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Just over a week till Truss moves into Number 10 – politicalbetting.com
Just over a week till Truss moves into Number 10 – politicalbetting.com
We have just gone through a leadership campaign in which the two contenders have made a series of extraordinary statements about their views and policies and what they would do if they actually entered number 10. They have, of course, been trying to appeal to a very specific audience – Tory members.
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1.04 Liz Truss 96%
23 Rishi Sunak 4%
Next Conservative leader
1.04 Liz Truss 96%
22 Rishi Sunak 5%
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/28/black-asian-people-wait-longer-cancer-diagnosis-england-than-white-people
Something else for the new Prime Minister to consider.
https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1564117176474279937/photo/1
Another way of looking at this is Putin getting ever more isolated. Makes it easier to blame him for the Ukraine fiasco when the Oligarchs make their move.
(TLDR, he’s taking the piss, and should be handed his arse.)
Assessing Trump’s Claim of ‘Executive Privilege’ on FBI Access to MAL Docs
https://www.justsecurity.org/82873/assessing-trumps-claim-of-executive-privilege-on-fbi-access-to-mal-docs/
… the notion that a former president can block his successor from accessing presidential records that the incumbent believes he needs for purposes of carrying out executive functions would be the most extreme manifestation of a doubtful legal theory, and one that has no support in any legal authority to date.…
There is a lot more if you can be bothered to read.
It will be good to have something approaching normal politics again.
"Such tactics worked incredibly well for a far smaller Finnish force against two whole Soviet divisions at the battles of Suomussalmi and Raate Road from late November 1939 to early January 1940 during the Soviet-Finnish Winter War within World War II, a conflict I have noted at some length is rife with parallels and lessons for the current Russo-Ukrainian war.
In this conjoined pair of battles, nimble Finnish ski troops were able to slice into the columns of Soviet forces that, because of the deep snow and thick woods in the remote wilderness of Finland, were forced to stay near the only roads in the area. The Finns would use the first waves of ski troops to cut the long, road-bound formations into pockets and would then immediately heavily fortify and reinforce where they penetrated the Soviet lines. Cut off from supplies and reinforcements, running out of ammunition and weakened from starvation in these pockets (mottis), two whole Soviet divisions comprising about 50,000 men were destroyed, suffering massive casualties, by just a few thousand Finns, who incurred just a tiny fraction of their foe’s casualties."
https://realcontextnews.com/ukrainian-prudence-meets-russian-limitations-explaining-the-current-pace-and-nature-of-russias-war-on-ukraine/
The Ancien Régime will simply carry on as before, only with the court fool having been replaced at its pinnacle by Marie Antoinette. This is not a particular cause for celebration.
Every day recently I've seen a story on their News page about the Leeds festival - today it's considered important that I know that the Arctic Monkeys closed the festival with a huge singalong.
Who cares about this that wasn't already there involved in the singalong - and so doesn't need to be told about it?
And good morning one and all
Though, granted, I did see that on Twitter, so it might just have been satire. Or bollocks.
The decline of the British passport if nothing else should worry them. Used to be that having one would get you access privileges not available to others. Now? We get to be fingerprinted next time we head into Europe.
And it might be that the racial divide is a clue to what is going on, since race is not equally spread throughout the country. It is possible that this is an urban/rural divide, for instance. Or a class divide. Even if this just points to where more facilities are needed, that is useful.
It is also interesting that for lung cancer, the race divide is reversed, with diagnosis of White patients taking longest.
But in any case, there is enough there for a new Health Secretary to grapple with.
27% of parents with children under 18 saying they plan to leave their heating off. And this was done BEFORE the price cap was announced. Some of the alt-right "well we froze when I was a kid and it never did me any harm" comments on Twitter are saying "kids will freeze so what". Not a good advert for the government whether they disagree on not.
I remain clear that Truss will not be slamming the £100bn or so on the table that is needed. Whatever she announces will be too little, and its already too late. That government spokespeople are even today repeating the "we have already been very generous" spin beggars belief - are they mad?
Being cruel and uncaring and incompetent is not an election-winning platform. Truss may be the first PM in history to have destroyed her reputation before even taking office.
It suggests, as much as anything, that Putin has gone out of his mind at his own imaginary brilliance, Cummings style. But then, we knew that already.
*Selling shoes instead of boots in Wellington being one of those things which show the Russian laziness in coming up with cover stories.
In happier news, there’s a definite whiff of autumn in the early morning air. The sun is softer, there’s a dewy sheen on the fields and a chill in the air. Summer is ending. The best time of year approaches.
One is left to ponder whether the somethings hinted at by Truss are so spectacularly misdirected and inadequate to the task at hand that they are, in fact, part of a clever program of expectation management (whereby, if whatever action she does finally announce transpires to be merely pathetic, rather than completely useless, it is thought that they will be greeted with relief and will earn her credit?) Either that, or she's not announcing a credible plan because tax cuts skewed towards the wealthy are all that she's got.
Regardless, one has no confidence in the likely agreeability of Liz Truss's somethings, and one suspects that one is far from alone in this suspicion.
Moreover, it requires them to have some sort of fireplace.
There are bans on gathering wood from some woodlands, but that really isn't the issue here.
I'm hoping it was a spoof.
(There isn't any ban afaik on burning any books that belong to you, but they're not good fuel because they actually burn very reluctantly. You would be better off tearing the pages out, but then we're back to a problem of bulk.)
We are approaching economic catastrophe. That dew and chill will be on the inside of people's windows and in their homes in a few weeks.
It isn't unique to the right- it's basically what populism does. But the British right is having a really bad infestation of it right now.
You can't beat old pallets for wood-burners, but that means hard work with a saw, and a source of pallets. Even a neighbour's tree needs a year to season. And it's best to tell them first.
But that was Boris Johnson PM. A man whose ideology is himself. So its easy to pivot towards something mega popular because thats what they expect from good old Boris.
Truss is not Boris. Isn't flexible on ideology. Believes what she says when she repeats it eleventy times. Whatever else gets grudging bolted on top of tax cuts for the wealthy and green levies repealed in an emergency budget, what she has said she will do is what she is planning to do.
Goodness gracious. I know it's a bank holiday weekend, but even so...
Their business - and their competitors - are drowning under a tidal wave of work. Mostly people wanting an old fire opened up and a stove installed. So as we have a fire already, not a priority. They see their job as literally keeping people warm this winter...
Actually I didn't find the sawing hard work so much as smashing them up in the first place.
Doesn't heat the office, but that's what the laptop's for!
So we should concentrate on the bigger picture and not needlessly sensationalize it as the Guardian did with its inflammatory headline. The easiest way to eliminate racial inequalities is simply to make everybody's cancer care terrible. That is the connclusion of all of this talk about racial inequality. But I'm sure even the Guardian wouldn't support the logical conclusion of its argument.
Numbers count more than urgency so easy things get priority, as do "long waiters" and "2 week waiters for suspected cancers" the vast majority of which turn out to be something else.
A second effect is that waiting lists are controlled by management and individual specialists get little say in priority for patient suffering difficulties.
PS. Chill in the air? In more ways than one. Not the best time of year if you have to get cold without affordable heating.
Unlike the Johnson government, the Truss government will be ideological, with an actual belief system. I have no doubt that her hand will be forced to do *something* but it won't be a £100bn bazooka and it won't be a windfall tax handed back to consumers.
So having let people suffer for months in the fear of what is coming, now having said "wait and see", and then with hugely inadequate and wrongly targeted small change coming her government will revert to her usual rhetoric. Workshy. Lazy. Get a better job. Because that is what she believes.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/29/boris-johnson-wants-to-do-a-berlusconi-back-to-power-says-rory-stewart
I'm not sure that she could even survive failing to ensure that Mr Johnson survived as a MP.
So I'm not convinced either she will show a Pauline conversion on the road to Downing St.
Oof.
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uk-natural-gas
That you will determine whatever Truss does is insufficient is fairly inevitable, but to demand £100bn is just ridiculous.
'Try this, it will be much more exciting!'
Mind you so is the other Prince of Wales.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/28/hms-prince-wales-breaks-shortly-leaving-portsmouth/
PoW "spent just 87 days of her first two years of service at sea".
PoS?
Gibraltar is now a city after 150 years.
Whoever said the government is not focusing on the important issues of the day, shame on you.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/08/28/gibraltar-finally-granted-city-status-correct-19th-century-error/
It is a fact that the government have spent 37 billion so far, yes 37 billion, and many billions are coming in the next fortnight
I fully accept the conservative party has gone awol this summer which is shocking, but the extent of this economic crisis is overwhelming governments and the idea we can just freeze the price for 6 months is simply not addressing how it is mitigated over the next 12 to 24 months or helping businesses at all
The left think this magic money tree of a windfall tax is the answer to everything when in practice it is not, and unless undertaken carefully will scare of investment in the energy solutions we need
The idea whatever is announced is too late is strange as the cap does not come in until October at which time everyone will receive the £400 over 6 months as already announced including further payments and a winter fuel payment of upto £600
It does seem ironic that a report yesterday expects electric cars will be paying considerably more than petrol or diesel
The BBC is leading with a report from Europe that frankly frightening and lays out just how bad things may be over the next 5 to 10 years, yes 5 to 10 years
BBC News - EU faces awful winters without gas cap - minister
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-62710522
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/aug/29/tory-blair-rishi-sunak-tory-leadership
Because under the Montreux Convention she couldn't get into it.
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/nhs-pension-scheme-proposed-amendments-to-continue-the-suspension-of-restrictions-on-return-to-work
Before you get too excited about the government having an actual plan to fix the NHS, this is only a consultation into continuing a short-term bodge job.
Consultation description
This consultation proposes to continue the ‘retire and return’ easements until 31 March 2023 via amendments to NHS Pension Scheme regulations.
These easements allow retired and partially retired staff to return to work in the NHS or increase their working commitments without having their pension benefits suspended.
Personally I'm not completely sold on the idea that our children when they're taxpayers should be facing the bill for what people don't want to pay for today.
Some support is essential, absolutely, but somewhere between "nothing" and "everything" is surely more appropriate. Where though, is an important thing to think about.