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All in politics should take note of this polling – politicalbetting.com
All in politics should take note of this polling – politicalbetting.com
This is very telling. @Ipsos finds the top quality voters want in a PM is honesty. What does that tell us about the incumbent? pic.twitter.com/jRKrJdUPY1
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And the polling tells us that the incumbent was totally unsuited for the job.
Yet for all that he defeated Corbyn.
Corbyn had many faults but on some of the criteria he would be ahead of Boris.
I don't care if someone is in touch with ordinary people if they understand the problems, and are capable at addressing those problems. Being a top political figure is unusual, the people who get there are probably a bit weird anyway, and definitely out of touch in being interested in politics.
My guess is people equate being in touch as more likely to understand the problems, but I'm not convinced that's true. I'm not sure everyone believes it as strongly as they think they do either, since as Taz alludes to opposition leaders do better on some, and on in touch with ordinary people I think Labour pretty much always does.
would you also interestingly say, that on other criteria he would be behind Boris? And on yet others he would be about level?
interesting if so.
"You are just the most relentlessly boring human being I have encountered in 25 years on the internet, it is painfully obvious what effect you are striving for in your little posts about what an excellent dish of humble tomatoes you and your good lady wife had at the Strangled Duck in 2013, and how far short you fall. And Charles of blessed memory was not a posh person, he was - agonizingly - a person like you's misperception of what a posh person is like.
What are you here for?"
Do 46% want an incapable one?
And the danger for Truss is the second one "understands the problems facing Britain" Haven't seen evidence of that as of yet.
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I have diagnosed myself several times via Google. Once was when I had a strange constellation of symptoms which had my doctors mystified. Indeed one of them basically accused me of making it up
So I went to Doc Google, and plugged in all my weird symptoms - from eyebrow loss to thick hair and amnesia and the rest - and it came back immediately. Hypothyroidism. I was an unusual case, male, quite young, but the symptoms were so ODD it had to be that?
I went back to the GPs and they were still skeptical but I insisted, they gave me a blood test. Bingo. Hypothyroidism
They confessed the results quite sheepishly
Without Google, how long might I have gone on arguing with the quacks?
**************************************************************
Decades ago at a meal in a friends' home another guest said in passing that she thought I was hyperthyroidic (Is that a word?). I suppose she found me over-active, too focused or something. Autistic might be nearer the mark, but who cares? It suits me. At that time my resting heart rate was around 50 bpm so I'm not sure she was tuned in.
Concerning AI replacing humans: how would AI ask, and try to solve, the loopy questions theoretical physicist ask? Of course, physicists do make huge use of digital methods in some cases "intelligent" ones too.
Has anyone tried to get AI to write a Shakespearean sonnet or play?
A politician cannot be in touch with every community and every issue.
It is like when people say ‘these politicians don’t live in the real world’. What exactly is the real world. The real world I live in is different to my neighbours and friends.
I hate it when they try a gotcha like asking the price of a pint of milk. So what if a politician doesn’t know. I wouldn’t know, I don’t drink it. Why should a politician know. It doesn’t make them any more or less in touch with the cost of living.
Their bold prediction, within the next 12 months Truss will remove the whip from Gove and Johnson, assuming they remain MPs.
Out and about at a strangely quiet Westfield Stratford. Either the return to school is keeping everyone occupied or the first signs of a conscious reduction in expenditure are showing. It's also fair to say for all the good talk about retail a number of large empty units especially further from the main entrance.
New Prime Ministers sometimes needs or get that undefinable thing called "luck". Go back 15 years and Gordon Brown not only had two botched terrorist attacks in Glasgow and London but his response to the flooding was seen as being reasonable by many (though by no means all).
I'm no Conservative and I find a lot of what Liz Truss says and stands for antithetical to my own beliefs in and wishes for this country. I think her approach is misguided but I could be wrong. I fear she is far too dogmatic and determined to "be a Conservative" to win the approval of the Mail and Express rather than actually do what is best for the country.
I've never had an issue with boring competency - Starmer, for all his many detractors on here, seems to be boringly competent. It's easy to sound radical and revolutionary but the truth is walking the walk is much harder than talking the talk. The solutions to this country's many problems are probably more in the boring category than the exciting and radical but that's the thing - we put off doing the boring and the difficult because it's boring and difficult.
Doesn't mean it doesn't need doing and we won't all be the better for it being done.
What a weird tradition. Truth is just convention?
Lol
Gove for voting against government on a budget.
I'd be all for it, I think it'd be hilarious if both main parties have withdrawn the whip from their past leaders, especially one who used to be PM.
Personally I'm still not quite convinced Boris makes it another 12 months as an MP. I know it is income when he doesn't even need to actually do anything on the backbenches, but if things settle down a bit then Truss will look safe and he surely has no interest in remaining on the backbenches.
That she has sucked up to his time as PM so much counter intuitively makes it hard for her to bring him into the Cabinet, because by her own logic she should defer to him since she never wanted him gone. So he has to remain on the outs.
But I think he'll be lucky and things will go badly for the Tories in the next 12 months, which he will want to make himself look better.
I wonder if Johnson will survive this investigation. Team Truss could, surely, influence the committee to find against him. Should they wish a clean break with the past.
RIP to both Gorbachev and Bill Turnbull.
In other news, today Ilford station finally gained a new main entrance and lifts, the last of the Lizzie Line stations to get step-free access. It was under refurbishment since late January 2020!
We were warned about his lies. And the country made a pact with the liar to resolve the deadlock the country had been placed into.
And sadly, I still don’t think Johnson understands what he did wrong.
His inevitable write up about it is going to be incredibly whingy, you can put money on that right now.
I'd be long on popcorn if that were to happen.
Boris Johnson = Ian Botham
David Cameron = David Gower
It was of course Johnson who made the contrast with himself and May in relation to the first two. Now I'll be clear when I'm comparing him to Ian, sorry, Lord Botham I don't mean in his prime. I mean the later career Botham, overweight, living off his reputation and better known for frivolous off field activities. But no-one would doubt that beefy had personality if that's what you're looking for. There is something weird about England's love of the gifted amateur but maybe it reveals a surprisingly romantic side to the national character. Anyway I don't think it helps much in our leaders.
Gower seemed the obvious resemblance for Cameron. Posh, relaxed, looks the part, way too casual and lacking concentration.
So a good start for her fighting attempts to deselect her.
https://twitter.com/lmharpin/status/1565434217571426309?s=21&t=xbF3vzuzcvV8ywOGgDkIIA
But if BoJo really was politically dead, it would just be a sad personal story. The more dangerous bit is that a significant slice of the Conservative party don't understand what he did wrong, or why it matters.
If she feels strong enough she'd attempt a Paterson to save him from censure, I am sure, not simply for him, but to show she will neuter the Standards regime to protect her MPs, which I've little doubt most MPs on both sides secretly want, but want the other lot to take responsibility for doing. If she is doing less well, he makes for a sacrificial lamb - see, I'm at least honest.
Given the difficulty of proving intentional misleading, seems to me he might get lucky and be suspended for less than a period to trigger a recall for 'merely' misleading.
1.05 Liz Truss 95%
19.5 Rishi Sunak 5%
Next Conservative leader
1.04 Liz Truss 96%
20 Rishi Sunak 5%
Interesting Lol
interesting
The government? Bits of it, yes, if Truss promotes and supports those even Boris seems to have promoted only on sufferance.
The premiership in general? I don't think it will be worse. Her policies may or may not end up better, and I doubt she gives a crap about integrity either (she happily served under him right to the end), but she simply does not have the freedom to act as flagrantly as Boris did, and is a much more conventional minister, and seems reasonably competent.
JRM axes 250 so called woke courses.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/09/01/jacob-rees-mogg-axes-250-woke-civil-service-training-courses/
and interesting
I do like the 'rising star of the left' idea. In its usual context, outside the Corbyn years, what that seems to mean is who gets to be the most visible crank and serial rebel who votes with the Tories against a Labour government the most.
There have to be cheaper ways, equally effective, to promote diversity and inclusion, than what we do at present. It's boring and has little relevance to people even when they agree with every word - simple modules to take account of issues relevantly helped more.
Though courses like that were at least better than personality based management training I've been on, which talked about how to 'guide' different personality types so robotically it felt like socialisation training for sociopaths, as I've remarked before.
Mogg the Hoople
&c
A cabinet minister and a high-ranking aide at No 10 Downing Street continued to work in Boris Johnson’s government despite allegations of sexual misconduct against them, according to reports.
Two women have given first-hand accounts of what they claim happened to them when one was assaulted and the other groped by political figures, both now in senior roles.
A former parliamentary staff member for the Conservative party, who wished to remain anonymous, relayed details of a sexual assault by an MP who is currently a cabinet minister.
She told Sky News’s The Open Secret podcast: “I was sexually assaulted by someone who’s now a cabinet minister, and I was in my early 20s and didn’t really know how to deal with it. I was super drunk. He’s feeding me more wine and I’m already quite obviously tanked.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/01/no-10-retains-cabinet-minister-and-aide-accused-of-sexual-misconduct-reports
Sky News today publishes testimony from two women who give detailed, first-hand accounts of what they claim happened to them when one was assaulted and the other groped by political figures who are both now in senior roles.
https://news.sky.com/story/sexual-misconduct-allegations-revealed-against-cabinet-minister-and-top-no-10-aide-12686969
Sha La La La push push.
Still, plenty of MPs do a good job with limited connection to an area even when forced on the local party.
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2022/09/tories-kick-addiction-delusional-wishful-thinking
They got that.
This will give them sufficient headroom to focus their energies on tackling the urgent woke crisis whilst millions freeze or battle to get enough to feed their families.
Remarkable, really. A fairly major band with some big hits, and that association with Bowie. From little market town, Hereford. Ditto: the Pretenders. Also huge
There is virtually no equal for the UK 1960-2000: in terms producing major musicians and bands, per capita. Every tiny town seems to have turfed up a star of some kind
There IS one valid comparison tho, which is why I say "virtually". It is Tuscany in the early-mid Renaissance. Every sizeable village seems to have furnished the globe with a superb artist. You can go in any average Florentine church and find the grave - or art - of artists no famed worldwide
Begs the question. Why there, why then?
Why music in Britain from 1960-2000? Why art in Tuscany from 1350-1600?
Surely that narrows the suspects down rather dramatically?
Given that politics is fame/rock and roll for ugly people.
They don't want honesty from politicians when its inconvenient for the individual voter.
I spout off my prejudices regardless of the audience.
I always go into those courses determined to be fair to anyone regardless of race, gender or sexuality.
But a day of being brainwashed, bored and patronised with dodgy arguments and satistics generally leaves me much less sympathetic than when I went in.
And all inplemented or at least updated/confirmed during Tory Party hegemony. Including that of Mr R-M, as Cabinet Minister.
Surely it’s timeless and universal to come a cropper for lying? Didn’t a German Leader straight forward lie about the cost of unification, at the election voters liked the cheaper option, midway though next parliament voters didn’t like being lied to for their vote?
nor just in politics, how many classic storylines have the smooth talking scoundrel who everyone believe is genuine, who some start to doubt is for real, and by time everyone realises they have made off with the ingénue to ruin her and more than their share of the gold? I have seen it in Emmerdale and other soaps lots - it’s even there in Pride and Prejudice.
The ending now seems so obvious from the start, it just needed time for the story to play out.
But where on earth does this leave the Conservative Party? Where it had tradition for fiscal conservatism, he has uprooted those trees and burnt the logs on the fire, where it had tradition for being party of government by ensuring best talent from all wings of the party play in government (necessary for record of competence and strong succession) he lined all the talented moderates up in a corridor and ripped up their party membership, where they had reputation for getting big calls right he sounds as deluded as Trump each time he claims he did.
Churchill famously offered "blood, sweat and tears" and everyone loved him, and he won the war
Hitler infamously said you can promise the people nothing but pain and anguish (or something like that) and they will follow you anywhere. They WANT the honesty and the sense of camaraderie from shared suffering
Liz Truss could usefully make a Churchillian speech when she gains power, to this effect.
"Times are hard. We must hang together, or hang apart. Winter is going to be TOUGH, I cannot lie"
Level with the voters. She will gain respect, and she might gain voters
Meanwhile back in the real world...
Both Pete Farndon and Jim Honeyman Scott, from the pretenders, died of overdoses. Sad. Farndon not long after being sacked. British music certainly was creative but has definitely lost out to the US in the last 20 years.
Why there, why then ?
Right place, right time ?
I don't really know where this idea that some kind of deranged optimism in the face of all available evidence is the only way to win came from.
It's also possibly a rare occasion where the 'understands people like me' element would become relevant, since even though most MPs are well off, if they think she understands them less than Sir Keir, a firm truth from her looks like a lecture to the underclass.
The BBC should be asked to bring TOTP back, even if it never picks up the viewership of its heyday. It's a part of that jigsaw puzzle.
He'd taken his share of risks and hardships and had been in it together with the ordinary soldiers.
Do you think Dizzy Lizzy is going to have it as tough this winter as those who will struggle ?
For me its about the balance of subjects in them - the bad ones spend a massive amount of time on presenting various theories, not all of which are universally accepted but the presentation of which makes it clear to those attending they are required to believe those theories now. The good ones can get into theories and ideas, but are much more about what the law actually is, how it applies to the job/task, and engaging with those present on their experiences and understanding.
I've seen ones where it seems painfully clear some enthusiastic HR person has googled a bunch of information and is keen to educate everyone about it, rather than be focused on what is relevant to those present. It inhibits discussion since it is clear what answers are expected, even if it is not a requirement of the job or law.
So she needs to change the game. This could do it. And it is also the right thing to do, even if they lose in 2024
I genuinely believe people want the pols to level with them. Not knowing is the worst. It's like avoiding the dentist for years until things get so bad you believe you have jaw cancer. In the event when you finally go, the dentist says: you will lose three teeth, we can crown two more, it's not great, it will be painful. but this is where we are, no you haven't got cancer
It's an enormous relief to know the truth, rather than rely on your lurid fantasies mixed, poorly, with total denial
Is it time for me to stand? Let's see
Until I decide to become the UK's new Franco, it is up to Liz Truss. And she should do this. Be candid with her people
More significantly, the country has changed. I'd respect Truss for making a speech like that, but I'm strange. We've collectively bought into the idea that even quite minor inconveniences are culpable. And I can't see her making a speech like that, becuase it would go against her apparent belief in the power of positive thinking.
It would also require a set of actions from her which I don't think she's ready for yet.