I will laugh and dance all evening.
The way Truss went up yesterday was suspicious was it not. Sunak May feel he beats Penny more easily than Liz, so rigs todays vote. The best way to do this would have started yesterday is 20 Rishi supporters voting Liz yesterday to fool the right, and switching those plus ten or 15 more to Penny today - those 35 more for Penny knocks Truss out.
Remember you heard it here first.
It’s a dangerous risky game because his total could have dropped and the media would be all over him losing momentum .
I’d do it.
You got to remember it’s not full 30 votes off Rishi total so he suddenly drops 30, if he has been lending them already. He’s got extra votes coming today as well as those available yet to be on his total yesterday cause he lent to Liz.
If Sunak has lent Liz votes yesterday as the comentors believe, it’s now in Sunak’s power and gift to knock Truss out today and bring Boris and continuity Boris to an end.
It would be naff politics from Rishi’s camp not to remove Truss from the ballot today, on that basis he will go for it, he will lend Penny about 30 votes to put Liz out.
This is a political betting site, we have to consider the likelihood that all the thoughtful ideas how it should go based on tribes and ideology can go out the window, because Sunak’s team do have both dozens to spare they can use and it would be dum not to use them.
If you are in it to win it, it would be dum not to game the system. So is it gamaable? Yes. Does he have the numbers to chose his opponent? Yes. So is his team too dumb or scared of the daily mail front page to do it?
What do you think is the true level of support for Sunak? About 150?
What is so very different about this leadership contest compared to previous ones is that there is no possibility of anyone volunteering to drop out and have their opponent crowned. None. They're going to be bitterly fighting long after a "winner" is declared.
So far Truss has been running away from the tax rises and trying to avoid any responsibility.
This will change in the final 2 . She might be favourite but I don’t think it’s impossible for Sunak to overtake her .
I am still hopeful Penny makes final 2 and Lightweight Lizzy is knocked out today. I will laugh and dance all evening.
The way Truss went up yesterday was suspicious was it not. Sunak May feel he beats Penny more easily than Liz, so rigs todays vote. The best way to do this would have started yesterday is 20 Rishi supporters voting Liz yesterday to fool the right, and switching those plus ten or 15 more to Penny today - those 35 more for Penny knocks Truss out.
Remember you heard it here first.
It’s a dangerous risky game because his total could have dropped and the media would be all over him losing momentum .
I’d do it.
If Sunak has lent Liz votes yesterday as the comentors believe, it’s now in Sunak’s power and gift to knock Truss out today and bring Boris and continuity Boris to an end.
It would be naff politics from Rishi’s camp not to remove Truss from the ballot today, on that basis he will go for it, he will lend Penny about 30 votes to put Liz out.
This is a political betting site, we have to consider the likelihood that all the thoughtful ideas how it should go based on tribes and ideology can go out the window, because Sunak’s team do have both dozens to spare they can use and it would be dum not to use them.
If you are in it to win it, it would be dum not to game the system. So is it gamaable? Yes. Does he have the numbers to chose his opponent? Yes. So is his team too dumb or scared of the daily mail front page to do it?
There has been a suggestion that he thinks Liz is an easier opponent than Penny. I think the majority on here disagree with that assessment, but if that holds true he won’t be doing any gaming to save Mordaunt.
I guess Penny can do the hopey changey stuff which is dangerous, but then Liz can do the Brexiteer-Darling-of-the-Right stuff which I think is even more dangerous. He’s got a chance of exposing Penny as lightweight and woke. He can’t expose Liz for anything because it’s already factored in.
What is so very different about this leadership contest compared to previous ones is that there is no possibility of anyone volunteering to drop out and have their opponent crowned. None. They're going to be bitterly fighting long after a "winner" is declared.
I don't think you're going to see a sore loser like Hunt turning his nose down at Defence again this time.
It will be bitter until the votes are cast, but I think both Truss and Rishi can work together whoever wins.
See the way they were able to co-operate to pull the plug on the Sky debate in order to stop attacking each other.
So far Truss has been running away from the tax rises and trying to avoid any responsibility.
This will change in the final 2 . She might be favourite but I don’t think it’s impossible for Sunak to overtake her .
I am still hopeful Penny makes final 2 and Lightweight Lizzy is knocked out today. I will laugh and dance all evening.
The way Truss went up yesterday was suspicious was it not. Sunak May feel he beats Penny more easily than Liz, so rigs todays vote. The best way to do this would have started yesterday is 20 Rishi supporters voting Liz yesterday to fool the right, and switching those plus ten or 15 more to Penny today - those 35 more for Penny knocks Truss out.
Remember you heard it here first.
It’s a dangerous risky game because his total could have dropped and the media would be all over him losing momentum .
I’d do it.
You got to remember it’s not full 30 votes off Rishi total so he suddenly drops 30, if he has been lending them already. He’s got extra votes coming today as well as those available yet to be on his total yesterday cause he lent to Liz.
If Sunak has lent Liz votes yesterday as the comentors believe, it’s now in Sunak’s power and gift to knock Truss out today and bring Boris and continuity Boris to an end.
It would be naff politics from Rishi’s camp not to remove Truss from the ballot today, on that basis he will go for it, he will lend Penny about 30 votes to put Liz out.
This is a political betting site, we have to consider the likelihood that all the thoughtful ideas how it should go based on tribes and ideology can go out the window, because Sunak’s team do have both dozens to spare they can use and it would be dum not to use them.
If you are in it to win it, it would be dum not to game the system. So is it gamaable? Yes. Does he have the numbers to chose his opponent? Yes. So is his team too dumb or scared of the daily mail front page to do it?
What do you think is the true level of support for Sunak? About 150?
Sunak has to go all out today to win big. His pitch to the membership is that I am the clear choice of the MPs and you should back them (and me). If its close he loses that USP and it will get very hairy for him.
So far Truss has been running away from the tax rises and trying to avoid any responsibility.
This will change in the final 2 . She might be favourite but I don’t think it’s impossible for Sunak to overtake her .
I am still hopeful Penny makes final 2 and Lightweight Lizzy is knocked out today. I will laugh and dance all evening.
The way Truss went up yesterday was suspicious was it not. Sunak May feel he beats Penny more easily than Liz, so rigs todays vote. The best way to do this would have started yesterday is 20 Rishi supporters voting Liz yesterday to fool the right, and switching those plus ten or 15 more to Penny today - those 35 more for Penny knocks Truss out.
Remember you heard it here first.
It’s a dangerous risky game because his total could have dropped and the media would be all over him losing momentum .
I’d do it.
You got to remember it’s not full 30 votes off Rishi total so he suddenly drops 30, if he has been lending them already. He’s got extra votes coming today as well as those available yet to be on his total yesterday cause he lent to Liz.
If Sunak has lent Liz votes yesterday as the comentors believe, it’s now in Sunak’s power and gift to knock Truss out today and bring Boris and continuity Boris to an end.
It would be naff politics from Rishi’s camp not to remove Truss from the ballot today, on that basis he will go for it, he will lend Penny about 30 votes to put Liz out.
This is a political betting site, we have to consider the likelihood that all the thoughtful ideas how it should go based on tribes and ideology can go out the window, because Sunak’s team do have both dozens to spare they can use and it would be dum not to use them.
If you are in it to win it, it would be dum not to game the system. So is it gamaable? Yes. Does he have the numbers to chose his opponent? Yes. So is his team too dumb or scared of the daily mail front page to do it?
What do you think is the true level of support for Sunak? About 150?
Sunak has to go all out today to win big. His pitch to the membership is that I am the clear choice of the MPs and you should back them (and me). If its close he loses that USP and it will get very hairy for him.
I was just thinking the same. I don't think there's much difference between facing Mordaunt and Truss as far as he's concerned, so he may just go for the most number of votes to put pressure on the membership.
What is so very different about this leadership contest compared to previous ones is that there is no possibility of anyone volunteering to drop out and have their opponent crowned. None. They're going to be bitterly fighting long after a "winner" is declared.
I don't think you're going to see a sore loser like Hunt turning his nose down at Defence again this time.
It will be bitter until the votes are cast, but I think both Truss and Rishi can work together whoever wins.
See the way they were able to co-operate to pull the plug on the Sky debate in order to stop attacking each other.
"A question for Liz, what do you regret most, voting remain or being a Liberal Democrat?"
So far Truss has been running away from the tax rises and trying to avoid any responsibility.
This will change in the final 2 . She might be favourite but I don’t think it’s impossible for Sunak to overtake her .
I am still hopeful Penny makes final 2 and Lightweight Lizzy is knocked out today. I will laugh and dance all evening.
The way Truss went up yesterday was suspicious was it not. Sunak May feel he beats Penny more easily than Liz, so rigs todays vote. The best way to do this would have started yesterday is 20 Rishi supporters voting Liz yesterday to fool the right, and switching those plus ten or 15 more to Penny today - those 35 more for Penny knocks Truss out.
Remember you heard it here first.
It’s a dangerous risky game because his total could have dropped and the media would be all over him losing momentum .
I’d do it.
You got to remember it’s not full 30 votes off Rishi total so he suddenly drops 30, if he has been lending them already. He’s got extra votes coming today as well as those available yet to be on his total yesterday cause he lent to Liz.
If Sunak has lent Liz votes yesterday as the comentors believe, it’s now in Sunak’s power and gift to knock Truss out today and bring Boris and continuity Boris to an end.
It would be naff politics from Rishi’s camp not to remove Truss from the ballot today, on that basis he will go for it, he will lend Penny about 30 votes to put Liz out.
This is a political betting site, we have to consider the likelihood that all the thoughtful ideas how it should go based on tribes and ideology can go out the window, because Sunak’s team do have both dozens to spare they can use and it would be dum not to use them.
If you are in it to win it, it would be dum not to game the system. So is it gamaable? Yes. Does he have the numbers to chose his opponent? Yes. So is his team too dumb or scared of the daily mail front page to do it?
What do you think is the true level of support for Sunak? About 150?
Sunak has to go all out today to win big. His pitch to the membership is that I am the clear choice of the MPs and you should back them (and me). If its close he loses that USP and it will get very hairy for him.
That's the equivalent of Liz Cheney pitching to Wyoming Republicans that she is the choice of Capitol Hill.
So far Truss has been running away from the tax rises and trying to avoid any responsibility.
This will change in the final 2 . She might be favourite but I don’t think it’s impossible for Sunak to overtake her .
I am still hopeful Penny makes final 2 and Lightweight Lizzy is knocked out today. I will laugh and dance all evening.
The way Truss went up yesterday was suspicious was it not. Sunak May feel he beats Penny more easily than Liz, so rigs todays vote. The best way to do this would have started yesterday is 20 Rishi supporters voting Liz yesterday to fool the right, and switching those plus ten or 15 more to Penny today - those 35 more for Penny knocks Truss out.
Remember you heard it here first.
It’s a dangerous risky game because his total could have dropped and the media would be all over him losing momentum .
I’d do it.
You got to remember it’s not full 30 votes off Rishi total so he suddenly drops 30, if he has been lending them already. He’s got extra votes coming today as well as those available yet to be on his total yesterday cause he lent to Liz.
If Sunak has lent Liz votes yesterday as the comentors believe, it’s now in Sunak’s power and gift to knock Truss out today and bring Boris and continuity Boris to an end.
It would be naff politics from Rishi’s camp not to remove Truss from the ballot today, on that basis he will go for it, he will lend Penny about 30 votes to put Liz out.
This is a political betting site, we have to consider the likelihood that all the thoughtful ideas how it should go based on tribes and ideology can go out the window, because Sunak’s team do have both dozens to spare they can use and it would be dum not to use them.
If you are in it to win it, it would be dum not to game the system. So is it gamaable? Yes. Does he have the numbers to chose his opponent? Yes. So is his team too dumb or scared of the daily mail front page to do it?
What do you think is the true level of support for Sunak? About 150?
Sunak has to go all out today to win big. His pitch to the membership is that I am the clear choice of the MPs and you should back them (and me). If its close he loses that USP and it will get very hairy for him.
I was just thinking the same. I don't think there's much difference between facing Mordaunt and Truss as far as he's concerned, so he may just go for the most number of votes to put pressure on the membership.
In one -on-one debates Mordaunt may be weak against Sunak, but Truss would be calamitous.
LATEST **MP loyal to Penny Mordaunt concedes** The MP tells me "Liz has pushed us out" blaming criticism over her record in the Tory Press. He says: "[It] looks like a Rishi v Liz summer contest. The only winner from that will be our Opponents. Both will be damaged." #ToryLeader https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1549762704558153734
So far Truss has been running away from the tax rises and trying to avoid any responsibility.
This will change in the final 2 . She might be favourite but I don’t think it’s impossible for Sunak to overtake her .
I am still hopeful Penny makes final 2 and Lightweight Lizzy is knocked out today. I will laugh and dance all evening.
The way Truss went up yesterday was suspicious was it not. Sunak May feel he beats Penny more easily than Liz, so rigs todays vote. The best way to do this would have started yesterday is 20 Rishi supporters voting Liz yesterday to fool the right, and switching those plus ten or 15 more to Penny today - those 35 more for Penny knocks Truss out.
Remember you heard it here first.
It’s a dangerous risky game because his total could have dropped and the media would be all over him losing momentum .
I’d do it.
You got to remember it’s not full 30 votes off Rishi total so he suddenly drops 30, if he has been lending them already. He’s got extra votes coming today as well as those available yet to be on his total yesterday cause he lent to Liz.
If Sunak has lent Liz votes yesterday as the comentors believe, it’s now in Sunak’s power and gift to knock Truss out today and bring Boris and continuity Boris to an end.
It would be naff politics from Rishi’s camp not to remove Truss from the ballot today, on that basis he will go for it, he will lend Penny about 30 votes to put Liz out.
This is a political betting site, we have to consider the likelihood that all the thoughtful ideas how it should go based on tribes and ideology can go out the window, because Sunak’s team do have both dozens to spare they can use and it would be dum not to use them.
If you are in it to win it, it would be dum not to game the system. So is it gamaable? Yes. Does he have the numbers to chose his opponent? Yes. So is his team too dumb or scared of the daily mail front page to do it?
What do you think is the true level of support for Sunak? About 150?
He is the only one to have stuck to his guns for a sane economic policy for the next year or so, he has the best media skills, and is miles better in the chamber than probably any MP right now - I don’t like the way people say the Tory MP’s and the members are too dumb to appreciate this. If we are going to commentate and bet sensibly to say “but the Tories are too stupid to get this right” is arguably not very sensible.
To answer your question, this system is gamesable, and if you are serious about control and winning, like Team Boris when they ensured Hunt ahead of Gove, then why wouldn’t you?
Note to Daily Mail: the only way to have ensured this first round was free fair and democratic would have been to copy the example of mother of parliaments and not allow secret ballots to be used. Why does this first stage need to be a secret ballot, it’s not used in parliament voting and simply allows this process to be bastardised.
It would certainly help us political bettors too wouldn’t it, if this round had been more democratic?
The United States will transfer four additional HIMARS light rocket launchers to Ukraine, announced US Defense Minister Lloyd Austin during the fourth meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group ("Ramstein format"). https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1549751292129673216
What is so very different about this leadership contest compared to previous ones is that there is no possibility of anyone volunteering to drop out and have their opponent crowned. None. They're going to be bitterly fighting long after a "winner" is declared.
I don't think you're going to see a sore loser like Hunt turning his nose down at Defence again this time.
It will be bitter until the votes are cast, but I think both Truss and Rishi can work together whoever wins.
See the way they were able to co-operate to pull the plug on the Sky debate in order to stop attacking each other.
"A question for Liz, what do you regret most, voting remain or being a Liberal Democrat?"
Work together? Ha!
Dunno - Kamila H virtually accused Biden of driving the school "busing" bus himself during one debate and yet she is now his Veep.
Lavrov gives the biggest official signal yet that Russia is planning to annex southern Ukraine.
"Now the geography has changed. It's not just Donetsk and Luhansk, it's Kherson, Zaporizhia, and several other territories. And this is an ongoing process, consistent and insistent." https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1549711941299470336
This is hardly a surprise, given their intent is the whole of Ukraine, sooner, or later.
LATEST **MP loyal to Penny Mordaunt concedes** The MP tells me "Liz has pushed us out" blaming criticism over her record in the Tory Press. He says: "[It] looks like a Rishi v Liz summer contest. The only winner from that will be our Opponents. Both will be damaged." #ToryLeader https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1549762704558153734
Please, no! But if that comes to pass Penny only has herself to blame. It was hers for the taking this time last week.
Lavrov gives the biggest official signal yet that Russia is planning to annex southern Ukraine.
"Now the geography has changed. It's not just Donetsk and Luhansk, it's Kherson, Zaporizhia, and several other territories. And this is an ongoing process, consistent and insistent." https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1549711941299470336
This is hardly a surprise, given their intent is the whole of Ukraine, sooner, or later.
He looks like he's aged quite a lot since the beginning of the war.
So far Truss has been running away from the tax rises and trying to avoid any responsibility.
This will change in the final 2 . She might be favourite but I don’t think it’s impossible for Sunak to overtake her .
I am still hopeful Penny makes final 2 and Lightweight Lizzy is knocked out today. I will laugh and dance all evening.
The way Truss went up yesterday was suspicious was it not. Sunak May feel he beats Penny more easily than Liz, so rigs todays vote. The best way to do this would have started yesterday is 20 Rishi supporters voting Liz yesterday to fool the right, and switching those plus ten or 15 more to Penny today - those 35 more for Penny knocks Truss out.
Remember you heard it here first.
It’s a dangerous risky game because his total could have dropped and the media would be all over him losing momentum .
I’d do it.
You got to remember it’s not full 30 votes off Rishi total so he suddenly drops 30, if he has been lending them already. He’s got extra votes coming today as well as those available yet to be on his total yesterday cause he lent to Liz.
If Sunak has lent Liz votes yesterday as the comentors believe, it’s now in Sunak’s power and gift to knock Truss out today and bring Boris and continuity Boris to an end.
It would be naff politics from Rishi’s camp not to remove Truss from the ballot today, on that basis he will go for it, he will lend Penny about 30 votes to put Liz out.
This is a political betting site, we have to consider the likelihood that all the thoughtful ideas how it should go based on tribes and ideology can go out the window, because Sunak’s team do have both dozens to spare they can use and it would be dum not to use them.
If you are in it to win it, it would be dum not to game the system. So is it gamaable? Yes. Does he have the numbers to chose his opponent? Yes. So is his team too dumb or scared of the daily mail front page to do it?
What do you think is the true level of support for Sunak? About 150?
Sunak has to go all out today to win big. His pitch to the membership is that I am the clear choice of the MPs and you should back them (and me). If its close he loses that USP and it will get very hairy for him.
My thinking too. Difference in our predictions is you assess his 'true' support a bit higher.
Personally I think there's a case for a final MPs vote after this one with just the last 2 on the ballot and the supporters of the 3rd place elimination hence having to choose between them. That way the members would get a clear idea of the relative MP preference for one over the other.
So far Truss has been running away from the tax rises and trying to avoid any responsibility.
This will change in the final 2 . She might be favourite but I don’t think it’s impossible for Sunak to overtake her .
I am still hopeful Penny makes final 2 and Lightweight Lizzy is knocked out today. I will laugh and dance all evening.
The way Truss went up yesterday was suspicious was it not. Sunak May feel he beats Penny more easily than Liz, so rigs todays vote. The best way to do this would have started yesterday is 20 Rishi supporters voting Liz yesterday to fool the right, and switching those plus ten or 15 more to Penny today - those 35 more for Penny knocks Truss out.
Remember you heard it here first.
It’s a dangerous risky game because his total could have dropped and the media would be all over him losing momentum .
I’d do it.
You got to remember it’s not full 30 votes off Rishi total so he suddenly drops 30, if he has been lending them already. He’s got extra votes coming today as well as those available yet to be on his total yesterday cause he lent to Liz.
If Sunak has lent Liz votes yesterday as the comentors believe, it’s now in Sunak’s power and gift to knock Truss out today and bring Boris and continuity Boris to an end.
It would be naff politics from Rishi’s camp not to remove Truss from the ballot today, on that basis he will go for it, he will lend Penny about 30 votes to put Liz out.
This is a political betting site, we have to consider the likelihood that all the thoughtful ideas how it should go based on tribes and ideology can go out the window, because Sunak’s team do have both dozens to spare they can use and it would be dum not to use them.
If you are in it to win it, it would be dum not to game the system. So is it gamaable? Yes. Does he have the numbers to chose his opponent? Yes. So is his team too dumb or scared of the daily mail front page to do it?
What do you think is the true level of support for Sunak? About 150?
Sunak has to go all out today to win big. His pitch to the membership is that I am the clear choice of the MPs and you should back them (and me). If its close he loses that USP and it will get very hairy for him.
I was just thinking the same. I don't think there's much difference between facing Mordaunt and Truss as far as he's concerned, so he may just go for the most number of votes to put pressure on the membership.
In one -on-one debates Mordaunt may be weak against Sunak, but Truss would be calamitous.
True. But there’s a danger 100,000 members vote for her anyway. Penny won’t get those numbers of zombie votes.
By the way @Leon, I only just watched that video of Tim Peake being interviewed by Richard Madeley that you sent.
Most successful British astronaut of all time says these aren’t an earthly technology, the debate is really whether they’re alien drones or time travellers or something else. British public shrugs, British establishment has nothing to say either.
Meanwhile in the US the legislative noose tightens, new UAP whistleblower protection laws passing through both houses of Congress as we speak.
Did you see Lue Elizondo’s formal submission to the Pentagon Inspector General, which was recently released? He named specific individuals who he said illegally blocked information from flowing up the chain of command and who destroyed evidence, because it clashed with their religious beliefs. And directed the IG to the sever location of a 23 min long video that he indicates represents irrefutable proof that Dorothy’s not in Kansas.
Criminal penalty for lying on that form is oh, only 20 years.
My present supposition is that this is all dark psy-ops in the US government, either to confuse the Chinese or to cover some genuinely amazing tech that the US has developed. But the spooks are exploiting/harnessing a core of true believers, who think there really IS something unworldly Up There, despite the notable lack of hard evidence
Yes I remember you saying, Joe Rogan has flipped to this view too. It doesn’t make a great deal of sense to me because it assumes a level of collaboration between competing interests that I find implausible.
Also there’s little reason for secret tech to appear so regularly and casually in front of US military assets in such a way that videos and data leak into the public domain. Occasional mishaps and miscommunications happen between joint chiefs but some US navy pilots repot this happens ALL THE TIME. As in almost every day over a two year assignment as per one pilot.
All in all yours seems a far more complicated conspiracy than simply, it’s as Tim Peake summarises. Not govt, not a non-state actor but off world however you wish to define that. Given the vastness of space and time, it’s quite the paradox to paraphrase Fermi, if this is not the answer.
What is so very different about this leadership contest compared to previous ones is that there is no possibility of anyone volunteering to drop out and have their opponent crowned. None. They're going to be bitterly fighting long after a "winner" is declared.
I don't think you're going to see a sore loser like Hunt turning his nose down at Defence again this time.
It will be bitter until the votes are cast, but I think both Truss and Rishi can work together whoever wins.
See the way they were able to co-operate to pull the plug on the Sky debate in order to stop attacking each other.
It isn't so much the candidates that are the problem, it is the factions behind them!
The government has granted development consent for the new Sizewell C nuclear power plant on the Suffolk coast.
The project, mainly funded by the French energy company EDF, is expected to cost in the region of £20bn.
Blimey, sounds quite cheap tbh.
Why do we outsource this stuff to the French govt rather than setting up our own national champion?
Because EDF is a company with a lot of expertise in this, its something they have a competitive advantage in and they'll do it for their best value for money.
Any state-owned "national champion" would be a bloated mess of a 'company' that would operate instead to the advantage of "stakeholders" and lobbyists and bailed out by the taxpayers time and again. 👎
But EDF is state-owned. And yet is "a company with a lot of expertise" who have found a "competitive advantage".
So there is no impediment whatsoever in being state-owned and commercially excellent. In your own words. Yet you oppose it...
Indeed this was exactly the point of my question. We threw the baby out with the bath water with privatisation and forgot that the benefits it brings are down to the implied incentive structure and little else. It’s perfectly possible to create an efficient state owned company if you’re careful about it, as is shown around the world.
Some countries understand strategic resilience and some don’t. Unfortunately we sold off our strategic resilience to fund our structural current account deficit. Sad.
By the way Bart, the “private sector” makes the key components for our nuclear powered subs. But really that’s a charade. It’s a ring fenced unit within Rolls Royce that decades after the Thatcher bail out, still benefits from cost plus govt contracts and has very little turnover of staff, because a) it’s such a cushy number, b) they have to be security cleared and pretty much only employ British nationals.
So it’s private sector but without the upside. And in a similar way, it’s possible to create state sector but without the downside. I’m a Tory at heart but at the first opportunity I’d be nationalising Gupta’s steel interests, as well as the oil refineries owned by Essar and Gary Klesch. Let more competent private sector people run them, with pay structures inversely proportional to the level of state subsidy required to keep them running in the national interest.
I can see where you're coming from, but it's an irrelevance in this case. Our nationalised power company would not have any expertise in building new nuclear power stations, as the government has not ordered any for thirty years. - and some governments were rather cold on nuclear power as well.
It's worth emphasising how crap we are at doing these sort of long term projects where long term knowledge / specialist skills are required.
Nuclear power stations is 1 example, unless you continually build them one after another you quickly lose the knowledge required to build them. Equally we treat railways as stop start one off projects when we really do need to be planning what occurs after HS2 so the specialists have their next project ready to go.
That's very true for railways. During the Thatcher / Major governments, many hundreds of miles of railways were electrified. During the 13 years of Labour government that followed, only 9 miles were electrified (Kidsgrove to Crewe). (*) Lots of useful skills and knowledge were lost.
The government should (and in fact, should still) commit to a rolling program, where one line is completed and people move onto the next. Instead, we get four major projects announced at once, and when the first runs into problems due to lack of experience, prices go up.
(*) Never trust Labour with the railways ...
Don't trust either of them. The Tories brought in a private franchising structure so stupid that nobody else in the world copied it, and sold off the infrastructure in such a lax way that the private sector killed a load of people then needed rescuing. And then Labour did little to change the stupid for less stupid.
BTW, the expertise was lost before Labour had the chance to fuck things up. The multi-year hiatus in ordering new trains was enough to bankrupt and close the train manufacturing industry (bar 1 factory), the Rail Technical Centre was sold off and lost, the engineers flitted away.
We then ended up not able to do the basics like string up wires. Or re-signal the "victorian infrastructure" that Shapps Green seems obsessed with. The lunacy of the proposed Manchester South scheme as one example.
What we need is professionals running the shop. Neither party have offered that for decades, so trying to blame one lot for not fixing the other lot's mess is partisan silliness - BOTH were bad.
You can go away with the "private sector killed a load of people" sh*t. Yes, Railtrack had problems. But, in case you had not noticed, so did BR in the decades before. The list is long and inglorious. Mentioning things like Hatfield and not mentioning the likes of Crowden, Clapham, Stafford, Cannon Street, Purley Belgrove, Lockington (all fatal crashes in the ten years before privatisation) is odd.
Unless nationalised deaths are fine, privatised ones are evil?
Not at all! But when there are a list of accidents directly caused by Railtrack not only not maintaining the tracks but not knowing what condition they were in, its hard to argue that the private operator and the structure that was created specifically to be like that wasn't directly responsible.
Its not private ownership as a concept that killed them, its the specific private ownership structure and a total lack of regulation that did it. Would BR have had those accidents? Its possible, possibly different ones as I doubt they would have screwed up that badly.
ISTR you volunteer on a preserved line? I assume then that you know that for every one of the crashes you mention and all the ones before it, the industry looked at what happened and learned lessons and wrote new processes to avoid a repeat. And most of the ones you listed - Purley, Cowden, Stafford, Bellgrove, Cannon Street - were driver errors as opposed to infrastructure failures. As opposed to the Railtrack era crashes where it was crap maintenance done at minimum cost for maximum profits.
I might suggest you are wrong on that. As an example off the top of my head, Clapham Junction was caused by crap maintenance done at minimum cost. (Not that I blame the poor sod who did the work...)
And you might notice that drivers were part of the privatised parts of the system: and as you say, that's been *much* better since privatisation.AS has lack of fatal crashes called by train maintenance failures. You can't have it both ways.
I wasn't aware that I was trying to have it any way. If you want to excuse Railtrack thats up to you. On the bright side they went bust and we don't have to worry about them any more.
If you want to excuse BR for its similar rate of crashes, that's up to you.
The bright side is that we had 12 years with no passenger fatalities in a train crash, and 15 years with only one (the Stonehaven derailment). That's something to feel good about, even if it did happen in a part-privatised system. Long may it continue.
Lot of apples to oranges comparison here, particularly because of the introduction of TPWS which makes it much more difficult for drivers to SPAD significantly. That's not really anything to do with ownership structure, and is much more just that this sort of technology has developed and become mature enough to deploy.
IMHO a big part of the problem with the railway network is a safety obsession which drives costs up by an order of magnitude from otherwise comparable industries. Given that you were statistically safer sat on a british railway train than in your own living room in the 1960s, and passenger deaths are now a fraction of what they were then, one suspects that costs could probably be cut by cutting back on safety without huge public detriment.
What is so very different about this leadership contest compared to previous ones is that there is no possibility of anyone volunteering to drop out and have their opponent crowned. None. They're going to be bitterly fighting long after a "winner" is declared.
I don't think you're going to see a sore loser like Hunt turning his nose down at Defence again this time.
It will be bitter until the votes are cast, but I think both Truss and Rishi can work together whoever wins.
See the way they were able to co-operate to pull the plug on the Sky debate in order to stop attacking each other.
It isn't so much the candidates that are the problem, it is the factions behind them!
And Bozo quietly cheering on every minor disaster...
I guess they don't think much of net zero either, then
Well quite.
I suspect the real reason labour supporters don't want Truss is under her the tories might soft pedal somewhat on net zero.
At the next election that would leave labour as the main party that wants to take your car and your boiler tomorrow. Oh dear.
With my Labour supporter hat on I would love for Truss to be elected. With my UK citizen hat on not so much.
Truss is very poor candidate, but I am just pointing out that it might not all be plain sailing for SKS next time out.
Oh absolutely, the last thing Labour should do is act like it can just sit back and win by default. Labour should win (in sense of being biggest party or at least putting uncoalitionable Tories out of office) but only if they turn up.
Comments
The real question with such developments, in London, in the long term, is transport links
During the boom times, it over reaches, and someone builds something mad which lies empty for yonks. But then on the next upward swing it is quickly taken up and becomes a success, and we forget it was ever a white elephant, meanwhile the next over-ambitious developer is having crazy dreams
Even the fucking Millennium Dome has ended up a big success (if you ignore the initial cost to us all)
In fact, it would be a bad sign for London is these things did NOT happen. It would men no one was gambling on the city's growth and future success
I have a way with women domestic appliances...
One (serious) theory is that the problem is the opposite (too much serotonin, and drugs which induce even more kick start the brain into having a proper clear out of the stuff).
The way Truss went up yesterday was suspicious was it not. Sunak May feel he beats Penny more easily than Liz, so rigs todays vote. The best way to do this would have started yesterday is 20 Rishi supporters voting Liz yesterday to fool the right, and switching those plus ten or 15 more to Penny today - those 35 more for Penny knocks Truss out.
Remember you heard it here first.
Quite right!
Which they sadly got rid of.
But they should bring back.
The Eye was supposed to go on a tour if I remember correctly.
Draghi - as an extra political PM states he will only stay as PM in a genuine unity government with wide support and is not minded to remake a new Draghi led government with a smaller coalition
M5S - have a shopping list of spending demands on the slate of bills for the program of government. Their remaining representatives are split on whether to give
confidence.
Forza, Lega - will not serve with M5S
Seems the only possible way out would be a further M5S split that renders them an irrelevance (a direction of travel they are on tbh, but probably not fast enough to save this government), so government continues minus a small M5S rump.
The odds remain on a likely 25th September GE therefore.
Jumper sales to soar.
https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/o2-arena-millennium-dome-storm-eunice-b2018247.html
I seemed to remember though the whole structure wasn't really designed to last permanently. No idea what happened when it was given away to private sector, a huge amount of work was undertaken, but I didn't follow what exactly they were doing.
"Whoa!
The Dutch people at a local event chanting in support of their farmers!
‘Boeren, Boeren’
I’ve never seen anything like it.
🔥🔥🔥"
https://twitter.com/SaiKate108/status/1548952273912401920?s=20&t=nc1GwTENfa7ADA_IoH_6Rw
Now Boris has restored the whip because Ellwood is going to vote the right way? I can't keep up...
So should we have a quick comp, me administering?
Rules: Predict the exact result. Score = 100 minus aggregate votes out.
I'll disadvantage myself by going first -
Sunak: 140
Truss: 109
Mordaunt: 107
We are down to Squeal Thee Eel and T'APETH
T 117
M 116
As a non- Conservative it would be great news if she made the runoff, but as a citizen of the UK the thought that she might prevail is too shocking to contemplate.
It has to be Sunak v Mordaunt...doesn't it?
Mordaunt 116
Truss 111
T105
M 96
Now we’re down to the last 3 I’m increasingly of the view that none of them are magic bullets that are going to solve the Tories’ woes, and indeed it has to be highly possible that all 3 will lead them to GE disaster - for different reasons.
I am really disappointed that Penny turned out to be such a damp squib.
The only thing I can take away from this contest is that Kemi is most likely going to be the party leader someday.
You got to remember it’s not full 30 votes off Rishi total so he suddenly drops 30, if he has been sensibly lending them already. He’s got extra votes coming today as well as those available yet to be on his total yesterday cause he lent to Liz.
If Sunak has lent Liz votes yesterday as the comentors believe, it’s now in Sunak’s power and gift to knock Truss out today and bring Boris and continuity Boris to an end.
It would be naff politics from Rishi’s camp not to remove Truss from the ballot today, on that basis he will go for it, he will lend Penny about 30 votes to put Liz out.
This is a political betting site, we have to consider the likelihood that all the thoughtful ideas how it should go based on tribes and ideology can go out the window, because Sunak’s team do have both dozens to spare they can use and it would be dum not to use them.
If you are in it to win it, it would be dum not to game the system. So is it gamaable? Yes. Does he have the numbers to chose his opponent? Yes. So is his team too dumb or scared of the daily mail front page to do it?
https://twitter.com/cjdrew94/status/1549715857823223808
(*) Sorry, that's the best I could do...
I guess Penny can do the hopey changey stuff which is dangerous, but then Liz can do the Brexiteer-Darling-of-the-Right stuff which I think is even more dangerous. He’s got a chance of exposing Penny as lightweight and woke. He can’t expose Liz for anything because it’s already factored in.
T 118
M 110
It will be bitter until the votes are cast, but I think both Truss and Rishi can work together whoever wins.
See the way they were able to co-operate to pull the plug on the Sky debate in order to stop attacking each other.
I suspect the real reason labour supporters don't want Truss is under her the tories might soft pedal somewhat on net zero.
At the next election that would leave labour as the main party that wants to take your car and your boiler tomorrow. Oh dear.
S 142
M 106
T 109
However updating based on yesterday's results, keeping the same transfer rates I'd baked in is:
S 136
M 98
T 121
I expect the final result will be somewhere between the two though, since I don't really understand yesterday's result at all.
T 115
M 112
This makes sense and was much less risky than Sunaks support lending Truss votes .
If we assume that say 10 TTs voters did this it would drop Truss down to 76 v 92 for Mordaunt .
Work together? Ha!
That's the equivalent of Liz Cheney pitching to Wyoming Republicans that she is the choice of Capitol Hill.
Me
Driver
Ishmael
David
ProRata
Bartho
Boy
Need lots more (!) to attain critical mass and make it a trophy that's going to have real prestige and mean something.
**MP loyal to Penny Mordaunt concedes**
The MP tells me "Liz has pushed us out" blaming criticism over her record in the Tory Press.
He says: "[It] looks like a Rishi v Liz summer contest. The only winner from that will be our Opponents. Both will be damaged." #ToryLeader
https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1549762704558153734
To answer your question, this system is gamesable, and if you are serious about control and winning, like Team Boris when they ensured Hunt ahead of Gove, then why wouldn’t you?
Note to Daily Mail: the only way to have ensured this first round was free fair and democratic would have been to copy the example of mother of parliaments and not allow secret ballots to be used. Why does this first stage need to be a secret ballot, it’s not used in parliament voting and simply allows this process to be bastardised.
It would certainly help us political bettors too wouldn’t it, if this round had been more democratic?
https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1549751292129673216
Betfair next prime minister
2 Liz Truss 50%
2.64 Rishi Sunak 38%
7.8 Penny Mordaunt 13%
300 Dominic Raab
340 Keir Starmer
Next Conservative leader
1.96 Liz Truss 51%
2.7 Rishi Sunak 37%
8.4 Penny Mordaunt 12%
To be in final two
1.02 Rishi Sunak 98%
1.19 Liz Truss 84%
5 Penny Mordaunt 20%
"Now the geography has changed. It's not just Donetsk and Luhansk, it's Kherson, Zaporizhia, and several other territories. And this is an ongoing process, consistent and insistent."
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1549711941299470336
This is hardly a surprise, given their intent is the whole of Ukraine, sooner, or later.
M 85
T 122
M 110
T 110
Which would be amusing. Ellwood makes it a tie.
Truss 0
Mordaunt 1.2
Personally I think there's a case for a final MPs vote after this one with just the last 2 on the ballot and the supporters of the 3rd place elimination hence having to choose between them. That way the members would get a clear idea of the relative MP preference for one over the other.
M 75
T 122
Also there’s little reason for secret tech to appear so regularly and casually in front of US military assets in such a way that videos and data leak into the public domain. Occasional mishaps and miscommunications happen between joint chiefs but some US navy pilots repot this happens ALL THE TIME. As in almost every day over a two year assignment as per one pilot.
All in all yours seems a far more complicated conspiracy than simply, it’s as Tim Peake summarises. Not govt, not a non-state actor but off world however you wish to define that. Given the vastness of space and time, it’s quite the paradox to paraphrase Fermi, if this is not the answer.
IMHO a big part of the problem with the railway network is a safety obsession which drives costs up by an order of magnitude from otherwise comparable industries. Given that you were statistically safer sat on a british railway train than in your own living room in the 1960s, and passenger deaths are now a fraction of what they were then, one suspects that costs could probably be cut by cutting back on safety without huge public detriment.
"Incredible moment as former PM Theresa May refuses to clap for
@BorisJohnson
at his last PMQs"
https://twitter.com/ShehabKhan/status/1549749594908762116?s=20&t=GpkpbAyh42js_JPUv7iIRA
But I'll have a guess:
Sunak 133
Truss 114
Mordaunt 110
WAG*
Sunak: 134
Truss: 111
Mordaunt: 111
*Almost certainly very wrong.
Mordaunt 74
Truss 68
Boris Johnson write-ins 75
M 92
T 135
Wonder if she's making two...
It's turning into a full-on photoshoot...looks awfully like she thinks she's through.
https://twitter.com/mikeysmith/status/1549764918269861890
M 100
T 115