A betting note for future reference from the Tory leadership contest is that, for all the talk on this site in the run-up, and all the reasons why the Tories might want to look outside the usual choices, a party in office choosing a PM as well as a party leader has once again opted for someone who has very recently held one of the three great offices of state.
It follows a long, long line - Johnson had recently been Foreign Secretary, May was Home Secretary, Brown was Chancellor, Major was Chancellor, Callaghan was Foreign Secretary, Douglas-Home was Foreign Secretary, Macmillan was Chancellor, Eden was Foreign Secretary, Chamberlain was Chancellor, and Baldwin was Chancellor. Churchill was barely an exception - his most recent office was First Lord of the Admiralty, although that was in wartime and he'd been Chancellor and Home Secretary in the more distant past.
Partly due to lack of choice, but partly because there is time to grow into the role, parties have been willing to choose LOTOs who have much lighter CVs. Of election winning LOTOs, Cameron and Blair hadn't held ministerial office (shadow Education and Home respectively), Thatcher had been Education Secretary, Heath and Wilson had been Presidents of the Board of Trade.
In this leadership election so far, we've lost an Education Secretary (I know he had been Chancellor for a couple of days but it doesn't amount to experience), a Committee Chairman, a Trade Minister (and former Defence Secretary for a short time), a Minister of State, a recent Health Secretary who'd had a short stint as Chancellor a while ago, and a less recent former Foreign Secretary. We're left with a current Foreign Secretary and a man who was Chancellor until just days ago.
That, for me, is the betting lesson. In a leadership election when a party is in office, back the Big Beasts, lay the Rising Stars.
Betting lessons - I look at all the graphs OGH and TSE put at the top of threads showing on which candidates the betting money is going to and I always remind myself that the Bookies are rich and many punters lose their shirts
A betting note for future reference from the Tory leadership contest is that, for all the talk on this site in the run-up, and all the reasons why the Tories might want to look outside the usual choices, a party in office choosing a PM as well as a party leader has once again opted for someone who has very recently held one of the three great offices of state.
It follows a long, long line - Johnson had recently been Foreign Secretary, May was Home Secretary, Brown was Chancellor, Major was Chancellor, Callaghan was Foreign Secretary, Douglas-Home was Foreign Secretary, Macmillan was Chancellor, Eden was Foreign Secretary, Chamberlain was Chancellor, and Baldwin was Chancellor. Churchill was barely an exception - his most recent office was First Lord of the Admiralty, although that was in wartime and he'd been Chancellor and Home Secretary in the more distant past.
Partly due to lack of choice, but partly because there is time to grow into the role, parties have been willing to choose LOTOs who have much lighter CVs. Of election winning LOTOs, Cameron and Blair hadn't held ministerial office (shadow Education and Home respectively), Thatcher had been Education Secretary, Heath and Wilson had been Presidents of the Board of Trade.
In this leadership election so far, we've lost an Education Secretary (I know he had been Chancellor for a couple of days but it doesn't amount to experience), a Committee Chairman, a Trade Minister (and former Defence Secretary for a short time), a Minister of State, a recent Health Secretary who'd had a short stint as Chancellor a while ago, and a less recent former Foreign Secretary. We're left with a current Foreign Secretary and a man who was Chancellor until just days ago.
That, for me, is the betting lesson. In a leadership election when a party is in office, back the Big Beasts, lay the Rising Stars.
Sir Norfolk it is a veritable outrage that you missed Rehman Thingy off that list. With his experience as Minister for iPhone Videography.
I thought about including him, but it would have read as if I was implying Chishti wasn't a Big Beast. Nothing could be further from the truth, and Conservatives will rue the day.
The Biggest Beast! A giant! With that screen angle...
I voted Conservative in the council elections this year. I am considering not voting for the Conservatives again until they have changed their leadership election rules to give MPs the final say. Why should party members decide who is the prime minister, when a party is in government?
Why is an electorate of 358 preferable to one of 150,000?
Those 358 have a stronger need to choose someone who is sort of acceptable to the general public, or a fair few of them are down the job centre soon. And at some level, they know it.
The 150,000 have a massive temptation to choose the one who makes them feel good now and who cares about 2024?
And what's the problem with that? If they pick a duffer, they'll be out of office.
If that did happen, it would be interesting to see if moves are made to change the Tory system.
Choose a duffer, or a nutter in opposition and no real harm is done. Like you say, the punishment comes at the next election.
Chose a duffer, or a nutter while in government and you are handing them an lot of power over the country. And whilst they probably will be stopped eventually (see recent events), they can do an awful lot of harm in the meantime.
I voted Conservative in the council elections this year. I am considering not voting for the Conservatives again until they have changed their leadership election rules to give MPs the final say. Why should party members decide who is the prime minister, when a party is in government?
Why is an electorate of 358 preferable to one of 150,000?
Those 358 have a stronger need to choose someone who is sort of acceptable to the general public, or a fair few of them are down the job centre soon. And at some level, they know it.
The 150,000 have a massive temptation to choose the one who makes them feel good now and who cares about 2024?
And what's the problem with that? If they pick a duffer, they'll be out of office.
If that did happen, it would be interesting to see if moves are made to change the Tory system.
Choose a duffer, or a nutter in opposition and no real harm is done. Like you say, the punishment comes at the next election.
Chose a duffer, or a nutter while in government and you are handing them an lot of power over the country. And whilst they probably will be stopped eventually (see recent events), they can do an awful lot of harm in the meantime.
The country elected Tony Blair. He took this country into an illegal war and Labour's MPs left in place and allowed him to win another election.
Guido Fawkes is concerned that Tory members may not be able to afford to attend the hustings because of the cost of living crisis.
"There may now be a turnout problem with these debates, however. During a cost of living crisis the Tories have decided to charge for attendance, potentially putting off those interested in seeing the two candidates perform."
I voted Conservative in the council elections this year. I am considering not voting for the Conservatives again until they have changed their leadership election rules to give MPs the final say. Why should party members decide who is the prime minister, when a party is in government?
Why is an electorate of 358 preferable to one of 150,000?
Those 358 have a stronger need to choose someone who is sort of acceptable to the general public, or a fair few of them are down the job centre soon. And at some level, they know it.
The 150,000 have a massive temptation to choose the one who makes them feel good now and who cares about 2024?
And what's the problem with that? If they pick a duffer, they'll be out of office.
If that did happen, it would be interesting to see if moves are made to change the Tory system.
Choose a duffer, or a nutter in opposition and no real harm is done. Like you say, the punishment comes at the next election.
Chose a duffer, or a nutter while in government and you are handing them an lot of power over the country. And whilst they probably will be stopped eventually (see recent events), they can do an awful lot of harm in the meantime.
The country elected Tony Blair. He took this country into an illegal war and Labour's MPs left in place and allowed him to win another election.
Ultimately, him winning another election was more down to the electorate than Labour MPs.
I voted Conservative in the council elections this year. I am considering not voting for the Conservatives again until they have changed their leadership election rules to give MPs the final say. Why should party members decide who is the prime minister, when a party is in government?
Why is an electorate of 358 preferable to one of 150,000?
Those 358 have a stronger need to choose someone who is sort of acceptable to the general public, or a fair few of them are down the job centre soon. And at some level, they know it.
The 150,000 have a massive temptation to choose the one who makes them feel good now and who cares about 2024?
And what's the problem with that? If they pick a duffer, they'll be out of office.
If that did happen, it would be interesting to see if moves are made to change the Tory system.
Choose a duffer, or a nutter in opposition and no real harm is done. Like you say, the punishment comes at the next election.
Chose a duffer, or a nutter while in government and you are handing them an lot of power over the country. And whilst they probably will be stopped eventually (see recent events), they can do an awful lot of harm in the meantime.
The country elected Tony Blair. He took this country into an illegal war and Labour's MPs left in place and allowed him to win another election.
Hmm… not convinced I like all the stuff about Truss and her private life on here. Didn’t really think the Boris stuff was that fair game either - I was more concerned how disasterous he was as a PM rather than what he historically got up to in his private life.
Which reminds me of the Telegraph article saying can't afford these common holiday locations, here are cheaper alternatives....one being can't afford Bath for a weekend, try Bradford....yeah right, I can see your typical Telegraph reader doing that.
My guess the £5 is to try and minimize idiots organising block booking all tickets via a bot, so they can boast on social media of pwning the Tories by buying up all the husting tickets and then nobody being there....or actually turning up and causing a disruption.
Even with that, its obvious now that some Isabella Harving-Symthe type is going to turn up and chain themselves to something in the name of Stop Oil.
If half a dozen soap dodgers are prepared to buy £300 British Grand Prix tickets, only to get themselves arrested as the race starts, then it’s going to be difficult to avoid them being at any event anywhere this summer.
Why no East Midlands? Can non-Conservatives go (if they have £5 spare) last time when Cameron stood I went to a meeting in Leicestershire. -think it cost £1.
"More than 40 percent said having a ‘strong leader’ was more important than democracy and that ‘native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants’ — a racist belief known as the ‘great replacement theory’."
Isn't the British version of the 'great replacement theory' one where Farage kept referring to 'A city the size of Birmingham'. Not only Farage of course.
It always struck me that the image was intended to go further than just showing numbers in terms of a city's population.
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Shit. When was the last time Labour announced actual policies? They must feel on the front foot
Sounds more like scrapping actual policies.
These are terrible policies though, even I don't believe in nationalising National Grid/energy and I'm leftie.
Water I'm more luke warm on because it's failed under privatisation but hardly seems a priority at present.
Royal Mail is gone, what is nationalising it going to do? That's just pointlessly ideological.
Is that the sound of the Overton window shifting mildly to the right?
I thought nationalising natural monopolies was currently orthodoxy on the left.
Royal Mail isn't a natural monopoly though. It would make sense for only one person per day turning up at your door to deliver all the mail and parcels but in the real world there are blokes in vans dropping stuff off from all sorts of delivery firms.
It is, though, in terms of the state-enforced universal postage rate which doesn't penalise the rural areas, unlike many commercial couriers. Like BT, which was also a GPO element.
I wonder what the volume of letter delivery looks like these days compared to the past and where it is forecast to go. I have changed everything I can to electronic and get virtually no snail mail now.
So my deliveries are overwhelmingly parcels that don't come via Royal Mail, because the likes of Amazon now use the likes of their Flex programme to have people deliver them.
I get quite a lot of snail mail. Plenty of academic and society items, magazines, books, parcels.
Edit: and I don't live in the worst area for private courier charge gouging.
I seemed to remember reading volumes of letters in particular are down enormously.
A betting note for future reference from the Tory leadership contest is that, for all the talk on this site in the run-up, and all the reasons why the Tories might want to look outside the usual choices, a party in office choosing a PM as well as a party leader has once again opted for someone who has very recently held one of the three great offices of state.
It follows a long, long line - Johnson had recently been Foreign Secretary, May was Home Secretary, Brown was Chancellor, Major was Chancellor, Callaghan was Foreign Secretary, Douglas-Home was Foreign Secretary, Macmillan was Chancellor, Eden was Foreign Secretary, Chamberlain was Chancellor, and Baldwin was Chancellor. Churchill was barely an exception - his most recent office was First Lord of the Admiralty, although that was in wartime and he'd been Chancellor and Home Secretary in the more distant past.
Partly due to lack of choice, but partly because there is time to grow into the role, parties have been willing to choose LOTOs who have much lighter CVs. Of election winning LOTOs, Cameron and Blair hadn't held ministerial office (shadow Education and Home respectively), Thatcher had been Education Secretary, Heath and Wilson had been Presidents of the Board of Trade.
In this leadership election so far, we've lost an Education Secretary (I know he had been Chancellor for a couple of days but it doesn't amount to experience), a Committee Chairman, a Trade Minister (and former Defence Secretary for a short time), a Minister of State, a recent Health Secretary who'd had a short stint as Chancellor a while ago, and a less recent former Foreign Secretary. We're left with a current Foreign Secretary and a man who was Chancellor until just days ago.
That, for me, is the betting lesson. In a leadership election when a party is in office, back the Big Beasts, lay the Rising Stars.
Betting lessons - I look at all the graphs OGH and TSE put at the top of threads showing on which candidates the betting money is going to and I always remind myself that the Bookies are rich and many punters lose their shirts
Those graphs were mainly from Betfair Exchange, I think. It doesn't really matter to Betfair on which candidates money is going - they are making a percentage, but it's essentially punter v punter.
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
If they'd been against Truss, they could have absolutely destroyed the woman; it's not like the material wasn't there - she was a Lib Dem ffs.
That she was a Lib Dem is not a weakness. Churchill was once a Liberal too. People who evolve are more interesting than those who don't.
Tony Blair when he was young was an avowed Trotskist, while Darling, Milburn, Reid and Mandelson were all avowed Communists when they were young too. People change.
Changing your mind is fine. The thing about Truss is how polarised the changes are. Utterly convinced about one thing and then utterly convinced about the opposite. No nuance, It’s not an evolution, it’s chaos.
It is evolution, it is perfectly normal that once you have changed you accept your new position with the "zeal of the convert".
I was a Remainer at the start of the EU referendum campaign. I now have views in line with Truss's. Its not chaos, its evolution.
Flip-flopping back and forth rapidly at the drop of every opinion poll showing +1 to one side and then +1 to the other would be chaos. Not following with a zeal your new position once you've reached it.
" I was a remainer" . Pull the other one. You are the most reactionary poster on this site. You are the original young fogey Colonel Blimp. You might think making this claim adds cred to your position but it doesn't. It just points out to us that you are honest as Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Both of whom you clearly admire in spite of their obvious problem with telling the truth.
Oh give over the broken record. The fact that you're too thick to let the fact many people, not just myself, confirm I was pro-Remain penetrate your one-dimensional caricatured worldview of people just goes to show how stupid you are. People are more complicated than you can wrap your head around it seems.
I am not reactionary, Indeed I have frequently been called "woke" in a lot of the other debates on this site.
What I am is someone who unabashedly thinks that democracy and therefore nationalism is a very good thing and so too is low tax economics. I think internationalism undermines democracy, but that isn't reactionary - I wanted to see a more democratic EU which I thought was viable until Cameron's reforms failed which is when I switched to Leave and I haven't looked back since.
That you consider nationalism to be terrible is your own weakness, not mine.
I too think nationalism is a 'bad thing' on the whole. It's been the cause of many wars and has been repeatedly, and still is, used to stoke up hatred.
Overall, I cannot see what it's good for. We can cherish our history and our cultures without nationalism.
Agreed, but I also really value times when someone I disagree with lays out their views so clearly, as @BartholomewRoberts has done. I think it raises the tone of political debate, and prompts good discussions that can move people's thinking on.
I am interested in exploring this further. I think if I had to hang my hat on one aspect of our political system that I'd fight for, it would be democracy itself. In that sense I agree with Bart. But I also agree with Benpointer that valuing democracy doesn't mean you need to value nationalism, indeed nationalism more often stymies democracy than helps it (e.g. I think the EU could function more democratically if, throughout its development, nation states had been less important, and both hyper-local and supra-national groupings had been seen as the key ones to focus on).
Bart - can you say more about why you pin democracy to nationalism in this way? Specifically, can you answer why you think democracy works better at the national level than, say, a combination of much stronger regional assemblies with an overarching supra-national assembly (I'm tempted to cite the US as an example of what I mean, but as soon as you cite specific examples it is easy to focus on their specific flaws, so maybe better to keep the discussion theoretical).
In my view democracy at the national level is precisely the wrong scale to be working at - big enough to be impersonal and to leave many constituencies out in the cold (cf Scottish nationalism), but small enough to be unable to cope with the major issues we currently face (climate change, Chinese aggression, effective taxation of global businesses).
Nationalism and democracy go hand-in-hand. Nationalism is a belief that the people of the nation should run the nation, while democracy is a belief that those who run the nation should be elected. Having those of the nation elect those who run the nation is nationalist democracy and is a very good thing.
There antithesis of nationalism used to be imperialism. Nationalism arose in conflict to imperialism - a belief in your nation ruling over other nations. Anyone who seeks to rule over other countries is engaging in imperialism and undermining other nations nationalism.
The "wars" many people ascribe to nationalism should instead be ascribed to imperialism, which is nationalisms opposite, not nationalism.
Gandhi was an Indian nationalist, he wanted India ruled by Indians rather than Brits - there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Hitler was not a nationalist. He didn't want the French ruled by the French, he wanted them ruled by the Germans. He was an imperialist. Yes the name of his party included nationalist, but it also included the term socialist, sensible people recognise that there is more than just a name involved and he wasn't a socialist in the end - he wasn't a nationalist in the end either.
The people of the nation, electing those who run the nation, is modern democracy and I cherish that.
The opposite of nationalism nowadays tends to be more internationalism rather than imperialism, having unelected international bodies determine rules and laws. That too undermines democracy.
Nations are just fluid artificial constructs, surely you see that?
Britain is a prime example of that.
Medvedev says Ukraine “may lose what remains of its state sovereignty and disappear from the map of the world,” as if Lavrov’s remarks yesterday on Russia’s aims weren’t sufficiently clear... https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1550037890356461570
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Shit. When was the last time Labour announced actual policies? They must feel on the front foot
Sounds more like scrapping actual policies.
These are terrible policies though, even I don't believe in nationalising National Grid/energy and I'm leftie.
Water I'm more luke warm on because it's failed under privatisation but hardly seems a priority at present.
Royal Mail is gone, what is nationalising it going to do? That's just pointlessly ideological.
Is that the sound of the Overton window shifting mildly to the right?
I thought nationalising natural monopolies was currently orthodoxy on the left.
Royal Mail isn't a natural monopoly though. It would make sense for only one person per day turning up at your door to deliver all the mail and parcels but in the real world there are blokes in vans dropping stuff off from all sorts of delivery firms.
It is, though, in terms of the state-enforced universal postage rate which doesn't penalise the rural areas, unlike many commercial couriers. Like BT, which was also a GPO element.
I wonder what the volume of letter delivery looks like these days compared to the past and where it is forecast to go. I have changed everything I can to electronic and get virtually no snail mail now.
So my deliveries are overwhelmingly parcels that don't come via Royal Mail, because the likes of Amazon now use the likes of their Flex programme to have people deliver them.
I get quite a lot of snail mail. Plenty of academic and society items, magazines, books, parcels.
Edit: and I don't live in the worst area for private courier charge gouging.
I seemed to remember reading volumes of letters in particular are down enormously.
A few birthday cards, the occasional letter from a government department, and sh!tloads of junk mail that goes straight in the bin, polluting the environment, but probably stops Royal Mail going bankrupt?
Which reminds me of the Telegraph article saying can't afford these common holiday locations, here are cheaper alternatives....one being can't afford Bath for a weekend, try Bradford....yeah right, I can see your typical Telegraph reader doing that.
My guess the £5 is to try and minimize idiots organising block booking all tickets via a bot, so they can boast on social media of pwning the Tories by buying up all the husting tickets and then nobody being there....or actually turning up and causing a disruption.
Even with that, its obvious now that some Isabella Harving-Symthe type is going to turn up and chain themselves to something in the name of Stop Oil.
If half a dozen soap dodgers are prepared to buy £300 British Grand Prix tickets, only to get themselves arrested as the race starts, then it’s going to be difficult to avoid them being at any event anywhere this summer.
I was pleased to see that the tv coverage of the footy last night didn't show them and they got roundly booed at which point the commentator basically said its a protestor on the pitch, stewards dealt with it, moving on.
Remove the oxygen of publicity is the best response.
I voted Conservative in the council elections this year. I am considering not voting for the Conservatives again until they have changed their leadership election rules to give MPs the final say. Why should party members decide who is the prime minister, when a party is in government?
Why is an electorate of 358 preferable to one of 150,000?
Those 358 have a stronger need to choose someone who is sort of acceptable to the general public, or a fair few of them are down the job centre soon. And at some level, they know it.
The 150,000 have a massive temptation to choose the one who makes them feel good now and who cares about 2024?
And what's the problem with that? If they pick a duffer, they'll be out of office.
If that did happen, it would be interesting to see if moves are made to change the Tory system.
The logical way for the Tory members to act is "we probably lose in 2024 anyway so let's get someone in who at least will do things we want until then".
Team Truss obviously very happy. Team Sunak very happy. But perhaps the happiest people I’ve spoken to this afternoon are Labour people… Mordaunt was, by some way, the candidate that there were most worried about. They’ve been hoping for some time it would be Sunak V Truss. https://twitter.com/BenKentish/status/1549791598019575808
The problem with Mourdaunt was that people projected on her all their hopes and dreams and created the image of some sort of perfect Tory leader, but the brutal reality was that didn’t stack up. That and the Daily Mail did for her.
I was very much Team Penny, I don’t think anyone thought she was perfect. I think most people thought that her many strengths outweighed her weaknesses. The viciousness of the onslaught of briefings and what masquerades as journalism was in no way proportionate. It’s a very serious stain on the broad centre right space. I’m the bitterest I’ve been as a party member in a long time.
If they'd been against Truss, they could have absolutely destroyed the woman; it's not like the material wasn't there - she was a Lib Dem ffs.
That she was a Lib Dem is not a weakness. Churchill was once a Liberal too. People who evolve are more interesting than those who don't.
Tony Blair when he was young was an avowed Trotskist, while Darling, Milburn, Reid and Mandelson were all avowed Communists when they were young too. People change.
Changing your mind is fine. The thing about Truss is how polarised the changes are. Utterly convinced about one thing and then utterly convinced about the opposite. No nuance, It’s not an evolution, it’s chaos.
It is evolution, it is perfectly normal that once you have changed you accept your new position with the "zeal of the convert".
I was a Remainer at the start of the EU referendum campaign. I now have views in line with Truss's. Its not chaos, its evolution.
Flip-flopping back and forth rapidly at the drop of every opinion poll showing +1 to one side and then +1 to the other would be chaos. Not following with a zeal your new position once you've reached it.
" I was a remainer" . Pull the other one. You are the most reactionary poster on this site. You are the original young fogey Colonel Blimp. You might think making this claim adds cred to your position but it doesn't. It just points out to us that you are honest as Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Both of whom you clearly admire in spite of their obvious problem with telling the truth.
Oh give over the broken record. The fact that you're too thick to let the fact many people, not just myself, confirm I was pro-Remain penetrate your one-dimensional caricatured worldview of people just goes to show how stupid you are. People are more complicated than you can wrap your head around it seems.
I am not reactionary, Indeed I have frequently been called "woke" in a lot of the other debates on this site.
What I am is someone who unabashedly thinks that democracy and therefore nationalism is a very good thing and so too is low tax economics. I think internationalism undermines democracy, but that isn't reactionary - I wanted to see a more democratic EU which I thought was viable until Cameron's reforms failed which is when I switched to Leave and I haven't looked back since.
That you consider nationalism to be terrible is your own weakness, not mine.
I too think nationalism is a 'bad thing' on the whole. It's been the cause of many wars and has been repeatedly, and still is, used to stoke up hatred.
Overall, I cannot see what it's good for. We can cherish our history and our cultures without nationalism.
Agreed, but I also really value times when someone I disagree with lays out their views so clearly, as @BartholomewRoberts has done. I think it raises the tone of political debate, and prompts good discussions that can move people's thinking on.
I am interested in exploring this further. I think if I had to hang my hat on one aspect of our political system that I'd fight for, it would be democracy itself. In that sense I agree with Bart. But I also agree with Benpointer that valuing democracy doesn't mean you need to value nationalism, indeed nationalism more often stymies democracy than helps it (e.g. I think the EU could function more democratically if, throughout its development, nation states had been less important, and both hyper-local and supra-national groupings had been seen as the key ones to focus on).
Bart - can you say more about why you pin democracy to nationalism in this way? Specifically, can you answer why you think democracy works better at the national level than, say, a combination of much stronger regional assemblies with an overarching supra-national assembly (I'm tempted to cite the US as an example of what I mean, but as soon as you cite specific examples it is easy to focus on their specific flaws, so maybe better to keep the discussion theoretical).
In my view democracy at the national level is precisely the wrong scale to be working at - big enough to be impersonal and to leave many constituencies out in the cold (cf Scottish nationalism), but small enough to be unable to cope with the major issues we currently face (climate change, Chinese aggression, effective taxation of global businesses).
Nationalism and democracy go hand-in-hand. Nationalism is a belief that the people of the nation should run the nation, while democracy is a belief that those who run the nation should be elected. Having those of the nation elect those who run the nation is nationalist democracy and is a very good thing.
There antithesis of nationalism used to be imperialism. Nationalism arose in conflict to imperialism - a belief in your nation ruling over other nations. Anyone who seeks to rule over other countries is engaging in imperialism and undermining other nations nationalism.
The "wars" many people ascribe to nationalism should instead be ascribed to imperialism, which is nationalisms opposite, not nationalism.
Gandhi was an Indian nationalist, he wanted India ruled by Indians rather than Brits - there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
Hitler was not a nationalist. He didn't want the French ruled by the French, he wanted them ruled by the Germans. He was an imperialist. Yes the name of his party included nationalist, but it also included the term socialist, sensible people recognise that there is more than just a name involved and he wasn't a socialist in the end - he wasn't a nationalist in the end either.
The people of the nation, electing those who run the nation, is modern democracy and I cherish that.
The opposite of nationalism nowadays tends to be more internationalism rather than imperialism, having unelected international bodies determine rules and laws. That too undermines democracy.
Nations are just fluid artificial constructs, surely you see that?
Britain is a prime example of that.
Medvedev says Ukraine “may lose what remains of its state sovereignty and disappear from the map of the world,” as if Lavrov’s remarks yesterday on Russia’s aims weren’t sufficiently clear... https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1550037890356461570
The war of words seems to be inversely proportional to progress in the actual war - where strategic targets are being hit every night by the defenders, and the Wagner group are recruiting 45-year-old prisoners in Russia, because they’ve run out of actual soldiers.
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Shit. When was the last time Labour announced actual policies? They must feel on the front foot
Sounds more like scrapping actual policies.
These are terrible policies though, even I don't believe in nationalising National Grid/energy and I'm leftie.
Water I'm more luke warm on because it's failed under privatisation but hardly seems a priority at present.
Royal Mail is gone, what is nationalising it going to do? That's just pointlessly ideological.
Is that the sound of the Overton window shifting mildly to the right?
I thought nationalising natural monopolies was currently orthodoxy on the left.
Royal Mail isn't a natural monopoly though. It would make sense for only one person per day turning up at your door to deliver all the mail and parcels but in the real world there are blokes in vans dropping stuff off from all sorts of delivery firms.
It is, though, in terms of the state-enforced universal postage rate which doesn't penalise the rural areas, unlike many commercial couriers. Like BT, which was also a GPO element.
I wonder what the volume of letter delivery looks like these days compared to the past and where it is forecast to go. I have changed everything I can to electronic and get virtually no snail mail now.
So my deliveries are overwhelmingly parcels that don't come via Royal Mail, because the likes of Amazon now use the likes of their Flex programme to have people deliver them.
I get quite a lot of snail mail. Plenty of academic and society items, magazines, books, parcels.
Edit: and I don't live in the worst area for private courier charge gouging.
I seemed to remember reading volumes of letters in particular are down enormously.
Personal letters, yes, but I still get plenty of financial and legal etc correspondence.
And lots of people don't have reliable/secure personal access to computers and/or the savvy to use them.
Why no East Midlands? Can non-Conservatives go (if they have £5 spare) last time when Cameron stood I went to a meeting in Leicestershire. -think it cost £1.
Because making ourselves America's b*tch has always worked out so well for us.
Has Putinguy1983 hacked your account?
Pretty much, yes, absolutely it has, though as the article says Truss has been out in front of Biden and Blinken, and not just behind following them. Johnson was too.
I think our foreign and security policy should be guided by our own interests, not Neocon talking points. On Russia, which represents a security threat to us, we should absolutely be standing up to Putin alongside America and anyone else who is up for it. Read through my posts, I have never said anything different. But the China-US rivalry is different, as China isn't a threat to our security, and frankly a lot of the bluster on the US side is down to their own sense of supremacy being threatened. That is their problem, not ours.
China absolutely is a threat to our security, even more than Russia is.
As horrendous as Putin's invasion of Ukraine is, China invading Taiwan would be an order of magnitude worse. Ukraine is a substantial grain exporter and Russia a substantial energy exporter so this war has helped fuel a cost of living crisis with energy and food, but Taiwan is the leading global supplier of high end electronic chips that run the modern economy and China is the leading global exporter full stop.
A China/Taiwan war would be utterly catastrophic for the global economy and thus our own security in a way that would absolutely dwarf our current crisis. Joining with the USA, Japan, Australia and other allies in deterring that risk is great value for money and is another reason why Putin's invasion of Ukraine must be seen to fail, to deter China too.
The world today is all interconnected, you can't look at one alone and ignore the rest of the globe.
The deterrence value of whatever paltry forces we could project in the Taiwan Strait is not going to be the difference between China invading Taiwan or not. This is the kind of Neocon talking points that got hundreds of British servicemen and women killed in Iraq. If the world economy is that dependent on key components from a geopolitical flash point I would suggest investment in supply diversification may represent a safer and cheaper course of action.
To do my best Chandler Bing impression - Could you be any more wrong?
The deterrence value of UK forces operating alone would not be the difference, that is true.
But the UK isn't operating alone. The deterrence value of the UK and the USA, Australia, India, Japan, Poland and the rest of the civilised world standing together in unison is immense. This is one area whereby working together we are more than the sum of our parts.
You are as utterly naive and reprehensible as the so-called "realists" who wanted to sell out Ukraine at the start of the conflict as Putin's victory was "inevitable" so we may as well accept that reality.
You are being naïve if you think the US is simply defending the "free world" here rather than defending its own hegemonic position. Of course the US has every right to do this, and in many ways its hegemony is preferable to the alternatives, but I just don't think this is our conflict. Ukraine is our conflict, because it will determine the security of the whole of Europe and Russia is an expansionist power on our doorstep. Anyway, I look forward to you signing up so you can put your own life at risk in pursuit of America's foreign policy goals, rather than just other people's.
If it were only the US that were worried about the risk of China invading Taiwan you might have some credibility that it is just the US defending its own position. Its not though, its the entire civilised world who are uniting because they know the threat is very real.
Stop and look at what China has already been willing to do with the Tibetans, Hong Kong and the Uighur. That you can look at that and seriously say "China is not a threat" is baffling, you are an apologist for evil.
Apologist for evil, give me a break. You drink too much coffee. You can't divide the world up into white hats and black hats. China has done lots of bad stuff, as have other countries. I am not defending them, I find their system of government reprehensible. But they are not an aggressively expansionist power and never have been, unlike Russia or for that matter Britain. I don't think we need to get involved in some war on the other side of the world where the link to British interests is not absolutely clear. And to be honest I find it odd that people who claim to be British patriots are so ready to embrace the agenda of another foreign power on this issue.
Some parts of the world are shades of grey, but (and this must be my famous "reactionary" attitude according to @Nigel_Foremain ) I greatly dislike the antiquated term "black and white" since it implies black = bad and white = good.
The use of white/lightness for good and black/darkness for bad long predates the use of white and black to describe skin colour.
Language evolves though, we don't still speak ye olde English.
Continuing to use such language now is repugnant to me. 👎
Your attitude is not dissimilar to this:
I'm a tad confused, in your eyes am I supposed to be the house's resident or Thornberry?
I know which one I'd identify more with.
Thornberry.
Her attitude was "some people who fly the English flag and drive white vans are racist, therefore this is a house where racists live"
Your attitude seems to be "some people use white and black in some contexts to be racist, therefore all uses of white and black are racist"
Not remotely the same at all.
The English flag is still the English flag, continuing to use it represents nothing more or less than being English.
White and black is antiquated and no longer appropriate good and evil paradigms, even if it used to be in the past.
Using black as a derogatory term today is not like flying the English flag, its like flying the flag of the Confederacy.
What about chess? White always goes first, surely that's racist.
"More than 40 percent said having a ‘strong leader’ was more important than democracy and that ‘native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants’ — a racist belief known as the ‘great replacement theory’."
Isn't the British version of the 'great replacement theory' one where Farage kept referring to 'A city the size of Birmingham'. Not only Farage of course.
It always struck me that the image was intended to go further than just showing numbers in terms of a city's population.
That image is more related to "concreting over the countryside".
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Not nationalising water is a mistake. I think it would have popular support as everyone fucking hates the water companies. Charge a fortune and don't do anything for their money.
I personally think water should be nationalised along with the railways.
Which reminds me of the Telegraph article saying can't afford these common holiday locations, here are cheaper alternatives....one being can't afford Bath for a weekend, try Bradford....yeah right, I can see your typical Telegraph reader doing that.
My guess the £5 is to try and minimize idiots organising block booking all tickets via a bot, so they can boast on social media of pwning the Tories by buying up all the husting tickets and then nobody being there....or actually turning up and causing a disruption.
Even with that, its obvious now that some Isabella Harving-Symthe type is going to turn up and chain themselves to something in the name of Stop Oil.
If half a dozen soap dodgers are prepared to buy £300 British Grand Prix tickets, only to get themselves arrested as the race starts, then it’s going to be difficult to avoid them being at any event anywhere this summer.
I was pleased to see that the tv coverage of the footy last night didn't show them and they got roundly booed at which point the commentator basically said its a protestor on the pitch, stewards dealt with it, moving on.
Remove the oxygen of publicity is the best response.
Yep. The F1 coverage didn’t show it, and was referred to only briefly as a protest causing disruption, with no mention of the cause they were supporting. The videos are all from phones of spectators, who were quite forthright in their opinion of the idiots.
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Not nationalising water is a mistake. I think it would have popular support as everyone fucking hates the water companies. Charge a fortune and don't do anything for their money.
If water was nationalised would there be more control over pumping sewage into the environment and losing so much good water in leaks?
So our taxes would then have to go up even more so bureaucrats and quangos try to solve those problems?
The Treasury would then look at the cost of investing in upgrading the sewage system and strangely, the investment wouldn’t happen.
This is the paradox of public ownership of services. The service bit is the least interesting thing to the Government as a whole.
If you want to end sewage discharges, the regulator can do that - see London, Thames Water and then sewer system. But then water prices will go up.
Why no East Midlands? Can non-Conservatives go (if they have £5 spare) last time when Cameron stood I went to a meeting in Leicestershire. -think it cost £1.
There look like a few gaps in the schedule where more could be added if there's adequate demand and suitable venues can be found.
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Not nationalising water is a mistake. I think it would have popular support as everyone fucking hates the water companies. Charge a fortune and don't do anything for their money.
If water was nationalised would there be more control over pumping sewage into the environment and losing so much good water in leaks?
So our taxes would then have to go up even more so bureaucrats and quangos try to solve those problems?
The Treasury would then look at the cost of investing in upgrading the sewage system and strangely, the investment wouldn’t happen.
This is the paradox of public ownership of services. The service bit is the least interesting thing to the Government as a whole.
If you want to end sewage discharges, the regulator can do that - see London, Thames Water and then sewer system. But then water prices will go up.
You are assuming the model I am proposing is one where the Government itself runs the service.
I think the Government should own it but experts should run it, independently from Government.
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Shit. When was the last time Labour announced actual policies? They must feel on the front foot
Sounds more like scrapping actual policies.
These are terrible policies though, even I don't believe in nationalising National Grid/energy and I'm leftie.
Water I'm more luke warm on because it's failed under privatisation but hardly seems a priority at present.
Royal Mail is gone, what is nationalising it going to do? That's just pointlessly ideological.
Is that the sound of the Overton window shifting mildly to the right?
I thought nationalising natural monopolies was currently orthodoxy on the left.
Royal Mail isn't a natural monopoly though. It would make sense for only one person per day turning up at your door to deliver all the mail and parcels but in the real world there are blokes in vans dropping stuff off from all sorts of delivery firms.
It is, though, in terms of the state-enforced universal postage rate which doesn't penalise the rural areas, unlike many commercial couriers. Like BT, which was also a GPO element.
I wonder what the volume of letter delivery looks like these days compared to the past and where it is forecast to go. I have changed everything I can to electronic and get virtually no snail mail now.
So my deliveries are overwhelmingly parcels that don't come via Royal Mail, because the likes of Amazon now use the likes of their Flex programme to have people deliver them.
I get quite a lot of snail mail. Plenty of academic and society items, magazines, books, parcels.
Edit: and I don't live in the worst area for private courier charge gouging.
I seemed to remember reading volumes of letters in particular are down enormously.
Personal letters, yes, but I still get plenty of financial and legal etc correspondence.
And lots of people don't have reliable/secure personal access to computers and/or the savvy to use them.
I am asking for facts about the size of the decline. I am pretty sure it is extremely significant. And we are looking where the future goes from here, there isn't any turning back the clock.
And this idea no computers / savvy....again particularly as we look to the future is this is just untrue. Smart phones are already nearly ubiquitous and even my elderly parents in their late 80s can and do work email.
Another 10 years, we have 5G, etc etc etc, it will be the tiniest percentage of the population that doesn't have an internet connected device. Every business I interact with straight away says do you want this electronically rather than paper, no you do want it don't you....it will increasingly become like the idea of paying with a cheque (or increasingly cash), businesses demand it electronically as a default.
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Not nationalising water is a mistake. I think it would have popular support as everyone fucking hates the water companies. Charge a fortune and don't do anything for their money.
Why? I can see a political argument, but not a rational one.
I don't see that 'everyone fucking hates' can ever be a good reason for doing anything, unless the objective is to wreck everything in sight.
Regulated privatisation lead to improvements in service, far more investment, significantly reduced leakage etc.
In the recent debate about about sewerage releases into rivers the Goons from the Green Party suggested it could be funded out of the small profit margins made by water companies, whereas the real numbers required was ~25-30 years if turnover for the whole industry.
Talking about couriers, I placed an order on the Google Store. Dispatched by them last Friday for delivery this Monday. Doesn't arrive, better still the Royal Mail tracker says they are awaiting the package!
So onto Google store support, who take details, and look into it. And they're still looking into it. Have had to gently request that they send a replacement as if Royal Mail haven't found it by now they aren't going to do so.
Couriers do lose stuff. The web store I set up for a client has occasional lost shipments. I don't keep the customer faffing, a replacement is sent and the courier shouted at.
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Not nationalising water is a mistake. I think it would have popular support as everyone fucking hates the water companies. Charge a fortune and don't do anything for their money.
If water was nationalised would there be more control over pumping sewage into the environment and losing so much good water in leaks?
So our taxes would then have to go up even more so bureaucrats and quangos try to solve those problems?
The Treasury would then look at the cost of investing in upgrading the sewage system and strangely, the investment wouldn’t happen.
This is the paradox of public ownership of services. The service bit is the least interesting thing to the Government as a whole.
If you want to end sewage discharges, the regulator can do that - see London, Thames Water and then sewer system. But then water prices will go up.
You are assuming the model I am proposing is one where the Government itself runs the service.
I think the Government should own it but experts should run it, independently from Government.
The DB model.
Based on numbers from the debate, measures to meet the demands of those who did that "sewerage in rivers" stunt in the Lords would require water bills to be doubled for a generation.
JUST FOR FUN POST disclaimer A cheeky by election Wednesday in Basildon. As we know the 1992 result was first flagged by David Amess holding Basildon somewhat unexpectedly. So, yesterday Nethermayne (Basildon) By-Election Result:
Independent GAIN from Independent. Changes w/ 2022.
An indy hold but Tories leapfrog into second above Labour on a 3.5% swing. Which, extrapolated from the position in May 2022 would be level pegging nationally snd a very very hung parliament. Badildon shows the way again!!
As i said, a bit of fun and i am NOT predicting anything but this does at least hint at the Tories relative strength against the others in Essex compared to remainia in the South (they havent held this ward in the 21st century, it was a rare area of LD Essex strength in the later first decade up to coalition times and then a UKIP fortress for a while) Essex is the new Stockbroker belt.
I think rarely, this is one of the cases where Labour got it right.
In Government, only the MPs get a say on the leader, as far as I recall
Are you sure that's right? I'm not sure it is. I believe the reason there was no ballot in 2007 is that the only other candidate (John McDonnell) didn't secure the 12.5% of MPs' nominations (i.e. 45 at the time) required.
I believe that the threshold is now 20%, so that gives MPs a degree of power. Arguably, if it was the same with the Tories, only Sunak made 20% in the first round so he'd have been elected unopposed. In reality, though, it's likely the field would just have narrowed naturally as people struggled to get signatures, and Sunak, Truss and Mordaunt would all have made it (probably that's it although in theory one more might have made it).
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Not nationalising water is a mistake. I think it would have popular support as everyone fucking hates the water companies. Charge a fortune and don't do anything for their money.
I personally think water should be nationalised along with the railways.
How's the baby Max?
She's doing really well, thanks. Was struggling in the heat on Tuesday but all good now. Booked our first holiday as well, we're going to Calabria in September which everyone is looking forwards to.
"More than 40 percent said having a ‘strong leader’ was more important than democracy and that ‘native-born white people are being replaced by immigrants’ — a racist belief known as the ‘great replacement theory’."
Isn't the British version of the 'great replacement theory' one where Farage kept referring to 'A city the size of Birmingham'. Not only Farage of course.
It always struck me that the image was intended to go further than just showing numbers in terms of a city's population.
That image is more related to "concreting over the countryside".
This. The problem with immigration debate in the U.K. is the inability of *many* sides in the debate to be honest.
If the population increases by 300k, then you need (roughly) 300k new bedrooms of accommodation. Schools, hospitals etc to match. Otherwise you will see a decreases in quality of life for everyone.
I’ve no doubt that someone will see the above as “anti-immigrant”. It is merely true.
Hmm… not convinced I like all the stuff about Truss and her private life on here. Didn’t really think the Boris stuff was that fair game either - I was more concerned how disasterous he was as a PM rather than what he historically got up to in his private life.
From my header on the Cox report -
"the Cox report describes an entrenched culture “cascading from the top down, of deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence, in which bullying and sexual harassment have been able to thrive and have long been tolerated and concealed."
How people behave when they are in government and in positions of power matters.
Why no East Midlands? Can non-Conservatives go (if they have £5 spare) last time when Cameron stood I went to a meeting in Leicestershire. -think it cost £1.
Northern Ireland ???
Under 6,000 votes there for the Tories in 2019.
I suppose the argument is that they are choosing a PM who will be PM in Northern Ireland too, and to underscore that they are a unionist party. There is also clearly a big issue for the next Government in NI.
I'd have been surprised, and I think it would have been more controversial, had they opted to by-pass it.
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Shit. When was the last time Labour announced actual policies? They must feel on the front foot
Sounds more like scrapping actual policies.
These are terrible policies though, even I don't believe in nationalising National Grid/energy and I'm leftie.
Water I'm more luke warm on because it's failed under privatisation but hardly seems a priority at present.
Royal Mail is gone, what is nationalising it going to do? That's just pointlessly ideological.
Is that the sound of the Overton window shifting mildly to the right?
I thought nationalising natural monopolies was currently orthodoxy on the left.
Royal Mail isn't a natural monopoly though. It would make sense for only one person per day turning up at your door to deliver all the mail and parcels but in the real world there are blokes in vans dropping stuff off from all sorts of delivery firms.
It is, though, in terms of the state-enforced universal postage rate which doesn't penalise the rural areas, unlike many commercial couriers. Like BT, which was also a GPO element.
I wonder what the volume of letter delivery looks like these days compared to the past and where it is forecast to go. I have changed everything I can to electronic and get virtually no snail mail now.
So my deliveries are overwhelmingly parcels that don't come via Royal Mail, because the likes of Amazon now use the likes of their Flex programme to have people deliver them.
I get quite a lot of snail mail. Plenty of academic and society items, magazines, books, parcels.
Edit: and I don't live in the worst area for private courier charge gouging.
I seemed to remember reading volumes of letters in particular are down enormously.
Personal letters, yes, but I still get plenty of financial and legal etc correspondence.
And lots of people don't have reliable/secure personal access to computers and/or the savvy to use them.
I am asking for facts about the size of the decline. I am pretty sure it is extremely significant. And we are looking where the future goes from here, there isn't any turning back the clock.
And this idea no computers / savvy....again particularly as we look to the future is this is just untrue. Smart phones are already nearly ubiquitous and even my elderly parents in their late 80s can and do work email.
Another 10 years, we have 5G, etc etc etc, it will be the tiniest percentage of the population that doesn't have an internet connected device. Every business I interact with straight away says do you want this electronically rather than paper, no you do want it don't you....it will increasingly become like the idea of paying with a cheque (or increasingly cash), businesses demand it electronically as a default.
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Shit. When was the last time Labour announced actual policies? They must feel on the front foot
Sounds more like scrapping actual policies.
These are terrible policies though, even I don't believe in nationalising National Grid/energy and I'm leftie.
Water I'm more luke warm on because it's failed under privatisation but hardly seems a priority at present.
Royal Mail is gone, what is nationalising it going to do? That's just pointlessly ideological.
Is that the sound of the Overton window shifting mildly to the right?
I thought nationalising natural monopolies was currently orthodoxy on the left.
Royal Mail isn't a natural monopoly though. It would make sense for only one person per day turning up at your door to deliver all the mail and parcels but in the real world there are blokes in vans dropping stuff off from all sorts of delivery firms.
It is, though, in terms of the state-enforced universal postage rate which doesn't penalise the rural areas, unlike many commercial couriers. Like BT, which was also a GPO element.
I wonder what the volume of letter delivery looks like these days compared to the past and where it is forecast to go. I have changed everything I can to electronic and get virtually no snail mail now.
So my deliveries are overwhelmingly parcels that don't come via Royal Mail, because the likes of Amazon now use the likes of their Flex programme to have people deliver them.
I get quite a lot of snail mail. Plenty of academic and society items, magazines, books, parcels.
Edit: and I don't live in the worst area for private courier charge gouging.
I seemed to remember reading volumes of letters in particular are down enormously.
Personal letters, yes, but I still get plenty of financial and legal etc correspondence.
And lots of people don't have reliable/secure personal access to computers and/or the savvy to use them.
I am asking for facts about the size of the decline. I am pretty sure it is extremely significant. And we are looking where the future goes from here, there isn't any turning back the clock.
And this idea no computers / savvy....again particularly as we look to the future is this is just untrue. Smart phones are already nearly ubiquitous and even my elderly parents in their late 80s can and do work email.
Another 10 years, we have 5G, etc etc etc, it will be the tiniest percentage of the population that doesn't have an internet connected device. Every business I interact with straight away says do you want this electronically rather than paper, no you do want it don't you....it will increasingly become like the idea of paying with a cheque (or increasingly cash), businesses demand it electronically as a default.
Nevertheless, it is the case right now. Only part of the population can cope.
Also, trends don't always continue. Consider, for instance, the absolute need to have actual bank statements - not email printouts - to deal with certain organizations.
How a great English city sold itself to Abu Dhabi’s elite – and not even for a good price https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/21/great-english-city-sold-abu-dhabis-elite-manchester ...As one of the rulers of an autocratic kingdom that has an appalling reputation for repression and an addiction to oil revenues, Sheikh Mansour stood to gain so much from this partnership. It was the council that held almost all the cards: the hectares of publicly owned land, the planning regime, the public subsidies. Yet somehow, according to new research shared exclusively today with the Guardian and authored by academics at Sheffield University, it was Sheikh Mansour who pocketed almost all the winnings. The report says that nine sites were sold to the sheikh at a fraction of their value, and well below what other plots nearby fetched (the council says it used independent experts using standard valuations, although it won’t give any more details). They were on leases lasting 999 years, well beyond the norm. And the fund shifted what had been public assets to companies registered in Jersey.
That walk along the water from New Islington into Ancoats now passes blocks of privatised land owned in an offshore tax haven, which yields millions upon millions for a key member of the wealthy elite running a surveillance state halfway across the globe. One of the greatest cities in the world has sold itself to a senior figure in a brutal autocracy – and not even for a good price...,/i>
Hmm… not convinced I like all the stuff about Truss and her private life on here. Didn’t really think the Boris stuff was that fair game either - I was more concerned how disasterous he was as a PM rather than what he historically got up to in his private life.
From my header on the Cox report -
"the Cox report describes an entrenched culture “cascading from the top down, of deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence, in which bullying and sexual harassment have been able to thrive and have long been tolerated and concealed."
How people behave when they are in government and in positions of power matters.
Is there any suggestion of Truss engaging in those items you mention or are we just throwing innuendo around?
Hmm… not convinced I like all the stuff about Truss and her private life on here. Didn’t really think the Boris stuff was that fair game either - I was more concerned how disasterous he was as a PM rather than what he historically got up to in his private life.
From my header on the Cox report -
"the Cox report describes an entrenched culture “cascading from the top down, of deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence, in which bullying and sexual harassment have been able to thrive and have long been tolerated and concealed."
It sounds like the history of just about any monarchy ever
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Shit. When was the last time Labour announced actual policies? They must feel on the front foot
Sounds more like scrapping actual policies.
These are terrible policies though, even I don't believe in nationalising National Grid/energy and I'm leftie.
Water I'm more luke warm on because it's failed under privatisation but hardly seems a priority at present.
Royal Mail is gone, what is nationalising it going to do? That's just pointlessly ideological.
Is that the sound of the Overton window shifting mildly to the right?
I thought nationalising natural monopolies was currently orthodoxy on the left.
Royal Mail isn't a natural monopoly though. It would make sense for only one person per day turning up at your door to deliver all the mail and parcels but in the real world there are blokes in vans dropping stuff off from all sorts of delivery firms.
It is, though, in terms of the state-enforced universal postage rate which doesn't penalise the rural areas, unlike many commercial couriers. Like BT, which was also a GPO element.
I wonder what the volume of letter delivery looks like these days compared to the past and where it is forecast to go. I have changed everything I can to electronic and get virtually no snail mail now.
So my deliveries are overwhelmingly parcels that don't come via Royal Mail, because the likes of Amazon now use the likes of their Flex programme to have people deliver them.
I get quite a lot of snail mail. Plenty of academic and society items, magazines, books, parcels.
Edit: and I don't live in the worst area for private courier charge gouging.
I seemed to remember reading volumes of letters in particular are down enormously.
Personal letters, yes, but I still get plenty of financial and legal etc correspondence.
And lots of people don't have reliable/secure personal access to computers and/or the savvy to use them.
I am asking for facts about the size of the decline. I am pretty sure it is extremely significant. And we are looking where the future goes from here, there isn't any turning back the clock.
And this idea no computers / savvy....again particularly as we look to the future is this is just untrue. Smart phones are already nearly ubiquitous and even my elderly parents in their late 80s can and do work email.
Another 10 years, we have 5G, etc etc etc, it will be the tiniest percentage of the population that doesn't have an internet connected device. Every business I interact with straight away says do you want this electronically rather than paper, no you do want it don't you....it will increasingly become like the idea of paying with a cheque (or increasingly cash), businesses demand it electronically as a default.
Nevertheless, it is the case right now. Only part of the population can cope.
Also, trends don't always continue. Consider, for instance, the absolute need to have actual bank statements - not email printouts - to deal with certain organizations.
Businesses and government need to plan for the future and letters aren't coming back, just like cheques aren't. Like it or not we are moving to a world where everybody has to have a smart phone to function in society (unless you want everything to take 10x the amount of time) and that is the default mechanism for everything from communication to payment.
Again, the idea you will need an actual printed statement, it will be gone in the near future....first and foremost because it is super easy to forge. 10 years old can do it with ease. There are lots of other ways to validate things. Its a relic from the past.
Because making ourselves America's b*tch has always worked out so well for us.
Has Putinguy1983 hacked your account?
Pretty much, yes, absolutely it has, though as the article says Truss has been out in front of Biden and Blinken, and not just behind following them. Johnson was too.
I think our foreign and security policy should be guided by our own interests, not Neocon talking points. On Russia, which represents a security threat to us, we should absolutely be standing up to Putin alongside America and anyone else who is up for it. Read through my posts, I have never said anything different. But the China-US rivalry is different, as China isn't a threat to our security, and frankly a lot of the bluster on the US side is down to their own sense of supremacy being threatened. That is their problem, not ours.
China absolutely is a threat to our security, even more than Russia is.
As horrendous as Putin's invasion of Ukraine is, China invading Taiwan would be an order of magnitude worse. Ukraine is a substantial grain exporter and Russia a substantial energy exporter so this war has helped fuel a cost of living crisis with energy and food, but Taiwan is the leading global supplier of high end electronic chips that run the modern economy and China is the leading global exporter full stop.
A China/Taiwan war would be utterly catastrophic for the global economy and thus our own security in a way that would absolutely dwarf our current crisis. Joining with the USA, Japan, Australia and other allies in deterring that risk is great value for money and is another reason why Putin's invasion of Ukraine must be seen to fail, to deter China too.
The world today is all interconnected, you can't look at one alone and ignore the rest of the globe.
The deterrence value of whatever paltry forces we could project in the Taiwan Strait is not going to be the difference between China invading Taiwan or not. This is the kind of Neocon talking points that got hundreds of British servicemen and women killed in Iraq. If the world economy is that dependent on key components from a geopolitical flash point I would suggest investment in supply diversification may represent a safer and cheaper course of action.
To do my best Chandler Bing impression - Could you be any more wrong?
The deterrence value of UK forces operating alone would not be the difference, that is true.
But the UK isn't operating alone. The deterrence value of the UK and the USA, Australia, India, Japan, Poland and the rest of the civilised world standing together in unison is immense. This is one area whereby working together we are more than the sum of our parts.
You are as utterly naive and reprehensible as the so-called "realists" who wanted to sell out Ukraine at the start of the conflict as Putin's victory was "inevitable" so we may as well accept that reality.
You are being naïve if you think the US is simply defending the "free world" here rather than defending its own hegemonic position. Of course the US has every right to do this, and in many ways its hegemony is preferable to the alternatives, but I just don't think this is our conflict. Ukraine is our conflict, because it will determine the security of the whole of Europe and Russia is an expansionist power on our doorstep. Anyway, I look forward to you signing up so you can put your own life at risk in pursuit of America's foreign policy goals, rather than just other people's.
If it were only the US that were worried about the risk of China invading Taiwan you might have some credibility that it is just the US defending its own position. Its not though, its the entire civilised world who are uniting because they know the threat is very real.
Stop and look at what China has already been willing to do with the Tibetans, Hong Kong and the Uighur. That you can look at that and seriously say "China is not a threat" is baffling, you are an apologist for evil.
Apologist for evil, give me a break. You drink too much coffee. You can't divide the world up into white hats and black hats. China has done lots of bad stuff, as have other countries. I am not defending them, I find their system of government reprehensible. But they are not an aggressively expansionist power and never have been, unlike Russia or for that matter Britain. I don't think we need to get involved in some war on the other side of the world where the link to British interests is not absolutely clear. And to be honest I find it odd that people who claim to be British patriots are so ready to embrace the agenda of another foreign power on this issue.
Some parts of the world are shades of grey, but (and this must be my famous "reactionary" attitude according to @Nigel_Foremain ) I greatly dislike the antiquated term "black and white" since it implies black = bad and white = good.
The use of white/lightness for good and black/darkness for bad long predates the use of white and black to describe skin colour.
Language evolves though, we don't still speak ye olde English.
Continuing to use such language now is repugnant to me. 👎
Your attitude is not dissimilar to this:
I'm a tad confused, in your eyes am I supposed to be the house's resident or Thornberry?
I know which one I'd identify more with.
Thornberry.
Her attitude was "some people who fly the English flag and drive white vans are racist, therefore this is a house where racists live"
Your attitude seems to be "some people use white and black in some contexts to be racist, therefore all uses of white and black are racist"
Not remotely the same at all.
The English flag is still the English flag, continuing to use it represents nothing more or less than being English.
White and black is antiquated and no longer appropriate good and evil paradigms, even if it used to be in the past.
Using black as a derogatory term today is not like flying the English flag, its like flying the flag of the Confederacy.
What about chess? White always goes first, surely that's racist.
Play Go, amongst equals black gets the first stone. Plus no more watching their king escape after poorly calculated sacrifices....
The idea that this election will run through the whole of the summer is horrible. This should be wrapped up next week. The 1922 committee got this wrong.
Look, they needed Boris to serve longer than May somehow or hed not have gone.
I think rarely, this is one of the cases where Labour got it right.
In Government, only the MPs get a say on the leader, as far as I recall
Are you sure that's right? I'm not sure it is. I believe the reason there was no ballot in 2007 is that the only other candidate (John McDonnell) didn't secure the 12.5% of MPs' nominations (i.e. 45 at the time) required.
I believe that the threshold is now 20%, so that gives MPs a degree of power. Arguably, if it was the same with the Tories, only Sunak made 20% in the first round so he'd have been elected unopposed. In reality, though, it's likely the field would just have narrowed naturally as people struggled to get signatures, and Sunak, Truss and Mordaunt would all have made it (probably that's it although in theory one more might have made it).
Thats right, McDonnell failed to get enough support to be anything more than a footnote. The next time Abbott got a turn for the extremists then it was Jeremy's go.......
"All ballots must be received by 5pm on Friday 2nd September. For your vote to count you must be an active member of the Party immediately prior to the ballot closing. Please allow sufficient time in case of unexpected postal delays. Online voting is available until close of ballot."
What is an active member? Does this mean people who don't renew their membership between receiving the ballot paper and the date of the election will have their vote removed.
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Shit. When was the last time Labour announced actual policies? They must feel on the front foot
Sounds more like scrapping actual policies.
These are terrible policies though, even I don't believe in nationalising National Grid/energy and I'm leftie.
Water I'm more luke warm on because it's failed under privatisation but hardly seems a priority at present.
Royal Mail is gone, what is nationalising it going to do? That's just pointlessly ideological.
Is that the sound of the Overton window shifting mildly to the right?
I thought nationalising natural monopolies was currently orthodoxy on the left.
Royal Mail isn't a natural monopoly though. It would make sense for only one person per day turning up at your door to deliver all the mail and parcels but in the real world there are blokes in vans dropping stuff off from all sorts of delivery firms.
It is, though, in terms of the state-enforced universal postage rate which doesn't penalise the rural areas, unlike many commercial couriers. Like BT, which was also a GPO element.
The couriers are a nasty cartel - and that includes Royal Mail Parcels. The "highlands" courier zone is a joke. DHL charge 2.5x the fee to deliver into it. Even when the "highlands" redoubt starts in Westhill which is a suburb of Aberdeen. Even up here in Buchan we are no further away from the distribution office than places like Brechin, yet pay gonzo charges.
Even better is that the charges often apply one way - it is a fraction of the cost to send a parcel from the "highlands" to non-highlands than the other way round.
And they are all the same. And none of them will engage with consumers or even the Scottish government on why this is the case.
At least you're not in an IV postcode! Can live in Inverness and get a cost as if it's going up to Durness or something.
They've quoted ferries at me before, which is wrong. You need a HS for that.
Why no East Midlands? Can non-Conservatives go (if they have £5 spare) last time when Cameron stood I went to a meeting in Leicestershire. -think it cost £1.
There look like a few gaps in the schedule where more could be added if there's adequate demand and suitable venues can be found.
Notts and Derbys are now overwhelmingly Conservative counties. Looks like a fookup.
Perhaps they are worried some people will remember that the HS2 money went on Nimbies and refurbing the Palace of Westminster.
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Shit. When was the last time Labour announced actual policies? They must feel on the front foot
Sounds more like scrapping actual policies.
These are terrible policies though, even I don't believe in nationalising National Grid/energy and I'm leftie.
Water I'm more luke warm on because it's failed under privatisation but hardly seems a priority at present.
Royal Mail is gone, what is nationalising it going to do? That's just pointlessly ideological.
Is that the sound of the Overton window shifting mildly to the right?
I thought nationalising natural monopolies was currently orthodoxy on the left.
Royal Mail isn't a natural monopoly though. It would make sense for only one person per day turning up at your door to deliver all the mail and parcels but in the real world there are blokes in vans dropping stuff off from all sorts of delivery firms.
It is, though, in terms of the state-enforced universal postage rate which doesn't penalise the rural areas, unlike many commercial couriers. Like BT, which was also a GPO element.
I wonder what the volume of letter delivery looks like these days compared to the past and where it is forecast to go. I have changed everything I can to electronic and get virtually no snail mail now.
So my deliveries are overwhelmingly parcels that don't come via Royal Mail, because the likes of Amazon now use the likes of their Flex programme to have people deliver them.
I get quite a lot of snail mail. Plenty of academic and society items, magazines, books, parcels.
Edit: and I don't live in the worst area for private courier charge gouging.
I seemed to remember reading volumes of letters in particular are down enormously.
Personal letters, yes, but I still get plenty of financial and legal etc correspondence.
And lots of people don't have reliable/secure personal access to computers and/or the savvy to use them.
I am asking for facts about the size of the decline. I am pretty sure it is extremely significant. And we are looking where the future goes from here, there isn't any turning back the clock.
And this idea no computers / savvy....again particularly as we look to the future is this is just untrue. Smart phones are already nearly ubiquitous and even my elderly parents in their late 80s can and do work email.
Another 10 years, we have 5G, etc etc etc, it will be the tiniest percentage of the population that doesn't have an internet connected device. Every business I interact with straight away says do you want this electronically rather than paper, no you do want it don't you....it will increasingly become like the idea of paying with a cheque (or increasingly cash), businesses demand it electronically as a default.
IIRC the percentage of population that doesn’t use the internet is something like 6%
"Why should the public trust Rishi after he backstabbed Boris."
Telling you now this is going to be wall to wall painting Rishi as Judas to Boris' Caesar in the rw media. Rishi starts behind and they're going to make damn well sure he stays behind.
Talking of the future....I am surprised now little coverage this got. Leaked documents from across China of tendering for electronic surveillance, it goes way beyond the idea of cameras track people.
I'm surprised that the Report commissioned by Priti Patel on the performance of Border Force, including their success (or not, as the case may be) in tackling the Channel boats crisis, hasn't had more coverage here or elsewhere. It's a pretty damning indictment from an Australian liberal, who one would expect to be sympathetic to Patel.
It may help to explain why Patel didn't stand for Leader, and why she cancelled her appearance at the Select Committee, for no good reason.
Because making ourselves America's b*tch has always worked out so well for us.
Has Putinguy1983 hacked your account?
Pretty much, yes, absolutely it has, though as the article says Truss has been out in front of Biden and Blinken, and not just behind following them. Johnson was too.
I think our foreign and security policy should be guided by our own interests, not Neocon talking points. On Russia, which represents a security threat to us, we should absolutely be standing up to Putin alongside America and anyone else who is up for it. Read through my posts, I have never said anything different. But the China-US rivalry is different, as China isn't a threat to our security, and frankly a lot of the bluster on the US side is down to their own sense of supremacy being threatened. That is their problem, not ours.
China absolutely is a threat to our security, even more than Russia is.
As horrendous as Putin's invasion of Ukraine is, China invading Taiwan would be an order of magnitude worse. Ukraine is a substantial grain exporter and Russia a substantial energy exporter so this war has helped fuel a cost of living crisis with energy and food, but Taiwan is the leading global supplier of high end electronic chips that run the modern economy and China is the leading global exporter full stop.
A China/Taiwan war would be utterly catastrophic for the global economy and thus our own security in a way that would absolutely dwarf our current crisis. Joining with the USA, Japan, Australia and other allies in deterring that risk is great value for money and is another reason why Putin's invasion of Ukraine must be seen to fail, to deter China too.
The world today is all interconnected, you can't look at one alone and ignore the rest of the globe.
The deterrence value of whatever paltry forces we could project in the Taiwan Strait is not going to be the difference between China invading Taiwan or not. This is the kind of Neocon talking points that got hundreds of British servicemen and women killed in Iraq. If the world economy is that dependent on key components from a geopolitical flash point I would suggest investment in supply diversification may represent a safer and cheaper course of action.
To do my best Chandler Bing impression - Could you be any more wrong?
The deterrence value of UK forces operating alone would not be the difference, that is true.
But the UK isn't operating alone. The deterrence value of the UK and the USA, Australia, India, Japan, Poland and the rest of the civilised world standing together in unison is immense. This is one area whereby working together we are more than the sum of our parts.
You are as utterly naive and reprehensible as the so-called "realists" who wanted to sell out Ukraine at the start of the conflict as Putin's victory was "inevitable" so we may as well accept that reality.
You are being naïve if you think the US is simply defending the "free world" here rather than defending its own hegemonic position. Of course the US has every right to do this, and in many ways its hegemony is preferable to the alternatives, but I just don't think this is our conflict. Ukraine is our conflict, because it will determine the security of the whole of Europe and Russia is an expansionist power on our doorstep. Anyway, I look forward to you signing up so you can put your own life at risk in pursuit of America's foreign policy goals, rather than just other people's.
If it were only the US that were worried about the risk of China invading Taiwan you might have some credibility that it is just the US defending its own position. Its not though, its the entire civilised world who are uniting because they know the threat is very real.
Stop and look at what China has already been willing to do with the Tibetans, Hong Kong and the Uighur. That you can look at that and seriously say "China is not a threat" is baffling, you are an apologist for evil.
Apologist for evil, give me a break. You drink too much coffee. You can't divide the world up into white hats and black hats. China has done lots of bad stuff, as have other countries. I am not defending them, I find their system of government reprehensible. But they are not an aggressively expansionist power and never have been, unlike Russia or for that matter Britain. I don't think we need to get involved in some war on the other side of the world where the link to British interests is not absolutely clear. And to be honest I find it odd that people who claim to be British patriots are so ready to embrace the agenda of another foreign power on this issue.
Some parts of the world are shades of grey, but (and this must be my famous "reactionary" attitude according to @Nigel_Foremain ) I greatly dislike the antiquated term "black and white" since it implies black = bad and white = good.
The use of white/lightness for good and black/darkness for bad long predates the use of white and black to describe skin colour.
And in many contexts means they contrast, are diametrically opposite, not good or bad anyway.
There will be occasions such language needs to be watched carefully, it's great language evolves, but it is possible to be too snowflakey.
It sounds like one of those things mostly white people are concerned about, as opposed to more meaningful changes. Like the common refrain of policing language rather than addressing systemic issues.
Why no East Midlands? Can non-Conservatives go (if they have £5 spare) last time when Cameron stood I went to a meeting in Leicestershire. -think it cost £1.
There look like a few gaps in the schedule where more could be added if there's adequate demand and suitable venues can be found.
Notts and Derbys are now overwhelmingly Conservative counties. Looks like a fookup.
Perhaps they are worried some people will remember that the HS2 money went on Nimbies and refurbing the Palace of Westminster.
Dumb not to hold one in Stoke as well, which is far easier to get to from Cheshire, Staffordshire and Shropshire than Birmingham is.
I think somebody looked at a map and thought Birmingham would be nice and central, not at the transport situation.
"Why should the public trust Rishi after he backstabbed Boris."
Telling you now this is going to be wall to wall painting Rishi as Judas to Boris' Caesar in the rw media. Rishi starts behind and they're going to make damn well sure he stays behind.
"Why should the public trust Rishi after he backstabbed Boris."
Telling you now this is going to be wall to wall painting Rishi as Judas to Boris' Caesar in the rw media. Rishi starts behind and they're going to make damn well sure he stays behind.
That is quite out of line of the other pollsters. I never buy any poll that has Tory or Labour way down in the 20%, time and time again it is shown 30% of the population vote for both regardless, but Labour in other polls has been showing 40%+. Green looks too high in above poll TBH.
Because making ourselves America's b*tch has always worked out so well for us.
Has Putinguy1983 hacked your account?
Pretty much, yes, absolutely it has, though as the article says Truss has been out in front of Biden and Blinken, and not just behind following them. Johnson was too.
I think our foreign and security policy should be guided by our own interests, not Neocon talking points. On Russia, which represents a security threat to us, we should absolutely be standing up to Putin alongside America and anyone else who is up for it. Read through my posts, I have never said anything different. But the China-US rivalry is different, as China isn't a threat to our security, and frankly a lot of the bluster on the US side is down to their own sense of supremacy being threatened. That is their problem, not ours.
China absolutely is a threat to our security, even more than Russia is.
As horrendous as Putin's invasion of Ukraine is, China invading Taiwan would be an order of magnitude worse. Ukraine is a substantial grain exporter and Russia a substantial energy exporter so this war has helped fuel a cost of living crisis with energy and food, but Taiwan is the leading global supplier of high end electronic chips that run the modern economy and China is the leading global exporter full stop.
A China/Taiwan war would be utterly catastrophic for the global economy and thus our own security in a way that would absolutely dwarf our current crisis. Joining with the USA, Japan, Australia and other allies in deterring that risk is great value for money and is another reason why Putin's invasion of Ukraine must be seen to fail, to deter China too.
The world today is all interconnected, you can't look at one alone and ignore the rest of the globe.
The deterrence value of whatever paltry forces we could project in the Taiwan Strait is not going to be the difference between China invading Taiwan or not. This is the kind of Neocon talking points that got hundreds of British servicemen and women killed in Iraq. If the world economy is that dependent on key components from a geopolitical flash point I would suggest investment in supply diversification may represent a safer and cheaper course of action.
To do my best Chandler Bing impression - Could you be any more wrong?
The deterrence value of UK forces operating alone would not be the difference, that is true.
But the UK isn't operating alone. The deterrence value of the UK and the USA, Australia, India, Japan, Poland and the rest of the civilised world standing together in unison is immense. This is one area whereby working together we are more than the sum of our parts.
You are as utterly naive and reprehensible as the so-called "realists" who wanted to sell out Ukraine at the start of the conflict as Putin's victory was "inevitable" so we may as well accept that reality.
You are being naïve if you think the US is simply defending the "free world" here rather than defending its own hegemonic position. Of course the US has every right to do this, and in many ways its hegemony is preferable to the alternatives, but I just don't think this is our conflict. Ukraine is our conflict, because it will determine the security of the whole of Europe and Russia is an expansionist power on our doorstep. Anyway, I look forward to you signing up so you can put your own life at risk in pursuit of America's foreign policy goals, rather than just other people's.
If it were only the US that were worried about the risk of China invading Taiwan you might have some credibility that it is just the US defending its own position. Its not though, its the entire civilised world who are uniting because they know the threat is very real.
Stop and look at what China has already been willing to do with the Tibetans, Hong Kong and the Uighur. That you can look at that and seriously say "China is not a threat" is baffling, you are an apologist for evil.
Apologist for evil, give me a break. You drink too much coffee. You can't divide the world up into white hats and black hats. China has done lots of bad stuff, as have other countries. I am not defending them, I find their system of government reprehensible. But they are not an aggressively expansionist power and never have been, unlike Russia or for that matter Britain. I don't think we need to get involved in some war on the other side of the world where the link to British interests is not absolutely clear. And to be honest I find it odd that people who claim to be British patriots are so ready to embrace the agenda of another foreign power on this issue.
Some parts of the world are shades of grey, but (and this must be my famous "reactionary" attitude according to @Nigel_Foremain ) I greatly dislike the antiquated term "black and white" since it implies black = bad and white = good.
The use of white/lightness for good and black/darkness for bad long predates the use of white and black to describe skin colour.
Language evolves though, we don't still speak ye olde English.
Continuing to use such language now is repugnant to me. 👎
Your attitude is not dissimilar to this:
I'm a tad confused, in your eyes am I supposed to be the house's resident or Thornberry?
I know which one I'd identify more with.
Thornberry.
Her attitude was "some people who fly the English flag and drive white vans are racist, therefore this is a house where racists live"
Your attitude seems to be "some people use white and black in some contexts to be racist, therefore all uses of white and black are racist"
Not remotely the same at all.
The English flag is still the English flag, continuing to use it represents nothing more or less than being English.
White and black is antiquated and no longer appropriate good and evil paradigms, even if it used to be in the past.
Using black as a derogatory term today is not like flying the English flag, its like flying the flag of the Confederacy.
What about chess? White always goes first, surely that's racist.
Since neither first nor second is objectively considered "better" or "good" or "bad" I would say no.
Why no East Midlands? Can non-Conservatives go (if they have £5 spare) last time when Cameron stood I went to a meeting in Leicestershire. -think it cost £1.
Conservative website currently says only members. I guess they might open it up to non-members nearer the time if there are spaces available, but I am very much guessing.
Because making ourselves America's b*tch has always worked out so well for us.
Has Putinguy1983 hacked your account?
Pretty much, yes, absolutely it has, though as the article says Truss has been out in front of Biden and Blinken, and not just behind following them. Johnson was too.
I think our foreign and security policy should be guided by our own interests, not Neocon talking points. On Russia, which represents a security threat to us, we should absolutely be standing up to Putin alongside America and anyone else who is up for it. Read through my posts, I have never said anything different. But the China-US rivalry is different, as China isn't a threat to our security, and frankly a lot of the bluster on the US side is down to their own sense of supremacy being threatened. That is their problem, not ours.
China absolutely is a threat to our security, even more than Russia is.
As horrendous as Putin's invasion of Ukraine is, China invading Taiwan would be an order of magnitude worse. Ukraine is a substantial grain exporter and Russia a substantial energy exporter so this war has helped fuel a cost of living crisis with energy and food, but Taiwan is the leading global supplier of high end electronic chips that run the modern economy and China is the leading global exporter full stop.
A China/Taiwan war would be utterly catastrophic for the global economy and thus our own security in a way that would absolutely dwarf our current crisis. Joining with the USA, Japan, Australia and other allies in deterring that risk is great value for money and is another reason why Putin's invasion of Ukraine must be seen to fail, to deter China too.
The world today is all interconnected, you can't look at one alone and ignore the rest of the globe.
The deterrence value of whatever paltry forces we could project in the Taiwan Strait is not going to be the difference between China invading Taiwan or not. This is the kind of Neocon talking points that got hundreds of British servicemen and women killed in Iraq. If the world economy is that dependent on key components from a geopolitical flash point I would suggest investment in supply diversification may represent a safer and cheaper course of action.
To do my best Chandler Bing impression - Could you be any more wrong?
The deterrence value of UK forces operating alone would not be the difference, that is true.
But the UK isn't operating alone. The deterrence value of the UK and the USA, Australia, India, Japan, Poland and the rest of the civilised world standing together in unison is immense. This is one area whereby working together we are more than the sum of our parts.
You are as utterly naive and reprehensible as the so-called "realists" who wanted to sell out Ukraine at the start of the conflict as Putin's victory was "inevitable" so we may as well accept that reality.
You are being naïve if you think the US is simply defending the "free world" here rather than defending its own hegemonic position. Of course the US has every right to do this, and in many ways its hegemony is preferable to the alternatives, but I just don't think this is our conflict. Ukraine is our conflict, because it will determine the security of the whole of Europe and Russia is an expansionist power on our doorstep. Anyway, I look forward to you signing up so you can put your own life at risk in pursuit of America's foreign policy goals, rather than just other people's.
If it were only the US that were worried about the risk of China invading Taiwan you might have some credibility that it is just the US defending its own position. Its not though, its the entire civilised world who are uniting because they know the threat is very real.
Stop and look at what China has already been willing to do with the Tibetans, Hong Kong and the Uighur. That you can look at that and seriously say "China is not a threat" is baffling, you are an apologist for evil.
Apologist for evil, give me a break. You drink too much coffee. You can't divide the world up into white hats and black hats. China has done lots of bad stuff, as have other countries. I am not defending them, I find their system of government reprehensible. But they are not an aggressively expansionist power and never have been, unlike Russia or for that matter Britain. I don't think we need to get involved in some war on the other side of the world where the link to British interests is not absolutely clear. And to be honest I find it odd that people who claim to be British patriots are so ready to embrace the agenda of another foreign power on this issue.
Some parts of the world are shades of grey, but (and this must be my famous "reactionary" attitude according to @Nigel_Foremain ) I greatly dislike the antiquated term "black and white" since it implies black = bad and white = good.
The use of white/lightness for good and black/darkness for bad long predates the use of white and black to describe skin colour.
And in many contexts means they contrast, are diametrically opposite, not good or bad anyway.
There will be occasions such language needs to be watched carefully, it's great language evolves, but it is possible to be too snowflakey.
It sounds like one of those things mostly white people are concerned about, as opposed to more meaningful changes. Like the common refrain of policing language rather than addressing systemic issues.
On our last line: remember David Lammy's stupidity at the last papal conclave?
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Shit. When was the last time Labour announced actual policies? They must feel on the front foot
Sounds more like scrapping actual policies.
These are terrible policies though, even I don't believe in nationalising National Grid/energy and I'm leftie.
Water I'm more luke warm on because it's failed under privatisation but hardly seems a priority at present.
Royal Mail is gone, what is nationalising it going to do? That's just pointlessly ideological.
Is that the sound of the Overton window shifting mildly to the right?
I thought nationalising natural monopolies was currently orthodoxy on the left.
Royal Mail isn't a natural monopoly though. It would make sense for only one person per day turning up at your door to deliver all the mail and parcels but in the real world there are blokes in vans dropping stuff off from all sorts of delivery firms.
It is, though, in terms of the state-enforced universal postage rate which doesn't penalise the rural areas, unlike many commercial couriers. Like BT, which was also a GPO element.
The couriers are a nasty cartel - and that includes Royal Mail Parcels. The "highlands" courier zone is a joke. DHL charge 2.5x the fee to deliver into it. Even when the "highlands" redoubt starts in Westhill which is a suburb of Aberdeen. Even up here in Buchan we are no further away from the distribution office than places like Brechin, yet pay gonzo charges.
Even better is that the charges often apply one way - it is a fraction of the cost to send a parcel from the "highlands" to non-highlands than the other way round.
And they are all the same. And none of them will engage with consumers or even the Scottish government on why this is the case.
At least you're not in an IV postcode! Can live in Inverness and get a cost as if it's going up to Durness or something.
They've quoted ferries at me before, which is wrong. You need a HS for that.
They don't know or care. As they all do the same its not like you have an option!
I think rarely, this is one of the cases where Labour got it right.
In Government, only the MPs get a say on the leader, as far as I recall
Are you sure that's right? I'm not sure it is. I believe the reason there was no ballot in 2007 is that the only other candidate (John McDonnell) didn't secure the 12.5% of MPs' nominations (i.e. 45 at the time) required.
I believe that the threshold is now 20%, so that gives MPs a degree of power. Arguably, if it was the same with the Tories, only Sunak made 20% in the first round so he'd have been elected unopposed. In reality, though, it's likely the field would just have narrowed naturally as people struggled to get signatures, and Sunak, Truss and Mordaunt would all have made it (probably that's it although in theory one more might have made it).
IIRC what is different for Labour in government is how a leadership election can be triggered.
Seems like Truss's plan is to give away money away like there's no tomorrow. Johnson did the same with his Red Bus. Brexit'll make us rich! And by the time we discovered the truth Lulu Lyttle was wallpapering the boudoir.
If this splurge gets her through the next election that seems to be all she's looking for..
For economists her Nick Robinson interview must have been chilling.
Hmm… not convinced I like all the stuff about Truss and her private life on here. Didn’t really think the Boris stuff was that fair game either - I was more concerned how disasterous he was as a PM rather than what he historically got up to in his private life.
From my header on the Cox report -
"the Cox report describes an entrenched culture “cascading from the top down, of deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence, in which bullying and sexual harassment have been able to thrive and have long been tolerated and concealed."
How people behave when they are in government and in positions of power matters.
Is there any suggestion of Truss engaging in those items you mention or are we just throwing innuendo around?
I've been given current information by someone in government about her. I cannot say more for OGH's sake. But it should come as no surprise - do a bit of basic research from the time that report came out.
It surprises me that a party which is having a leadership campaign because of integrity issues with the current PM should not take seriously this issue when choosing its next leader. But that does indeed seem to be where the Tory party is. No amount of sniping at those pointing out this out can change this fact.
How a great English city sold itself to Abu Dhabi’s elite – and not even for a good price https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/21/great-english-city-sold-abu-dhabis-elite-manchester ...As one of the rulers of an autocratic kingdom that has an appalling reputation for repression and an addiction to oil revenues, Sheikh Mansour stood to gain so much from this partnership. It was the council that held almost all the cards: the hectares of publicly owned land, the planning regime, the public subsidies. Yet somehow, according to new research shared exclusively today with the Guardian and authored by academics at Sheffield University, it was Sheikh Mansour who pocketed almost all the winnings. The report says that nine sites were sold to the sheikh at a fraction of their value, and well below what other plots nearby fetched (the council says it used independent experts using standard valuations, although it won’t give any more details). They were on leases lasting 999 years, well beyond the norm. And the fund shifted what had been public assets to companies registered in Jersey.
That walk along the water from New Islington into Ancoats now passes blocks of privatised land owned in an offshore tax haven, which yields millions upon millions for a key member of the wealthy elite running a surveillance state halfway across the globe. One of the greatest cities in the world has sold itself to a senior figure in a brutal autocracy – and not even for a good price...,/i>
That is quite out of line of the other pollsters. I never buy any poll that has Tory or Labour way down in the 20%, time and time again it is shown 30% of the population vote for both regardless, but Labour in other polls has been showing 40%+. Green looks too high in above poll TBH.
LLG is 57% which is very much in line with other polls. Con at 33% is fairly in line too, though better than some. There is a lot of churn between L, L and G.
That is quite out of line of the other pollsters. I never buy any poll that has Tory or Labour way down in the 20%, time and time again it is shown 30% of the population vote for both regardless, but Labour in other polls has been showing 40%+. Green looks too high in above poll TBH.
Its in line with its own relative position to other pollsters. It was s lead of 2 when Redfield was in the 7 to 8 point lead range, its 4 now and Redfield is currrently 10. And the elastic stretch to 10 to 15 polling leads has started to gradually snap back. Its maybe a point or two on the generous side but its not an outlier compared to its own methodology and output
Because making ourselves America's b*tch has always worked out so well for us.
Has Putinguy1983 hacked your account?
Pretty much, yes, absolutely it has, though as the article says Truss has been out in front of Biden and Blinken, and not just behind following them. Johnson was too.
I think our foreign and security policy should be guided by our own interests, not Neocon talking points. On Russia, which represents a security threat to us, we should absolutely be standing up to Putin alongside America and anyone else who is up for it. Read through my posts, I have never said anything different. But the China-US rivalry is different, as China isn't a threat to our security, and frankly a lot of the bluster on the US side is down to their own sense of supremacy being threatened. That is their problem, not ours.
China absolutely is a threat to our security, even more than Russia is.
As horrendous as Putin's invasion of Ukraine is, China invading Taiwan would be an order of magnitude worse. Ukraine is a substantial grain exporter and Russia a substantial energy exporter so this war has helped fuel a cost of living crisis with energy and food, but Taiwan is the leading global supplier of high end electronic chips that run the modern economy and China is the leading global exporter full stop.
A China/Taiwan war would be utterly catastrophic for the global economy and thus our own security in a way that would absolutely dwarf our current crisis. Joining with the USA, Japan, Australia and other allies in deterring that risk is great value for money and is another reason why Putin's invasion of Ukraine must be seen to fail, to deter China too.
The world today is all interconnected, you can't look at one alone and ignore the rest of the globe.
The deterrence value of whatever paltry forces we could project in the Taiwan Strait is not going to be the difference between China invading Taiwan or not. This is the kind of Neocon talking points that got hundreds of British servicemen and women killed in Iraq. If the world economy is that dependent on key components from a geopolitical flash point I would suggest investment in supply diversification may represent a safer and cheaper course of action.
To do my best Chandler Bing impression - Could you be any more wrong?
The deterrence value of UK forces operating alone would not be the difference, that is true.
But the UK isn't operating alone. The deterrence value of the UK and the USA, Australia, India, Japan, Poland and the rest of the civilised world standing together in unison is immense. This is one area whereby working together we are more than the sum of our parts.
You are as utterly naive and reprehensible as the so-called "realists" who wanted to sell out Ukraine at the start of the conflict as Putin's victory was "inevitable" so we may as well accept that reality.
You are being naïve if you think the US is simply defending the "free world" here rather than defending its own hegemonic position. Of course the US has every right to do this, and in many ways its hegemony is preferable to the alternatives, but I just don't think this is our conflict. Ukraine is our conflict, because it will determine the security of the whole of Europe and Russia is an expansionist power on our doorstep. Anyway, I look forward to you signing up so you can put your own life at risk in pursuit of America's foreign policy goals, rather than just other people's.
If it were only the US that were worried about the risk of China invading Taiwan you might have some credibility that it is just the US defending its own position. Its not though, its the entire civilised world who are uniting because they know the threat is very real.
Stop and look at what China has already been willing to do with the Tibetans, Hong Kong and the Uighur. That you can look at that and seriously say "China is not a threat" is baffling, you are an apologist for evil.
Apologist for evil, give me a break. You drink too much coffee. You can't divide the world up into white hats and black hats. China has done lots of bad stuff, as have other countries. I am not defending them, I find their system of government reprehensible. But they are not an aggressively expansionist power and never have been, unlike Russia or for that matter Britain. I don't think we need to get involved in some war on the other side of the world where the link to British interests is not absolutely clear. And to be honest I find it odd that people who claim to be British patriots are so ready to embrace the agenda of another foreign power on this issue.
Some parts of the world are shades of grey, but (and this must be my famous "reactionary" attitude according to @Nigel_Foremain ) I greatly dislike the antiquated term "black and white" since it implies black = bad and white = good.
The use of white/lightness for good and black/darkness for bad long predates the use of white and black to describe skin colour.
And in many contexts means they contrast, are diametrically opposite, not good or bad anyway.
There will be occasions such language needs to be watched carefully, it's great language evolves, but it is possible to be too snowflakey.
It sounds like one of those things mostly white people are concerned about, as opposed to more meaningful changes. Like the common refrain of policing language rather than addressing systemic issues.
"Why should the public trust Rishi after he backstabbed Boris."
Telling you now this is going to be wall to wall painting Rishi as Judas to Boris' Caesar in the rw media. Rishi starts behind and they're going to make damn well sure he stays behind.
Hah rrealised I got my backstabbing metaphors mixed up, nevertheless Boris is still Jesus/Caesar in the eyes of the Tory membership and Sunak is "the snake"/Brutus/Judas.
Because making ourselves America's b*tch has always worked out so well for us.
Has Putinguy1983 hacked your account?
Pretty much, yes, absolutely it has, though as the article says Truss has been out in front of Biden and Blinken, and not just behind following them. Johnson was too.
I think our foreign and security policy should be guided by our own interests, not Neocon talking points. On Russia, which represents a security threat to us, we should absolutely be standing up to Putin alongside America and anyone else who is up for it. Read through my posts, I have never said anything different. But the China-US rivalry is different, as China isn't a threat to our security, and frankly a lot of the bluster on the US side is down to their own sense of supremacy being threatened. That is their problem, not ours.
China absolutely is a threat to our security, even more than Russia is.
As horrendous as Putin's invasion of Ukraine is, China invading Taiwan would be an order of magnitude worse. Ukraine is a substantial grain exporter and Russia a substantial energy exporter so this war has helped fuel a cost of living crisis with energy and food, but Taiwan is the leading global supplier of high end electronic chips that run the modern economy and China is the leading global exporter full stop.
A China/Taiwan war would be utterly catastrophic for the global economy and thus our own security in a way that would absolutely dwarf our current crisis. Joining with the USA, Japan, Australia and other allies in deterring that risk is great value for money and is another reason why Putin's invasion of Ukraine must be seen to fail, to deter China too.
The world today is all interconnected, you can't look at one alone and ignore the rest of the globe.
The deterrence value of whatever paltry forces we could project in the Taiwan Strait is not going to be the difference between China invading Taiwan or not. This is the kind of Neocon talking points that got hundreds of British servicemen and women killed in Iraq. If the world economy is that dependent on key components from a geopolitical flash point I would suggest investment in supply diversification may represent a safer and cheaper course of action.
To do my best Chandler Bing impression - Could you be any more wrong?
The deterrence value of UK forces operating alone would not be the difference, that is true.
But the UK isn't operating alone. The deterrence value of the UK and the USA, Australia, India, Japan, Poland and the rest of the civilised world standing together in unison is immense. This is one area whereby working together we are more than the sum of our parts.
You are as utterly naive and reprehensible as the so-called "realists" who wanted to sell out Ukraine at the start of the conflict as Putin's victory was "inevitable" so we may as well accept that reality.
You are being naïve if you think the US is simply defending the "free world" here rather than defending its own hegemonic position. Of course the US has every right to do this, and in many ways its hegemony is preferable to the alternatives, but I just don't think this is our conflict. Ukraine is our conflict, because it will determine the security of the whole of Europe and Russia is an expansionist power on our doorstep. Anyway, I look forward to you signing up so you can put your own life at risk in pursuit of America's foreign policy goals, rather than just other people's.
If it were only the US that were worried about the risk of China invading Taiwan you might have some credibility that it is just the US defending its own position. Its not though, its the entire civilised world who are uniting because they know the threat is very real.
Stop and look at what China has already been willing to do with the Tibetans, Hong Kong and the Uighur. That you can look at that and seriously say "China is not a threat" is baffling, you are an apologist for evil.
Apologist for evil, give me a break. You drink too much coffee. You can't divide the world up into white hats and black hats. China has done lots of bad stuff, as have other countries. I am not defending them, I find their system of government reprehensible. But they are not an aggressively expansionist power and never have been, unlike Russia or for that matter Britain. I don't think we need to get involved in some war on the other side of the world where the link to British interests is not absolutely clear. And to be honest I find it odd that people who claim to be British patriots are so ready to embrace the agenda of another foreign power on this issue.
Some parts of the world are shades of grey, but (and this must be my famous "reactionary" attitude according to @Nigel_Foremain ) I greatly dislike the antiquated term "black and white" since it implies black = bad and white = good.
The use of white/lightness for good and black/darkness for bad long predates the use of white and black to describe skin colour.
Language evolves though, we don't still speak ye olde English.
Continuing to use such language now is repugnant to me. 👎
Your attitude is not dissimilar to this:
I'm a tad confused, in your eyes am I supposed to be the house's resident or Thornberry?
I know which one I'd identify more with.
Thornberry.
Her attitude was "some people who fly the English flag and drive white vans are racist, therefore this is a house where racists live"
Your attitude seems to be "some people use white and black in some contexts to be racist, therefore all uses of white and black are racist"
Not remotely the same at all.
The English flag is still the English flag, continuing to use it represents nothing more or less than being English.
White and black is antiquated and no longer appropriate good and evil paradigms, even if it used to be in the past.
Using black as a derogatory term today is not like flying the English flag, its like flying the flag of the Confederacy.
What about chess? White always goes first, surely that's racist.
Since neither first nor second is objectively considered "better" or "good" or "bad" I would say no.
EXCLUSIVE: I am told Keir Starmer will scrap the pledges to nationalise National Grid, water and Royal Mail.
Tuition fees remain in debate, I am told Labour will in the meantime focus on early education including bringing back SureStart.
Shit. When was the last time Labour announced actual policies? They must feel on the front foot
Sounds more like scrapping actual policies.
These are terrible policies though, even I don't believe in nationalising National Grid/energy and I'm leftie.
Water I'm more luke warm on because it's failed under privatisation but hardly seems a priority at present.
Royal Mail is gone, what is nationalising it going to do? That's just pointlessly ideological.
Is that the sound of the Overton window shifting mildly to the right?
I thought nationalising natural monopolies was currently orthodoxy on the left.
Royal Mail isn't a natural monopoly though. It would make sense for only one person per day turning up at your door to deliver all the mail and parcels but in the real world there are blokes in vans dropping stuff off from all sorts of delivery firms.
It is, though, in terms of the state-enforced universal postage rate which doesn't penalise the rural areas, unlike many commercial couriers. Like BT, which was also a GPO element.
The couriers are a nasty cartel - and that includes Royal Mail Parcels. The "highlands" courier zone is a joke. DHL charge 2.5x the fee to deliver into it. Even when the "highlands" redoubt starts in Westhill which is a suburb of Aberdeen. Even up here in Buchan we are no further away from the distribution office than places like Brechin, yet pay gonzo charges.
Even better is that the charges often apply one way - it is a fraction of the cost to send a parcel from the "highlands" to non-highlands than the other way round.
And they are all the same. And none of them will engage with consumers or even the Scottish government on why this is the case.
At least you're not in an IV postcode! Can live in Inverness and get a cost as if it's going up to Durness or something.
They've quoted ferries at me before, which is wrong. You need a HS for that.
They don't know or care. As they all do the same its not like you have an option!
And even if they didn't all do the same, the customer generally doesn't have the option which courier the merchant uses.
Seems like Truss's plan is to give away money away like there's no tomorrow. Johnson did the same with his Red Bus. Brexit'll make us rich! And by the time we discovered the truth Lulu Lyttle was wallpapering the boudoir.
If this splurge gets her through the next election that seems to be all she's looking for..
For economists her Nick Robinson interview must have been chilling.
Talking of Lulu Lytle, surely the key question the two candidates should be asked to help party members make the decision is which of them will be better able to stand the wallpaper?
"Why should the public trust Rishi after he backstabbed Boris."
Telling you now this is going to be wall to wall painting Rishi as Judas to Boris' Caesar in the rw media. Rishi starts behind and they're going to make damn well sure he stays behind.
Cassius or Brutus not Judas
Also, Johnson stabbed May in the back, so what? Stabbing each other in the back in a relentless pursuit of power is just what politicians do.
Good for Liz. Tax-cutting, freedom-loving Conservatives are just what this nation needs. 👍
The last thing we need are tax-rising, authoritarian Conservatives.
Its good to see that although Liz has evolved over time, she remains a small-l liberal. In Liz we Truss. 👍
Lizzy Lightweight is almost as shit as Boris Johnson. Her dishonesty and incompetence will come to the surface in just the same way as Johnson's did. She will result in the Conservatives going down to a catastrophic defeat at the next GE.
"Why should the public trust Rishi after he backstabbed Boris."
Telling you now this is going to be wall to wall painting Rishi as Judas to Boris' Caesar in the rw media. Rishi starts behind and they're going to make damn well sure he stays behind.
Cassius or Brutus not Judas
Also, Johnson stabbed May in the back, so what? Stabbing each other in the back in a relentless pursuit of power is just what politicians do.
Comments
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62249049
Chose a duffer, or a nutter while in government and you are handing them an lot of power over the country. And whilst they probably will be stopped eventually (see recent events), they can do an awful lot of harm in the meantime.
Perhaps Paul Staines wants to do a crowd-funder for party members on the breadline so they can go to hear Liz Truss speak in person?
28th July: Leeds; 1st Aug: Exeter; 3rd Aug: Cardiff; 5th Aug: Eastbourne; 9th Aug: Darlington*; 11th Aug: Cheltenham; 16th Aug: Perth; 17th Aug: Northern Ireland; 19th Aug: Manchester; 23rd Aug: Birmingham; 25th Aug: Norwich; 31st Aug: London.
Why no East Midlands?
Can non-Conservatives go (if they have £5 spare) last time when Cameron stood I went to a meeting in Leicestershire. -think it cost £1.
It always struck me that the image was intended to go further than just showing numbers in terms of a city's population.
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1550037890356461570
In Government, only the MPs get a say on the leader, as far as I recall
Remove the oxygen of publicity is the best response.
And lots of people don't have reliable/secure personal access to computers and/or the savvy to use them.
Under 6,000 votes there for the Tories in 2019.
How's the baby Max?
This is the paradox of public ownership of services. The service bit is the least interesting thing to the Government as a whole.
If you want to end sewage discharges, the regulator can do that - see London, Thames Water and then sewer system. But then water prices will go up.
I think the Government should own it but experts should run it, independently from Government.
The DB model.
And this idea no computers / savvy....again particularly as we look to the future is this is just untrue. Smart phones are already nearly ubiquitous and even my elderly parents in their late 80s can and do work email.
Another 10 years, we have 5G, etc etc etc, it will be the tiniest percentage of the population that doesn't have an internet connected device. Every business I interact with straight away says do you want this electronically rather than paper, no you do want it don't you....it will increasingly become like the idea of paying with a cheque (or increasingly cash), businesses demand it electronically as a default.
I don't see that 'everyone fucking hates' can ever be a good reason for doing anything, unless the objective is to wreck everything in sight.
Regulated privatisation lead to improvements in service, far more investment, significantly reduced leakage etc.
In the recent debate about about sewerage releases into rivers the Goons from the Green Party suggested it could be funded out of the small profit margins made by water companies, whereas the real numbers required was ~25-30 years if turnover for the whole industry.
So onto Google store support, who take details, and look into it. And they're still looking into it. Have had to gently request that they send a replacement as if Royal Mail haven't found it by now they aren't going to do so.
Couriers do lose stuff. The web store I set up for a client has occasional lost shipments. I don't keep the customer faffing, a replacement is sent and the courier shouted at.
A cheeky by election Wednesday in Basildon. As we know the 1992 result was first flagged by David Amess holding Basildon somewhat unexpectedly.
So, yesterday
Nethermayne (Basildon) By-Election Result:
IND: 62.7% (New)
CON: 16.1% (+4.1)
LAB: 11.7% (-2.8)
LDM: 7.0% (+3.2)
RFM: 2.6% (New)
No IND (-69.8) as previous.
Independent GAIN from Independent.
Changes w/ 2022.
An indy hold but Tories leapfrog into second above Labour on a 3.5% swing. Which, extrapolated from the position in May 2022 would be level pegging nationally snd a very very hung parliament.
Badildon shows the way again!!
As i said, a bit of fun and i am NOT predicting anything but this does at least hint at the Tories relative strength against the others in Essex compared to remainia in the South (they havent held this ward in the 21st century, it was a rare area of LD Essex strength in the later first decade up to coalition times and then a UKIP fortress for a while)
Essex is the new Stockbroker belt.
I believe that the threshold is now 20%, so that gives MPs a degree of power. Arguably, if it was the same with the Tories, only Sunak made 20% in the first round so he'd have been elected unopposed. In reality, though, it's likely the field would just have narrowed naturally as people struggled to get signatures, and Sunak, Truss and Mordaunt would all have made it (probably that's it although in theory one more might have made it).
How's life for you?
If the population increases by 300k, then you need (roughly) 300k new bedrooms of accommodation. Schools, hospitals etc to match. Otherwise you will see a decreases in quality of life for everyone.
I’ve no doubt that someone will see the above as “anti-immigrant”. It is merely true.
Truss claims she wanted Johnson to stay
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/21/liz-truss-boris-johnson-stay-pledges-rip-up-tax-plans-tory-leadership
"the Cox report describes an entrenched culture “cascading from the top down, of deference, subservience, acquiescence and silence, in which bullying and sexual harassment have been able to thrive and have long been tolerated and concealed."
How people behave when they are in government and in positions of power matters.
I'd have been surprised, and I think it would have been more controversial, had they opted to by-pass it.
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0029/228971/Annual-monitoring-update-on-the-postal-market-Financial-year-2020-21.pdf
Also, trends don't always continue. Consider, for instance, the absolute need to have actual bank statements - not email printouts - to deal with certain organizations.
How a great English city sold itself to Abu Dhabi’s elite – and not even for a good price
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/21/great-english-city-sold-abu-dhabis-elite-manchester
...As one of the rulers of an autocratic kingdom that has an appalling reputation for repression and an addiction to oil revenues, Sheikh Mansour stood to gain so much from this partnership. It was the council that held almost all the cards: the hectares of publicly owned land, the planning regime, the public subsidies. Yet somehow, according to new research shared exclusively today with the Guardian and authored by academics at Sheffield University, it was Sheikh Mansour who pocketed almost all the winnings. The report says that nine sites were sold to the sheikh at a fraction of their value, and well below what other plots nearby fetched (the council says it used independent experts using standard valuations, although it won’t give any more details). They were on leases lasting 999 years, well beyond the norm. And the fund shifted what had been public assets to companies registered in Jersey.
That walk along the water from New Islington into Ancoats now passes blocks of privatised land owned in an offshore tax haven, which yields millions upon millions for a key member of the wealthy elite running a surveillance state halfway across the globe. One of the greatest cities in the world has sold itself to a senior figure in a brutal autocracy – and not even for a good price...,/i>
It should matter, but obviously for a large slice of the UK electorate it does not seem to matter in the slightest
Again, the idea you will need an actual printed statement, it will be gone in the near future....first and foremost because it is super easy to forge. 10 years old can do it with ease. There are lots of other ways to validate things. Its a relic from the past.
"All ballots must be received by 5pm on Friday 2nd September. For your vote to count you must be an active member of the Party immediately prior to the ballot closing. Please allow sufficient time in case of unexpected postal delays. Online voting is available until close of ballot."
What is an active member? Does this mean people who don't renew their membership between receiving the ballot paper and the date of the election will have their vote removed.
They've quoted ferries at me before, which is wrong. You need a HS for that.
Perhaps they are worried some people will remember that the HS2 money went on Nimbies and refurbing the Palace of Westminster.
It is mostly about age and habits.
Even SKS can't be that bad
Westminster voting intention:
LAB: 37% (+1)
CON: 33% (-1)
LDEM: 13% (-)
GRN: 7% (+2)
via
@KantarPublic
, 14 - 18 Jul
Chgs. w/ Jun
"Why should the public trust Rishi after he backstabbed Boris."
Telling you now this is going to be wall to wall painting Rishi as Judas to Boris' Caesar in the rw media. Rishi starts behind and they're going to make damn well sure he stays behind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo_FM3mjBCY
NYT - How China’s Surveillance Is Growing More Invasive | Visual Investigations
And yet the UK can't buy enough of the HIKvision cameras that are the go to for the Chinese government.
It may help to explain why Patel didn't stand for Leader, and why she cancelled her appearance at the Select Committee, for no good reason.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62244679
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1092485/BF_Independent_Review_v2_FINAL_WEB__002___002_.pdf
There will be occasions such language needs to be watched carefully, it's great language evolves, but it is possible to be too snowflakey.
It sounds like one of those things mostly white people are concerned about, as opposed to more meaningful changes. Like the common refrain of policing language rather than addressing systemic issues.
I think somebody looked at a map and thought Birmingham would be nice and central, not at the transport situation.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-21764636
NEW from Politico:
How Liz Truss did it.
"It's been like trying to drive a Formula One car... Once we got things under control, we always thought we'd be able to overtake later on.”
Story via the ace @NewsAnnabelle & @e_casalicchio 👇
If this splurge gets her through the next election that seems to be all she's looking for..
For economists her Nick Robinson interview must have been chilling.
The last thing we need are tax-rising, authoritarian Conservatives.
Its good to see that although Liz has evolved over time, she remains a small-l liberal. In Liz we Truss. 👍
It surprises me that a party which is having a leadership campaign because of integrity issues with the current PM should not take seriously this issue when choosing its next leader. But that does indeed seem to be where the Tory party is. No amount of sniping at those pointing out this out can change this fact.
We do not need another lying charlatan.