Why, apart from the obvious, this obsession with Kari Lake? She's trails in every poll. There must be other unlikely Governors of medium sized US States talk about.
She is genuinely deplorable in several ways, yet the way she doesn't take any shit, and the way she brings the fight back to the hacks. It is impressive
Go to minute 9 to see her really slapping him
Whether it's impressive or not depends on whether she's using it to puncture media nonsense or to deflect scrutiny. It's almost always the latter with far right populists.
I'm talking about the media skill NOT the actual politics. A lot of what she claims to believe is pernicious nonsense
But does she have a presence on TV? Yes. Is she good at bitch-slapping journos? Also Yes. Could she make it to the White House? Why not. If she wins the AZ governorship, then I could see Trump making her his running mate in 2024, and then - whether he wins or not - she is ideally placed for 2028
Paradoxically, however, she needs to rein in the Trumpist conspiracy bollocks to win Arizona. A difficult maneuver
Sense she's another narcissist on the make. And of course we now know such a person CAN be president outside of Ballard novels. So not a completely crazy suggestion.
But my point - re this 'bitchslapping journos" ability that you're celebrating - is whether it's a quality or a vice depends on what she's reacting to.
Eg in British terms:
Labour politician being hassled with the tedious "What is a woman?" question by Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. GOOD.
Labour politician being asked wtf does Starmer mean by "strong secure peaceful fair growth?" by - yes why not - Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. BAD.
Bet Lake is all about the 2nd sort. Using a facility for sarcasm and putdown to avoid scrutiny.
You are mentally incapable of examining an issue without your narrow moralising mindset intruding
IF I said "Hitler made powerful speeches" you'd say, "Yes, but he killed 6m Jews so they were bad speeches"
What's the point? Debating with you is like debating with a highly educated child
Kari Lake has never held an elected office, and has never been an executive. If she is elected governor of Arizona, she is unlikely to attract competent help.
Any chance you folks can take her off our hands by putting her in charge of one of your football clubs? (She is probably more qualified for that than being governor. (My apologies to those who consider football serious, but not governing.)
Her shifts in party loyalties, from Republican, to Democrat, to Trumpista, look overall as if they are determined by her ambitions, not any serious thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Lake
And?
Donald Trump himself went from Democrat to Republican to Trumpista, and became president
Indeed. She's just another grifter.
Grifter?!
"a person who engages in petty or small-scale swindling."
No. Not a grifter. Wrong usage. Bzzzt
Not really. Petty swindling on a larger stage - that's Trump exactly.
Kari Lake has never held an elected office, and has never been an executive. If she is elected governor of Arizona, she is unlikely to attract competent help.
Any chance you folks can take her off our hands by putting her in charge of one of your football clubs? (She is probably more qualified for that than being governor. (My apologies to those who consider football serious, but not governing.)
Her shifts in party loyalties, from Republican, to Democrat, to Trumpista, look overall as if they are determined by her ambitions, not any serious thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Lake
And?
Donald Trump himself went from Democrat to Republican to Trumpista, and became president
Indeed. She's just another grifter.
Grifter?!
"a person who engages in petty or small-scale swindling."
Kari Lake has never held an elected office, and has never been an executive. If she is elected governor of Arizona, she is unlikely to attract competent help.
Any chance you folks can take her off our hands by putting her in charge of one of your football clubs? (She is probably more qualified for that than being governor. (My apologies to those who consider football serious, but not governing.)
Her shifts in party loyalties, from Republican, to Democrat, to Trumpista, look overall as if they are determined by her ambitions, not any serious thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Lake
And?
Donald Trump himself went from Democrat to Republican to Trumpista, and became president
Indeed. She's just another grifter.
Grifter?!
"a person who engages in petty or small-scale swindling."
No. Not a grifter. Wrong usage. Bzzzt
Not really. Petty swindling on a larger stage - that's Trump exactly.
No, you just didn't understand the term
EDIT: I am wrong. I just checked. People have, recently, been using grifter to mean a politician who is in politics solely to make money
I deplore this usage. The word grifter should be reserved for petty swindlers, because it captures them brilliantly. There are surely better words for greedy political charlatans. But I can't argue with the usage of the language
She has more chance than some others listed mind - such as Meghan Markle.
I'd put a fiver on her if she was 100/1
She is a demagogue with some dangerous opinions BUT she is articulate, telegenic, clever and knows how to work a crowd - and the media. She can be brutal in despatching journalists, I've rarely see anything like it. She ATTACKS them rather than nervously batting away their questions. It's Trumpism, but done by someone eloquent and "plausible" and not obviously mad
But to get to the White House she needs an awful lot of difficult things to happen exactly right
But if Trump chose her as a running mate in 2024? That could do it
I knew I’d seen her before but couldn’t think where - saw her on this podcast a couple of weeks ago.
Former news anchor on local TV, so not only does everyone know her, she’s had two decades of daily public speaking and interviewing.
Quite a few of these Trump fruitcakes seem to be TV people. Makes sense, I guess, since that's essentially what he is. What he was anyway. I think an underappreciated factor in his political rise was all that time on The Apprentice, a persona of "tough can-do guy with a sense of humour" projected into millions of homes in America every week for years. That's gold, really, in this age of celeb. If Alan Sugar wasn't Alan Sugar maybe something similar - on the usual smaller and paler British scale - could have happened here.
We tend to be slightly less impressed by glossy bullshit.
Alan Sugar is a Pound Shop Donald Fucking Trump.
I know Mr Sugar caused a minor revolution with his PCW computers (I had about eight of them in succession, variously adapted and cannibalised). But I don't think Mr S ever tried to do a Boris Johnson in No 10 and imitate a limpet in a rockpool.
His "thing" was buying companies and slowly running them into the ground, going for the lowest possible quality.
The reason that Lord Sugar didn't get anywhere in UK politics is that he wasn't up for the time and effort of becoming an MP.
It must be admitted that the PCW started off by throwing together a design based on, IIRC, a job lot of non-standard three-inch (?) disc drives that had lost out to competition with the smaller PC format disc and were knocking around at minimal cost. I rather suspect everyone was very surprised when the PCW turned out to be so popular that they had to put the disc drives back into production! (Though I adapted mine with a PC 5.25" drive as well.) I don't suppose the little green screen was very high tech even then, either.
It wasn't. Certainly the screens on the CPC (Amstrad's first computer range, before the PCW) were TV-grade displays, not monitor-grade displays. It was the CPC that started the 3-inch thing and for exactly the reason you say.
But it was a well-designed piece of kit even so. I wrote a piece of software for the PCW which sold reasonably well in its latter days!
Kari Lake has never held an elected office, and has never been an executive. If she is elected governor of Arizona, she is unlikely to attract competent help.
Any chance you folks can take her off our hands by putting her in charge of one of your football clubs? (She is probably more qualified for that than being governor. (My apologies to those who consider football serious, but not governing.)
Her shifts in party loyalties, from Republican, to Democrat, to Trumpista, look overall as if they are determined by her ambitions, not any serious thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Lake
And?
Donald Trump himself went from Democrat to Republican to Trumpista, and became president
Indeed. She's just another grifter.
Grifter?!
"a person who engages in petty or small-scale swindling."
No. Not a grifter. Wrong usage. Bzzzt
Not really. Petty swindling on a larger stage - that's Trump exactly.
I don't have you down as a pedant.
I was wrong. You were right. Grifting is indeed used the way you use it (see below)
Kari Lake has never held an elected office, and has never been an executive. If she is elected governor of Arizona, she is unlikely to attract competent help.
Any chance you folks can take her off our hands by putting her in charge of one of your football clubs? (She is probably more qualified for that than being governor. (My apologies to those who consider football serious, but not governing.)
Her shifts in party loyalties, from Republican, to Democrat, to Trumpista, look overall as if they are determined by her ambitions, not any serious thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Lake
And?
Donald Trump himself went from Democrat to Republican to Trumpista, and became president
Indeed. She's just another grifter.
Grifter?!
"a person who engages in petty or small-scale swindling."
No. Not a grifter. Wrong usage. Bzzzt
Not really. Petty swindling on a larger stage - that's Trump exactly.
I don't have you down as a pedant.
I was wrong. You were right. Grifting is indeed used the way you use it (see below)
US July jobs report is out, over half a million jobs added in a single month. I think you have to go back over 7 presidents to get a figure like that.
Unemploymemt at a 50 year low.
Terrifying recession conditions.
Two words for you.
Gasoline
prices
But yes, things might be looking a little better for the dems in the midterms.
Gasoline prices have been coming down for 50 days+ in a row in the US. Even I am starting to think things are looking better for the Ds in November (however, I still think they will lose the House and the Senate is on a knife-edge).
I think they will lose the House pretty badly. But I think selling the Republicans for Senate control is a great bet, especially given the wildcard of Utah.
She has more chance than some others listed mind - such as Meghan Markle.
I'd put a fiver on her if she was 100/1
She is a demagogue with some dangerous opinions BUT she is articulate, telegenic, clever and knows how to work a crowd - and the media. She can be brutal in despatching journalists, I've rarely see anything like it. She ATTACKS them rather than nervously batting away their questions. It's Trumpism, but done by someone eloquent and "plausible" and not obviously mad
But to get to the White House she needs an awful lot of difficult things to happen exactly right
But if Trump chose her as a running mate in 2024? That could do it
I knew I’d seen her before but couldn’t think where - saw her on this podcast a couple of weeks ago.
Former news anchor on local TV, so not only does everyone know her, she’s had two decades of daily public speaking and interviewing.
Quite a few of these Trump fruitcakes seem to be TV people. Makes sense, I guess, since that's essentially what he is. What he was anyway. I think an underappreciated factor in his political rise was all that time on The Apprentice, a persona of "tough can-do guy with a sense of humour" projected into millions of homes in America every week for years. That's gold, really, in this age of celeb. If Alan Sugar wasn't Alan Sugar maybe something similar - on the usual smaller and paler British scale - could have happened here.
We tend to be slightly less impressed by glossy bullshit.
Alan Sugar is a Pound Shop Donald Fucking Trump.
I know Mr Sugar caused a minor revolution with his PCW computers (I had about eight of them in succession, variously adapted and cannibalised). But I don't think Mr S ever tried to do a Boris Johnson in No 10 and imitate a limpet in a rockpool.
His "thing" was buying companies and slowly running them into the ground, going for the lowest possible quality.
The reason that Lord Sugar didn't get anywhere in UK politics is that he wasn't up for the time and effort of becoming an MP.
The original Amstrad - makers of CPC and PCW computers - was built from the ground up.
Why, apart from the obvious, this obsession with Kari Lake? She's trails in every poll. There must be other unlikely Governors of medium sized US States talk about.
There havent been many. She led in one in February, Hobbs now has a 5 point lead. The trouble with the polling is its hypotheticals - almost 100% certain to be Hobbs defending but then against a maybe or maybe opponent which always skews things as Lake supporters wont say Robson and vice versa but may do now the race is settled. I anticipate the polling closing in to a dead heat now the head to head is clarified. The republicans had a record turnout for the primaries so unless Robson supporters switch i think Lake has a very good chance as does Masters against Kelly for Senate (same hypothetical polling issue there before now too)
It should be noted Tunbridge Wells, where Rishi spoke and I was born and raised, is 46th on the LD target list and has a LD led council. It is very much bluewall.
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
Jo Swinson was elected by the members.
Jeremy Corbyn was elected by the members.
Hell, IDS was elected by the members.
The record of member voting is, at best, patchy.
William Hague, John Major, Theresa May, Michael Foot were elected solely by MPs. Their record is at least as patchy.
In 2017 Corbyn deprived the Tories of their majority
Surely the point Mark is making is the evidence points to it being inclusive, whereas you were trying to imply it wasn't. It clearly is from the evidence Mark provided.
Personally I think members should elect leaders whilst in opposition and the public can decide on the party's members wisdom in a GE. However if you are appointing a PM of an already elected governing party it should be left to those who have the detailed knowledge i.e. the MPs to mitigate the risk of appointing a loony as PM (although the MPs might manage that also).
No it clearly isn't, of the last 4 Tory leaders elected solely by MPs, May, Howard, Hague and Major, none of them apart from Major won a general election majority and he also led the party to its worst defeat since 1832 in 1997.
If members get a say in electing the party leader then that applies in government as much as opposition. MPs select the final 2 anyway and members then choose from them, so MPs have plenty of opportunity to exclude an extremist. Braverman or Badenoch may well have won the leadership amongst members and were probably the most hardline of the candidates standing but MPs put neither in the final 2.
Labour also let members choose their leader so they equally could choose the PM in power. Had John McDonnell got enough MP nominations to take on Gordon Brown in 2007 that would certainly have been the case
I think that is a bit tough on Major. You could have had Good as leader in 1997 and you weren't going to win.
In hindsight, Major was actually quite good as PM. Or did you mean God ?
God - a leader who inspires absolute devotion in His followers while others look on sceptically, bewildered or even contemptuous about it.
His followers have divided themselves into various camps that frequently seem to hate each other more than they hate non believers.
His most fervent believers think that only a select few are worthy, which can include some very wealthy people despite what He has said about the wealthy.
Has views that seem frozen from times in the past despite time moving on.
Spends half of his time obsessing about Jews.
God is a politician and His name is Jeremy Corbyn.
Your rants about God are increasingly tedious.
We all know that you are a militant atheist.
Others are believers. How about you practice some of those libertarian ideals and let them do what the fuck they like without insulting them?
Rants? It was a joke.
Maybe you didn't find it a funny joke, but that's a different question. I don't care what religious people do in private but making a pun or joke related to what someone else just said is sometimes half of what we do here.
If I wanted to be insulting, I could be much more insulting than that. But it was just a joke.
It should be noted Tunbridge Wells, where Rishi spoke and I was born and raised, is 46th on the LD target list and has a LD led council. It is very much bluewall.
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
Jo Swinson was elected by the members.
Jeremy Corbyn was elected by the members.
Hell, IDS was elected by the members.
The record of member voting is, at best, patchy.
William Hague, John Major, Theresa May, Michael Foot were elected solely by MPs. Their record is at least as patchy.
In 2017 Corbyn deprived the Tories of their majority
Surely the point Mark is making is the evidence points to it being inclusive, whereas you were trying to imply it wasn't. It clearly is from the evidence Mark provided.
Personally I think members should elect leaders whilst in opposition and the public can decide on the party's members wisdom in a GE. However if you are appointing a PM of an already elected governing party it should be left to those who have the detailed knowledge i.e. the MPs to mitigate the risk of appointing a loony as PM (although the MPs might manage that also).
No it clearly isn't, of the last 4 Tory leaders elected solely by MPs, May, Howard, Hague and Major, none of them apart from Major won a general election majority and he also led the party to its worst defeat since 1832 in 1997.
If members get a say in electing the party leader then that applies in government as much as opposition. MPs select the final 2 anyway and members then choose from them, so MPs have plenty of opportunity to exclude an extremist. Braverman or Badenoch may well have won the leadership amongst members and were probably the most hardline of the candidates standing but MPs put neither in the final 2.
Labour also let members choose their leader so they equally could choose the PM in power. Had John McDonnell got enough MP nominations to take on Gordon Brown in 2007 that would certainly have been the case
I think you just flip it around.
* 10% of MP base required to be nominated as a candidate (so max 10 as each MP can only nominate 1) * All candidates (so max 10) go to the membership for a vote * Top 5 (I would suggest STV) selected by members for the final round * MPs then have 2 rounds of voting using FPTP: 5>3 and then 3>1
Add the members vote to the MPs and in case of a tie give Shirley Ballas the casting vote.
He's got one thing wrong though. Sunak didn't say he was trying to take investment away from deprived areas, he said that he'd been instrumental in Johnson's government actually doing that for the last three years.
If any more Tory MPs from the Red Wall wish to defect to Labour, they've just been handed the perfect pretext for doing so.
They appear to be updated every Monday; Here's the latest: 'For the seventh straight week, the nation’s average gas price has declined, falling 15.9 cents from a week ago to $4.17 per gallon today according to GasBuddy data compiled from more than 11 million individual price reports covering over 150,000 gas stations across the country. The national average is down 65.5 cents from a month ago and $1.02 per gallon higher than a year ago. The national average price of diesel has declined 14.8 cents in the last week and stands at $5.27 per gallon.
“We continue to see average gas prices falling in every state, with the national average down for the seventh straight week. Even better, nearly 20 states have also seen their average decline to $3.99 or less, with over 70,000 stations now at that level or below,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “The outlook is for a continued drop in most areas, however, some supply tightness in areas of the Northeastern U.S. could push prices up slightly until inventories rise, or imports do. For now, Americans are seeing prices nearly 90 cents lower than their mid-June peak and are spending close to $330 million less on gasoline every day as a result. As long as oil prices hold at these levels or lower, we’ll see another decline in most areas this week.”'
(The main site allows people in the US to find the lowest gas rices in their area.)
It should be noted Tunbridge Wells, where Rishi spoke and I was born and raised, is 46th on the LD target list and has a LD led council. It is very much bluewall.
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
Jo Swinson was elected by the members.
Jeremy Corbyn was elected by the members.
Hell, IDS was elected by the members.
The record of member voting is, at best, patchy.
William Hague, John Major, Theresa May, Michael Foot were elected solely by MPs. Their record is at least as patchy.
In 2017 Corbyn deprived the Tories of their majority
Surely the point Mark is making is the evidence points to it being inclusive, whereas you were trying to imply it wasn't. It clearly is from the evidence Mark provided.
Personally I think members should elect leaders whilst in opposition and the public can decide on the party's members wisdom in a GE. However if you are appointing a PM of an already elected governing party it should be left to those who have the detailed knowledge i.e. the MPs to mitigate the risk of appointing a loony as PM (although the MPs might manage that also).
No it clearly isn't, of the last 4 Tory leaders elected solely by MPs, May, Howard, Hague and Major, none of them apart from Major won a general election majority and he also led the party to its worst defeat since 1832 in 1997.
If members get a say in electing the party leader then that applies in government as much as opposition. MPs select the final 2 anyway and members then choose from them, so MPs have plenty of opportunity to exclude an extremist. Braverman or Badenoch may well have won the leadership amongst members and were probably the most hardline of the candidates standing but MPs put neither in the final 2.
Labour also let members choose their leader so they equally could choose the PM in power. Had John McDonnell got enough MP nominations to take on Gordon Brown in 2007 that would certainly have been the case
I think that is a bit tough on Major. You could have had Good as leader in 1997 and you weren't going to win.
In hindsight, Major was actually quite good as PM. Or did you mean God ?
I meant God. I'm really getting fed up with spell checker.
I also thought Major was good. Hague was pretty good as a leader also. I think @hyufd is getting cause and correlation mixed up. There are lots of other reasons why a PM/leader wins or loses. Whether they were elected by MPs or members is only one of them, if at all. Major, Hague and Howard had other rather bigger problems. And as Mark showed there are plenty of counter examples.
The 2 worst defeats the Tories suffered since universal suffrage were under Major in 1997 and Hague in 2001.
Now Major was not too bad a PM and part of that was down to Blair having more appeal than any Labour leader before to Middle England but neither were exactly great leaders of the party
The lesson that should be remembered from that period is that the Tories, who should be the natural party of government, became unpopular when they went down an ideological rabbit hole and got mired in a succession of silly scandals. Not how those leaders were elected.
On the subject of Arizona, I am a massive Doug Ducey fan. He has been an outstanding Governor, who has governed for all Arizonans, and ran a business friendly state, while also investing in improving public services.
If he were running again, he would walk reelection.
I am not enamored by Ms Lake. Or the Democrat. If I had to choose, I would choose the Dem, because they don't seem to live in crazy election denial world.
On the subject of Arizona, I am a massive Doug Ducey fan. He has been an outstanding Governor, who has governed for all Arizonans, and ran a business friendly state, while also investing in improving public services.
If he were running again, he would walk reelection.
I am not enamored by Ms Lake. Or the Democrat. If I had to choose, I would choose the Dem, because they don't seem to live in crazy election denial world.
Whoever wins, it will probably not be good for my business.
Entirely off-topic but entertaining (to me anyway). Bought a new phone. Was offered trade-in. On the list was "Moto G 2nd Gen 64GB". If you know your budget Moto phones from a decade ago you may remember the G2. I had one sat in the drawer, checked it powered on and wasn't damaged (miraculously after the life it has had...) and sent it in. As it was apparently worth £70!!!!!
They have just responded back valuing it at £0 (which matches my own). What puzzles me is that they are disputing what I sent - UNKNOWN MODEL. Well yes, because the model you list does not exist. 64GB of memory wasn't a thing in budget handsets in 2014. So yes, it doesn't match the description because nothing does.
Anyway, they are posting it back to me! Tracked 24 each way plus time checking the handset isn't cheap, so I assume they make £dollah from somewhere. Not remotely bothered that they aren't paying me £lots for a phone that was living a happy retirement in my drawer, but a little puzzled as to what they think they are asking for. Various dinosaurs also on the list which I assume are also not worth the values their website shows...
Why, apart from the obvious, this obsession with Kari Lake? She's trails in every poll. There must be other unlikely Governors of medium sized US States talk about.
There havent been many. She led in one in February, Hobbs now has a 5 point lead. The trouble with the polling is its hypotheticals - almost 100% certain to be Hobbs defending but then against a maybe or maybe opponent which always skews things as Lake supporters wont say Robson and vice versa but may do now the race is settled. I anticipate the polling closing in to a dead heat now the head to head is clarified. The republicans had a record turnout for the primaries so unless Robson supporters switch i think Lake has a very good chance as does Masters against Kelly for Senate (same hypothetical polling issue there before now too)
Whoops, Hobbs is SoS not governor of course, but she was hot favourite to get the nod wheras the repub battke was always a bum pincher
She has more chance than some others listed mind - such as Meghan Markle.
I'd put a fiver on her if she was 100/1
She is a demagogue with some dangerous opinions BUT she is articulate, telegenic, clever and knows how to work a crowd - and the media. She can be brutal in despatching journalists, I've rarely see anything like it. She ATTACKS them rather than nervously batting away their questions. It's Trumpism, but done by someone eloquent and "plausible" and not obviously mad
But to get to the White House she needs an awful lot of difficult things to happen exactly right
But if Trump chose her as a running mate in 2024? That could do it
I knew I’d seen her before but couldn’t think where - saw her on this podcast a couple of weeks ago.
Former news anchor on local TV, so not only does everyone know her, she’s had two decades of daily public speaking and interviewing.
Quite a few of these Trump fruitcakes seem to be TV people. Makes sense, I guess, since that's essentially what he is. What he was anyway. I think an underappreciated factor in his political rise was all that time on The Apprentice, a persona of "tough can-do guy with a sense of humour" projected into millions of homes in America every week for years. That's gold, really, in this age of celeb. If Alan Sugar wasn't Alan Sugar maybe something similar - on the usual smaller and paler British scale - could have happened here.
We tend to be slightly less impressed by glossy bullshit.
Alan Sugar is a Pound Shop Donald Fucking Trump.
I know Mr Sugar caused a minor revolution with his PCW computers (I had about eight of them in succession, variously adapted and cannibalised). But I don't think Mr S ever tried to do a Boris Johnson in No 10 and imitate a limpet in a rockpool.
His "thing" was buying companies and slowly running them into the ground, going for the lowest possible quality.
The reason that Lord Sugar didn't get anywhere in UK politics is that he wasn't up for the time and effort of becoming an MP.
It must be admitted that the PCW started off by throwing together a design based on, IIRC, a job lot of non-standard three-inch (?) disc drives that had lost out to competition with the smaller PC format disc and were knocking around at minimal cost. I rather suspect everyone was very surprised when the PCW turned out to be so popular that they had to put the disc drives back into production! (Though I adapted mine with a PC 5.25" drive as well.) I don't suppose the little green screen was very high tech even then, either.
It wasn't. Certainly the screens on the CPC (Amstrad's first computer range, before the PCW) were TV-grade displays, not monitor-grade displays. It was the CPC that started the 3-inch thing and for exactly the reason you say.
But it was a well-designed piece of kit even so. I wrote a piece of software for the PCW which sold reasonably well in its latter days!
Yes, of course you're right about the CPC pioneering the little discs - had forgotten about that. I used my external PC disc drive to read/write to PC disc so I could send in articles to magazines on their format, using the Royal Mail.
The [edit] PCW printer wasn't great - a basic dot matrix with typewriter style ribbon. But running it as a dedicated addon from inside the computer saved a lot of gubbins in the printer, and therefore money. All in all just what people needed for a home office without too much tricky techy stuff. My elderly mum and her cousin both got one and it was a lead-in to a more conventional PC in later years for them and others.
Gordon Bennett! The BBC are offloading top presenters left right and centre, and yet the utterly abject Paddy O'Connell in on EVERYTHING! He's on Radio 2 whenever Vine is away and he's on any old nonsense like Broadcasting House that Radio 4 can muster, but today this total halfwit is on R4 PM AND Any Questions? Why? He's dreadful.
She is genuinely deplorable in several ways, yet the way she doesn't take any shit, and the way she brings the fight back to the hacks. It is impressive
Go to minute 9 to see her really slapping him
Whether it's impressive or not depends on whether she's using it to puncture media nonsense or to deflect scrutiny. It's almost always the latter with far right populists.
I'm talking about the media skill NOT the actual politics. A lot of what she claims to believe is pernicious nonsense
But does she have a presence on TV? Yes. Is she good at bitch-slapping journos? Also Yes. Could she make it to the White House? Why not. If she wins the AZ governorship, then I could see Trump making her his running mate in 2024, and then - whether he wins or not - she is ideally placed for 2028
Paradoxically, however, she needs to rein in the Trumpist conspiracy bollocks to win Arizona. A difficult maneuver
Sense she's another narcissist on the make. And of course we now know such a person CAN be president outside of Ballard novels. So not a completely crazy suggestion.
But my point - re this 'bitchslapping journos" ability that you're celebrating - is whether it's a quality or a vice depends on what she's reacting to.
Eg in British terms:
Labour politician being hassled with the tedious "What is a woman?" question by Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. GOOD.
Labour politician being asked wtf does Starmer mean by "strong secure peaceful fair growth?" by - yes why not - Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. BAD.
Bet Lake is all about the 2nd sort. Using a facility for sarcasm and putdown to avoid scrutiny.
You are mentally incapable of examining an issue without your narrow moralising mindset intruding
IF I said "Hitler made powerful speeches" you'd say, "Yes, but he killed 6m Jews so they were bad speeches"
What's the point? Debating with you is like debating with a highly educated child
I'm off to the gym. Later
That's a genuinely dim and disappointing response. My point - that whether a facility for putting down questioners is a good or a bad thing depends on the reason it's being deployed - has nothing to do with moralizing and wasn't (imo) hard to grasp. But you seemed not to, so I illustrated it, went the extra mile.
But ok, if all you want to do is pronounce droolingly that this new love object of yours - Kari Lake - is terrific at "bitchslapping journos", end of, rather than talk about it and explore it a little bit, that's fine by me. Great. Very interesting. Thanks for the linked clip. Give the man a biscuit.
Why, apart from the obvious, this obsession with Kari Lake? She's trails in every poll. There must be other unlikely Governors of medium sized US States talk about.
She has a much better chance than that. And part of the reason she has a decent chance is the same reason she is interesting: for a political novice she is extremely confident and assured, and quite compelling on TV. She knows how to use the medium. She’s an ex tv anchor
If you had to construct the perfect Trumpite female prez candidate it would look something like Lake. Attractive, plausible, lucid, combative. White soccer mom with guns. She has a supportive husband and apparently nice kids. She’s a smarter, cannier Sarah Palin with less baggage
So she is INTERESTING. We shouldn’t turn away from interesting if distantly placed candidates out of dislike
She has more chance than some others listed mind - such as Meghan Markle.
I'd put a fiver on her if she was 100/1
She is a demagogue with some dangerous opinions BUT she is articulate, telegenic, clever and knows how to work a crowd - and the media. She can be brutal in despatching journalists, I've rarely see anything like it. She ATTACKS them rather than nervously batting away their questions. It's Trumpism, but done by someone eloquent and "plausible" and not obviously mad
But to get to the White House she needs an awful lot of difficult things to happen exactly right
But if Trump chose her as a running mate in 2024? That could do it
I knew I’d seen her before but couldn’t think where - saw her on this podcast a couple of weeks ago.
Former news anchor on local TV, so not only does everyone know her, she’s had two decades of daily public speaking and interviewing.
Quite a few of these Trump fruitcakes seem to be TV people. Makes sense, I guess, since that's essentially what he is. What he was anyway. I think an underappreciated factor in his political rise was all that time on The Apprentice, a persona of "tough can-do guy with a sense of humour" projected into millions of homes in America every week for years. That's gold, really, in this age of celeb. If Alan Sugar wasn't Alan Sugar maybe something similar - on the usual smaller and paler British scale - could have happened here.
We tend to be slightly less impressed by glossy bullshit.
Alan Sugar is a Pound Shop Donald Fucking Trump.
I know Mr Sugar caused a minor revolution with his PCW computers (I had about eight of them in succession, variously adapted and cannibalised). But I don't think Mr S ever tried to do a Boris Johnson in No 10 and imitate a limpet in a rockpool.
His "thing" was buying companies and slowly running them into the ground, going for the lowest possible quality.
The reason that Lord Sugar didn't get anywhere in UK politics is that he wasn't up for the time and effort of becoming an MP.
It must be admitted that the PCW started off by throwing together a design based on, IIRC, a job lot of non-standard three-inch (?) disc drives that had lost out to competition with the smaller PC format disc and were knocking around at minimal cost. I rather suspect everyone was very surprised when the PCW turned out to be so popular that they had to put the disc drives back into production! (Though I adapted mine with a PC 5.25" drive as well.) I don't suppose the little green screen was very high tech even then, either.
It wasn't. Certainly the screens on the CPC (Amstrad's first computer range, before the PCW) were TV-grade displays, not monitor-grade displays. It was the CPC that started the 3-inch thing and for exactly the reason you say.
But it was a well-designed piece of kit even so. I wrote a piece of software for the PCW which sold reasonably well in its latter days!
Yes, of course you're right about the CPC pioneering the little discs - had forgotten about that. I used my external PC disc drive to read/write to PC disc so I could send in articles to magazines on their format, using the Royal Mail.
The [edit] PCW printer wasn't great - a basic dot matrix with typewriter style ribbon. But running it as a dedicated addon from inside the computer saved a lot of gubbins in the printer, and therefore money. All in all just what people needed for a home office without too much tricky techy stuff. My elderly mum and her cousin both got one and it was a lead-in to a more conventional PC in later years for them and others.
I don't know why Amstrad / Sugar gets bad press. He built a stack of affordable hifi/TV gear which got technology into homes that probably wouldn't have been here had the big brands kept prices high. And his computers absolutely demolished a price floor that kept PCs out of normal people's reach. It was only the duff HDD saga (not their fault) that properly sunk them.
Yes he is an arsehole. But what does that have to do with big business? They're almost ALL arseholes. That's how you get to run a big business...
It should be noted Tunbridge Wells, where Rishi spoke and I was born and raised, is 46th on the LD target list and has a LD led council. It is very much bluewall.
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
Jo Swinson was elected by the members.
Jeremy Corbyn was elected by the members.
Hell, IDS was elected by the members.
The record of member voting is, at best, patchy.
William Hague, John Major, Theresa May, Michael Foot were elected solely by MPs. Their record is at least as patchy.
In 2017 Corbyn deprived the Tories of their majority
Surely the point Mark is making is the evidence points to it being inclusive, whereas you were trying to imply it wasn't. It clearly is from the evidence Mark provided.
Personally I think members should elect leaders whilst in opposition and the public can decide on the party's members wisdom in a GE. However if you are appointing a PM of an already elected governing party it should be left to those who have the detailed knowledge i.e. the MPs to mitigate the risk of appointing a loony as PM (although the MPs might manage that also).
No it clearly isn't, of the last 4 Tory leaders elected solely by MPs, May, Howard, Hague and Major, none of them apart from Major won a general election majority and he also led the party to its worst defeat since 1832 in 1997.
If members get a say in electing the party leader then that applies in government as much as opposition. MPs select the final 2 anyway and members then choose from them, so MPs have plenty of opportunity to exclude an extremist. Braverman or Badenoch may well have won the leadership amongst members and were probably the most hardline of the candidates standing but MPs put neither in the final 2.
Labour also let members choose their leader so they equally could choose the PM in power. Had John McDonnell got enough MP nominations to take on Gordon Brown in 2007 that would certainly have been the case
I think that is a bit tough on Major. You could have had Good as leader in 1997 and you weren't going to win.
In hindsight, Major was actually quite good as PM. Or did you mean God ?
I meant God. I'm really getting fed up with spell checker.
I also thought Major was good. Hague was pretty good as a leader also. I think @hyufd is getting cause and correlation mixed up. There are lots of other reasons why a PM/leader wins or loses. Whether they were elected by MPs or members is only one of them, if at all. Major, Hague and Howard had other rather bigger problems. And as Mark showed there are plenty of counter examples.
The 2 worst defeats the Tories suffered since universal suffrage were under Major in 1997 and Hague in 2001.
Now Major was not too bad a PM and part of that was down to Blair having more appeal than any Labour leader before to Middle England but neither were exactly great leaders of the party
The lesson that should be remembered from that period is that the Tories, who should be the natural party of government, became unpopular when they went down an ideological rabbit hole and got mired in a succession of silly scandals. Not how those leaders were elected.
Labour also appointed the most centrist leader in their postwar history.
It should be noted Tunbridge Wells, where Rishi spoke and I was born and raised, is 46th on the LD target list and has a LD led council. It is very much bluewall.
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
Jo Swinson was elected by the members.
Jeremy Corbyn was elected by the members.
Hell, IDS was elected by the members.
The record of member voting is, at best, patchy.
William Hague, John Major, Theresa May, Michael Foot were elected solely by MPs. Their record is at least as patchy.
In 2017 Corbyn deprived the Tories of their majority
Surely the point Mark is making is the evidence points to it being inclusive, whereas you were trying to imply it wasn't. It clearly is from the evidence Mark provided.
Personally I think members should elect leaders whilst in opposition and the public can decide on the party's members wisdom in a GE. However if you are appointing a PM of an already elected governing party it should be left to those who have the detailed knowledge i.e. the MPs to mitigate the risk of appointing a loony as PM (although the MPs might manage that also).
No it clearly isn't, of the last 4 Tory leaders elected solely by MPs, May, Howard, Hague and Major, none of them apart from Major won a general election majority and he also led the party to its worst defeat since 1832 in 1997.
If members get a say in electing the party leader then that applies in government as much as opposition. MPs select the final 2 anyway and members then choose from them, so MPs have plenty of opportunity to exclude an extremist. Braverman or Badenoch may well have won the leadership amongst members and were probably the most hardline of the candidates standing but MPs put neither in the final 2.
Labour also let members choose their leader so they equally could choose the PM in power. Had John McDonnell got enough MP nominations to take on Gordon Brown in 2007 that would certainly have been the case
I think that is a bit tough on Major. You could have had Good as leader in 1997 and you weren't going to win.
She has more chance than some others listed mind - such as Meghan Markle.
I'd put a fiver on her if she was 100/1
She is a demagogue with some dangerous opinions BUT she is articulate, telegenic, clever and knows how to work a crowd - and the media. She can be brutal in despatching journalists, I've rarely see anything like it. She ATTACKS them rather than nervously batting away their questions. It's Trumpism, but done by someone eloquent and "plausible" and not obviously mad
But to get to the White House she needs an awful lot of difficult things to happen exactly right
But if Trump chose her as a running mate in 2024? That could do it
I knew I’d seen her before but couldn’t think where - saw her on this podcast a couple of weeks ago.
Former news anchor on local TV, so not only does everyone know her, she’s had two decades of daily public speaking and interviewing.
Quite a few of these Trump fruitcakes seem to be TV people. Makes sense, I guess, since that's essentially what he is. What he was anyway. I think an underappreciated factor in his political rise was all that time on The Apprentice, a persona of "tough can-do guy with a sense of humour" projected into millions of homes in America every week for years. That's gold, really, in this age of celeb. If Alan Sugar wasn't Alan Sugar maybe something similar - on the usual smaller and paler British scale - could have happened here.
We tend to be slightly less impressed by glossy bullshit.
Alan Sugar is a Pound Shop Donald Fucking Trump.
I know Mr Sugar caused a minor revolution with his PCW computers (I had about eight of them in succession, variously adapted and cannibalised). But I don't think Mr S ever tried to do a Boris Johnson in No 10 and imitate a limpet in a rockpool.
His "thing" was buying companies and slowly running them into the ground, going for the lowest possible quality.
The reason that Lord Sugar didn't get anywhere in UK politics is that he wasn't up for the time and effort of becoming an MP.
It must be admitted that the PCW started off by throwing together a design based on, IIRC, a job lot of non-standard three-inch (?) disc drives that had lost out to competition with the smaller PC format disc and were knocking around at minimal cost. I rather suspect everyone was very surprised when the PCW turned out to be so popular that they had to put the disc drives back into production! (Though I adapted mine with a PC 5.25" drive as well.) I don't suppose the little green screen was very high tech even then, either.
It wasn't. Certainly the screens on the CPC (Amstrad's first computer range, before the PCW) were TV-grade displays, not monitor-grade displays. It was the CPC that started the 3-inch thing and for exactly the reason you say.
But it was a well-designed piece of kit even so. I wrote a piece of software for the PCW which sold reasonably well in its latter days!
Yes, of course you're right about the CPC pioneering the little discs - had forgotten about that. I used my external PC disc drive to read/write to PC disc so I could send in articles to magazines on their format, using the Royal Mail.
The [edit] PCW printer wasn't great - a basic dot matrix with typewriter style ribbon. But running it as a dedicated addon from inside the computer saved a lot of gubbins in the printer, and therefore money. All in all just what people needed for a home office without too much tricky techy stuff. My elderly mum and her cousin both got one and it was a lead-in to a more conventional PC in later years for them and others.
I don't know why Amstrad / Sugar gets bad press. He built a stack of affordable hifi/TV gear which got technology into homes that probably wouldn't have been here had the big brands kept prices high. And his computers absolutely demolished a price floor that kept PCs out of normal people's reach. It was only the duff HDD saga (not their fault) that properly sunk them.
Yes he is an arsehole. But what does that have to do with big business? They're almost ALL arseholes. That's how you get to run a big business...
Quite - he has a small but real place in my family's collective heart for his PCWs. Plenty of good karma for that, whatever one might think of that apprentice TV series (have never seen it myself anyway).
Isn't it time for Ed Davey to come out and say unequivocally that if the Lib Dems win the next election they will immediately set in train reversing Brexit. No referendum needed. His manifesto will be his mandate.
He has never been in a better position. The country is in favour of rejoining and the financial position now we've left is dire and getting worse. On WATO they were talking about the possibility of real human hardship next year. The situation could be apocalyptic.
As a USP for a third line Party the situation couldn't be better. Starmer has abandoned it for a mushy Trussesque God-knows-what which leaves the Greens the Lib Dems and the Scottish Nats fully in favour. Perfect for the revival of the Liberal Party.
Starmer is offering nothing other than not being Tory. The Tories are dead in the water. The country needs a new movement and joining the EU Euro and all is tailor made.
The only areas where most voters would not only want to rejoin the EU but join the Euro too are in inner London and university cities elsewhere like Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh and Cambridge, Bristol and Oxford which had huge Remain majorities.
The LDs main target seats however are mainly Tory home counties seats which only narrowly voted Remain in 2016 or narrowly voted Leave
Also, it would reduce the chance of defeating the Conservatives - yes, I agree that's not the only point of politics, but after 12 years and counting it does deserve consideration. If the Tories can say "Labour in power would depend on the LibDems who are fanatically keen to rejoin", then Starmer will have to double down on "Labour will absolutely refuse to rejoin". Net effect: LDs piss off those Blue Wallers who aren't rejoiners, Labour pisses off the Rejoiners, and yes, Rejoiners feel happier casting the LD/Lab/Green votes they will probably do anyway. Since it won't actually happen in the next Parliament (so it'll go down as Another Broken Promise), all it would really do is make the Tories happy.
I'm not sure if the Greens are unambiguously in favour, incidentally? They used to be positively pro-Brexit for Lexit reasons, but although they were Remainers at the election (mostly in reaction to the Tories, I think), are they Rejoiners now?
The public consensus is IMO for reasonable cooperation with the EU to make things work better, including if necessary concessions about the ECHR role, common standards etc. but not embarking on rejoining for now. I'd vote to rejoin tomorrow, but you and I are not typical.
Why, apart from the obvious, this obsession with Kari Lake? She's trails in every poll. There must be other unlikely Governors of medium sized US States talk about.
She has a much better chance than that. And part of the reason she has a decent chance is the same reason she is interesting: for a political novice she is extremely confident and assured, and quite compelling on TV. She knows how to use the medium. She’s an ex tv anchor
If you had to construct the perfect Trumpite female prez candidate it would look something like Lake. Attractive, plausible, lucid, combative. White soccer mom with guns. She has a supportive husband and apparently nice kids. She’s a smarter, cannier Sarah Palin with less baggage
So she is INTERESTING. We shouldn’t turn away from interesting if distantly placed candidates out of dislike
If she wins in November she becomes a real player
Indeed. But, Lake, like a lot of these Trumpy candidates is a novice. At some point one of them will be exposed as a novice who has not been school in the art of politics by fecking up on something that a seasoned pro wouldn't. Trump got away with all his feck ups, but will these lesser characters?
She is genuinely deplorable in several ways, yet the way she doesn't take any shit, and the way she brings the fight back to the hacks. It is impressive
Go to minute 9 to see her really slapping him
Whether it's impressive or not depends on whether she's using it to puncture media nonsense or to deflect scrutiny. It's almost always the latter with far right populists.
I'm talking about the media skill NOT the actual politics. A lot of what she claims to believe is pernicious nonsense
But does she have a presence on TV? Yes. Is she good at bitch-slapping journos? Also Yes. Could she make it to the White House? Why not. If she wins the AZ governorship, then I could see Trump making her his running mate in 2024, and then - whether he wins or not - she is ideally placed for 2028
Paradoxically, however, she needs to rein in the Trumpist conspiracy bollocks to win Arizona. A difficult maneuver
Sense she's another narcissist on the make. And of course we now know such a person CAN be president outside of Ballard novels. So not a completely crazy suggestion.
But my point - re this 'bitchslapping journos" ability that you're celebrating - is whether it's a quality or a vice depends on what she's reacting to.
Eg in British terms:
Labour politician being hassled with the tedious "What is a woman?" question by Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. GOOD.
Labour politician being asked wtf does Starmer mean by "strong secure peaceful fair growth?" by - yes why not - Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. BAD.
Bet Lake is all about the 2nd sort. Using a facility for sarcasm and putdown to avoid scrutiny.
You are mentally incapable of examining an issue without your narrow moralising mindset intruding
IF I said "Hitler made powerful speeches" you'd say, "Yes, but he killed 6m Jews so they were bad speeches"
What's the point? Debating with you is like debating with a highly educated child
I'm off to the gym. Later
That's a genuinely dim and disappointing response. My point - that whether a facility for putting down questioners is a good or a bad thing depends on the reason it's being deployed - has nothing to do with moralizing and wasn't (imo) hard to grasp. But you seemed not to, so I illustrated it, went the extra mile.
But ok, if all you want to do is pronounce droolingly that this new love object of yours - Kari Lake - is terrific at "bitchslapping journos", end of, rather than talk about it and explore it a little bit, that's fine by me. Great. Very interesting. Thanks for the linked clip. Give the man a biscuit.
No. ‘Depends on the reason being deployed’. Is your criterion. Right here. You went and wrote it down and everything
That’s introducing morality - your opinion of the candidate’s political/moral worth. It is not relevant as to whether she is good at bitchslapping hacks. She is. One of the best I’ve seen
It should be noted Tunbridge Wells, where Rishi spoke and I was born and raised, is 46th on the LD target list and has a LD led council. It is very much bluewall.
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
Jo Swinson was elected by the members.
Jeremy Corbyn was elected by the members.
Hell, IDS was elected by the members.
The record of member voting is, at best, patchy.
William Hague, John Major, Theresa May, Michael Foot were elected solely by MPs. Their record is at least as patchy.
In 2017 Corbyn deprived the Tories of their majority
Surely the point Mark is making is the evidence points to it being inclusive, whereas you were trying to imply it wasn't. It clearly is from the evidence Mark provided.
Personally I think members should elect leaders whilst in opposition and the public can decide on the party's members wisdom in a GE. However if you are appointing a PM of an already elected governing party it should be left to those who have the detailed knowledge i.e. the MPs to mitigate the risk of appointing a loony as PM (although the MPs might manage that also).
No it clearly isn't, of the last 4 Tory leaders elected solely by MPs, May, Howard, Hague and Major, none of them apart from Major won a general election majority and he also led the party to its worst defeat since 1832 in 1997.
If members get a say in electing the party leader then that applies in government as much as opposition. MPs select the final 2 anyway and members then choose from them, so MPs have plenty of opportunity to exclude an extremist. Braverman or Badenoch may well have won the leadership amongst members and were probably the most hardline of the candidates standing but MPs put neither in the final 2.
Labour also let members choose their leader so they equally could choose the PM in power. Had John McDonnell got enough MP nominations to take on Gordon Brown in 2007 that would certainly have been the case
I think that is a bit tough on Major. You could have had Good as leader in 1997 and you weren't going to win.
In hindsight, Major was actually quite good as PM. Or did you mean God ?
I meant God. I'm really getting fed up with spell checker.
I also thought Major was good. Hague was pretty good as a leader also. I think @hyufd is getting cause and correlation mixed up. There are lots of other reasons why a PM/leader wins or loses. Whether they were elected by MPs or members is only one of them, if at all. Major, Hague and Howard had other rather bigger problems. And as Mark showed there are plenty of counter examples.
The 2 worst defeats the Tories suffered since universal suffrage were under Major in 1997 and Hague in 2001.
Now Major was not too bad a PM and part of that was down to Blair having more appeal than any Labour leader before to Middle England but neither were exactly great leaders of the party
The lesson that should be remembered from that period is that the Tories, who should be the natural party of government, became unpopular when they went down an ideological rabbit hole and got mired in a succession of silly scandals. Not how those leaders were elected.
Major was less ideological than Thatcher and Hague was less ideological than Howard
On the other hand, you cannot accuse him of not being self aware of how he is regarded. "I can already see tomorrow's headlines," he said. "Far-right European racist and anti-Semite strongman, Trojan horse of Putin, holds speech at conservative conference".
Isn't it time for Ed Davey to come out and say unequivocally that if the Lib Dems win the next election they will immediately set in train reversing Brexit. No referendum needed. His manifesto will be his mandate.
He has never been in a better position. The country is in favour of rejoining and the financial position now we've left is dire and getting worse. On WATO they were talking about the possibility of real human hardship next year. The situation could be apocalyptic.
As a USP for a third line Party the situation couldn't be better. Starmer has abandoned it for a mushy Trussesque God-knows-what which leaves the Greens the Lib Dems and the Scottish Nats fully in favour. Perfect for the revival of the Liberal Party.
Starmer is offering nothing other than not being Tory. The Tories are dead in the water. The country needs a new movement and joining the EU Euro and all is tailor made.
The only areas where most voters would not only want to rejoin the EU but join the Euro too are in inner London and university cities elsewhere like Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh and Cambridge, Bristol and Oxford which had huge Remain majorities.
The LDs main target seats however are mainly Tory home counties seats which only narrowly voted Remain in 2016 or narrowly voted Leave
Also, it would reduce the chance of defeating the Conservatives - yes, I agree that's not the only point of politics, but after 12 years and counting it does deserve consideration. If the Tories can say "Labour in power would depend on the LibDems who are fanatically keen to rejoin", then Starmer will have to double down on "Labour will absolutely refuse to rejoin". Net effect: LDs piss off those Blue Wallers who aren't rejoiners, Labour pisses off the Rejoiners, and yes, Rejoiners feel happier casting the LD/Lab/Green votes they will probably do anyway. Since it won't actually happen in the next Parliament (so it'll go down as Another Broken Promise), all it would really do is make the Tories happy.
I'm not sure if the Greens are unambiguously in favour, incidentally? They used to be positively pro-Brexit for Lexit reasons, but although they were Remainers at the election (mostly in reaction to the Tories, I think), are they Rejoiners now?
The public consensus is IMO for reasonable cooperation with the EU to make things work better, including if necessary concessions about the ECHR role, common standards etc. but not embarking on rejoining for now. I'd vote to rejoin tomorrow, but you and I are not typical.
Exactly, the redwall Leave seats are vital for Labour to get into power, the bluewall narrow Remain/narrow Leave seats are the main LD target seats.
The strongly pro Remain inner city seats are largely safe Labour anyway so irrelevant electorally. The Greens might try a rejoin the EU and join the Euro ticket to make inroads there but they would only dent the Labour majority at most.
Why, apart from the obvious, this obsession with Kari Lake? She's trails in every poll. There must be other unlikely Governors of medium sized US States talk about.
She has a much better chance than that. And part of the reason she has a decent chance is the same reason she is interesting: for a political novice she is extremely confident and assured, and quite compelling on TV. She knows how to use the medium. She’s an ex tv anchor
If you had to construct the perfect Trumpite female prez candidate it would look something like Lake. Attractive, plausible, lucid, combative. White soccer mom with guns. She has a supportive husband and apparently nice kids. She’s a smarter, cannier Sarah Palin with less baggage
So she is INTERESTING. We shouldn’t turn away from interesting if distantly placed candidates out of dislike
If she wins in November she becomes a real player
Indeed. But, Lake, like a lot of these Trumpy candidates is a novice. At some point one of them will be exposed as a novice who has not been school in the art of politics by fecking up on something that a seasoned pro wouldn't. Trump got away with all his feck ups, but will these lesser characters?
That’s fair. She is absurdly inexperienced. She is surely betting on her ascent being so fast this is never exposed. You can see how. She wins in November. She’s an electrifying new voice. She becomes popular quick
Trump chooses her as VP, for 2024 (or DeSantis does?). A woman would be perfect for either of them
Then she is ideally placed for a run in 2028
GO KARI
Of course she has the problem that several of her opinions are completely bat-noodle Q’anon crazy. She has to tack subtly to the center
Has @kinabalu instructed us on Truss’s motives for her Savile tweet yet? Without our emperor of morals giving us the fateful thumb up or down, I can’t decide whether to support her..
Why, apart from the obvious, this obsession with Kari Lake? She's trails in every poll. There must be other unlikely Governors of medium sized US States talk about.
She has a much better chance than that. And part of the reason she has a decent chance is the same reason she is interesting: for a political novice she is extremely confident and assured, and quite compelling on TV. She knows how to use the medium. She’s an ex tv anchor
If you had to construct the perfect Trumpite female prez candidate it would look something like Lake. Attractive, plausible, lucid, combative. White soccer mom with guns. She has a supportive husband and apparently nice kids. She’s a smarter, cannier Sarah Palin with less baggage
So she is INTERESTING. We shouldn’t turn away from interesting if distantly placed candidates out of dislike
If she wins in November she becomes a real player
Indeed. But, Lake, like a lot of these Trumpy candidates is a novice. At some point one of them will be exposed as a novice who has not been school in the art of politics by fecking up on something that a seasoned pro wouldn't. Trump got away with all his feck ups, but will these lesser characters?
That’s fair. She is absurdly inexperienced. She is surely betting on her ascent being so fast this is never exposed. You can see how. She wins in November. She’s an electrifying new voice. She becomes popular quick
Trump chooses her as VP, for 2024 (or DeSantis does?). A woman would be perfect for either of them
Then she is ideally placed for a run in 2028
GO KARI
Of course she has the problem that several of her opinions are completely bat-noodle Q’anon crazy. She has to tack subtly to the center
Why, apart from the obvious, this obsession with Kari Lake? She's trails in every poll. There must be other unlikely Governors of medium sized US States talk about.
She has a much better chance than that. And part of the reason she has a decent chance is the same reason she is interesting: for a political novice she is extremely confident and assured, and quite compelling on TV. She knows how to use the medium. She’s an ex tv anchor
If you had to construct the perfect Trumpite female prez candidate it would look something like Lake. Attractive, plausible, lucid, combative. White soccer mom with guns. She has a supportive husband and apparently nice kids. She’s a smarter, cannier Sarah Palin with less baggage
So she is INTERESTING. We shouldn’t turn away from interesting if distantly placed candidates out of dislike
If she wins in November she becomes a real player
Indeed. But, Lake, like a lot of these Trumpy candidates is a novice. At some point one of them will be exposed as a novice who has not been school in the art of politics by fecking up on something that a seasoned pro wouldn't. Trump got away with all his feck ups, but will these lesser characters?
That’s fair. She is absurdly inexperienced. She is surely betting on her ascent being so fast this is never exposed. You can see how. She wins in November. She’s an electrifying new voice. She becomes popular quick
Trump chooses her as VP, for 2024 (or DeSantis does?). A woman would be perfect for either of them
Then she is ideally placed for a run in 2028
GO KARI
Of course she has the problem that several of her opinions are completely bat-noodle Q’anon crazy. She has to tack subtly to the center
On current polling Lake could lose the Arizona governorship and DeSantis lose the Florida governorship in November.
In which case they would be irrelevant for 2024/28
She is genuinely deplorable in several ways, yet the way she doesn't take any shit, and the way she brings the fight back to the hacks. It is impressive
Go to minute 9 to see her really slapping him
Whether it's impressive or not depends on whether she's using it to puncture media nonsense or to deflect scrutiny. It's almost always the latter with far right populists.
I'm talking about the media skill NOT the actual politics. A lot of what she claims to believe is pernicious nonsense
But does she have a presence on TV? Yes. Is she good at bitch-slapping journos? Also Yes. Could she make it to the White House? Why not. If she wins the AZ governorship, then I could see Trump making her his running mate in 2024, and then - whether he wins or not - she is ideally placed for 2028
Paradoxically, however, she needs to rein in the Trumpist conspiracy bollocks to win Arizona. A difficult maneuver
Sense she's another narcissist on the make. And of course we now know such a person CAN be president outside of Ballard novels. So not a completely crazy suggestion.
But my point - re this 'bitchslapping journos" ability that you're celebrating - is whether it's a quality or a vice depends on what she's reacting to.
Eg in British terms:
Labour politician being hassled with the tedious "What is a woman?" question by Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. GOOD.
Labour politician being asked wtf does Starmer mean by "strong secure peaceful fair growth?" by - yes why not - Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. BAD.
Bet Lake is all about the 2nd sort. Using a facility for sarcasm and putdown to avoid scrutiny.
You are mentally incapable of examining an issue without your narrow moralising mindset intruding
IF I said "Hitler made powerful speeches" you'd say, "Yes, but he killed 6m Jews so they were bad speeches"
What's the point? Debating with you is like debating with a highly educated child
I'm off to the gym. Later
Since quite a lot of the speeches were about the importance of killing Jews, Kinabalu would be right about that!
Gordon Bennett! The BBC are offloading top presenters left right and centre, and yet the utterly abject Paddy O'Connell in on EVERYTHING! He's on Radio 2 whenever Vine is away and he's on any old nonsense like Broadcasting House that Radio 4 can muster, but today this total halfwit is on R4 PM AND Any Questions? Why? He's dreadful.
The good ones go on holiday in August. That's why you get the 2nd team
She is genuinely deplorable in several ways, yet the way she doesn't take any shit, and the way she brings the fight back to the hacks. It is impressive
Go to minute 9 to see her really slapping him
Whether it's impressive or not depends on whether she's using it to puncture media nonsense or to deflect scrutiny. It's almost always the latter with far right populists.
I'm talking about the media skill NOT the actual politics. A lot of what she claims to believe is pernicious nonsense
But does she have a presence on TV? Yes. Is she good at bitch-slapping journos? Also Yes. Could she make it to the White House? Why not. If she wins the AZ governorship, then I could see Trump making her his running mate in 2024, and then - whether he wins or not - she is ideally placed for 2028
Paradoxically, however, she needs to rein in the Trumpist conspiracy bollocks to win Arizona. A difficult maneuver
Sense she's another narcissist on the make. And of course we now know such a person CAN be president outside of Ballard novels. So not a completely crazy suggestion.
But my point - re this 'bitchslapping journos" ability that you're celebrating - is whether it's a quality or a vice depends on what she's reacting to.
Eg in British terms:
Labour politician being hassled with the tedious "What is a woman?" question by Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. GOOD.
Labour politician being asked wtf does Starmer mean by "strong secure peaceful fair growth?" by - yes why not - Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. BAD.
Bet Lake is all about the 2nd sort. Using a facility for sarcasm and putdown to avoid scrutiny.
You are mentally incapable of examining an issue without your narrow moralising mindset intruding
IF I said "Hitler made powerful speeches" you'd say, "Yes, but he killed 6m Jews so they were bad speeches"
What's the point? Debating with you is like debating with a highly educated child
I'm off to the gym. Later
Since quite a lot of the speeches were about the importance of killing Jews, Kinabalu would be right about that!
@kinabalu seems genuinely incapable of distinguishing between ‘this is a person doing a good job’ and ‘this is a good person doing a job’
Why, apart from the obvious, this obsession with Kari Lake? She's trails in every poll. There must be other unlikely Governors of medium sized US States talk about.
She has a much better chance than that. And part of the reason she has a decent chance is the same reason she is interesting: for a political novice she is extremely confident and assured, and quite compelling on TV. She knows how to use the medium. She’s an ex tv anchor
If you had to construct the perfect Trumpite female prez candidate it would look something like Lake. Attractive, plausible, lucid, combative. White soccer mom with guns. She has a supportive husband and apparently nice kids. She’s a smarter, cannier Sarah Palin with less baggage
So she is INTERESTING. We shouldn’t turn away from interesting if distantly placed candidates out of dislike
If she wins in November she becomes a real player
Indeed. But, Lake, like a lot of these Trumpy candidates is a novice. At some point one of them will be exposed as a novice who has not been school in the art of politics by fecking up on something that a seasoned pro wouldn't. Trump got away with all his feck ups, but will these lesser characters?
That’s fair. She is absurdly inexperienced. She is surely betting on her ascent being so fast this is never exposed. You can see how. She wins in November. She’s an electrifying new voice. She becomes popular quick
Trump chooses her as VP, for 2024 (or DeSantis does?). A woman would be perfect for either of them
Then she is ideally placed for a run in 2028
GO KARI
Of course she has the problem that several of her opinions are completely bat-noodle Q’anon crazy. She has to tack subtly to the center
Does she have to tack subtly to the centre? Did Trump?
Kari Lake has never held an elected office, and has never been an executive. If she is elected governor of Arizona, she is unlikely to attract competent help.
Any chance you folks can take her off our hands by putting her in charge of one of your football clubs? (She is probably more qualified for that than being governor. (My apologies to those who consider football serious, but not governing.)
Her shifts in party loyalties, from Republican, to Democrat, to Trumpista, look overall as if they are determined by her ambitions, not any serious thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Lake
And?
Donald Trump himself went from Democrat to Republican to Trumpista, and became president
Indeed. She's just another grifter.
Grifter?!
"a person who engages in petty or small-scale swindling."
Kari Lake has never held an elected office, and has never been an executive. If she is elected governor of Arizona, she is unlikely to attract competent help.
Any chance you folks can take her off our hands by putting her in charge of one of your football clubs? (She is probably more qualified for that than being governor. (My apologies to those who consider football serious, but not governing.)
Her shifts in party loyalties, from Republican, to Democrat, to Trumpista, look overall as if they are determined by her ambitions, not any serious thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Lake
And?
Donald Trump himself went from Democrat to Republican to Trumpista, and became president
Indeed. She's just another grifter.
Grifter?!
"a person who engages in petty or small-scale swindling."
No. Not a grifter. Wrong usage. Bzzzt
Not really. Petty swindling on a larger stage - that's Trump exactly.
No, you just didn't understand the term
EDIT: I am wrong. I just checked. People have, recently, been using grifter to mean a politician who is in politics solely to make money
I deplore this usage. The word grifter should be reserved for petty swindlers, because it captures them brilliantly. There are surely better words for greedy political charlatans. But I can't argue with the usage of the language
That’s a natural derivation - the argument is that politicians like that are selling something they don’t believe in order to make money. You’d never call a Saunders (belief) or McConnell (serious politician vs just about money) a grifter for example.
She is genuinely deplorable in several ways, yet the way she doesn't take any shit, and the way she brings the fight back to the hacks. It is impressive
Go to minute 9 to see her really slapping him
Whether it's impressive or not depends on whether she's using it to puncture media nonsense or to deflect scrutiny. It's almost always the latter with far right populists.
I'm talking about the media skill NOT the actual politics. A lot of what she claims to believe is pernicious nonsense
But does she have a presence on TV? Yes. Is she good at bitch-slapping journos? Also Yes. Could she make it to the White House? Why not. If she wins the AZ governorship, then I could see Trump making her his running mate in 2024, and then - whether he wins or not - she is ideally placed for 2028
Paradoxically, however, she needs to rein in the Trumpist conspiracy bollocks to win Arizona. A difficult maneuver
Sense she's another narcissist on the make. And of course we now know such a person CAN be president outside of Ballard novels. So not a completely crazy suggestion.
But my point - re this 'bitchslapping journos" ability that you're celebrating - is whether it's a quality or a vice depends on what she's reacting to.
Eg in British terms:
Labour politician being hassled with the tedious "What is a woman?" question by Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. GOOD.
Labour politician being asked wtf does Starmer mean by "strong secure peaceful fair growth?" by - yes why not - Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. BAD.
Bet Lake is all about the 2nd sort. Using a facility for sarcasm and putdown to avoid scrutiny.
You are mentally incapable of examining an issue without your narrow moralising mindset intruding
IF I said "Hitler made powerful speeches" you'd say, "Yes, but he killed 6m Jews so they were bad speeches"
What's the point? Debating with you is like debating with a highly educated child
I'm off to the gym. Later
That's a genuinely dim and disappointing response. My point - that whether a facility for putting down questioners is a good or a bad thing depends on the reason it's being deployed - has nothing to do with moralizing and wasn't (imo) hard to grasp. But you seemed not to, so I illustrated it, went the extra mile.
But ok, if all you want to do is pronounce droolingly that this new love object of yours - Kari Lake - is terrific at "bitchslapping journos", end of, rather than talk about it and explore it a little bit, that's fine by me. Great. Very interesting. Thanks for the linked clip. Give the man a biscuit.
No. ‘Depends on the reason being deployed’. Is your criterion. Right here. You went and wrote it down and everything
That’s introducing morality - your opinion of the candidate’s political/moral worth. It is not relevant as to whether she is good at bitchslapping hacks. She is. One of the best I’ve seen
I just genuinely don't know what the problem is with this communication. YES, that message - that she's good at 'it' - is once again received loud and clear. And once again, thank you.
I was seeking (although I'm not now, tbh, I've lost interest, don't want to work this hard, esp on a Friday) an evolution in the discourse. I was asking whether she, this ghastly Kari Lake person who has caught your attention, who you adore, when she goes about her "bitchslapping journos" business, is doing it to fend off crap or to dodge scrutiny?
There is a difference there and it's an important one. But like I say, I don't want an answer now even if you're finally understanding the question.
She is genuinely deplorable in several ways, yet the way she doesn't take any shit, and the way she brings the fight back to the hacks. It is impressive
Go to minute 9 to see her really slapping him
Whether it's impressive or not depends on whether she's using it to puncture media nonsense or to deflect scrutiny. It's almost always the latter with far right populists.
I'm talking about the media skill NOT the actual politics. A lot of what she claims to believe is pernicious nonsense
But does she have a presence on TV? Yes. Is she good at bitch-slapping journos? Also Yes. Could she make it to the White House? Why not. If she wins the AZ governorship, then I could see Trump making her his running mate in 2024, and then - whether he wins or not - she is ideally placed for 2028
Paradoxically, however, she needs to rein in the Trumpist conspiracy bollocks to win Arizona. A difficult maneuver
Sense she's another narcissist on the make. And of course we now know such a person CAN be president outside of Ballard novels. So not a completely crazy suggestion.
But my point - re this 'bitchslapping journos" ability that you're celebrating - is whether it's a quality or a vice depends on what she's reacting to.
Eg in British terms:
Labour politician being hassled with the tedious "What is a woman?" question by Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. GOOD.
Labour politician being asked wtf does Starmer mean by "strong secure peaceful fair growth?" by - yes why not - Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. BAD.
Bet Lake is all about the 2nd sort. Using a facility for sarcasm and putdown to avoid scrutiny.
You are mentally incapable of examining an issue without your narrow moralising mindset intruding
IF I said "Hitler made powerful speeches" you'd say, "Yes, but he killed 6m Jews so they were bad speeches"
What's the point? Debating with you is like debating with a highly educated child
I'm off to the gym. Later
That's a genuinely dim and disappointing response. My point - that whether a facility for putting down questioners is a good or a bad thing depends on the reason it's being deployed - has nothing to do with moralizing and wasn't (imo) hard to grasp. But you seemed not to, so I illustrated it, went the extra mile.
But ok, if all you want to do is pronounce droolingly that this new love object of yours - Kari Lake - is terrific at "bitchslapping journos", end of, rather than talk about it and explore it a little bit, that's fine by me. Great. Very interesting. Thanks for the linked clip. Give the man a biscuit.
No. ‘Depends on the reason being deployed’. Is your criterion. Right here. You went and wrote it down and everything
That’s introducing morality - your opinion of the candidate’s political/moral worth. It is not relevant as to whether she is good at bitchslapping hacks. She is. One of the best I’ve seen
I just genuinely don't know what the problem is with this communication. YES, that message - that she's good at 'it' - is once again received loud and clear. And once again, thank you.
I was seeking (although I'm not now, tbh, I've lost interest) an evolution in the discourse. I was asking whether she, this ghastly Kari Lake person who has caught your attention, who you adore, when she goes about her "bitchslapping journos" business, is doing it to fend off crap or to dodge scrutiny?
There is a difference there and it's an important one. But like I say, I don't want an answer now even if you're finally understanding the question.
Goodbye.
Deary me
TBH I think the confusion here just comes from your poor use of English
You should have simply said "Yeah OK she's skilled at putting down journalists, but she's a con artist, and doing it to avoid scrutiny, so I don't like her"
That would have said all you wanted or needed to say. Trouble is it's a jejune and uninteresting point, so you tried to tart it up by getting all fancy with your prose. Didn't work. Stay in your lane, accountant
Mike Smithson said: "I am coming to the conclusion that having party memberships elect the leader is not a good thing."
I have had similar thoughts about leader selections here in the United States. I prefer open primaries to closed primaries to caucuses, in large part because activists have the most influence in the latter. (In open primaries, independents, as well as party members, can vote.)
(And I will admit that, when the old machines chose candidates for competitive races, they often picked competent, moderate men, for example, Paul Douglas and Adlai Stevenson.)
Has @kinabalu instructed us on Truss’s motives for her Savile tweet yet? Without our emperor of morals giving us the fateful thumb up or down, I can’t decide whether to support her..
He has pretty stiff competition from the various princelings of morality when it comes to the 'right' attitude to the war in Ukraine. They certainly help me to question my position on said war.
Has @kinabalu instructed us on Truss’s motives for her Savile tweet yet? Without our emperor of morals giving us the fateful thumb up or down, I can’t decide whether to support her..
He has pretty stiff competition from the various princelings of morality when it comes to the 'right' attitude to the war in Ukraine. They certainly help me to question my position on said war.
Why, apart from the obvious, this obsession with Kari Lake? She's trails in every poll. There must be other unlikely Governors of medium sized US States talk about.
She has a much better chance than that. And part of the reason she has a decent chance is the same reason she is interesting: for a political novice she is extremely confident and assured, and quite compelling on TV. She knows how to use the medium. She’s an ex tv anchor
If you had to construct the perfect Trumpite female prez candidate it would look something like Lake. Attractive, plausible, lucid, combative. White soccer mom with guns. She has a supportive husband and apparently nice kids. She’s a smarter, cannier Sarah Palin with less baggage
So she is INTERESTING. We shouldn’t turn away from interesting if distantly placed candidates out of dislike
If she wins in November she becomes a real player
Indeed. But, Lake, like a lot of these Trumpy candidates is a novice. At some point one of them will be exposed as a novice who has not been school in the art of politics by fecking up on something that a seasoned pro wouldn't. Trump got away with all his feck ups, but will these lesser characters?
That’s fair. She is absurdly inexperienced. She is surely betting on her ascent being so fast this is never exposed. You can see how. She wins in November. She’s an electrifying new voice. She becomes popular quick
Trump chooses her as VP, for 2024 (or DeSantis does?). A woman would be perfect for either of them
Then she is ideally placed for a run in 2028
GO KARI
Of course she has the problem that several of her opinions are completely bat-noodle Q’anon crazy. She has to tack subtly to the center
Does she have to tack subtly to the centre? Did Trump?
Karizona '22 is a lock. I'm calling it early like Fox in 2020 and unlike Fox in 2022
It should be noted Tunbridge Wells, where Rishi spoke and I was born and raised, is 46th on the LD target list and has a LD led council. It is very much bluewall.
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
Jo Swinson was elected by the members.
Jeremy Corbyn was elected by the members.
Hell, IDS was elected by the members.
The record of member voting is, at best, patchy.
William Hague, John Major, Theresa May, Michael Foot were elected solely by MPs. Their record is at least as patchy.
In 2017 Corbyn deprived the Tories of their majority
Surely the point Mark is making is the evidence points to it being inclusive, whereas you were trying to imply it wasn't. It clearly is from the evidence Mark provided.
Personally I think members should elect leaders whilst in opposition and the public can decide on the party's members wisdom in a GE. However if you are appointing a PM of an already elected governing party it should be left to those who have the detailed knowledge i.e. the MPs to mitigate the risk of appointing a loony as PM (although the MPs might manage that also).
No it clearly isn't, of the last 4 Tory leaders elected solely by MPs, May, Howard, Hague and Major, none of them apart from Major won a general election majority and he also led the party to its worst defeat since 1832 in 1997.
If members get a say in electing the party leader then that applies in government as much as opposition. MPs select the final 2 anyway and members then choose from them, so MPs have plenty of opportunity to exclude an extremist. Braverman or Badenoch may well have won the leadership amongst members and were probably the most hardline of the candidates standing but MPs put neither in the final 2.
Labour also let members choose their leader so they equally could choose the PM in power. Had John McDonnell got enough MP nominations to take on Gordon Brown in 2007 that would certainly have been the case
I think that is a bit tough on Major. You could have had Good as leader in 1997 and you weren't going to win.
Has @kinabalu instructed us on Truss’s motives for her Savile tweet yet? Without our emperor of morals giving us the fateful thumb up or down, I can’t decide whether to support her..
He has pretty stiff competition from the various princelings of morality when it comes to the 'right' attitude to the war in Ukraine. They certainly help me to question my position on said war.
Funny, I never thought of you as an unabashed Salmond supporter.
Has @kinabalu instructed us on Truss’s motives for her Savile tweet yet? Without our emperor of morals giving us the fateful thumb up or down, I can’t decide whether to support her..
He has pretty stiff competition from the various princelings of morality when it comes to the 'right' attitude to the war in Ukraine. They certainly help me to question my position on said war.
Are you saying that people’s certainty that Putin is evil and Russia is acting grotesquely is making you warm to him?!
Kari Lake has never held an elected office, and has never been an executive. If she is elected governor of Arizona, she is unlikely to attract competent help.
Any chance you folks can take her off our hands by putting her in charge of one of your football clubs? (She is probably more qualified for that than being governor. (My apologies to those who consider football serious, but not governing.)
Her shifts in party loyalties, from Republican, to Democrat, to Trumpista, look overall as if they are determined by her ambitions, not any serious thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Lake
And?
Donald Trump himself went from Democrat to Republican to Trumpista, and became president
Indeed. She's just another grifter.
Grifter?!
"a person who engages in petty or small-scale swindling."
Kari Lake has never held an elected office, and has never been an executive. If she is elected governor of Arizona, she is unlikely to attract competent help.
Any chance you folks can take her off our hands by putting her in charge of one of your football clubs? (She is probably more qualified for that than being governor. (My apologies to those who consider football serious, but not governing.)
Her shifts in party loyalties, from Republican, to Democrat, to Trumpista, look overall as if they are determined by her ambitions, not any serious thought. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kari_Lake
And?
Donald Trump himself went from Democrat to Republican to Trumpista, and became president
Indeed. She's just another grifter.
Grifter?!
"a person who engages in petty or small-scale swindling."
No. Not a grifter. Wrong usage. Bzzzt
Trump is the king grifter.
Well, that's his goal. He's fallen a bit short of it so far. Just a one-term President, not a King.
On the other hand, you cannot accuse him of not being self aware of how he is regarded. "I can already see tomorrow's headlines," he said. "Far-right European racist and anti-Semite strongman, Trojan horse of Putin, holds speech at conservative conference".
At face value that statement is true
A Christian who lives by the golden rule “love thy neighbour as thyself” will treat people equally regardless of skin colour
Someone who is racist does not do that
Therefore someone who is racist cannot be a Christian who abides by the golden rule (or at least attempts to - we are all fallible) and, if you assume the golden rule is central to what it means to be Christian, a racist cannot be a Christian.
Therefore a Christian politician cannot be a racist because if they are a racist then they are not a Christian politician
Before PB-ers reach the entirely bogus assumption that my weird obsession with the remarkably attractive Ms Lake, with the excellent cheekbones, and really quite nice ankles for her age, and that petite swishy way she walks, and her smoky Arizona eyes, like blue desert twilights outside Sedona on a warm April eve, I'd just like to point out that my interest is entirely political, and also informed
I follow quite a lot of Trumpites on Twitter. Just as I follow quite a lot of Corbynites. People like Jack Posobiec and D'Souza
THEY are excited by Kari Lake. She has seized their imaginations. Which tells me something is up
Before PB-ers reach the entirely bogus assumption that my weird obsession with the remarkably attractive Ms Lake, with the excellent cheekbones, and really quite nice ankles for her age, and that petite swishy way she walks, and her smoky Arizona eyes, like blue desert twilights outside Sedona on a warm April eve, I'd just like to point out that my interest is entirely political, and also informed
I follow quite a lot of Trumpites on Twitter. Just as I follow quite a lot of Corbynites. People like Jack Posobiec and D'Souza
THEY are excited by Kari Lake. She has seized their imaginations. Which tells me something is up
They're not the only ones. I do love your dry wit!
She is genuinely deplorable in several ways, yet the way she doesn't take any shit, and the way she brings the fight back to the hacks. It is impressive
Go to minute 9 to see her really slapping him
Whether it's impressive or not depends on whether she's using it to puncture media nonsense or to deflect scrutiny. It's almost always the latter with far right populists.
I'm talking about the media skill NOT the actual politics. A lot of what she claims to believe is pernicious nonsense
But does she have a presence on TV? Yes. Is she good at bitch-slapping journos? Also Yes. Could she make it to the White House? Why not. If she wins the AZ governorship, then I could see Trump making her his running mate in 2024, and then - whether he wins or not - she is ideally placed for 2028
Paradoxically, however, she needs to rein in the Trumpist conspiracy bollocks to win Arizona. A difficult maneuver
Sense she's another narcissist on the make. And of course we now know such a person CAN be president outside of Ballard novels. So not a completely crazy suggestion.
But my point - re this 'bitchslapping journos" ability that you're celebrating - is whether it's a quality or a vice depends on what she's reacting to.
Eg in British terms:
Labour politician being hassled with the tedious "What is a woman?" question by Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. GOOD.
Labour politician being asked wtf does Starmer mean by "strong secure peaceful fair growth?" by - yes why not - Kay Burley. They bitchslap her. BAD.
Bet Lake is all about the 2nd sort. Using a facility for sarcasm and putdown to avoid scrutiny.
You are mentally incapable of examining an issue without your narrow moralising mindset intruding
IF I said "Hitler made powerful speeches" you'd say, "Yes, but he killed 6m Jews so they were bad speeches"
What's the point? Debating with you is like debating with a highly educated child
I'm off to the gym. Later
Since quite a lot of the speeches were about the importance of killing Jews, Kinabalu would be right about that!
Although does he mean “bad speeches” in the sense they were “poor” speeches technically or “speeches proposing a bad thing”?
You can have a good speech from technical perspective that makes a horrible case. Many of Hitler’s ( as other demagogues) fall into that category. It’s why we have the word “demagogue”
Before PB-ers reach the entirely bogus assumption that my weird obsession with the remarkably attractive Ms Lake, with the excellent cheekbones, and really quite nice ankles for her age, and that petite swishy way she walks, and her smoky Arizona eyes, like blue desert twilights outside Sedona on a warm April eve, I'd just like to point out that my interest is entirely political, and also informed
I follow quite a lot of Trumpites on Twitter. Just as I follow quite a lot of Corbynites. People like Jack Posobiec and D'Souza
THEY are excited by Kari Lake. She has seized their imaginations. Which tells me something is up
Men of a certain age are firming up. That's for sure.
She has more chance than some others listed mind - such as Meghan Markle.
I'd put a fiver on her if she was 100/1
She is a demagogue with some dangerous opinions BUT she is articulate, telegenic, clever and knows how to work a crowd - and the media. She can be brutal in despatching journalists, I've rarely see anything like it. She ATTACKS them rather than nervously batting away their questions. It's Trumpism, but done by someone eloquent and "plausible" and not obviously mad
But to get to the White House she needs an awful lot of difficult things to happen exactly right
But if Trump chose her as a running mate in 2024? That could do it
I knew I’d seen her before but couldn’t think where - saw her on this podcast a couple of weeks ago.
Former news anchor on local TV, so not only does everyone know her, she’s had two decades of daily public speaking and interviewing.
Quite a few of these Trump fruitcakes seem to be TV people. Makes sense, I guess, since that's essentially what he is. What he was anyway. I think an underappreciated factor in his political rise was all that time on The Apprentice, a persona of "tough can-do guy with a sense of humour" projected into millions of homes in America every week for years. That's gold, really, in this age of celeb. If Alan Sugar wasn't Alan Sugar maybe something similar - on the usual smaller and paler British scale - could have happened here.
We tend to be slightly less impressed by glossy bullshit.
Alan Sugar is a Pound Shop Donald Fucking Trump.
I know Mr Sugar caused a minor revolution with his PCW computers (I had about eight of them in succession, variously adapted and cannibalised). But I don't think Mr S ever tried to do a Boris Johnson in No 10 and imitate a limpet in a rockpool.
His "thing" was buying companies and slowly running them into the ground, going for the lowest possible quality.
The reason that Lord Sugar didn't get anywhere in UK politics is that he wasn't up for the time and effort of becoming an MP.
The original Amstrad - makers of CPC and PCW computers - was built from the ground up.
Yes, Lord Sugar (who reached government before Donald Trump, as a junior minister) had half a dozen or so brilliant ideas over his lifetime. The criticism would be that by not investing properly, each of his companies ran into a dead end instead of extending their technology to the next generation, whether it be hifi, PCs, satellite tv receivers, or email phones as the case may be; ok, maybe not the last one.
For instance, Amstrad was the second largest computer manufacturer in Europe, after Olivetti. Where's Amstrad now? Otoh, where is Olivetti?
Comments
https://twitter.com/LauraJedeed/status/1555557890806644738
Hello I would like to share with you the most astonishing thing I have ever seen
At this CPAC booth you receive a silent disco headset that plays harrowing testimony from people arrested for participating in J6
Instead of dancing, you stand around and watch this guy cry...
She's trails in every poll. There must be other unlikely Governors of medium sized US States talk about.
IF I said "Hitler made powerful speeches" you'd say, "Yes, but he killed 6m Jews so they were bad speeches"
What's the point? Debating with you is like debating with a highly educated child
I'm off to the gym. Later
Petty swindling on a larger stage - that's Trump exactly.
I don't have you down as a pedant.
EDIT: I am wrong. I just checked. People have, recently, been using grifter to mean a politician who is in politics solely to make money
https://politicaldictionary.com/words/grifter/
I deplore this usage. The word grifter should be reserved for petty swindlers, because it captures them brilliantly. There are surely better words for greedy political charlatans. But I can't argue with the usage of the language
But it was a well-designed piece of kit even so. I wrote a piece of software for the PCW which sold reasonably well in its latter days!
Maybe you didn't find it a funny joke, but that's a different question. I don't care what religious people do in private but making a pun or joke related to what someone else just said is sometimes half of what we do here.
If I wanted to be insulting, I could be much more insulting than that. But it was just a joke.
"In public
@RishiSunak
claims he wants to level up the North, but here, he boasts about trying to funnel vital investment away from deprived areas?"
https://twitter.com/JakeBerry/status/1555507873395970049?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1555507873395970049|twgr^45326261ee3397da17f81a6abec1753ac1c08c9f|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2022/aug/05/kwasi-kwarteng-boris-johnson-nadhim-zahawi-economy-recession-liz-truss-rishi-sunak-tory-leadership-uk-politics-live
He's got one thing wrong though. Sunak didn't say he was trying to take investment away from deprived areas, he said that he'd been instrumental in Johnson's government actually doing that for the last three years.
If any more Tory MPs from the Red Wall wish to defect to Labour, they've just been handed the perfect pretext for doing so.
https://www.gasbuddy.com/go/blog
They appear to be updated every Monday; Here's the latest:
'For the seventh straight week, the nation’s average gas price has declined, falling 15.9 cents from a week ago to $4.17 per gallon today according to GasBuddy data compiled from more than 11 million individual price reports covering over 150,000 gas stations across the country. The national average is down 65.5 cents from a month ago and $1.02 per gallon higher than a year ago. The national average price of diesel has declined 14.8 cents in the last week and stands at $5.27 per gallon.
“We continue to see average gas prices falling in every state, with the national average down for the seventh straight week. Even better, nearly 20 states have also seen their average decline to $3.99 or less, with over 70,000 stations now at that level or below,” said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. “The outlook is for a continued drop in most areas, however, some supply tightness in areas of the Northeastern U.S. could push prices up slightly until inventories rise, or imports do. For now, Americans are seeing prices nearly 90 cents lower than their mid-June peak and are spending close to $330 million less on gasoline every day as a result. As long as oil prices hold at these levels or lower, we’ll see another decline in most areas this week.”'
(The main site allows people in the US to find the lowest gas rices in their area.)
If he were running again, he would walk reelection.
I am not enamored by Ms Lake. Or the Democrat. If I had to choose, I would choose the Dem, because they don't seem to live in crazy election denial world.
They have just responded back valuing it at £0 (which matches my own). What puzzles me is that they are disputing what I sent - UNKNOWN MODEL. Well yes, because the model you list does not exist. 64GB of memory wasn't a thing in budget handsets in 2014. So yes, it doesn't match the description because nothing does.
Anyway, they are posting it back to me! Tracked 24 each way plus time checking the handset isn't cheap, so I assume they make £dollah from somewhere. Not remotely bothered that they aren't paying me £lots for a phone that was living a happy retirement in my drawer, but a little puzzled as to what they think they are asking for. Various dinosaurs also on the list which I assume are also not worth the values their website shows...
The [edit] PCW printer wasn't great - a basic dot matrix with typewriter style ribbon. But running it as a dedicated addon from inside the computer saved a lot of gubbins in the printer, and therefore money. All in all just what people needed for a home office without too much tricky techy stuff. My elderly mum and her cousin both got one and it was a lead-in to a more conventional PC in later years for them and others.
Message to OGH: Conservative voting letter arrived today.
Gordon Bennett! The BBC are offloading top presenters left right and centre, and yet the utterly abject Paddy O'Connell in on EVERYTHING! He's on Radio 2 whenever Vine is away and he's on any old nonsense like Broadcasting House that Radio 4 can muster, but today this total halfwit is on R4 PM AND Any Questions? Why? He's dreadful.
But ok, if all you want to do is pronounce droolingly that this new love object of yours - Kari Lake - is terrific at "bitchslapping journos", end of, rather than talk about it and explore it a little bit, that's fine by me. Great. Very interesting. Thanks for the linked clip. Give the man a biscuit.
If you had to construct the perfect Trumpite female prez candidate it would look something like Lake. Attractive, plausible, lucid, combative. White soccer mom with guns. She has a supportive husband and apparently nice kids. She’s a smarter, cannier Sarah Palin with less baggage
So she is INTERESTING. We shouldn’t turn away from interesting if distantly placed candidates out of dislike
If she wins in November she becomes a real player
Yes he is an arsehole. But what does that have to do with big business? They're almost ALL arseholes. That's how you get to run a big business...
"Yes, I know Tony Blair. I bloody created him. And take it from me, he's a wrong 'un..."
"Well, I'm still going to vote for h - "
BOOOOOOM
"Erm, my Lord, I think there is a risk of a backlash if you smite everyone who isn't a possible...."
I'm not sure if the Greens are unambiguously in favour, incidentally? They used to be positively pro-Brexit for Lexit reasons, but although they were Remainers at the election (mostly in reaction to the Tories, I think), are they Rejoiners now?
The public consensus is IMO for reasonable cooperation with the EU to make things work better, including if necessary concessions about the ECHR role, common standards etc. but not embarking on rejoining for now. I'd vote to rejoin tomorrow, but you and I are not typical.
That’s introducing morality - your opinion of the candidate’s political/moral worth. It is not relevant as to whether she is good at bitchslapping hacks. She is. One of the best I’ve seen
Speaking in Dallas on Thursday, Mr Orban did not directly address that furore, but said: "A Christian politician cannot be racist."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62431415
On the other hand, you cannot accuse him of not being self aware of how he is regarded.
"I can already see tomorrow's headlines," he said. "Far-right European racist and anti-Semite strongman, Trojan horse of Putin, holds speech at conservative conference".
The strongly pro Remain inner city seats are largely safe Labour anyway so irrelevant electorally. The Greens might try a rejoin the EU and join the Euro ticket to make inroads there but they would only dent the Labour majority at most.
Trump chooses her as VP, for 2024 (or DeSantis does?). A woman would be perfect for either of them
Then she is ideally placed for a run in 2028
GO KARI
Of course she has the problem that several of her opinions are completely bat-noodle Q’anon crazy. She has to tack subtly to the center
In which case they would be irrelevant for 2024/28
Effectively they are swindling the voters
I was seeking (although I'm not now, tbh, I've lost interest, don't want to work this hard, esp on a Friday) an evolution in the discourse. I was asking whether she, this ghastly Kari Lake person who has caught your attention, who you adore, when she goes about her "bitchslapping journos" business, is doing it to fend off crap or to dodge scrutiny?
There is a difference there and it's an important one. But like I say, I don't want an answer now even if you're finally understanding the question.
Goodbye.
TBH I think the confusion here just comes from your poor use of English
You should have simply said "Yeah OK she's skilled at putting down journalists, but she's a con artist, and doing it to avoid scrutiny, so I don't like her"
That would have said all you wanted or needed to say. Trouble is it's a jejune and uninteresting point, so you tried to tart it up by getting all fancy with your prose. Didn't work. Stay in your lane, accountant
I have had similar thoughts about leader selections here in the United States. I prefer open primaries to closed primaries to caucuses, in large part because activists have the most influence in the latter. (In open primaries, independents, as well as party members, can vote.)
(And I will admit that, when the old machines chose candidates for competitive races, they often picked competent, moderate men, for example, Paul Douglas and Adlai Stevenson.)
You ought to retreat from so near lunacy
A Christian who lives by the golden rule “love thy neighbour as thyself” will treat people equally regardless of skin colour
Someone who is racist does not do that
Therefore someone who is racist cannot be a Christian who abides by the golden rule (or at least attempts to - we are all fallible) and, if you assume the golden rule is central to what it means to be Christian, a racist cannot be a Christian.
Therefore a Christian politician cannot be a racist because if they are a racist then they are not a Christian politician
I follow quite a lot of Trumpites on Twitter. Just as I follow quite a lot of Corbynites. People like Jack Posobiec and D'Souza
THEY are excited by Kari Lake. She has seized their imaginations. Which tells me something is up
You can have a good speech from technical perspective that makes a horrible case. Many of Hitler’s ( as other demagogues) fall into that category. It’s why we have the word “demagogue”
For instance, Amstrad was the second largest computer manufacturer in Europe, after Olivetti. Where's Amstrad now? Otoh, where is Olivetti?