Categories
Sunak appears to be abandoning the RedWall – politicalbetting.com
Sunak appears to be abandoning the RedWall – politicalbetting.com
EXCLUSIVE: In a leaked video, Rishi Sunak boasted to Conservative Party members that he was prepared to take public money out of “deprived urban areas” to help wealthy towns.@REWearmouth reports: https://t.co/uZMpjKm6rG pic.twitter.com/07sSzDksMT
0
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Both the final 2 candidates have made significant mistakes here
Truss - trying to cut wages up North
Sunak - taking money from councils up North..
surely the issue comes down to things being rushed at the candidate selection point.
1.12 Liz Truss 89%
8.6 Rishi Sunak 12%
Next Conservative leader
1.12 Liz Truss 89%
8.6 Rishi Sunak 12%
So. The impression has been created that there is a free pool of money being "wasted" on feckless people not like"us."
The whole leadership campaign has been about searching for imagined sources of funds.
In this case, there isn't.
There's only one half which makes sense.
"Christian Nationalism” Used to Be Taboo. Now It’s All the Rage.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/08/christian-nationalist-identity-marjorie-taylor-greene.html
...Al Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called Christian nationalism “idolatrous” and pushed back on the idea that evangelical Christianity was linked to what had happened at the Capitol.
“Nationalism is always a clear and present danger,” he wrote a week after the insurrection. But linking it to “American evangelical Christianity,” he said, was an unfair “accusation.”
By this summer, Mohler had updated his thinking.
Speaking on his podcast on June 15, the theologian said: “We have the left routinely speaking of me and of others as Christian nationalists, as if we’re supposed to be running from that.” He added: “I’m not about to run from that.”...
Maybe it's circular causality, as us armchair sociologists like to say.
That it's come down to Sunak-Truss is really down to two decisions enacted long ago. The most recent was Johnson's deliberate use of the Richard Nixon strategy ("nobody will shoot me with Agnew as my Veep", as Private Eye put it). Appointing mediocrities to his cabinet helped secure his status as Big Dog. Which worked until his position became utterly untenable.
But also, politics has been a binfire since 2016, and only the ashes are left. The Brexit fallout on the right and the Corbyn fallout on the left meant that the developmental pipeline in both parties sprung massive leaks. Hence Starmer and Truss/Sunak. None of the options are great, but they are also the best options each party had and has. Chickens laid years ago coming home to roost.
Indeed, the coming recession will provide a fantastic excuse for the Tories to, sorrowfully and with great regret of course, forget the north.
It might take a few years for it to happen. The Tories might even wring another election victory with Red Wall backing, as the betrayal takes time to be recognised by those who believe most. But happen it will.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/money/other/energy-bills-to-hit-4-000-by-january-as-gas-prices-spiral-out-of-control/ar-AA10kUv2?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=135bd667ba7647f193c061bf7cf46e7c
The govt still does little about this issue.
Are there multiple wars that North Korean soldiers have been engaged in over the last several decades (to gain this 'wealth of experience' that i am unaware of?
We don't escape this for a very long time.
Countering that is the Tories showing signs of falling apart in the shires
After all who would want to be an MP in a world of 24 hour news and 24 hour social media when the expectations of many people is that as an MP you are now accessible 24/7...
In Australia, we had a situation during the previous Labor government where the Deputy PM (Julia Gillard) was elevated to PM through an internal coup in the parliamentary party. Gillard was good at making deals with factional leaders and getting the numbers for a successful leadership challenge, but she was absolutely terrible at understanding voters & appealing to them.
The Conservative Party system prevents this & ensures that the final two choices have to go out and show their campaigning skills to win the leadership.
I think if Theresa May had faced a strong challenger, then she might also have failed at the final hurdle and the new leader might have done a lot better at the subsequent election.
I don't there was anything wrong with what he said, there are parts of Tunbridge Wells that are not that well off, Sherwood ward for
instance. Yes the redwall needs support but there are parts of the country elsewhere that do too.
It should also be noted that the last 2 general election winners for the Tories, Johnson and Cameron, were both elected by the membership. The last general election winner for Labour, Tony Blair, was elected by Labour members. Starmer was also elected by Labour members and Davey by LD members
What's the mood in Egypt?
Jeremy Corbyn was elected by the members.
Hell, IDS was elected by the members.
The record of member voting is, at best, patchy.
Lots of MZ, not so much D.
In 2017 Corbyn deprived the Tories of their majority
He's sent out his minions to double down on it.
Are you sure you haven't confused her with the fragrant Suella ?
If the "I can feed the gammonians better than you can - oh no, does GCHQ have a problem?" farce of the Tory leadership election continues much longer, then maybe Boris Johnson will resign on 6 September anyway even if Old Lady hasn't got a new name for us... and my small gamble on Dominic Raab as next PM at long odds will pay out
I did meet an interesting Saudi guy and fellow Porsche enthusiast on my course. He had spent 8 months in 2014 in Raqqa (Saudi equivalent of going to Ibiza on an 18-30) as an ISIS "fighter" and told me many hair-raising yarns about life in the Islamic State.
I am now a qualified teacher of Arabic as a foreign language. Probably going to Saudi in the winter for more immersion and riding motorbikes around the Asir mountains with the jihadi.
The normal alternative proposed is to embrace our Parliamentary system and leave the job to MPs alone. This would make a Liberal Democrat leadership hustings somewhat intimate.
What if we considered an alternative approach. How about a national primary contest that the entire electorate could vote in?
On the plus side this would be an alternative that involved more democracy, rather than less. It would encourage the candidates to speak to a broader electorate than the small minority who now join political parties. It would counter the tiresome calls for a new PM to call an immediate general election for a personal mandate.
The MPs would still produce the shortlists of two, which would ideally reduce the chances of an outright crank winning.
On the negative side, it would be ruinously be expensive to organise, and it would turbocharge the long-term drift towards Presidential politics. But perhaps that's a lost battle.
Leclerc to take (engine) grid penalties at Spa and Austin
"We are working on reliability and at the same time managing it, because it will be resolved definitively for next season. Some changes cannot be implemented in a few weeks. However, this does not mean that it will not be managed this season”
(Binotto)
(As discussed at length and inconclusively over too many bottles of wine last night with an old friend who came to stop with us. Our dog declined to get involved tbf.)
I can see what might have prompted you to mention it on this particular thread.
https://twitter.com/BBCNewsPR/status/1555483312810082304
BBC News Press Team
@BBCNewsPR
Interview on
@BBCr4today
We regret that we did not robustly challenge Martin Tyler on a comment which appeared to link Hillsborough & hooliganism. Martin has since apologised for the comment & clarified that these were separate examples & he did not intend to conflate the two.
The selectorate are largely old, southern and selfish. That means the candidates have to propose policies as fucked up as possible to win their votes. Because winning the leadership is the only thought right now - they don't care what it may do to their electoral prospects at the GE.
So of course Sunak will stand in Royal Toffbridge Welloff and say "I'll take money from the oils to spend on deserving people like you". Because of he doesn't, he loses.
And of course Labour will throw this around at the election. But some voters are so Stockholmed that they'll likely not only still vote Tory to directly make themselves worse off, they'll attack Labour for supposedly having the very policies they are voting for.
Translation: Will both candidates be eliminated?
If the "I can pander to the right better than you can - oh no GCHQ has a problem with the voting system" farce continues much longer then maybe Boris will resign anyway even if Sir Graham Brady hasn't a newly elected leader name for us and Dominic Raab could become PM.
No, not possible.
* make the election procedure statutory, run by the House of Commons
* only MPs (all of them except the Speaker) to have a vote (compulsory)
* secret ballots, all votes basically write-ins, and each vote must be for an MP
* after the first round, each vote must be for an MP who didn't get zero or come last in the previous round
Rishi Sunak would win now. Dunno who would have won in 2019. Jeremy Hunt? David Davis?
Game theorists' heads would explode...
I was distracted by all of that for a few minutes, and then forgot about it - essentially the play is about human drama, not a historical simulation, and if the actors chosen were the best-suited to the roles, fine. As a performance, I'd just give it a B - good but not amazing. But as an experience including a crowded Globe and the planted actors in the crowd leading chants and shouts it was definitely an A.
By contrast, I wasn't much taken with Chess which I saw earlier in the week, despite its stellar credentials with Tim Rice and the Abba boys. It's very static, with one stage set for 2 hours, a third of which is the orchestra. It's OK and the Drury Lane theatre is lovely, but overall just a pleasant night out.
Is there anything else currently which I ought to try now I've signed up to the effete Greater London intelligentsia?
Its pretty simple - one of the root causes of the disaster was the need for barriers at football. Why were they needed? Because an element of football fans behaved like animals repeatedly.
Mr. Biggles, perhaps. Attachment can be purely instinctive, however, and not related to intelligence. The capacity of canines to be aware of the future as a concept beyond the short term (which they definitely are, or training would not work) is interesting to consider.
Hard wired instinct is surely sufficient to keep them attached to their young.
Dallow (Luton) council by-election result:
LAB: 53.6% (-12.9)
LDEM: 38.8% (+38.8)
CON: 5.6% (-7.6)
IND: 2.1% (-18.3)
Votes cast: 2,774
Labour HOLD.
Another impressive LD surge having not stood in 2019 in a fairly safe ward helped by the evicted Labour councillor being disqualified for being a fraudy wrong 'un.
Tories unable to take advantage and head backwards. The indy was a different indy to 2019 so didnt suddenly become unpopular.
I recommend this book. It’s quite eye opening about the smartness of octopi
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28116739
In other words, channeling cash purely at your voters can backfire, since they don’t see themselves as “yours” and care about other things and other places.
If they don't do that they also run the risk of the opposition getting behind a nutter that only a minority of the governing party want. Think Labour, the SNP and the Lib Dems getting behind Braverman for short term governing pain but medium term electoral gain for the opposition.
1. I pick up the leash and get my jacket down.
2. Therefore walkies in the near future.
3. Joyful reaction.
Admittedly not necessarily very abstract, or very far into the future. But saying 'walk' has a similar effect, as does the sign language equivalent if the hound is deaf (one would want to observe numerous instances, of course, in a serious study, with double blind tests):
https://twitter.com/thepuppiesclub/status/1251911204911681538
Betfair next prime minister
1.12 Liz Truss 89%
9 Rishi Sunak 11%
Next Conservative leader
1.12 Liz Truss 89%
9 Rishi Sunak 11%
Tesla Powerwalls Create Huge 'Distributed Battery' For Grid Reliability
Tesla has invited some 25,000 PG&E customers with Powerwalls to join the program.
https://insideevs.com/news/602480/tesla-powerwall-pge-worlds-largest-distributed-battery/
...Through the collaboration, Tesla will participate in PG&E’s Emergency Load Reduction Program (ELRP) pilot by combining residential Powerwalls into a virtual power plant to discharge power back to the California grid during times of high electricity demand. Participating customers will receive $2 for every incremental kilowatt-hour of electricity their Powerwall discharges during an event. They can use the Tesla app to set their backup power needs or to opt out of a particular event, as necessary....
While not massive in terms of power, imagine ubiquitous EV* usage. Even if only around 20% of vehicles' better capacity was available, it would give you a virtual distributed battery with multiple GWh capacity.
UK drivers do an average of around 20 miles a day, so there's plenty of headroom.
(* two way chargers are already being planned for electric vehicles, so the ability to discharge back to the grid will be designed in.)
https://www.thenational.scot/news/20603278.rishi-sunak-boasts-diverting-cash-deprived-urban-areas-unearthed-video/?ref=ebbn
That's a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for a change of government.
https://twitter.com/hjoycegender/status/1555516309059821574
I still think he'd make for a good health secretary because the NHS needs a bean counter in charge and to cut waste and costs so there's headroom for doing better elsewhere in the service.
I also think he's the most likely to take an actuarial approach to healthcare rather than the current approach of unlimited negative return investment in life lengthening treatments for very old people. Simply because he seems hard hearted enough to push it and not care about the consequences to his personal reputation (it's already smashed beyond repair IMO).
As we were talking about yesterday, a whole new discussion around healthcare provision in the UK needs to be had. We're entering a 20-30 year period of exponentially rising healthcare demand from people who are refusing to pay their own way and have the divine belief that only they worked hard so deserve millions spent on their healthcare and care needs while not wanting to pay any additional tax on their incomes or wealth. That means services need to be curtailed because there is no unlimited pot of cash from working age people, the UK just becomes an uncompetitive place to do business as corporate and personal taxes rise to meet this need from that generation to retire at 60 and live to 100 while taking no income hit or taxes on their wealth.
Rishi, to me, seems like exactly the kind of guy who could blunder into that discussion and make those changes. 2024 looks lost either way given the economic circumstances, a change to healthcare provision for over 85s in terms of life lengthening treatment (even something as technically simple as making a DNR opt-out after 85) would pay very, very good long term dividends for the nation and he'd eventually restore his reputation off the back of it as the man who saved the economy from certain ruin.
https://cambridgeshakespeare.com/
However I did spend almost a year in a garden shed and the only other living thing with which I would interact in that time was my parents' dog so I have possibly unmatched observational experience of canine behaviour and psychology.
My conclusion is that they do have a concept of the future in the sense that they are able to anticipate as yet unmanifested but probable events. However, this horizon is very short by human terms and they have almost no concept of the passage of time. Their internal chronology is based around events rather than duration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zH0dygy_dxA
Also the Only Fools and Horses musical is good and nostaligic
Immediate gratification is a concept dogs and Tory members understand well. The longer term future, perhaps not.
He contends that cutting taxes would stoke inflation, but if that's the case then how come taxation and inflation are both at the highest in decades, and have been for a while? If Sunak is right then that situation should be impossible, inflation should be falling.
It should also be true that during periods of low taxation, inflation should be higher, when that is also not necessarily true.
It's obvious that the link Sunak is claiming does not exist, or at least not in the way Sunak claims it does, and its just a line he's been fed by his mates at HM Treasury.