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Do the Tories know what they are getting with Truss? – politicalbetting.com

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  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    1./ The Tavistock and the idiocy of Jolyon Maugham and Benjamin Cohen. Endocrinologist @will_malone points out a crucial finding that contributed to the Tavi's closure: its failure to research properly the risks of puberty blockers. So what did Jolyon and Benjy say?👇
    1 of/13.


    https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1552720563772293120
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Big clap when young lady mentions lazy people sitting on their bums on benefits.

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    In more important news, remember the WhatsApp group Wayne Couzens belonged to? 3 more Met officers from the same group are currently on trial in relation to some really disturbing messages they posted.

    What is also interesting is that, like Couzens, they too came from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and had not been in the Met a long time. This does suggest something a bit iffy about the CNC as well as the Met.

    I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about having such people guarding our nuclear facilities frankly.

    That must be the most boring police job in the UK. Maybe why? (Edit: explanation, not excuse)

    I know an armed cop in Edinburgh and he goes slightly mad every time the Queen comes up.
    Being a bit bored seems a poor explanation for the sorts of things being aired during this trial.

    What sort of due diligence was being done on these men? What sort of monitoring of what they were up to? None it would seem. Which is more than a touch alarming.

    The problem is not just what they were saying and doing but that it risked making them a blackmail risk. And that is definitely a risk you do not want to run in a nuclear facility. People who work in such places have to be positively vetted. Or so I understand.
    Your last para is a very good point.

    My thinking was a very small, immobile team, geographically and structurally isolated from normal policing, with nothing to do, might have a larger risk of a toxic culture festering and infecting the whole lot.

    This is based on the idea that the Police aren't, in general, that bad. But...
    Bizarrely, this happened to Marine Scotland in Thurso. They tied some poor woman to an office chair.
    If they're bored, they could do some gardening. Seriously: it's creative, it's physically active and it keeps them away from porn sites and What's App. If it's good enough for the prisoners at Haverigg prison, it's good enough for them.

    Strangely, this part of the Lakes does not have particularly good plant nurseries. Or good professional gardeners.

    I had plans back in 2020 to take the formal Garden Design course at Newton Rigg agricultural college in Penrith - in September. Then Covid struck and now in an act of vandalism they've closed the college. I can do an online course but I really wanted to meet with and learn from the professionals and fellow students face to face and, maybe, establish myself as a professional gardener / designer.

    So I will have to look for alternatives now. It seems absurd that in an area with such a strong farming community there is no agricultural college. At the moment I read The English Garden religiously - it has fantastic articles and ideas. But the land I have is an odd curved rectangular shape on a hill and I could really do with someone else looking at it with a professional trained eye.
  • Nah boozing tomorrow too
  • Moretti!!!
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,171
    Alistair said:

    Got my Dalle invite. What nonsense shit do people want to see images of?

    Got mine too. Tried a few things and it's... well, not very good!
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    ydoethur said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Truss is better with humour.

    This is over imho.

    It is time to get Johnson out and Truss into the No 10 wallpaper display zone.

    She is getting a much easier ride than Sunak, and she is relaxed enough to joke a bit.
    Yeah definitely outperforming on the upside. And this Moving whips office back to 12 Downing Street stuff sounds really authoritative and thought out.
    ROFLMAO.

    Oh dear oh dear oh dear...
    Sentence 1: you have to calibrate against my expectations

    Sentence 2: note that I said sounds. For all I know there is no such building as 12 Downing Street, or the whips office was never situated there.

    But liz on the face of it is smashing it, and loving it. If only I had backed her at 101 for next PM.

    *checks betting records*
    *smiles*
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774

    Alistair said:

    Got my Dalle invite. What nonsense shit do people want to see images of?

    Got mine too. Tried a few things and it's... well, not very good!
    It's almost like the images that are posted are those that a human has deemed most interesting.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Alistair said:

    Got my Dalle invite. What nonsense shit do people want to see images of?

    Got mine too. Tried a few things and it's... well, not very good!
    The amount of curation people have been doing is clearly huge. Also there is a skill to prompting image generators. There was one where adding "Hi def wallpaper" to the prompt masssively increased image quality.
  • MPartridgeMPartridge Posts: 156
    MaxPB said:

    An extremely powerful first hand experience in The Telegraph around the gender identity stuff here:

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/28/had-gone-gender-transition-would-have-committed-suicide/

    Her experience with the NHS gender service is extremely worrying and disheartening. It's almost as if they are putting these ideas in the heads of patients and egging them on to take the next step, then the next one until something irreversible is suggested and the patient either has no way back or no way out.

    This is just one woman speaking out, how many cases already went too far and are sadly no longer here because it was all too much to handle after making some irreversible step towards something that wasn't necessarily the correct one with no way back.

    My Mrs is a Psychologist, She is currently doing some work with the NHS in GP clinics, she is currently seeing some children who want to transition, she said the most depressing part is some of the children almost seem pressured into it by the parents.

    The numbers who will go on to regret these irreversible changes will be heart breaking.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    BREAKING:

    Rishi Sunak says he would support the return of grammar schools

    'I believe in educational excellence, I believe education is the most powerful way that we can transform people's lives'

    That's sounds like a *major* commitment - but he doesn't expand on it


    https://twitter.com/adrianmcmenamin/status/1552733873108312064

    Translation: Rishi Sunak wants to make 3/4 of schools Secondary Moderns

    Excellent move by Rishi, increasing access to excellence in state education by allowing grammars to expand.

    Allowing more pupils in the state sector to get the top academic education the likes of TSE got in the private sector.

    Confirms my vote for him
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,786
    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Big clap when young lady mentions lazy people sitting on their bums on benefits.

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    In more important news, remember the WhatsApp group Wayne Couzens belonged to? 3 more Met officers from the same group are currently on trial in relation to some really disturbing messages they posted.

    What is also interesting is that, like Couzens, they too came from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and had not been in the Met a long time. This does suggest something a bit iffy about the CNC as well as the Met.

    I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about having such people guarding our nuclear facilities frankly.

    That must be the most boring police job in the UK. Maybe why? (Edit: explanation, not excuse)

    I know an armed cop in Edinburgh and he goes slightly mad every time the Queen comes up.
    Being a bit bored seems a poor explanation for the sorts of things being aired during this trial.

    What sort of due diligence was being done on these men? What sort of monitoring of what they were up to? None it would seem. Which is more than a touch alarming.

    The problem is not just what they were saying and doing but that it risked making them a blackmail risk. And that is definitely a risk you do not want to run in a nuclear facility. People who work in such places have to be positively vetted. Or so I understand.
    Your last para is a very good point.

    My thinking was a very small, immobile team, geographically and structurally isolated from normal policing, with nothing to do, might have a larger risk of a toxic culture festering and infecting the whole lot.

    This is based on the idea that the Police aren't, in general, that bad. But...
    Bizarrely, this happened to Marine Scotland in Thurso. They tied some poor woman to an office chair.
    If they're bored, they could do some gardening. Seriously: it's creative, it's physically active and it keeps them away from porn sites and What's App. If it's good enough for the prisoners at Haverigg prison, it's good enough for them.

    Strangely, this part of the Lakes does not have particularly good plant nurseries. Or good professional gardeners.

    I had plans back in 2020 to take the formal Garden Design course at Newton Rigg agricultural college in Penrith - in September. Then Covid struck and now in an act of vandalism they've closed the college. I can do an online course but I really wanted to meet with and learn from the professionals and fellow students face to face and, maybe, establish myself as a professional gardener / designer.

    So I will have to look for alternatives now. It seems absurd that in an area with such a strong farming community there is no agricultural college. At the moment I read The English Garden religiously - it has fantastic articles and ideas. But the land I have is an odd curved rectangular shape on a hill and I could really do with someone else looking at it with a professional trained eye.
    I'm currently restoring my tiny front garden in front of my tenement. Takes forever, and hard to see any progress. But fun.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625

    1./ The Tavistock and the idiocy of Jolyon Maugham and Benjamin Cohen. Endocrinologist @will_malone points out a crucial finding that contributed to the Tavi's closure: its failure to research properly the risks of puberty blockers. So what did Jolyon and Benjy say?👇
    1 of/13.


    https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1552720563772293120

    Some little time ago, I attended a course (work provided), on “sensitivity”.

    One of the subjects was “Bad facts” - where factually true information was harmful/hostile/evil etc.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    HYUFD said:

    BREAKING:

    Rishi Sunak says he would support the return of grammar schools

    'I believe in educational excellence, I believe education is the most powerful way that we can transform people's lives'

    That's sounds like a *major* commitment - but he doesn't expand on it


    https://twitter.com/adrianmcmenamin/status/1552733873108312064

    Translation: Rishi Sunak wants to make 3/4 of schools Secondary Moderns

    Excellent move by Rishi, increasing access to excellence in state education by allowing grammars to expand.

    Allowing more pupils in the state sector to get the top academic education the likes of TSE got in the private sector.

    Confirms my vote for him
    Desperate and flailing.

    Liz is going to win by a landslide.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774
    IshmaelZ said:

    Drunk again x

    Honestly mate, go easy. Personally I have a glass or two of wine from time to time, but I never get tight. Seen too much of it. And aren't you working?
    Haven't you described how much happier you now are drinking a bottle of wine a night?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    Just got in. Someone complaining about people earning £50k not getting child benefit. Yep, that’s the world we now live in.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Nigelb said:

    .

    ydoethur said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Truss is better with humour.

    This is over imho.

    It is time to get Johnson out and Truss into the No 10 wallpaper display zone.

    She is getting a much easier ride than Sunak, and she is relaxed enough to joke a bit.
    Yeah definitely outperforming on the upside. And this Moving whips office back to 12 Downing Street stuff sounds really authoritative and thought out.
    ROFLMAO.

    Oh dear oh dear oh dear...
    Learning to love their new leader.
    A couple of weeks back, and only Barty had a good word to say for her. Power is indeed an aphrodisiac.
    Do one, love. Find something to swivel on. She's not my new leader. And if I said different things about the English cricket team last Ashes tour vs this summer, can you think of any objective reason why I might have changed my tune?

    Also, 101. 100/1. Ha.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749
    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Drunk again x

    Honestly mate, go easy. Personally I have a glass or two of wine from time to time, but I never get tight. Seen too much of it. And aren't you working?
    Haven't you described how much happier you now are drinking a bottle of wine a night?
    And your point is?


  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    rcs1000 said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Drunk again x

    Honestly mate, go easy. Personally I have a glass or two of wine from time to time, but I never get tight. Seen too much of it. And aren't you working?
    Haven't you described how much happier you now are drinking a bottle of wine a night?
    That was a paraphrase of Evelyn Waugh (Apthorpe in Men at Arms).

    Yes, but I am anxious CHB should do what I say vs what I do.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited July 2022
    Labour, if they are watching this, should be worried.

    She has a weird knack of communing precisely with an admittedly Tory but broadly mainstream audience.

    She is the walrus, goo goo g’joob.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625
    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Big clap when young lady mentions lazy people sitting on their bums on benefits.

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    In more important news, remember the WhatsApp group Wayne Couzens belonged to? 3 more Met officers from the same group are currently on trial in relation to some really disturbing messages they posted.

    What is also interesting is that, like Couzens, they too came from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and had not been in the Met a long time. This does suggest something a bit iffy about the CNC as well as the Met.

    I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about having such people guarding our nuclear facilities frankly.

    That must be the most boring police job in the UK. Maybe why? (Edit: explanation, not excuse)

    I know an armed cop in Edinburgh and he goes slightly mad every time the Queen comes up.
    Being a bit bored seems a poor explanation for the sorts of things being aired during this trial.

    What sort of due diligence was being done on these men? What sort of monitoring of what they were up to? None it would seem. Which is more than a touch alarming.

    The problem is not just what they were saying and doing but that it risked making them a blackmail risk. And that is definitely a risk you do not want to run in a nuclear facility. People who work in such places have to be positively vetted. Or so I understand.
    Your last para is a very good point.

    My thinking was a very small, immobile team, geographically and structurally isolated from normal policing, with nothing to do, might have a larger risk of a toxic culture festering and infecting the whole lot.

    This is based on the idea that the Police aren't, in general, that bad. But...
    Bizarrely, this happened to Marine Scotland in Thurso. They tied some poor woman to an office chair.
    If they're bored, they could do some gardening. Seriously: it's creative, it's physically active and it keeps them away from porn sites and What's App. If it's good enough for the prisoners at Haverigg prison, it's good enough for them.

    Strangely, this part of the Lakes does not have particularly good plant nurseries. Or good professional gardeners.

    I had plans back in 2020 to take the formal Garden Design course at Newton Rigg agricultural college in Penrith - in September. Then Covid struck and now in an act of vandalism they've closed the college. I can do an online course but I really wanted to meet with and learn from the professionals and fellow students face to face and, maybe, establish myself as a professional gardener / designer.

    So I will have to look for alternatives now. It seems absurd that in an area with such a strong farming community there is no agricultural college. At the moment I read The English Garden religiously - it has fantastic articles and ideas. But the land I have is an odd curved rectangular shape on a hill and I could really do with someone else looking at it with a professional trained eye.
    Once again, the Victorian’s got there first.

    Over the years, read many a sneering comment about the way officers in the RN would organise something, anything to keep the men busy when not on duty - gardening included. Apparently even at Scapa Flow….

  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Big clap when young lady mentions lazy people sitting on their bums on benefits.

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    In more important news, remember the WhatsApp group Wayne Couzens belonged to? 3 more Met officers from the same group are currently on trial in relation to some really disturbing messages they posted.

    What is also interesting is that, like Couzens, they too came from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and had not been in the Met a long time. This does suggest something a bit iffy about the CNC as well as the Met.

    I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about having such people guarding our nuclear facilities frankly.

    That must be the most boring police job in the UK. Maybe why? (Edit: explanation, not excuse)

    I know an armed cop in Edinburgh and he goes slightly mad every time the Queen comes up.
    Being a bit bored seems a poor explanation for the sorts of things being aired during this trial.

    What sort of due diligence was being done on these men? What sort of monitoring of what they were up to? None it would seem. Which is more than a touch alarming.

    The problem is not just what they were saying and doing but that it risked making them a blackmail risk. And that is definitely a risk you do not want to run in a nuclear facility. People who work in such places have to be positively vetted. Or so I understand.
    Your last para is a very good point.

    My thinking was a very small, immobile team, geographically and structurally isolated from normal policing, with nothing to do, might have a larger risk of a toxic culture festering and infecting the whole lot.

    This is based on the idea that the Police aren't, in general, that bad. But...
    Bizarrely, this happened to Marine Scotland in Thurso. They tied some poor woman to an office chair.
    If they're bored, they could do some gardening. Seriously: it's creative, it's physically active and it keeps them away from porn sites and What's App. If it's good enough for the prisoners at Haverigg prison, it's good enough for them.

    Strangely, this part of the Lakes does not have particularly good plant nurseries. Or good professional gardeners.

    I had plans back in 2020 to take the formal Garden Design course at Newton Rigg agricultural college in Penrith - in September. Then Covid struck and now in an act of vandalism they've closed the college. I can do an online course but I really wanted to meet with and learn from the professionals and fellow students face to face and, maybe, establish myself as a professional gardener / designer.

    So I will have to look for alternatives now. It seems absurd that in an area with such a strong farming community there is no agricultural college. At the moment I read The English Garden religiously - it has fantastic articles and ideas. But the land I have is an odd curved rectangular shape on a hill and I could really do with someone else looking at it with a professional trained eye.
    Once again, the Victorian’s got there first.

    Over the years, read many a sneering comment about the way officers in the RN would organise something, anything to keep the men busy when not on duty - gardening included. Apparently even at Scapa Flow….

    Idle hands and all that .....
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,089

    HYUFD said:

    BREAKING:

    Rishi Sunak says he would support the return of grammar schools

    'I believe in educational excellence, I believe education is the most powerful way that we can transform people's lives'

    That's sounds like a *major* commitment - but he doesn't expand on it


    https://twitter.com/adrianmcmenamin/status/1552733873108312064

    Translation: Rishi Sunak wants to make 3/4 of schools Secondary Moderns

    Excellent move by Rishi, increasing access to excellence in state education by allowing grammars to expand.

    Allowing more pupils in the state sector to get the top academic education the likes of TSE got in the private sector.

    Confirms my vote for him
    Desperate and flailing.

    Liz is going to win by a landslide.
    It's the flailing that is the saddest, almost most pitiable thing.

    After all, Rishi's big USP was meant to be grownup, calm competence. Or at least being relatively grownup, calm and competent.

    Now he is losing (and has he ever lost before?), he's losing it all, including his political dignity.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Liz is sounding hubristically in the baggish. But I think it is.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    HYUFD said:

    BREAKING:

    Rishi Sunak says he would support the return of grammar schools

    'I believe in educational excellence, I believe education is the most powerful way that we can transform people's lives'

    That's sounds like a *major* commitment - but he doesn't expand on it


    https://twitter.com/adrianmcmenamin/status/1552733873108312064

    Translation: Rishi Sunak wants to make 3/4 of schools Secondary Moderns

    Excellent move by Rishi, increasing access to excellence in state education by allowing grammars to expand.

    Allowing more pupils in the state sector to get the top academic education the likes of TSE got in the private sector.

    Confirms my vote for him
    Desperate and flailing.

    Liz is going to win by a landslide.
    Liz Truss to be fair to her also told the 1922 cttee she would end the ban on new grammar schools
    https://schoolsweek.co.uk/truss-v-sunak-for-pm-what-they-have-promised-on-schools/
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,931
    HYUFD said:

    BREAKING:

    Rishi Sunak says he would support the return of grammar schools

    'I believe in educational excellence, I believe education is the most powerful way that we can transform people's lives'

    That's sounds like a *major* commitment - but he doesn't expand on it


    https://twitter.com/adrianmcmenamin/status/1552733873108312064

    Translation: Rishi Sunak wants to make 3/4 of schools Secondary Moderns

    Excellent move by Rishi, increasing access to excellence in state education by allowing grammars to expand.

    Allowing more pupils in the state sector to get the top academic education the likes of TSE got in the private sector.

    Confirms my vote for him
    It was a stupid answer from Rishi because it has completely distracted from his other ideas about improving education.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    tlg86 said:

    Just got in. Someone complaining about people earning £50k not getting child benefit. Yep, that’s the world we now live in.

    You missed the earlier bit where they were moaning that anyone at all gets benefits. Well, apart from their Mum who needed them.
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 2,722
    edited July 2022
    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/28/slough-could-raise-council-tax-by-20-and-be-forced-to-sell-off-thousands-of-assets

    "It reveals senior executives at the council spent £2.8m on consultants with little local government experience to guide a management restructuring that was supposed to deliver £4m of savings. The ill-fated plan, launched at the height of lockdown, instead ran up costs of £1m and left the council shorn of key staff.

    The scheme was “totally unfit for purpose and resulted in the speedy destruction of officer capacity and competence with many remaining individuals now in posts they had no experience in and whole teams being made redundant which were essential to delivery of statutory services”, the report says.

    The commissioners’ report says many of the posts that were eliminated under the plan are now having to be re-created. There is just one permanent senior director in place at the council, which is highly dependent on agency staff, not least in children’s services, which has been under special measures for eight years.
    "
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    dixiedean said:

    tlg86 said:

    Just got in. Someone complaining about people earning £50k not getting child benefit. Yep, that’s the world we now live in.

    You missed the earlier bit where they were moaning that anyone at all gets benefits. Well, apart from their Mum who needed them.
    To be fair, there may be a case for judging couples rather than individuals, but it never sounds great when someone asks questions like that.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Interesting, Dale must be piling on Rishi on Betfair with his assessment of the odds
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,047
    Caught the end, Liz was good. Her sense of humour is just a bit 'daggy' as Australians would have it. Warmed to her. Definitely prefer her to Rishi and hope she wins.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    tlg86 said:

    dixiedean said:

    tlg86 said:

    Just got in. Someone complaining about people earning £50k not getting child benefit. Yep, that’s the world we now live in.

    You missed the earlier bit where they were moaning that anyone at all gets benefits. Well, apart from their Mum who needed them.
    To be fair, there may be a case for judging couples rather than individuals, but it never sounds great when someone asks questions like that.
    "there may be a case for judging couples rather than individuals"

    What do you mean?
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,397
    SeaShantyIrish2 reminded me about some things I consider signficant about our two Washington Republican congresswomen, Cathy McMorris Rodgers:
    "Cathy McMorris married Brian Rodgers on August 5, 2006, in San Diego. Brian Rodgers is a retired Navy commander and a Spokane native. He is a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, and the son of David H. Rodgers, the mayor of Spokane from 1967 to 1977. In February 2007, she changed her name to Cathy McMorris Rodgers.[111] Having long resided in Stevens County–first Colville, then Deer Park–she now lives in Spokane.

    In April 2007, McMorris Rodgers became the first member of Congress in more than a decade to give birth while in office, with the birth of Cole Rodgers.[112] The couple later announced that their child had been diagnosed with Down syndrome.[113] A second child, Grace, was born in December 2010, and a third, Brynn Catherine, in November 2013."
    source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathy_McMorris_Rodgers#Personal_life

    And Jaime Herrera Beutler:
    "In May 2013, Herrera Beutler announced that she and her husband were expecting their first child. In June 2013, she announced that her unborn child had been diagnosed with Potter's Syndrome, an often fatal condition in which abnormally low amniotic fluid caused by impaired kidney function inhibits normal lung development. A stranger who read the news suggested that she try an experimental treatment: saline injections into her uterus that would enable the baby to develop without kidneys. She said she tried several hospitals, and told CNN that "most wouldn't even return her calls". Finally, a doctor at Johns Hopkins agreed to try this treatment. The results were instantaneous. For four weeks, she drove every morning from the District of Columbia to Baltimore for injections.[83]

    Herrera Beutler is the ninth woman in history to give birth while serving in Congress.[84][85] On July 29, 2013, it was announced that her baby had been born two weeks earlier, at 28 weeks' gestation. The girl, Abigail, was born without kidneys, and became the first child in recorded medical history to breathe on her own without both kidneys. In a Facebook post, Herrera Beutler said, "She is every bit a miracle."[86] On July 24, 2013, Herrera Beutler was absent for a roll call vote concerning the NSA, citing health reasons. When she revealed Abigail's birth, it was understood that it was her reason for missing what was considered an important vote."
    The Beutlers have since had two more children, a boy and a girl.
    source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaime_Herrera_Beutler#Personal_life

    Those are two impressve mothers.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    edited July 2022
    Here's a question.
    Why was Liz Truss so universally panned from all quarters, as last by a country mile in the first debate?
    What's changed?
    Is she just a confident front runner? As simple as that?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    On the empire games, this is interesting:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/gymnastics/61724817

    Commonwealth Games champion Rhys McClenaghan has said he feels a "huge amount of relief" that he and two fellow Northern Ireland gymnasts will compete at this summer's Games having been granted special dispensation.

    McClenaghan, Eamon Montgomery and Ewan McAteer were last month told that they could not compete in Birmingham because they have represented Ireland in international competition.


    You’d think the people that run the Commonwealth Games would see this as a bit of a coup. Gymnasts who would rather compete for Ireland than Great Britain still want to represent Northern Ireland in the Commonwealth Games.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited July 2022
    dixiedean said:

    Here's a question.
    Why was Liz Truss so universally panned from all quarters, as last by a country mile in the first debate?
    What's changed?

    Not by me. I couldn’t quite work out why she was deemed to come last, not just on here but according to polling too.

    I also can’t quite see why she is deemed to be mad, although she did a bad job explaining her tax policy in the second debate. Rishi had her on the ropes for a second and then the moment was gone.

    She comes with a reputation for lunacy and perhaps incompetence but personally I haven’t seen it, and she has now undeniably come into her own.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165

    tlg86 said:

    dixiedean said:

    tlg86 said:

    Just got in. Someone complaining about people earning £50k not getting child benefit. Yep, that’s the world we now live in.

    You missed the earlier bit where they were moaning that anyone at all gets benefits. Well, apart from their Mum who needed them.
    To be fair, there may be a case for judging couples rather than individuals, but it never sounds great when someone asks questions like that.
    "there may be a case for judging couples rather than individuals"

    What do you mean?
    I think the point of the question is that if one person earns 50k, that’s it. Truss went on to say that more should be done for couples where one isn’t working.

  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    Liz also gets stick for complaining about her schooling but I’ve no doubt she’s genuine about the wasted opportunity she witnessed.

    I completely relate to that.

    Overall she’s just comes across as more genuinely passionate than Rishi, and someone who knows what it is like to grow up and live in the same UK as the voters do.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,931
    dixiedean said:

    Here's a question.
    Why was Liz Truss so universally panned from all quarters, as last by a country mile in the first debate?
    What's changed?
    Is she just a confident front runner? As simple as that?

    Probably intense rehearsal (and a joke-laden speech) provided by her team that could, like us, see where she had been going wrong.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    dixiedean said:

    tlg86 said:

    Just got in. Someone complaining about people earning £50k not getting child benefit. Yep, that’s the world we now live in.

    You missed the earlier bit where they were moaning that anyone at all gets benefits. Well, apart from their Mum who needed them.
    To be fair, there may be a case for judging couples rather than individuals, but it never sounds great when someone asks questions like that.
    "there may be a case for judging couples rather than individuals"

    What do you mean?
    I think the point of the question is that if one person earns 50k, that’s it. Truss went on to say that more should be done for couples where one isn’t working.

    Still doesn't sound great.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Imagine. Imagine having the gall to refuse an education recovery fund due to "lack of evidence" and then back grammars.

    https://twitter.com/nickhassey/status/1552734926616895493
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Big clap when young lady mentions lazy people sitting on their bums on benefits.

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    In more important news, remember the WhatsApp group Wayne Couzens belonged to? 3 more Met officers from the same group are currently on trial in relation to some really disturbing messages they posted.

    What is also interesting is that, like Couzens, they too came from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and had not been in the Met a long time. This does suggest something a bit iffy about the CNC as well as the Met.

    I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about having such people guarding our nuclear facilities frankly.

    That must be the most boring police job in the UK. Maybe why? (Edit: explanation, not excuse)

    I know an armed cop in Edinburgh and he goes slightly mad every time the Queen comes up.
    Being a bit bored seems a poor explanation for the sorts of things being aired during this trial.

    What sort of due diligence was being done on these men? What sort of monitoring of what they were up to? None it would seem. Which is more than a touch alarming.

    The problem is not just what they were saying and doing but that it risked making them a blackmail risk. And that is definitely a risk you do not want to run in a nuclear facility. People who work in such places have to be positively vetted. Or so I understand.
    Your last para is a very good point.

    My thinking was a very small, immobile team, geographically and structurally isolated from normal policing, with nothing to do, might have a larger risk of a toxic culture festering and infecting the whole lot.

    This is based on the idea that the Police aren't, in general, that bad. But...
    Bizarrely, this happened to Marine Scotland in Thurso. They tied some poor woman to an office chair.
    If they're bored, they could do some gardening. Seriously: it's creative, it's physically active and it keeps them away from porn sites and What's App. If it's good enough for the prisoners at Haverigg prison, it's good enough for them.

    Strangely, this part of the Lakes does not have particularly good plant nurseries. Or good professional gardeners.

    I had plans back in 2020 to take the formal Garden Design course at Newton Rigg agricultural college in Penrith - in September. Then Covid struck and now in an act of vandalism they've closed the college. I can do an online course but I really wanted to meet with and learn from the professionals and fellow students face to face and, maybe, establish myself as a professional gardener / designer.

    So I will have to look for alternatives now. It seems absurd that in an area with such a strong farming community there is no agricultural college. At the moment I read The English Garden religiously - it has fantastic articles and ideas. But the land I have is an odd curved rectangular shape on a hill and I could really do with someone else looking at it with a professional trained eye.
    Once again, the Victorian’s got there first.

    Over the years, read many a sneering comment about the way officers in the RN would organise something, anything to keep the men busy when not on duty - gardening included. Apparently even at Scapa Flow….

    Golf course and football pitches on Flotta islet too, in Scapa.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,931

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.18 Liz Truss 85%
    6.8 Rishi Sunak 15%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.17 Liz Truss 85%
    7 Rishi Sunak 14%

    Immediately before tonight's hustings.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.17 Liz Truss 85%
    6.8 Rishi Sunak 15%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.17 Liz Truss 85%
    7 Rishi Sunak 14%
    No change at the end of the hustings.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.18 Liz Truss 85%
    6.8 Rishi Sunak 15%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.17 Liz Truss 85%
    7 Rishi Sunak 14%
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited July 2022

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.18 Liz Truss 85%
    6.8 Rishi Sunak 15%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.17 Liz Truss 85%
    7 Rishi Sunak 14%

    Immediately before tonight's hustings.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.17 Liz Truss 85%
    6.8 Rishi Sunak 15%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.17 Liz Truss 85%
    7 Rishi Sunak 14%
    No change at the end of the hustings.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.18 Liz Truss 85%
    6.8 Rishi Sunak 15%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.17 Liz Truss 85%
    7 Rishi Sunak 14%
    Rishi is too high. Sell Rishi.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,625
    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Big clap when young lady mentions lazy people sitting on their bums on benefits.

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    In more important news, remember the WhatsApp group Wayne Couzens belonged to? 3 more Met officers from the same group are currently on trial in relation to some really disturbing messages they posted.

    What is also interesting is that, like Couzens, they too came from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and had not been in the Met a long time. This does suggest something a bit iffy about the CNC as well as the Met.

    I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about having such people guarding our nuclear facilities frankly.

    That must be the most boring police job in the UK. Maybe why? (Edit: explanation, not excuse)

    I know an armed cop in Edinburgh and he goes slightly mad every time the Queen comes up.
    Being a bit bored seems a poor explanation for the sorts of things being aired during this trial.

    What sort of due diligence was being done on these men? What sort of monitoring of what they were up to? None it would seem. Which is more than a touch alarming.

    The problem is not just what they were saying and doing but that it risked making them a blackmail risk. And that is definitely a risk you do not want to run in a nuclear facility. People who work in such places have to be positively vetted. Or so I understand.
    Your last para is a very good point.

    My thinking was a very small, immobile team, geographically and structurally isolated from normal policing, with nothing to do, might have a larger risk of a toxic culture festering and infecting the whole lot.

    This is based on the idea that the Police aren't, in general, that bad. But...
    Bizarrely, this happened to Marine Scotland in Thurso. They tied some poor woman to an office chair.
    If they're bored, they could do some gardening. Seriously: it's creative, it's physically active and it keeps them away from porn sites and What's App. If it's good enough for the prisoners at Haverigg prison, it's good enough for them.

    Strangely, this part of the Lakes does not have particularly good plant nurseries. Or good professional gardeners.

    I had plans back in 2020 to take the formal Garden Design course at Newton Rigg agricultural college in Penrith - in September. Then Covid struck and now in an act of vandalism they've closed the college. I can do an online course but I really wanted to meet with and learn from the professionals and fellow students face to face and, maybe, establish myself as a professional gardener / designer.

    So I will have to look for alternatives now. It seems absurd that in an area with such a strong farming community there is no agricultural college. At the moment I read The English Garden religiously - it has fantastic articles and ideas. But the land I have is an odd curved rectangular shape on a hill and I could really do with someone else looking at it with a professional trained eye.
    Once again, the Victorian’s got there first.

    Over the years, read many a sneering comment about the way officers in the RN would organise something, anything to keep the men busy when not on duty - gardening included. Apparently even at Scapa Flow….

    Idle hands and all that .....
    Indeed.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,022

    Drunk again x

    Seriously, are you ok?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    edited July 2022

    dixiedean said:

    Here's a question.
    Why was Liz Truss so universally panned from all quarters, as last by a country mile in the first debate?
    What's changed?

    Not by me. I couldn’t quite work out why she was deemed to come last, not just on here but according to polling too.

    I also can’t quite see why she is deemed to be mad, although she did a bad job explaining her tax policy in the second debate. Rishi had her on the ropes for a second and then the moment was gone.

    She comes with a reputation for lunacy and perhaps incompetence but personally I haven’t seen it, and she has now undeniably come into her own.
    I didn't see that debate. But the opinion was almost universal. I did say at the time I didn't quite get the visceral dislike from many Tories. As was pointed out, only Barty was really on board with her early.
    In the absence of any other plan, a plan, however unlikely to work, is the obvious choice.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Big clap when young lady mentions lazy people sitting on their bums on benefits.

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    In more important news, remember the WhatsApp group Wayne Couzens belonged to? 3 more Met officers from the same group are currently on trial in relation to some really disturbing messages they posted.

    What is also interesting is that, like Couzens, they too came from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and had not been in the Met a long time. This does suggest something a bit iffy about the CNC as well as the Met.

    I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about having such people guarding our nuclear facilities frankly.

    That must be the most boring police job in the UK. Maybe why? (Edit: explanation, not excuse)

    I know an armed cop in Edinburgh and he goes slightly mad every time the Queen comes up.
    Being a bit bored seems a poor explanation for the sorts of things being aired during this trial.

    What sort of due diligence was being done on these men? What sort of monitoring of what they were up to? None it would seem. Which is more than a touch alarming.

    The problem is not just what they were saying and doing but that it risked making them a blackmail risk. And that is definitely a risk you do not want to run in a nuclear facility. People who work in such places have to be positively vetted. Or so I understand.
    Your last para is a very good point.

    My thinking was a very small, immobile team, geographically and structurally isolated from normal policing, with nothing to do, might have a larger risk of a toxic culture festering and infecting the whole lot.

    This is based on the idea that the Police aren't, in general, that bad. But...
    Bizarrely, this happened to Marine Scotland in Thurso. They tied some poor woman to an office chair.
    If they're bored, they could do some gardening. Seriously: it's creative, it's physically active and it keeps them away from porn sites and What's App. If it's good enough for the prisoners at Haverigg prison, it's good enough for them.

    Strangely, this part of the Lakes does not have particularly good plant nurseries. Or good professional gardeners.

    I had plans back in 2020 to take the formal Garden Design course at Newton Rigg agricultural college in Penrith - in September. Then Covid struck and now in an act of vandalism they've closed the college. I can do an online course but I really wanted to meet with and learn from the professionals and fellow students face to face and, maybe, establish myself as a professional gardener / designer.

    So I will have to look for alternatives now. It seems absurd that in an area with such a strong farming community there is no agricultural college. At the moment I read The English Garden religiously - it has fantastic articles and ideas. But the land I have is an odd curved rectangular shape on a hill and I could really do with someone else looking at it with a professional trained eye.
    Once again, the Victorian’s got there first.

    Over the years, read many a sneering comment about the way officers in the RN would organise something, anything to keep the men busy when not on duty - gardening included. Apparently even at Scapa Flow….

    Idle hands and all that .....
    Indeed.
    Trouble is, would you necessarily be there to see the fruit of your labours? And my impresson was that gardening in the area was coinfined to potatoes, rhubarb and red-hot pokers. My memory is probably at fault in detail, but certainly those are the distinctive elements from Wick up to Unst from what I saw.
  • CatMan said:

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/28/slough-could-raise-council-tax-by-20-and-be-forced-to-sell-off-thousands-of-assets

    "It reveals senior executives at the council spent £2.8m on consultants with little local government experience to guide a management restructuring that was supposed to deliver £4m of savings. The ill-fated plan, launched at the height of lockdown, instead ran up costs of £1m and left the council shorn of key staff.

    The scheme was “totally unfit for purpose and resulted in the speedy destruction of officer capacity and competence with many remaining individuals now in posts they had no experience in and whole teams being made redundant which were essential to delivery of statutory services”, the report says.

    The commissioners’ report says many of the posts that were eliminated under the plan are now having to be re-created. There is just one permanent senior director in place at the council, which is highly dependent on agency staff, not least in children’s services, which has been under special measures for eight years.
    "

    As a resident of Bracknell Forest, this makes me a bit nervous as a possible solution for the Government is to do some council mergers and fob them off on someone else. All the Berkshire unitaries are on the small side so you could easily merge 6 into 2 or 3. RBWM has also had some issues lately due to parking revenues drying up in Windsor during the pandemic.

    Personally I would stick Slough back in Bucks as that contains most of the wealthy hinterland - Burnham Beeches, Farnham Royal, Stoke Poges
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,165
    I didn’t think Truss was terrible in the first debate, but she was peripheral. The focus was on Penny and Kemi.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Here's a question.
    Why was Liz Truss so universally panned from all quarters, as last by a country mile in the first debate?
    What's changed?

    Not by me. I couldn’t quite work out why she was deemed to come last, not just on here but according to polling too.

    I also can’t quite see why she is deemed to be mad, although she did a bad job explaining her tax policy in the second debate. Rishi had her on the ropes for a second and then the moment was gone.

    She comes with a reputation for lunacy and perhaps incompetence but personally I haven’t seen it, and she has now undeniably come into her own.
    I didn't see that debate. But the opinion was almost universal. I did say at the time I didn't quite get the visceral dislike from many Tories. As was pointed out, only Barty was really on board with her early.
    In the absence of any other plan, a plan, however unlikely to work, is the obvious choice.
    She smartly realised that the status quo is shit, and unlike any other candidate, with the possible exception of Penny, decided to run against the status quo.

    All the while refusing to denounce Boris which personally I find sickening, but the membership seems to appreciate.

    The EU remains a problem for her; she has been driven into quite an extreme position either by instinct or to curry favour with the nutters.

  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,931

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Big clap when young lady mentions lazy people sitting on their bums on benefits.

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    In more important news, remember the WhatsApp group Wayne Couzens belonged to? 3 more Met officers from the same group are currently on trial in relation to some really disturbing messages they posted.

    What is also interesting is that, like Couzens, they too came from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and had not been in the Met a long time. This does suggest something a bit iffy about the CNC as well as the Met.

    I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about having such people guarding our nuclear facilities frankly.

    That must be the most boring police job in the UK. Maybe why? (Edit: explanation, not excuse)

    I know an armed cop in Edinburgh and he goes slightly mad every time the Queen comes up.
    Being a bit bored seems a poor explanation for the sorts of things being aired during this trial.

    What sort of due diligence was being done on these men? What sort of monitoring of what they were up to? None it would seem. Which is more than a touch alarming.

    The problem is not just what they were saying and doing but that it risked making them a blackmail risk. And that is definitely a risk you do not want to run in a nuclear facility. People who work in such places have to be positively vetted. Or so I understand.
    Your last para is a very good point.

    My thinking was a very small, immobile team, geographically and structurally isolated from normal policing, with nothing to do, might have a larger risk of a toxic culture festering and infecting the whole lot.

    This is based on the idea that the Police aren't, in general, that bad. But...
    Bizarrely, this happened to Marine Scotland in Thurso. They tied some poor woman to an office chair.
    If they're bored, they could do some gardening. Seriously: it's creative, it's physically active and it keeps them away from porn sites and What's App. If it's good enough for the prisoners at Haverigg prison, it's good enough for them.

    Strangely, this part of the Lakes does not have particularly good plant nurseries. Or good professional gardeners.

    I had plans back in 2020 to take the formal Garden Design course at Newton Rigg agricultural college in Penrith - in September. Then Covid struck and now in an act of vandalism they've closed the college. I can do an online course but I really wanted to meet with and learn from the professionals and fellow students face to face and, maybe, establish myself as a professional gardener / designer.

    So I will have to look for alternatives now. It seems absurd that in an area with such a strong farming community there is no agricultural college. At the moment I read The English Garden religiously - it has fantastic articles and ideas. But the land I have is an odd curved rectangular shape on a hill and I could really do with someone else looking at it with a professional trained eye.
    Once again, the Victorian’s got there first.

    Over the years, read many a sneering comment about the way officers in the RN would organise something, anything to keep the men busy when not on duty - gardening included. Apparently even at Scapa Flow….

    Same on the Western Front. Pace Blackadder, troops were rotated in and out of the front line but were not allowed to rest.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Carnyx said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Big clap when young lady mentions lazy people sitting on their bums on benefits.

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    In more important news, remember the WhatsApp group Wayne Couzens belonged to? 3 more Met officers from the same group are currently on trial in relation to some really disturbing messages they posted.

    What is also interesting is that, like Couzens, they too came from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and had not been in the Met a long time. This does suggest something a bit iffy about the CNC as well as the Met.

    I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about having such people guarding our nuclear facilities frankly.

    That must be the most boring police job in the UK. Maybe why? (Edit: explanation, not excuse)

    I know an armed cop in Edinburgh and he goes slightly mad every time the Queen comes up.
    Being a bit bored seems a poor explanation for the sorts of things being aired during this trial.

    What sort of due diligence was being done on these men? What sort of monitoring of what they were up to? None it would seem. Which is more than a touch alarming.

    The problem is not just what they were saying and doing but that it risked making them a blackmail risk. And that is definitely a risk you do not want to run in a nuclear facility. People who work in such places have to be positively vetted. Or so I understand.
    Your last para is a very good point.

    My thinking was a very small, immobile team, geographically and structurally isolated from normal policing, with nothing to do, might have a larger risk of a toxic culture festering and infecting the whole lot.

    This is based on the idea that the Police aren't, in general, that bad. But...
    Bizarrely, this happened to Marine Scotland in Thurso. They tied some poor woman to an office chair.
    If they're bored, they could do some gardening. Seriously: it's creative, it's physically active and it keeps them away from porn sites and What's App. If it's good enough for the prisoners at Haverigg prison, it's good enough for them.

    Strangely, this part of the Lakes does not have particularly good plant nurseries. Or good professional gardeners.

    I had plans back in 2020 to take the formal Garden Design course at Newton Rigg agricultural college in Penrith - in September. Then Covid struck and now in an act of vandalism they've closed the college. I can do an online course but I really wanted to meet with and learn from the professionals and fellow students face to face and, maybe, establish myself as a professional gardener / designer.

    So I will have to look for alternatives now. It seems absurd that in an area with such a strong farming community there is no agricultural college. At the moment I read The English Garden religiously - it has fantastic articles and ideas. But the land I have is an odd curved rectangular shape on a hill and I could really do with someone else looking at it with a professional trained eye.
    Once again, the Victorian’s got there first.

    Over the years, read many a sneering comment about the way officers in the RN would organise something, anything to keep the men busy when not on duty - gardening included. Apparently even at Scapa Flow….

    Idle hands and all that .....
    Indeed.
    Trouble is, would you necessarily be there to see the fruit of your labours? And my impresson was that gardening in the area was coinfined to potatoes, rhubarb and red-hot pokers. My memory is probably at fault in detail, but certainly those are the distinctive elements from Wick up to Unst from what I saw.
    It is quite a clement climate. Lots of fuchsia hedges in Kirkwall.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited July 2022

    CatMan said:

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/28/slough-could-raise-council-tax-by-20-and-be-forced-to-sell-off-thousands-of-assets

    "It reveals senior executives at the council spent £2.8m on consultants with little local government experience to guide a management restructuring that was supposed to deliver £4m of savings. The ill-fated plan, launched at the height of lockdown, instead ran up costs of £1m and left the council shorn of key staff.

    The scheme was “totally unfit for purpose and resulted in the speedy destruction of officer capacity and competence with many remaining individuals now in posts they had no experience in and whole teams being made redundant which were essential to delivery of statutory services”, the report says.

    The commissioners’ report says many of the posts that were eliminated under the plan are now having to be re-created. There is just one permanent senior director in place at the council, which is highly dependent on agency staff, not least in children’s services, which has been under special measures for eight years.
    "

    As a resident of Bracknell Forest, this makes me a bit nervous as a possible solution for the Government is to do some council mergers and fob them off on someone else. All the Berkshire unitaries are on the small side so you could easily merge 6 into 2 or 3. RBWM has also had some issues lately due to parking revenues drying up in Windsor during the pandemic.

    Personally I would stick Slough back in Bucks as that contains most of the wealthy hinterland - Burnham Beeches, Farnham Royal, Stoke Poges
    Put Slough back into Bucks, and the Vale of White Horse back into Berks.

    Anything else is vandalism.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,931

    dixiedean said:

    dixiedean said:

    Here's a question.
    Why was Liz Truss so universally panned from all quarters, as last by a country mile in the first debate?
    What's changed?

    Not by me. I couldn’t quite work out why she was deemed to come last, not just on here but according to polling too.

    I also can’t quite see why she is deemed to be mad, although she did a bad job explaining her tax policy in the second debate. Rishi had her on the ropes for a second and then the moment was gone.

    She comes with a reputation for lunacy and perhaps incompetence but personally I haven’t seen it, and she has now undeniably come into her own.
    I didn't see that debate. But the opinion was almost universal. I did say at the time I didn't quite get the visceral dislike from many Tories. As was pointed out, only Barty was really on board with her early.
    In the absence of any other plan, a plan, however unlikely to work, is the obvious choice.
    She smartly realised that the status quo is shit, and unlike any other candidate, with the possible exception of Penny, decided to run against the status quo.

    All the while refusing to denounce Boris which personally I find sickening, but the membership seems to appreciate.

    The EU remains a problem for her; she has been driven into quite an extreme position either by instinct or to curry favour with the nutters.

    That is the odd thing. Liz Truss is pro-Boris but seems now to be opposed to almost everything they did together in government. A bit like Boris in 2019, come to think of it.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,931

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.18 Liz Truss 85%
    6.8 Rishi Sunak 15%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.17 Liz Truss 85%
    7 Rishi Sunak 14%

    Immediately before tonight's hustings.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.17 Liz Truss 85%
    6.8 Rishi Sunak 15%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.17 Liz Truss 85%
    7 Rishi Sunak 14%
    No change at the end of the hustings.

    Betfair next prime minister
    1.18 Liz Truss 85%
    6.8 Rishi Sunak 15%

    Next Conservative leader
    1.17 Liz Truss 85%
    7 Rishi Sunak 14%
    Rishi is too high. Sell Rishi.
    With hindsight, I wish I'd waited before backing Rishi to even up my book.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Big clap when young lady mentions lazy people sitting on their bums on benefits.

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    In more important news, remember the WhatsApp group Wayne Couzens belonged to? 3 more Met officers from the same group are currently on trial in relation to some really disturbing messages they posted.

    What is also interesting is that, like Couzens, they too came from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and had not been in the Met a long time. This does suggest something a bit iffy about the CNC as well as the Met.

    I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about having such people guarding our nuclear facilities frankly.

    That must be the most boring police job in the UK. Maybe why? (Edit: explanation, not excuse)

    I know an armed cop in Edinburgh and he goes slightly mad every time the Queen comes up.
    Being a bit bored seems a poor explanation for the sorts of things being aired during this trial.

    What sort of due diligence was being done on these men? What sort of monitoring of what they were up to? None it would seem. Which is more than a touch alarming.

    The problem is not just what they were saying and doing but that it risked making them a blackmail risk. And that is definitely a risk you do not want to run in a nuclear facility. People who work in such places have to be positively vetted. Or so I understand.
    Your last para is a very good point.

    My thinking was a very small, immobile team, geographically and structurally isolated from normal policing, with nothing to do, might have a larger risk of a toxic culture festering and infecting the whole lot.

    This is based on the idea that the Police aren't, in general, that bad. But...
    Bizarrely, this happened to Marine Scotland in Thurso. They tied some poor woman to an office chair.
    If they're bored, they could do some gardening. Seriously: it's creative, it's physically active and it keeps them away from porn sites and What's App. If it's good enough for the prisoners at Haverigg prison, it's good enough for them.

    Strangely, this part of the Lakes does not have particularly good plant nurseries. Or good professional gardeners.

    I had plans back in 2020 to take the formal Garden Design course at Newton Rigg agricultural college in Penrith - in September. Then Covid struck and now in an act of vandalism they've closed the college. I can do an online course but I really wanted to meet with and learn from the professionals and fellow students face to face and, maybe, establish myself as a professional gardener / designer.

    So I will have to look for alternatives now. It seems absurd that in an area with such a strong farming community there is no agricultural college. At the moment I read The English Garden religiously - it has fantastic articles and ideas. But the land I have is an odd curved rectangular shape on a hill and I could really do with someone else looking at it with a professional trained eye.
    Once again, the Victorian’s got there first.

    Over the years, read many a sneering comment about the way officers in the RN would organise something, anything to keep the men busy when not on duty - gardening included. Apparently even at Scapa Flow….

    Idle hands and all that .....
    Indeed.
    Trouble is, would you necessarily be there to see the fruit of your labours? And my impresson was that gardening in the area was coinfined to potatoes, rhubarb and red-hot pokers. My memory is probably at fault in detail, but certainly those are the distinctive elements from Wick up to Unst from what I saw.
    It is quite a clement climate. Lots of fuchsia hedges in Kirkwall.
    Windy, though, so plenty of blown salt. Not at all sure how it pans out, to be fair.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,786
    Carnyx said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Big clap when young lady mentions lazy people sitting on their bums on benefits.

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    In more important news, remember the WhatsApp group Wayne Couzens belonged to? 3 more Met officers from the same group are currently on trial in relation to some really disturbing messages they posted.

    What is also interesting is that, like Couzens, they too came from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and had not been in the Met a long time. This does suggest something a bit iffy about the CNC as well as the Met.

    I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about having such people guarding our nuclear facilities frankly.

    That must be the most boring police job in the UK. Maybe why? (Edit: explanation, not excuse)

    I know an armed cop in Edinburgh and he goes slightly mad every time the Queen comes up.
    Being a bit bored seems a poor explanation for the sorts of things being aired during this trial.

    What sort of due diligence was being done on these men? What sort of monitoring of what they were up to? None it would seem. Which is more than a touch alarming.

    The problem is not just what they were saying and doing but that it risked making them a blackmail risk. And that is definitely a risk you do not want to run in a nuclear facility. People who work in such places have to be positively vetted. Or so I understand.
    Your last para is a very good point.

    My thinking was a very small, immobile team, geographically and structurally isolated from normal policing, with nothing to do, might have a larger risk of a toxic culture festering and infecting the whole lot.

    This is based on the idea that the Police aren't, in general, that bad. But...
    Bizarrely, this happened to Marine Scotland in Thurso. They tied some poor woman to an office chair.
    If they're bored, they could do some gardening. Seriously: it's creative, it's physically active and it keeps them away from porn sites and What's App. If it's good enough for the prisoners at Haverigg prison, it's good enough for them.

    Strangely, this part of the Lakes does not have particularly good plant nurseries. Or good professional gardeners.

    I had plans back in 2020 to take the formal Garden Design course at Newton Rigg agricultural college in Penrith - in September. Then Covid struck and now in an act of vandalism they've closed the college. I can do an online course but I really wanted to meet with and learn from the professionals and fellow students face to face and, maybe, establish myself as a professional gardener / designer.

    So I will have to look for alternatives now. It seems absurd that in an area with such a strong farming community there is no agricultural college. At the moment I read The English Garden religiously - it has fantastic articles and ideas. But the land I have is an odd curved rectangular shape on a hill and I could really do with someone else looking at it with a professional trained eye.
    Once again, the Victorian’s got there first.

    Over the years, read many a sneering comment about the way officers in the RN would organise something, anything to keep the men busy when not on duty - gardening included. Apparently even at Scapa Flow….

    Idle hands and all that .....
    Indeed.
    Trouble is, would you necessarily be there to see the fruit of your labours? And my impresson was that gardening in the area was coinfined to potatoes, rhubarb and red-hot pokers. My memory is probably at fault in detail, but certainly those are the distinctive elements from Wick up to Unst from what I saw.
    You're right about the pokers, at least in the Western Isles. Also those cool igloo greenhouses.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Rosie Duffield has survived the Labour trigger ballot process in her Canterbury seat, and is therefore reselected as candidate at the next election, though the announcement hasn't yet been formally made yet.

    https://twitter.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1552757581264945152
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812

    Rosie Duffield has survived the Labour trigger ballot process in her Canterbury seat, and is therefore reselected as candidate at the next election, though the announcement hasn't yet been formally made yet.

    https://twitter.com/tomorrowsmps/status/1552757581264945152

    Interesting, I was told by sources some months ago that her seat was coming up for grabs.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,184

    CatMan said:

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/28/slough-could-raise-council-tax-by-20-and-be-forced-to-sell-off-thousands-of-assets

    "It reveals senior executives at the council spent £2.8m on consultants with little local government experience to guide a management restructuring that was supposed to deliver £4m of savings. The ill-fated plan, launched at the height of lockdown, instead ran up costs of £1m and left the council shorn of key staff.

    The scheme was “totally unfit for purpose and resulted in the speedy destruction of officer capacity and competence with many remaining individuals now in posts they had no experience in and whole teams being made redundant which were essential to delivery of statutory services”, the report says.

    The commissioners’ report says many of the posts that were eliminated under the plan are now having to be re-created. There is just one permanent senior director in place at the council, which is highly dependent on agency staff, not least in children’s services, which has been under special measures for eight years.
    "

    As a resident of Bracknell Forest, this makes me a bit nervous as a possible solution for the Government is to do some council mergers and fob them off on someone else. All the Berkshire unitaries are on the small side so you could easily merge 6 into 2 or 3. RBWM has also had some issues lately due to parking revenues drying up in Windsor during the pandemic.

    Personally I would stick Slough back in Bucks as that contains most of the wealthy hinterland - Burnham Beeches, Farnham Royal, Stoke Poges
    Put Slough back into Bucks, and the Vale of White Horse back into Berks.

    Anything else is vandalism.
    These are strongly held opinions for someone not actually born in England!

    I'm fond of the historical counties. I can see various sides of the argument for what the right units of local government are - but I want to be able to say something is in Lanashire without then having to define Lancashire, or be able to ask how many top flight football teams have had their home grounds in Cheshire. I want subdivisions of the country which are immutable.
    There is an argument for tying units which people identify with to local government, but also an argument for reflecting modern economic geography.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,086
    edited July 2022

    Liz also gets stick for complaining about her schooling but I’ve no doubt she’s genuine about the wasted opportunity she witnessed.

    I completely relate to that.

    Overall she’s just comes across as more genuinely passionate than Rishi, and someone who knows what it is like to grow up and live in the same UK as the voters do.

    There’s likely a lot in that last comment.

    As followers of the political scene, we sense that people are desperate for some honesty and integrity after the shameful misrule of the clown, for which Truss seems a poor fit.

    But people are also desperate for an end to the age of entitlement that the clown embodied, and with hard times arriving, want someone who can show some understanding and empathy. Truss’s number may be low down most people’s list of destinations for tea and sympathy, but then Sunak smarm isn’t what the doctor ordered either.

    It may be Smarmy versus Barmy, but hoping she’s not quite so barmy may be a better bet than hoping he’s not quite so smarmy….summed it all up in a sentence ;)
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774

    Liz also gets stick for complaining about her schooling but I’ve no doubt she’s genuine about the wasted opportunity she witnessed.

    I completely relate to that.

    Overall she’s just comes across as more genuinely passionate than Rishi, and someone who knows what it is like to grow up and live in the same UK as the voters do.

    Who can blame her for the regret she undoubtedly feels about not going to Cambridge?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,268

    Alistair said:

    Got my Dalle invite. What nonsense shit do people want to see images of?

    I'd love to see an image of 'a once in a generation opportunity'.
    I want to see Sturgeon in a truss
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,922
    Leon said:

    Alistair said:

    Got my Dalle invite. What nonsense shit do people want to see images of?

    I'd love to see an image of 'a once in a generation opportunity'.
    I want to see Sturgeon in a truss
    Upthread, I told him I wanted "Leon pegged by Truss"
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,268
    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    Surfing twitter I just saw a shot of some unspeakable videos of Russian special forces torturing Ukrainian POWs

    Up there with the worst of the Mexican cartel videos

    Mind-bleach please. Jeez. I'm going to cook some Brazilian fish stew and try and forget

    Everything does, indeed, sound like innuendo after a while.
    In this case, not. The video is of a Wagner Group Russian castrating a Uke POW with a Stanley knife, then they finally decapitate him.

    I just saw a screenshot - entirely by accident - and it was enough to ice the blood. Horrific. The war will only get worse for both sides
    There was really no need to share that.
    Er, I think we can cope with words, can't we?

    Get a grip
    SOP for the Wagner group.
    There are similar, and worse from them in Syria. Evil, degraded people.

    Torture has been routine in occupied Donbas since 2014.

    So it seems. And I think we need to know this, to understand the evil - even if the descriptions upset

    The pictures and videos are only for the truly hardened
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 4,534
    Some people really are gullible . All of a sudden Liz Truss can walk on water .
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,960
    tlg86 said:

    I didn’t think Truss was terrible in the first debate, but she was peripheral. The focus was on Penny and Kemi.

    That is rewriting history. Go back over the thread at the time. She was just awful.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    IshmaelZ said:

    Carnyx said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Eabhal said:

    Big clap when young lady mentions lazy people sitting on their bums on benefits.

    Cyclefree said:

    Eabhal said:

    Cyclefree said:

    In more important news, remember the WhatsApp group Wayne Couzens belonged to? 3 more Met officers from the same group are currently on trial in relation to some really disturbing messages they posted.

    What is also interesting is that, like Couzens, they too came from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and had not been in the Met a long time. This does suggest something a bit iffy about the CNC as well as the Met.

    I'm not sure how comfortable I feel about having such people guarding our nuclear facilities frankly.

    That must be the most boring police job in the UK. Maybe why? (Edit: explanation, not excuse)

    I know an armed cop in Edinburgh and he goes slightly mad every time the Queen comes up.
    Being a bit bored seems a poor explanation for the sorts of things being aired during this trial.

    What sort of due diligence was being done on these men? What sort of monitoring of what they were up to? None it would seem. Which is more than a touch alarming.

    The problem is not just what they were saying and doing but that it risked making them a blackmail risk. And that is definitely a risk you do not want to run in a nuclear facility. People who work in such places have to be positively vetted. Or so I understand.
    Your last para is a very good point.

    My thinking was a very small, immobile team, geographically and structurally isolated from normal policing, with nothing to do, might have a larger risk of a toxic culture festering and infecting the whole lot.

    This is based on the idea that the Police aren't, in general, that bad. But...
    Bizarrely, this happened to Marine Scotland in Thurso. They tied some poor woman to an office chair.
    If they're bored, they could do some gardening. Seriously: it's creative, it's physically active and it keeps them away from porn sites and What's App. If it's good enough for the prisoners at Haverigg prison, it's good enough for them.

    Strangely, this part of the Lakes does not have particularly good plant nurseries. Or good professional gardeners.

    I had plans back in 2020 to take the formal Garden Design course at Newton Rigg agricultural college in Penrith - in September. Then Covid struck and now in an act of vandalism they've closed the college. I can do an online course but I really wanted to meet with and learn from the professionals and fellow students face to face and, maybe, establish myself as a professional gardener / designer.

    So I will have to look for alternatives now. It seems absurd that in an area with such a strong farming community there is no agricultural college. At the moment I read The English Garden religiously - it has fantastic articles and ideas. But the land I have is an odd curved rectangular shape on a hill and I could really do with someone else looking at it with a professional trained eye.
    Once again, the Victorian’s got there first.

    Over the years, read many a sneering comment about the way officers in the RN would organise something, anything to keep the men busy when not on duty - gardening included. Apparently even at Scapa Flow….

    Idle hands and all that .....
    Indeed.
    Trouble is, would you necessarily be there to see the fruit of your labours? And my impresson was that gardening in the area was coinfined to potatoes, rhubarb and red-hot pokers. My memory is probably at fault in detail, but certainly those are the distinctive elements from Wick up to Unst from what I saw.
    It is quite a clement climate. Lots of fuchsia hedges in Kirkwall.
    Yep, when the wind isn't blowing. Things have improved, but I remember when the only woods in Orkney, to a pardonable first approximation, were the patch in Kirkwall next to the Palaces, and around the big house on Shapinsay - only halfway up the house walls in height. The starlings' queues to nest in the Kirkwall wood were memorable.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274

    1./ The Tavistock and the idiocy of Jolyon Maugham and Benjamin Cohen. Endocrinologist @will_malone points out a crucial finding that contributed to the Tavi's closure: its failure to research properly the risks of puberty blockers. So what did Jolyon and Benjy say?👇
    1 of/13.


    https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1552720563772293120

    Some little time ago, I attended a course (work provided), on “sensitivity”.

    One of the subjects was “Bad facts” - where factually true information was harmful/hostile/evil etc.
    Sounds like the "progressive" version of alternative facts. A bit like all this we aren't in recession, honest, no we really aren't....if Trump had tried this BS, he would have been absolutely ripped to shreds.

    US economy shrinks again sparking recession fears
    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62310355
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884
    nico679 said:

    Some people really are gullible . All of a sudden Liz Truss can walk on water .

    That’s not an accurate description of what people are saying.
  • bunncobunnco Posts: 169
    BUNCO MAKES THE CASE FOR LIZ TRUSS AS NEXT CON LEADER AND PM
    25/6/2016 Mike Smithson Comments 1296 Comments

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/06/25/bunco-makes-the-case-for-liz-truss-as-next-con-leader-and-pm/

    It's been written in the stars since 2009

    Like I say, Bunnco - Your Man on the Spot
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 5,414

    tlg86 said:

    I didn’t think Truss was terrible in the first debate, but she was peripheral. The focus was on Penny and Kemi.

    That is rewriting history. Go back over the thread at the time. She was just awful.
    Agreed. She was absolutely terrible. I don’t know if she just does better 1-on-1 or if she’s a fast learner but she’s markedly improved.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Sunak just said he's the most northern Chancellor we've ever had...

    Born: Southampton
    School: Winchester
    Uni: Oxford
    Career: London

    Then parachuted into a safe Yorkshire seat in 2015


    https://twitter.com/_BvdM/status/1552740324807786496
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    nico679 said:

    Some people really are gullible . All of a sudden Liz Truss can walk on water .

    You really are far too stupid to benefit from reading this site, never mind posting on here. I would strongly urge you to pm @PBModerator and ask for your account to be deleted.

    No offence.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    Wallace!!
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,774
    bunnco said:

    BUNCO MAKES THE CASE FOR LIZ TRUSS AS NEXT CON LEADER AND PM
    25/6/2016 Mike Smithson Comments 1296 Comments

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/06/25/bunco-makes-the-case-for-liz-truss-as-next-con-leader-and-pm/

    It's been written in the stars since 2009

    Like I say, Bunnco - Your Man on the Spot

    How much money would I have made if I'd piled on in 2016?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,268
    bunnco said:

    BUNCO MAKES THE CASE FOR LIZ TRUSS AS NEXT CON LEADER AND PM
    25/6/2016 Mike Smithson Comments 1296 Comments

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/06/25/bunco-makes-the-case-for-liz-truss-as-next-con-leader-and-pm/

    It's been written in the stars since 2009

    Like I say, Bunnco - Your Man on the Spot

    Fucking hell mate. CHAPEAU

    That's a genius prediction from way out. Bravo
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149

    Sunak just said he's the most northern Chancellor we've ever had...

    Born: Southampton
    School: Winchester
    Uni: Oxford
    Career: London

    Then parachuted into a safe Yorkshire seat in 2015


    https://twitter.com/_BvdM/status/1552740324807786496

    Scotland isn't part of the UK? Never mind Northumberland and Co. Durham??
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840

    Sunak just said he's the most northern Chancellor we've ever had...

    Born: Southampton
    School: Winchester
    Uni: Oxford
    Career: London

    Then parachuted into a safe Yorkshire seat in 2015


    https://twitter.com/_BvdM/status/1552740324807786496

    Gordon Brown waves.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    rcs1000 said:

    bunnco said:

    BUNCO MAKES THE CASE FOR LIZ TRUSS AS NEXT CON LEADER AND PM
    25/6/2016 Mike Smithson Comments 1296 Comments

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/06/25/bunco-makes-the-case-for-liz-truss-as-next-con-leader-and-pm/

    It's been written in the stars since 2009

    Like I say, Bunnco - Your Man on the Spot

    How much money would I have made if I'd piled on in 2016?
    As much as I am going to. Even more if your default stake is more than a fiver

    Actually that's a trick question and the answer is none

    Also "Truss ranks alongside Crabb, Hammond, Morgan, Harper, Soubry, Stewart, Truss, & Fallon for the longer-shot who may offer value at the bookmakers." Who the fuck even were all those people? Crabb??
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,922
    HYUFD will be appalled!
  • bunncobunnco Posts: 169
    Leon said:

    bunnco said:

    BUNCO MAKES THE CASE FOR LIZ TRUSS AS NEXT CON LEADER AND PM
    25/6/2016 Mike Smithson Comments 1296 Comments

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/06/25/bunco-makes-the-case-for-liz-truss-as-next-con-leader-and-pm/

    It's been written in the stars since 2009

    Like I say, Bunnco - Your Man on the Spot

    Fucking hell mate. CHAPEAU

    That's a genius prediction from way out. Bravo
    I put £50 with Shadsy at 16:1 to be the next PM. Theresa cost me that one.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,268
    Cookie said:

    CatMan said:

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/28/slough-could-raise-council-tax-by-20-and-be-forced-to-sell-off-thousands-of-assets

    "It reveals senior executives at the council spent £2.8m on consultants with little local government experience to guide a management restructuring that was supposed to deliver £4m of savings. The ill-fated plan, launched at the height of lockdown, instead ran up costs of £1m and left the council shorn of key staff.

    The scheme was “totally unfit for purpose and resulted in the speedy destruction of officer capacity and competence with many remaining individuals now in posts they had no experience in and whole teams being made redundant which were essential to delivery of statutory services”, the report says.

    The commissioners’ report says many of the posts that were eliminated under the plan are now having to be re-created. There is just one permanent senior director in place at the council, which is highly dependent on agency staff, not least in children’s services, which has been under special measures for eight years.
    "

    As a resident of Bracknell Forest, this makes me a bit nervous as a possible solution for the Government is to do some council mergers and fob them off on someone else. All the Berkshire unitaries are on the small side so you could easily merge 6 into 2 or 3. RBWM has also had some issues lately due to parking revenues drying up in Windsor during the pandemic.

    Personally I would stick Slough back in Bucks as that contains most of the wealthy hinterland - Burnham Beeches, Farnham Royal, Stoke Poges
    Put Slough back into Bucks, and the Vale of White Horse back into Berks.

    Anything else is vandalism.
    These are strongly held opinions for someone not actually born in England!

    I'm fond of the historical counties. I can see various sides of the argument for what the right units of local government are - but I want to be able to say something is in Lanashire without then having to define Lancashire, or be able to ask how many top flight football teams have had their home grounds in Cheshire. I want subdivisions of the country which are immutable.
    There is an argument for tying units which people identify with to local government, but also an argument for reflecting modern economic geography.
    Growing up in Herefordshire, I can still just about remember the incendiary anger when Ted Heath's government created "Hereford and Worcestershire". A hybrid abomination which was loathed on both sides of the Malverns, but especially in Hereford - a noble, antique cathedral shire city - which was suddenly just a "city" and all the admin moved to Worcester, along with multiple educational and other closures

    It stoked long term hatred of the Tories which lasted decades

    Why do idiot civil servants do this shit? Why? Herefordshire is clearly, culturally, historically, geographically, quite different to Worcs. These differences might not matter to wankers in Whitehall, but they matter on the ground. And they mattered to many peoples' jobs, as it happened
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,931
    rcs1000 said:

    bunnco said:

    BUNCO MAKES THE CASE FOR LIZ TRUSS AS NEXT CON LEADER AND PM
    25/6/2016 Mike Smithson Comments 1296 Comments

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/06/25/bunco-makes-the-case-for-liz-truss-as-next-con-leader-and-pm/

    It's been written in the stars since 2009

    Like I say, Bunnco - Your Man on the Spot

    How much money would I have made if I'd piled on in 2016?
    None, because your bet would have lost first to Theresa May and later to Boris Johnson.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281

    1./ The Tavistock and the idiocy of Jolyon Maugham and Benjamin Cohen. Endocrinologist @will_malone points out a crucial finding that contributed to the Tavi's closure: its failure to research properly the risks of puberty blockers. So what did Jolyon and Benjy say?👇
    1 of/13.


    https://twitter.com/TwisterFilm/status/1552720563772293120

    Some little time ago, I attended a course (work provided), on “sensitivity”.

    One of the subjects was “Bad facts” - where factually true information was harmful/hostile/evil etc.
    Sounds like the "progressive" version of alternative facts. A bit like all this we aren't in recession, honest, no we really aren't....if Trump had tried this BS, he would have been absolutely ripped to shreds.

    US economy shrinks again sparking recession fears
    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-62310355
    He did and he was.

    https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/11/trumps-lies-about-coronavirus/608647/
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    Is this Commonwealth Games opening ceremony the most Woke ever?
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 5,786
    dixiedean said:

    Sunak just said he's the most northern Chancellor we've ever had...

    Born: Southampton
    School: Winchester
    Uni: Oxford
    Career: London

    Then parachuted into a safe Yorkshire seat in 2015


    https://twitter.com/_BvdM/status/1552740324807786496

    Gordon Brown waves.
    Is he the most northerly? Ramsay MacDonald was never CofE.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Ben Wallace lol Rishi sunk even further
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    HYUFD will be appalled!
    Should have stood himself, anyway I am behind Rishi now so his endorsement holds no weight with me
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    HYUFD said:

    Is this Commonwealth Games opening ceremony the most Woke ever?

    Not watching it. What's the problem with it?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    IshmaelZ said:

    rcs1000 said:

    bunnco said:

    BUNCO MAKES THE CASE FOR LIZ TRUSS AS NEXT CON LEADER AND PM
    25/6/2016 Mike Smithson Comments 1296 Comments

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/06/25/bunco-makes-the-case-for-liz-truss-as-next-con-leader-and-pm/

    It's been written in the stars since 2009

    Like I say, Bunnco - Your Man on the Spot

    How much money would I have made if I'd piled on in 2016?
    As much as I am going to. Even more if your default stake is more than a fiver

    Actually that's a trick question and the answer is none

    Also "Truss ranks alongside Crabb, Hammond, Morgan, Harper, Soubry, Stewart, Truss, & Fallon for the longer-shot who may offer value at the bookmakers." Who the fuck even were all those people? Crabb??
    Soubry :D
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,086

    CatMan said:

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/28/slough-could-raise-council-tax-by-20-and-be-forced-to-sell-off-thousands-of-assets

    "It reveals senior executives at the council spent £2.8m on consultants with little local government experience to guide a management restructuring that was supposed to deliver £4m of savings. The ill-fated plan, launched at the height of lockdown, instead ran up costs of £1m and left the council shorn of key staff.

    The scheme was “totally unfit for purpose and resulted in the speedy destruction of officer capacity and competence with many remaining individuals now in posts they had no experience in and whole teams being made redundant which were essential to delivery of statutory services”, the report says.

    The commissioners’ report says many of the posts that were eliminated under the plan are now having to be re-created. There is just one permanent senior director in place at the council, which is highly dependent on agency staff, not least in children’s services, which has been under special measures for eight years.
    "

    As a resident of Bracknell Forest, this makes me a bit nervous as a possible solution for the Government is to do some council mergers and fob them off on someone else. All the Berkshire unitaries are on the small side so you could easily merge 6 into 2 or 3. RBWM has also had some issues lately due to parking revenues drying up in Windsor during the pandemic.

    Personally I would stick Slough back in Bucks as that contains most of the wealthy hinterland - Burnham Beeches, Farnham Royal, Stoke Poges
    Put Slough back into Bucks, and the Vale of White Horse back into Berks.

    Anything else is vandalism.
    Slough is hardly going to put the fizz back into Bucks, now, is it?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,268
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD will be appalled!
    Should have stood himself, anyway I am behind Rishi now so his endorsement holds no weight with me
    Have you considered the possibility you are a tiny bit out of tune with your fellow Tory members?

    You've supported losers all the way: Wallace, then Tugendhat, now Sunak

    No one wants them. Wallace obviously wasn't up to it, notice how he only opts for Truss now it is obvious she is going to win. Like Italy deciding which side to support in a World War
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,812
    edited July 2022
    Cookie said:

    CatMan said:

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jul/28/slough-could-raise-council-tax-by-20-and-be-forced-to-sell-off-thousands-of-assets

    "It reveals senior executives at the council spent £2.8m on consultants with little local government experience to guide a management restructuring that was supposed to deliver £4m of savings. The ill-fated plan, launched at the height of lockdown, instead ran up costs of £1m and left the council shorn of key staff.

    The scheme was “totally unfit for purpose and resulted in the speedy destruction of officer capacity and competence with many remaining individuals now in posts they had no experience in and whole teams being made redundant which were essential to delivery of statutory services”, the report says.

    The commissioners’ report says many of the posts that were eliminated under the plan are now having to be re-created. There is just one permanent senior director in place at the council, which is highly dependent on agency staff, not least in children’s services, which has been under special measures for eight years.
    "

    As a resident of Bracknell Forest, this makes me a bit nervous as a possible solution for the Government is to do some council mergers and fob them off on someone else. All the Berkshire unitaries are on the small side so you could easily merge 6 into 2 or 3. RBWM has also had some issues lately due to parking revenues drying up in Windsor during the pandemic.

    Personally I would stick Slough back in Bucks as that contains most of the wealthy hinterland - Burnham Beeches, Farnham Royal, Stoke Poges
    Put Slough back into Bucks, and the Vale of White Horse back into Berks.

    Anything else is vandalism.
    These are strongly held opinions for someone not actually born in England!

    I'm fond of the historical counties. I can see various sides of the argument for what the right units of local government are - but I want to be able to say something is in Lanashire without then having to define Lancashire, or be able to ask how many top flight football teams have had their home grounds in Cheshire. I want subdivisions of the country which are immutable.
    There is an argument for tying units which people identify with to local government, but also an argument for reflecting modern economic geography.
    I believe that government should be carried out as close as feasible to people’s own communities.

    I believe this on liberal grounds of citizen agency.

    I further believe it his on economic grounds - I think that some (not all) of Britain’s poor productivity can be explained by what is possibly the weakest local government set up in the OECD.

    (There are academic studies that measure this, I’m not making this up).

    The perfect local government structures don’t exist, but there is latent affinity for the traditional county borders and so, unless there is a local metro which demands primacy, I would restore those.

    There are various edge cases - but I think when I last geekily looked into this I determined 38 traditional counties (not Middlesex, usurped by London), and 16 metros.

    Counties would also be subdivided into districts, and metros into boroughs.

  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,840
    HYUFD said:

    Is this Commonwealth Games opening ceremony the most Woke ever?

    What was woke about it?
    I didn't watch, but would be interested.
  • state_go_awaystate_go_away Posts: 5,415
    edited July 2022
    dixiedean said:

    HYUFD said:

    Is this Commonwealth Games opening ceremony the most Woke ever?

    What was woke about it?
    I didn't watch, but would be interested.
    a parade of preferred pronouns (big signs) to show how many there are- neutral gender toilets on big showboat- showing off 21st century british growth industries like gender change surgery and counselling - welling up here
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,243

    Nigelb said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Just met an old friend in primrose hill. On conditions of extreme secrecy… HE TOLD ME THE FINLAND RUMOUR


    😶😶😶😶


    So: it exists. This doesn’t mean it is true, of course

    No he didn't because if he did you could tell us the Finnish search terms to use, without betraying your friend's confidence.
    I have heard it (I said before that I’d heard it but that was me being a troll (and also slightly jealous of those who HAD heard it))(Jesus what am I, a 16 year old girl??)

    Anyway you can believe me or not. THE FINLAND RUMOUR EXISTS

    I’ll say it again, this does not mean it is true, nor, even if it is true, if it would overturn Bulgarian and global politics, indeed the speeding space race, as alleged
    Not to mention ‘ …the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared ‘.
    It's a three pipe problem.
    I'm working on it!

    Though in Seattle we call it a three bong problem. That plus craft beer = high level of UFO sightings.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,094
    edited July 2022

    Developers may be prevented from starting projects in west London until 2035 because the electricity grid has run out of capacity to power new homes.

    The Greater London Authority (GLA) told developers this week that it may take more than a decade for grid capacity to be increased to sustain new developments in Hillingdon, Ealing and Hounslow.

    The boroughs accounted for about 11 per cent of London’s housing supply in 2019-20.


    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/grid-has-no-power-for-new-homes-in-west-london-until-2035-qnrn065cb

    That's interesting. On the whole demand has been reducing in many places for years. Average energy per dwelling is quite seriously less than it was 10 or 20 years ago.

    With demand being higher from older houses which are less energy efficient, I'd perhaps investigate introducing a practice of applying a condition of reducing demand or providing local generation where suitable from the existing stock enough to create space for the new ones they want to build.

    May be surprisingly practical.

    I am not sure whether the Mayor has a power to do that, though.
This discussion has been closed.