All the evidence we have of Truss's views on economics points to her being so dry that, if she were a Martini, people would be flocking to drink her. If she were a desert, there would be a disaster appeal to support the desperate people living there. Getting rid of protections for workers is an electorally dumb idea, but also the kind of thing that an idealogue might do, given two years and a seventy seat majority.
Pointing that out doesn't mean that anyone wants Truss to fail. Just that she is very likely to do so. Unless she reverse ferrets in the next 48 hours.
Mmm, that for me is one of the big unknowns -- to what extent is Truss going to push through with stuff she believes in or has said, and to what extent is are we going to see a lot of kite-flying that gets a few headlines but then gets quietly dropped or back-burnered if it gets too much pushback?
I suspect she's overcommited on the rhetoric. She has nailed her mast to lower taxes, implying smaller state, at a time when demands for state intervention have rarely been higher and where borrowing your way through the tax/spend contradiction is closed off due to inflation. She will lose whatever credibility she still has if she doesn't lower taxes but will be damned if she doesn't keep the spending taps open.
And BTW, I doubt Kwarteng is the clever Chancellor that will get her off the fiscal hook she has impaled herself on.
Eton, Trinity and Harvard, and I believe he is a mate of rcs1000. sounds formidable to me.
Perhaps more impressive than any of those he was on the winning team on University Challenge.
It’ll be interesting to see who Truss makes Attorney General. Is there qualified Tory lawyer in the Commons who will be as willing to debase the law and themselves as Braverman has been?
A great many, I expect. Once standards are lowered sufficiently to allow a position to be debased there are no shortage of previously unthinkable candidates to be found.
It's now nothing more than a regular Cabinet post, by and large.
It seems PB has decided Truss is over before she even takes office and the policies announced
I have no idea why she thinks JRM and Dorries should be in her cabinet other than some plot to prevent 2 by elections as Johnson sends them to the Lords
However, I am more restrained as I haven't a clue what she will announce next week, but I would be surprised if she and those around her do not provide an extensive support package for consumers and as importantly businesses, especially small businesses
A package well targeted and very pro business may well change the narrative and have some red faces on here
I admit I have to be persuaded by her, but at least let her get in office and start the post Johnson age
Her poll ratings are poor but even Starmer is only on 29% tonight
Truth is disenchantment , worry and fear stalks the political class as they attempt to do the impossible and make the cost of living crisis disappear as if it is not real when it is a direct consequence of the war with Russia which only ends when that does
The polling indeed suggests none of the above is wanted in number 10. If Labour are high 30s, low 40s, 29% thinking Starmer will be best PM suggests their vote is shallow. Having said that, its better than the blues right now!
Everybody's is better than the conservatives who have taken leave of their senses, indeed the only good is Johnson leaving no 10 on Tuesday
Theyve got a bugger of a job to do to hold it all together this winter, i fear for what might happen. I'm trying to be hopeful but also feeling rather bleakly pessimistic. I just think its too big. For anyone. Starmers intervention already looks ludicrously naive and undercooked. But it does at least exist.
Starmer's solution was far too generous to people on higher incomes. It really needs to be Sunak's (x4) or similar.
Starmer calls this correctly in terms of scale, I think. May not actually be enough. Also true that massive subsidy can't go on indefinitely.
Sunak's plan is woefully inadequate, over-complicated and creates too many edge cases. If you want to taper the support the best and easiest way to do this is to cap fuel prices for everyone and claw some or all of it back through higher income tax rates. That's the way to do it, but probably not politically acceptable.
If his propossl exceeds whatever Truss anounces he is closer on calling the scale correctly but will still be woefully short of what is required to avert disaster and only looks at the next 6 months. Its completely damning of the Tories response so far that Starmers plan has not been dismissed as an expensive sticking plaster for the amputation ward.
The Tories are screwed if they underbid Starmer's plan, calling it "a sticking plaster". Bear in mind they have come up with nothing at all yet for the latest prices, which are already live for businesses. They appear to have no concept of the crisis the country faces.
Are massive handouts to those on the higher rate really the best way to deal with this?
Yes. What's your better way?
Of course it is not It is wrong on every level Millionaire footballers and others being subsided by the tax payer is immoral I do hope Truss does address this inequality
If universality is the quickest and most effective way to get help to those who need it, there is absolutely nothing immoral about it. The money can always be clawed back from higher earners in other ways.
How
An income tax rise. The introduction of a wealth tax. Truss can’t do either, of course.
The answer is not to give this largesse to the wealthy in the first place
Telegraph is stating that Truss is to announce immediate financial support for households and a cap on energy prices until the pressure eases off, which sounds rather like the 2 year cap suggested by the suppliers Anyway the Telegraph does say this will be announced in her first week so maybe best to see what it is
We will know by next weekend
The two year cap the energy companies want is a delayed, long-term price rise for consumers, underpinned by short-term government support for the energy companies. That contrasts with the windfall tax on the energy companies that Labour is advocating. There is absolutely no doubt that something huge will be announced. All that remains is to discover the detail.
Labour's windfall tax is only about £5 billion more than Sunak and only takes us to April and gives nothing to businesses
If a 2 year cap is announced it will be a big moment in politics but I am not saying it will be but am urging to wait for another few days which will end all the speculation
It’s a two year subsidy to energy companies underwritten by the taxpayer in return for temporary relief on energy bills. But it will be a big moment, I agree.
I assume the subsidy will be repaid over many years to come, some suggested 20, but then dramatic decisions are needed not a 6 month short term proposal
It seems PB has decided Truss is over before she even takes office and the policies announced
I have no idea why she thinks JRM and Dorries should be in her cabinet other than some plot to prevent 2 by elections as Johnson sends them to the Lords
However, I am more restrained as I haven't a clue what she will announce next week, but I would be surprised if she and those around her do not provide an extensive support package for consumers and as importantly businesses, especially small businesses
A package well targeted and very pro business may well change the narrative and have some red faces on here
I admit I have to be persuaded by her, but at least let her get in office and start the post Johnson age
Her poll ratings are poor but even Starmer is only on 29% tonight
Truth is disenchantment , worry and fear stalks the political class as they attempt to do the impossible and make the cost of living crisis disappear as if it is not real when it is a direct consequence of the war with Russia which only ends when that does
The polling indeed suggests none of the above is wanted in number 10. If Labour are high 30s, low 40s, 29% thinking Starmer will be best PM suggests their vote is shallow. Having said that, its better than the blues right now!
Everybody's is better than the conservatives who have taken leave of their senses, indeed the only good is Johnson leaving no 10 on Tuesday
Theyve got a bugger of a job to do to hold it all together this winter, i fear for what might happen. I'm trying to be hopeful but also feeling rather bleakly pessimistic. I just think its too big. For anyone. Starmers intervention already looks ludicrously naive and undercooked. But it does at least exist.
Starmer's solution was far too generous to people on higher incomes. It really needs to be Sunak's (x4) or similar.
Starmer calls this correctly in terms of scale, I think. May not actually be enough. Also true that massive subsidy can't go on indefinitely.
Sunak's plan is woefully inadequate, over-complicated and creates too many edge cases. If you want to taper the support the best and easiest way to do this is to cap fuel prices for everyone and claw some or all of it back through higher income tax rates. That's the way to do it, but probably not politically acceptable.
If his propossl exceeds whatever Truss anounces he is closer on calling the scale correctly but will still be woefully short of what is required to avert disaster and only looks at the next 6 months. Its completely damning of the Tories response so far that Starmers plan has not been dismissed as an expensive sticking plaster for the amputation ward.
The Tories are screwed if they underbid Starmer's plan, calling it "a sticking plaster". Bear in mind they have come up with nothing at all yet for the latest prices, which are already live for businesses. They appear to have no concept of the crisis the country faces.
Are massive handouts to those on the higher rate really the best way to deal with this?
Yes. What's your better way?
Of course it is not It is wrong on every level Millionaire footballers and others being subsided by the tax payer is immoral I do hope Truss does address this inequality
If universality is the quickest and most effective way to get help to those who need it, there is absolutely nothing immoral about it. The money can always be clawed back from higher earners in other ways.
How
An income tax rise. The introduction of a wealth tax. Truss can’t do either, of course.
The answer is not to give this largesse to the wealthy in the first place
Telegraph is stating that Truss is to announce immediate financial support for households and a cap on energy prices until the pressure eases off, which sounds rather like the 2 year cap suggested by the suppliers
Anyway the Telegraph does say this will be announced in her first week so maybe best to see what it is
We will know by next weekend
The two year cap the energy companies want is a delayed, long-term price rise for consumers, underpinned by short-term government support for the energy companies. That contrasts with the windfall tax on the energy companies that Labour is advocating.
There is absolutely no doubt that something huge will be announced. All that remains is to discover the detail.
Labour's windfall tax is only about £5 billion more than Sunak and only takes us to April and gives nothing to businesses
If a 2 year cap is announced it will be a big moment in politics but I am not saying it will be but am urging to wait for another few days which will end all the speculation
I'm not sure how you can complain about Starmer only having a plan to get to April and simultaneously defend Truss for not having announced her plans at all.
And even if/when Truss announces her energy support plans do you really think she's going to be announcing beyond the immediate short-term any more than Starmer is?
Yes I actually expect a 1 to 2 year cap but as I say only days left now to the announcements
It seems PB has decided Truss is over before she even takes office and the policies announced
I have no idea why she thinks JRM and Dorries should be in her cabinet other than A package well targeted and very pro business may well change the narrative and have some red faces on here
I admit I have to be persuaded by her, but at least let her get in office and start the post Johnson age
Her poll ratings are poor but even Starmer is only on 29% tonight
Truth is disenchantment , worry and fear stalks the political class as they attempt to do the impossible and make the cost of living crisis disappear as if it is not real when it is a direct consequence of the war with Russia which only ends when that does
The polling indeed suggests none of the above is wanted in number 10. If Labour are high 30s, low 40s, 29% thinking Starmer will be best PM suggests their vote is shallow. Having said that, its better than the blues right now!
Everybody's is better than the conservatives who have taken leave of their senses, indeed the only good is Johnson leaving no 10 on Tuesday
Theyve got a bugger of a job to do to hold it all together this winter, i fear for what might happen. I'm trying to be hopeful but also feeling rather bleakly pessimistic. I just think its too big. For anyone. Starmers intervention already looks ludicrously naive and undercooked. But it does at least exist.
Starmer's solution was far too generous to people on higher incomes. It really needs to be Sunak's (x4) or similar.
Starmer calls this correctly in terms of scale, I think. May not actually be enough. Also true that massive subsidy can't go on indefinitely.
Sunak's plan is woefully inadequate, over-complicated and creates too many edge cases. If you want to taper the support the best and easiest way to do this is to cap fuel prices for everyone and claw some or all of it back through higher income tax rates. That's the way to do it, but probably not politically acceptable.
plan has not been dismissed as an expensive sticking plaster for the amputation ward.
The Tories are screwed if they underbid Starmer's plan, calling it "a sticking plaster". Bear in mind they have come up with nothing at all yet for the latest prices, which are already live for businesses. They appear to have no concept of the crisis the country faces.
Are massive handouts to those on the higher rate really the best way to deal with this?
Yes. What's your better way?
Of course it is not It is wrong on every level Millionaire footballers and others being subsided by the tax payer is immoral I do hope Truss does address this inequality
If universality is the quickest and most effective way to get help to those who need it, there is absolutely nothing immoral about it. The money can always be clawed back from higher earners in other ways.
How
An income tax rise. The introduction of a wealth tax. Truss can’t do either, of course.
The answer is not to give this largesse to the wealthy in the first place
Telegraph is stating that Truss is to announce immediate financial support for households and a cap on energy prices until the pressure eases off, which sounds rather like the 2 year cap suggested by the suppliers Anyway the Telegraph does say this will be announced in her first week so maybe best to see what it is
We will know by next weekend
The two year cap the energy coenergy companies that Labour is advocating. There is absolutely no doubt that something huge will be announced. All that remains is to discover the detail.
Labour's windfall tax is only about £5 billion more than Sunak and only takes us to April and gives nothing to businesses
If a 2 year cap is announced it will be a big moment in politics but I am not saying it will be but am urging to wait for another few days which will end all the speculation
It’s a two year subsidy to energy companies underwritten by the taxpayer in return for temporary relief on energy bills. But it will be a big moment, I agree.
I assume the subsidy will be repaid over many years to come, some suggested 20, but then dramatic decisions are needed not a 6 month short term proposal
I don’t know. But we’ll see how popular a Tory plan to subsidise energy companies is, I guess.
I can't entirely believe I'm saying this, but maybe it would have been better to let him bumble on for two more years and face defeat by the electorate.
Nature's way and all that.
No
The mistake was to let him bumble on as long as he did.
They should have VONCed him when they had the chance
EDIT: If they had kicked him out immediately, I think someone other than Truss would have taken over, and they wouldn't be facing Armageddon at the next election
It was Boris who won the Tories their big majority in 2019, if they face Armageddon at the next election it will be in large part due to removing him, their most charismatic leader since Thatcher, not failing to do so earlier
You are a lost cause, blind to how toxic he is with the public, and living in a fantasy land of make-believe
Well we know Boris never proposed scrapping the 48 hour maximum week or removing the guarantee of paid holiday as Truss is about to do. Boris knew how to win the redwall and working class blue collar voters.
I promise you redwall working class voters care more about that than they do about parties, while Boris did deliver Brexit as they voted for and the vaccines.
Truss needs to deliver significant economic growth and slashed bills with these new measures or her chances of winning the next election will be over almost as soon as her premiership has begun
Red wall voters are furious about the parties as are most honest decent voters hence why Johnson is over
All the evidence we have of Truss's views on economics points to her being so dry that, if she were a Martini, people would be flocking to drink her. If she were a desert, there would be a disaster appeal to support the desperate people living there. Getting rid of protections for workers is an electorally dumb idea, but also the kind of thing that an idealogue might do, given two years and a seventy seat majority.
Pointing that out doesn't mean that anyone wants Truss to fail. Just that she is very likely to do so. Unless she reverse ferrets in the next 48 hours.
Mmm, that for me is one of the big unknowns -- to what extent is Truss going to push through with stuff she believes in or has said, and to what extent is are we going to see a lot of kite-flying that gets a few headlines but then gets quietly dropped or back-burnered if it gets too much pushback?
I suspect she's overcommited on the rhetoric. She has nailed her mast to lower taxes, implying smaller state, at a time when demands for state intervention have rarely been higher and where borrowing your way through the tax/spend contradiction is closed off due to inflation. She will lose whatever credibility she still has if she doesn't lower taxes but will be damned if she doesn't keep the spending taps open.
And BTW, I doubt Kwarteng is the clever Chancellor that will get her off the fiscal hook she has impaled herself on.
Eton, Trinity and Harvard, and I believe he is a mate of rcs1000. sounds formidable to me.
Can he get away with telling Robert that Coldplay are rubbish and Python is a toy language?
I can't entirely believe I'm saying this, but maybe it would have been better to let him bumble on for two more years and face defeat by the electorate.
Nature's way and all that.
No
The mistake was to let him bumble on as long as he did.
They should have VONCed him when they had the chance
EDIT: If they had kicked him out immediately, I think someone other than Truss would have taken over, and they wouldn't be facing Armageddon at the next election
It was Boris who won the Tories their big majority in 2019, if they face Armageddon at the next election it will be in large part due to removing him, their most charismatic leader since Thatcher, not failing to do so earlier
You are a lost cause, blind to how toxic he is with the public, and living in a fantasy land of make-believe
Yes, but will he still be toxic after a year of Truss?
I suspect that memories of partygate and lies will soon fade
With whom?
Boris fell because ultimately he asked too much of his MPs, constantly demanding they defend his poor conduct, and no longer appeared to be providing them anything in return in respect of being an obvious winner like he was in Summer 2019.
Now, it was potentially the case he could have recovered the position somewhat, better than others perhaps, but they lost confidence in that and so out he went. Partygate and other lies were therefore a bigger part of it than I think people accept, in that, yes, they lost patience because of electoral concern, but the electoral concern arose due to the lies.
Lacking as high a profile how does he reduce the toxicity? Sure, fading memory, but Boris always had pretty high unfavourables, he just also had high favourables, so he would need to not only become less unpopular, but become popular again. What platform does he have to do that, without slagging off a failing a Truss?
Given the speed of planning and related matters, which I believe both candidates promised to make it easier for people to object to and stop, I assume that means we'll get some fracking around 2031.
What they should do is up powers to halt small scale stuff, but outright remove the ability to hold up the larger stuff after a certain time (and, somehow, punish developers who currently can abuse the system re housebuilding delays).
I understand the emergency nature of the situation but shouldn't we be doing some planning for next year? How much more gas are we going to be able to source from elsewhere. Will we be using other energy sources to replace some of our gas usage. Germany has clearly done a lot to reduce energy consumption and pivot away from gas. What have we done so far?
Anyway at long last a conservative government will appear from Monday and a government, any government, is a relief as proper debate can follow for good or bad
I hope everyone has a good night's sleep as I leave my phone on by my bedside wondering if I will receive a call from our youngest son that baby number 3 has arrived, having been due of the 1st September
I understand the emergency nature of the situation but shouldn't we be doing some planning for next year? How much more gas are we going to be able to source from elsewhere. Will we be using other energy sources to replace some of our gas usage. Germany has clearly done a lot to reduce energy consumption and pivot away from gas. What have we done so far?
More pertinently, how much can we rely on Norway continuing to send as much gas as normal, when Europe is screaming for supplies this winter ?
I understand the emergency nature of the situation but shouldn't we be doing some planning for next year? How much more gas are we going to be able to source from elsewhere. Will we be using other energy sources to replace some of our gas usage. Germany has clearly done a lot to reduce energy consumption and pivot away from gas. What have we done so far?
Germany is in a worse state than we are and with gas stopped indefinitely from Russia it looks like a winter financial armageddon is on its way sadly
Anyway at long last a conservative government will appear from Monday and a government, any government, is a relief as proper debate can follow for good or bad
I hope everyone has a good night's sleep as I leave my phone on by my bedside wondering if I will receive a call from our youngest son that baby number 3 has arrived, having been due of the 1st September
This new cabinet is another cabinet of lightweights
Leaving aside slight prematurity, are there any political heavyweights anymore?
I mean, what defines such a thing?
Keen intellect? Not really, there are plenty of MPs who are intellectually very able (even if many are bad at demonstrating it), but this need not mean they would make competent ministers.
Significant ideological heft? Don't make me laugh, you either get a bunch of ossified farts locked into a rigid interpretation of out of date dogma like Corbyn or Cash, pragmatic automatons with no beliefs whatsoever, or a child's understanding of ideology based on the equivalent of reading a hypothetical twitter account of Margaret Thatcher.
Bucketloads of senior experience? The most experienced Cabinet Minister was Gove and he was out, and Truss is the next most experienced, with replacements being from the same old gang or the awkward squad with little experience.
Every time I go near twitter at the moment I see an advert to sign up to join the police.
I'm 58, a full time carer with a dodgy knee and a bad back.
Ah, but do you also have a complete lack of understanding of the law and investigative practice? If the answer is yes the above should be no barrier.
I could patrol Twitter looking for non-woke tweets in between carer duties I suppose.
Digital crime is an area they need to focus on, should make physical barriers less of a worry. But digital non crime is indeed a major worry. For some reason.
Truss the only actually genuinely bonkers MP according to Dom.
Failed and clapped out ex leader IDS throwing his toys around.
Jacob 'bring back imperial measurement' wants to oversee the white heat of British technology.
I think I see a pattern.
Roll on 2024 and an end to this Late Stage Toryism.
I know its just a bit of nostalgia baiting for fogeys, but I really don't get the sentimental attachment to systems of measurements. I consider myself fairly patriotic but I don't think I could muster up more than mild irritation at temporary inconvenience if we switched from miles to kilometres.
Never heard of him before I saw him in the recent 'Wars of the Roses' production as the younger Richard. His soliloquy at the end of H. VI part 3, "I am myself alone...", was so good I booked tickets for this on the strength of it.
Just got out of the RSC's Richard III. A splendid production; highly recommended.
Jealous. Who is playing the King?
If we're doing jealous, one of the friends who went with us revealed she got taken go the Peter Brook production of A Midsummer Night's Dream as a child.
Just got out of the RSC's Richard III. A splendid production; highly recommended.
Jealous. Who is playing the King?
If we're doing jealous, one of the friends who went with us revealed she got taken go the Peter Brook production of A Midsummer Night's Dream as a child.
Just got out of the RSC's Richard III. A splendid production; highly recommended.
Jealous. Who is playing the King?
If we're doing jealous, one of the friends who went with us revealed she got taken go the Peter Brook production of A Midsummer Night's Dream as a child.
All the evidence we have of Truss's views on economics points to her being so dry that, if she were a Martini, people would be flocking to drink her. If she were a desert, there would be a disaster appeal to support the desperate people living there. Getting rid of protections for workers is an electorally dumb idea, but also the kind of thing that an idealogue might do, given two years and a seventy seat majority.
Pointing that out doesn't mean that anyone wants Truss to fail. Just that she is very likely to do so. Unless she reverse ferrets in the next 48 hours.
Mmm, that for me is one of the big unknowns -- to what extent is Truss going to push through with stuff she believes in or has said, and to what extent is are we going to see a lot of kite-flying that gets a few headlines but then gets quietly dropped or back-burnered if it gets too much pushback?
I suspect she's overcommited on the rhetoric. She has nailed her mast to lower taxes, implying smaller state, at a time when demands for state intervention have rarely been higher and where borrowing your way through the tax/spend contradiction is closed off due to inflation. She will lose whatever credibility she still has if she doesn't lower taxes but will be damned if she doesn't keep the spending taps open.
And BTW, I doubt Kwarteng is the clever Chancellor that will get her off the fiscal hook she has impaled herself on.
Eton, Trinity and Harvard, and I believe he is a mate of rcs1000. sounds formidable to me.
Can he get away with telling Robert that Coldplay are rubbish and Python is a toy language?
Errr
Coldplay are rubbish.
And anyone who still thinks Python is a "toy" language, well... I wouldn't say much for their judgement.
Colin McCarthy @US_Stormwatch · 2h The worst of the ongoing heatwave is yet to come for California and surrounding states as one of the hottest air masses in recorded history develops over the region early next week.
Many places will record their hottest September day ever, possibly multiple days in a row.
Given the speed of planning and related matters, which I believe both candidates promised to make it easier for people to object to and stop, I assume that means we'll get some fracking around 2031.
What they should do is up powers to halt small scale stuff, but outright remove the ability to hold up the larger stuff after a certain time (and, somehow, punish developers who currently can abuse the system re housebuilding delays).
Where's going to be fracked- the shale near me (Tinker Lane Notts) which was a high profile target didn't come up trumps.
"Sweden announces emergency support for energy producers EU also considering action as rising collateral demands prompt policymakers to warn of ‘financial stability threat’ Magdalena Andersson said Russia’s decision to close the Nordstream 1 pipeline could lead to a “war winter”"
"Russia's decision"? What happened at the Portovaya transmission station? Why aren't Siemens doing the maintenance work? There's a lot of smoke and mirrors on that.
Finland seems more f***ed than Sweden for the coming winter. And more people in Finland than in Sweden know what a "war winter" looks like.
How long until the Kenny Everett types in Britain start talking about Vyborg the same way they've been going red in the face and foaming at the mouth asserting that Crimea is forever Ukrainian?
Thought experiment: if the same were to happen tomorrow to the Vyborg East airbase as recently happened to the Saki base in Crimea, would Liz Truss adopt or not adopt a pro-Finnish position on the Karelian question?
Magdalena Andersson can say what she likes, but it's unlikely to be "We completely screwed up both on the intelligence front and strategically, and we don't give a sh*t."
This new cabinet is another cabinet of lightweights
Leaving aside slight prematurity, are there any political heavyweights anymore?
I mean, what defines such a thing?
Keen intellect? Not really, there are plenty of MPs who are intellectually very able (even if many are bad at demonstrating it), but this need not mean they would make competent ministers.
Significant ideological heft? Don't make me laugh, you either get a bunch of ossified farts locked into a rigid interpretation of out of date dogma like Corbyn or Cash, pragmatic automatons with no beliefs whatsoever, or a child's understanding of ideology based on the equivalent of reading a hypothetical twitter account of Margaret Thatcher.
Bucketloads of senior experience? The most experienced Cabinet Minister was Gove and he was out, and Truss is the next most experienced, with replacements being from the same old gang or the awkward squad with little experience.
Tory heavyweights - Sunak, Wallace, Hunt, perhaps err that's it
"Sweden announces emergency support for energy producers EU also considering action as rising collateral demands prompt policymakers to warn of ‘financial stability threat’ Magdalena Andersson said Russia’s decision to close the Nordstream 1 pipeline could lead to a “war winter”"
"Russia's decision"? What happened at the Portovaya transmission station? Why aren't Siemens doing the maintenance work? There's a lot of smoke and mirrors on that.
Finland seems more f***ed than Sweden for the coming winter. And more people in Finland than in Sweden know what a "war winter" looks like.
How long until the Kenny Everett types in Britain start talking about Vyborg the same way they've been going red in the face and foaming at the mouth asserting that Crimea is forever Ukrainian?
Thought experiment: if the same were to happen tomorrow to the Vyborg East airbase as recently happened to the Saki base in Crimea, would Liz Truss adopt or not adopt a pro-Finnish position on the Karelian question?
Didn’t Russia offer Karelia back at one point, and the Finns said, nah - it’s too fucked up now.
Something like that.
Who, of rightful mind, would be born on Russian soil? It’s a failed state.
It’s just struck me (ok, I read on Twitter) that, putting aside the PM, the three great office-holders will be ethnic minorities.
Quite incredible, really.
There’s an interesting dissertation in here about why, how, and the socio-cultural condition of leading ethic minority Tories - they are clearly of a different ilk to Labour ones.
"Sweden announces emergency support for energy producers EU also considering action as rising collateral demands prompt policymakers to warn of ‘financial stability threat’ Magdalena Andersson said Russia’s decision to close the Nordstream 1 pipeline could lead to a “war winter”"
"Russia's decision"? What happened at the Portovaya transmission station? Why aren't Siemens doing the maintenance work? There's a lot of smoke and mirrors on that.
Finland seems more f***ed than Sweden for the coming winter. And more people in Finland than in Sweden know what a "war winter" looks like.
How long until the Kenny Everett types in Britain start talking about Vyborg the same way they've been going red in the face and foaming at the mouth asserting that Crimea is forever Ukrainian?
Thought experiment: if the same were to happen tomorrow to the Vyborg East airbase as recently happened to the Saki base in Crimea, would Liz Truss adopt or not adopt a pro-Finnish position on the Karelian question?
Didn’t Russia offer Karelia back at one point, and the Finns said, nah - it’s too fucked up now.
Something like that.
Who, of rightful mind, would be born on Russian soil? It’s a failed state.
Yeltsin costed a return of Karelia according to some accounts. As far as I know, no senior Finnish figure has ever said that an offer was made.
Karelia is far too close to St Petersburg. It was never going to happen. Returning the whole of it wouldn't be a saleable idea in that city.
"Sweden announces emergency support for energy producers EU also considering action as rising collateral demands prompt policymakers to warn of ‘financial stability threat’ Magdalena Andersson said Russia’s decision to close the Nordstream 1 pipeline could lead to a “war winter”"
"Russia's decision"? What happened at the Portovaya transmission station? Why aren't Siemens doing the maintenance work? There's a lot of smoke and mirrors on that.
Finland seems more f***ed than Sweden for the coming winter. And more people in Finland than in Sweden know what a "war winter" looks like.
How long until the Kenny Everett types in Britain start talking about Vyborg the same way they've been going red in the face and foaming at the mouth asserting that Crimea is forever Ukrainian?
Thought experiment: if the same were to happen tomorrow to the Vyborg East airbase as recently happened to the Saki base in Crimea, would Liz Truss adopt or not adopt a pro-Finnish position on the Karelian question?
Didn’t Russia offer Karelia back at one point, and the Finns said, nah - it’s too fucked up now.
Something like that.
Who, of rightful mind, would be born on Russian soil? It’s a failed state.
Yeltsin costed a return of Karelia according to some accounts. As far as I know, no senior Finnish figure has ever said that an offer was made.
Karelia is far too close to St Petersburg. It was never going to happen. Returning the whole of it wouldn't be a saleable idea in that city.
Maybe just Vyborg, then.
The Russians should hand it back, if not to the Finns then to someone who can govern it better, like Suella Braverman or Prince Andrew.
"Sweden announces emergency support for energy producers EU also considering action as rising collateral demands prompt policymakers to warn of ‘financial stability threat’ Magdalena Andersson said Russia’s decision to close the Nordstream 1 pipeline could lead to a “war winter”"
"Russia's decision"? What happened at the Portovaya transmission station? Why aren't Siemens doing the maintenance work? There's a lot of smoke and mirrors on that.
Finland seems more f***ed than Sweden for the coming winter. And more people in Finland than in Sweden know what a "war winter" looks like.
How long until the Kenny Everett types in Britain start talking about Vyborg the same way they've been going red in the face and foaming at the mouth asserting that Crimea is forever Ukrainian?
Thought experiment: if the same were to happen tomorrow to the Vyborg East airbase as recently happened to the Saki base in Crimea, would Liz Truss adopt or not adopt a pro-Finnish position on the Karelian question?
Magdalena Andersson can say what she likes, but it's unlikely to be "We completely screwed up both on the intelligence front and strategically, and we don't give a sh*t."
This is drivel. Literally unhinged nonsense. So back under your rock, troll!
All the evidence we have of Truss's views on economics points to her being so dry that, if she were a Martini, people would be flocking to drink her. If she were a desert, there would be a disaster appeal to support the desperate people living there. Getting rid of protections for workers is an electorally dumb idea, but also the kind of thing that an idealogue might do, given two years and a seventy seat majority.
Pointing that out doesn't mean that anyone wants Truss to fail. Just that she is very likely to do so. Unless she reverse ferrets in the next 48 hours.
Mmm, that for me is one of the big unknowns -- to what extent is Truss going to push through with stuff she believes in or has said, and to what extent is are we going to see a lot of kite-flying that gets a few headlines but then gets quietly dropped or back-burnered if it gets too much pushback?
I suspect she's overcommited on the rhetoric. She has nailed her mast to lower taxes, implying smaller state, at a time when demands for state intervention have rarely been higher and where borrowing your way through the tax/spend contradiction is closed off due to inflation. She will lose whatever credibility she still has if she doesn't lower taxes but will be damned if she doesn't keep the spending taps open.
And BTW, I doubt Kwarteng is the clever Chancellor that will get her off the fiscal hook she has impaled herself on.
Eton, Trinity and Harvard, and I believe he is a mate of rcs1000. sounds formidable to me.
Can he get away with telling Robert that Coldplay are rubbish and Python is a toy language?
Errr
Coldplay are rubbish.
And anyone who still thinks Python is a "toy" language, well... I wouldn't say much for their judgement.
Didn't Google move away from Python for production? See if you can Bing anything on it.
All the evidence we have of Truss's views on economics points to her being so dry that, if she were a Martini, people would be flocking to drink her. If she were a desert, there would be a disaster appeal to support the desperate people living there. Getting rid of protections for workers is an electorally dumb idea, but also the kind of thing that an idealogue might do, given two years and a seventy seat majority.
Pointing that out doesn't mean that anyone wants Truss to fail. Just that she is very likely to do so. Unless she reverse ferrets in the next 48 hours.
Mmm, that for me is one of the big unknowns -- to what extent is Truss going to push through with stuff she believes in or has said, and to what extent is are we going to see a lot of kite-flying that gets a few headlines but then gets quietly dropped or back-burnered if it gets too much pushback?
I suspect she's overcommited on the rhetoric. She has nailed her mast to lower taxes, implying smaller state, at a time when demands for state intervention have rarely been higher and where borrowing your way through the tax/spend contradiction is closed off due to inflation. She will lose whatever credibility she still has if she doesn't lower taxes but will be damned if she doesn't keep the spending taps open.
And BTW, I doubt Kwarteng is the clever Chancellor that will get her off the fiscal hook she has impaled herself on.
Eton, Trinity and Harvard, and I believe he is a mate of rcs1000. sounds formidable to me.
Can he get away with telling Robert that Coldplay are rubbish and Python is a toy language?
Errr
Coldplay are rubbish.
And anyone who still thinks Python is a "toy" language, well... I wouldn't say much for their judgement.
Didn't Google move away from Python for production? See if you can Bing anything on it.
Even if that were true, it wouldn't make Python a 'toy' language.
There are different use cases for different languages: there are even use cases for Lisp.
Python is a fantastic language for rapidly building complex systems. The flip side of this is that people often whack out 35 lines of code that is insufficiently tested, and which is prone to behave erratically around edge cases. But that is a problem with lack of testing, not the language itself.
All the evidence we have of Truss's views on economics points to her being so dry that, if she were a Martini, people would be flocking to drink her. If she were a desert, there would be a disaster appeal to support the desperate people living there. Getting rid of protections for workers is an electorally dumb idea, but also the kind of thing that an idealogue might do, given two years and a seventy seat majority.
Pointing that out doesn't mean that anyone wants Truss to fail. Just that she is very likely to do so. Unless she reverse ferrets in the next 48 hours.
Mmm, that for me is one of the big unknowns -- to what extent is Truss going to push through with stuff she believes in or has said, and to what extent is are we going to see a lot of kite-flying that gets a few headlines but then gets quietly dropped or back-burnered if it gets too much pushback?
I suspect she's overcommited on the rhetoric. She has nailed her mast to lower taxes, implying smaller state, at a time when demands for state intervention have rarely been higher and where borrowing your way through the tax/spend contradiction is closed off due to inflation. She will lose whatever credibility she still has if she doesn't lower taxes but will be damned if she doesn't keep the spending taps open.
And BTW, I doubt Kwarteng is the clever Chancellor that will get her off the fiscal hook she has impaled herself on.
Eton, Trinity and Harvard, and I believe he is a mate of rcs1000. sounds formidable to me.
Can he get away with telling Robert that Coldplay are rubbish and Python is a toy language?
Errr
Coldplay are rubbish.
And anyone who still thinks Python is a "toy" language, well... I wouldn't say much for their judgement.
Didn't Google move away from Python for production? See if you can Bing anything on it.
Even if that were true, it wouldn't make Python a 'toy' language.
There are different use cases for different languages: there are even use cases for Lisp.
Python is a fantastic language for rapidly building complex systems. The flip side of this is that people often whack out 35 lines of code that is insufficiently tested, and which is prone to behave erratically around edge cases. But that is a problem with lack of testing, not the language itself.
I once worked with a lisp programmer on a C project. His practise was to write lisp in C which either worked perfectly or was completely unmaintainable; sometimes both.
His preferred solution to maintenance was a complete reimplementation of any function or module. This seems to be common to programmers these days, and we saw this during the early days of the Covid pandemic when experts approached about patching up the epidemiological models used would advocate rewriting them from scratch in C++ or whatever else was their favoured language, rather than to understand then fix existing programs.
All the evidence we have of Truss's views on economics points to her being so dry that, if she were a Martini, people would be flocking to drink her. If she were a desert, there would be a disaster appeal to support the desperate people living there. Getting rid of protections for workers is an electorally dumb idea, but also the kind of thing that an idealogue might do, given two years and a seventy seat majority.
Pointing that out doesn't mean that anyone wants Truss to fail. Just that she is very likely to do so. Unless she reverse ferrets in the next 48 hours.
Mmm, that for me is one of the big unknowns -- to what extent is Truss going to push through with stuff she believes in or has said, and to what extent is are we going to see a lot of kite-flying that gets a few headlines but then gets quietly dropped or back-burnered if it gets too much pushback?
I suspect she's overcommited on the rhetoric. She has nailed her mast to lower taxes, implying smaller state, at a time when demands for state intervention have rarely been higher and where borrowing your way through the tax/spend contradiction is closed off due to inflation. She will lose whatever credibility she still has if she doesn't lower taxes but will be damned if she doesn't keep the spending taps open.
And BTW, I doubt Kwarteng is the clever Chancellor that will get her off the fiscal hook she has impaled herself on.
Eton, Trinity and Harvard, and I believe he is a mate of rcs1000. sounds formidable to me.
Can he get away with telling Robert that Coldplay are rubbish and Python is a toy language?
Errr
Coldplay are rubbish.
And anyone who still thinks Python is a "toy" language, well... I wouldn't say much for their judgement.
Didn't Google move away from Python for production? See if you can Bing anything on it.
Even if that were true, it wouldn't make Python a 'toy' language.
There are different use cases for different languages: there are even use cases for Lisp.
Python is a fantastic language for rapidly building complex systems. The flip side of this is that people often whack out 35 lines of code that is insufficiently tested, and which is prone to behave erratically around edge cases. But that is a problem with lack of testing, not the language itself.
I once worked with a lisp programmer on a C project. His practise was to write lisp in C which either worked perfectly or was completely unmaintainable; sometimes both.
His preferred solution to maintenance was a complete reimplementation of any function or module. This seems to be common to programmers these days, and we saw this during the early days of the Covid pandemic when experts approached about patching up the epidemiological models used would advocate rewriting them from scratch in C++ or whatever else was their favoured language, rather than to understand then fix existing programs.
One of my pet hates (and something common with graduates twenty years ago) are programmers who optimise code *before* the code is working. Perhaps because it is seen as 'clever' to write 'efficient' code from the start.
The reasons against it (in most cases) are: *) They spend less time thinking about what the code should be doing; *) They often make the code less maintainable; *) They guess wrongly about which bits need to be optimiised; *) Their code sometimes is *less* efficient in which metric matters (e.g. speed, exe size) after optimisation.
The correct approach is to write code that works, and test it against the test harnesses (or whatever testing you are using). If it is inefficient in some way, profile the code, see which bits are problematic, then optimise those.
All the evidence we have of Truss's views on economics points to her being so dry that, if she were a Martini, people would be flocking to drink her. If she were a desert, there would be a disaster appeal to support the desperate people living there. Getting rid of protections for workers is an electorally dumb idea, but also the kind of thing that an idealogue might do, given two years and a seventy seat majority.
Pointing that out doesn't mean that anyone wants Truss to fail. Just that she is very likely to do so. Unless she reverse ferrets in the next 48 hours.
Mmm, that for me is one of the big unknowns -- to what extent is Truss going to push through with stuff she believes in or has said, and to what extent is are we going to see a lot of kite-flying that gets a few headlines but then gets quietly dropped or back-burnered if it gets too much pushback?
I suspect she's overcommited on the rhetoric. She has nailed her mast to lower taxes, implying smaller state, at a time when demands for state intervention have rarely been higher and where borrowing your way through the tax/spend contradiction is closed off due to inflation. She will lose whatever credibility she still has if she doesn't lower taxes but will be damned if she doesn't keep the spending taps open.
And BTW, I doubt Kwarteng is the clever Chancellor that will get her off the fiscal hook she has impaled herself on.
Eton, Trinity and Harvard, and I believe he is a mate of rcs1000. sounds formidable to me.
Can he get away with telling Robert that Coldplay are rubbish and Python is a toy language?
Errr
Coldplay are rubbish....
I think you might have missed the subtle insult to Radiohead there.
Am I correct in understanding that the Opinium methodology anticipates the many undecided former Tory voters, or voting for other parties will "swing back" to the Tories?
Which of the following will be the reason they swing back: their business closing? Their pub closing? Losing paid holiday? Fracking next door or a PM who polls only 20% approval?
Have just seen the list of Truss’ proposed ministers.
I mean, I know we’ve joked about it but - is she actually mad?
Braverman, Shapps, IDS, Buckland should all be exiled for good and all, and two at least would have an awkward time explaining their actions to a judge.
As for Rees-Mogg and Dorries, they would be out of their depth on a Village Hall committee. The former at least is also a seriously nasty and untrustworthy human being. To give him what’s about to become a vital department is genuine lunacy.
Truss and Kwarteng are both smart though. It’s just that Truss is smart and mad, and Kwarteng is smart and meh.
Cleverly and Braverman are both quite stupid. I’d say stupider than Raab and Patel, actually.
How does someone get all the qualifications that Braverman has while being stupid?
It's possible to be academically very brainy and have no sense or ability to relate to the world around you at all, so you come across as rather thick. Classic example would be Niall Ferguson, who isn't possessed of a low IQ but comes across as an idiot because he has no idea how to relate to people around him or this funny thing called Planet Earth.
Braverman isn't I would say stupid, rather she is malign and totally without any sense of right and wrong or any regard for the law. Which means, given that her job is interpreting right and wrong and explaining the law, she comes across as rather stupid.
Have just seen the list of Truss’ proposed ministers.
I mean, I know we’ve joked about it but - is she actually mad?
Braverman, Shapps, IDS, Buckland should all be exiled for good and all, and two at least would have an awkward time explaining their actions to a judge.
As for Rees-Mogg and Dorries, they would be out of their depth on a Village Hall committee. The former at least is also a seriously nasty and untrustworthy human being. To give him what’s about to become a vital department is genuine lunacy.
I find the proposed cabinet changes incredible, in the sense of not being believable. Are there really no talented junior ministers or backbenchers to promote?
Have just seen the list of Truss’ proposed ministers.
I mean, I know we’ve joked about it but - is she actually mad?
Braverman, Shapps, IDS, Buckland should all be exiled for good and all, and two at least would have an awkward time explaining their actions to a judge.
As for Rees-Mogg and Dorries, they would be out of their depth on a Village Hall committee. The former at least is also a seriously nasty and untrustworthy human being. To give him what’s about to become a vital department is genuine lunacy.
I find the proposed cabinet changes incredible, in the sense of not being believable. Are there really no talented junior ministers or backbenchers to promote?
Possibly not, because remember Johnson effectively promoted what talent there was (which wasn't much) to replace the ones he sacked in 2019. Even if there are capable newbies from 2019 (which there weren't) that isn't a lot of time for them to work through the system.
It's a feature of governments after a few years. Major had Hamilton. Brown had Ainsworth. Truss has a full cabinet of them.
Truss and Kwarteng are both smart though. It’s just that Truss is smart and mad, and Kwarteng is smart and meh.
Cleverly and Braverman are both quite stupid. I’d say stupider than Raab and Patel, actually.
How does someone get all the qualifications that Braverman has while being stupid?
It's possible to be academically very brainy and have no sense or ability to relate to the world around you at all, so you come across as rather thick. Classic example would be Niall Ferguson, who isn't possessed of a low IQ but comes across as an idiot because he has no idea how to relate to people around him or this funny thing called Planet Earth.
Braverman isn't I would say stupid, rather she is malign and totally without any sense of right and wrong or any regard for the law. Which means, given that her job is interpreting right and wrong and explaining the law, she comes across as rather stupid.
The move to Home Secretary, in a Tory government, will present no such problem...
Is it Sunday the candidates learn of the result? Just wondering if we'll see the market shift that day. Not that I'm accusing politicians of leaking, of course.
Have just seen the list of Truss’ proposed ministers.
I mean, I know we’ve joked about it but - is she actually mad?
Braverman, Shapps, IDS, Buckland should all be exiled for good and all, and two at least would have an awkward time explaining their actions to a judge.
As for Rees-Mogg and Dorries, they would be out of their depth on a Village Hall committee. The former at least is also a seriously nasty and untrustworthy human being. To give him what’s about to become a vital department is genuine lunacy.
If so, t's a very specific sort of madness. The logic of the individual choices sort of makes sense, even JRM at business. After all, he is an ally and in trade.
What's missing is the "step back and look at the overall shape of your answer" stage. If your planned government ends up looking like this, you've clearly made a really bad assumption somewhere in the planning. I'd go with thinking you should pick a government made of Singapore Brexiteers who were loyal to Boris.
But learning to ignore the inner voice that says "all my ideological allies are terrible human beings, what does that say about my ideology?" has always been a grim fact of politics, especially over the last decade.
Truss and Kwarteng are both smart though. It’s just that Truss is smart and mad, and Kwarteng is smart and meh.
Cleverly and Braverman are both quite stupid. I’d say stupider than Raab and Patel, actually.
How does someone get all the qualifications that Braverman has while being stupid?
It's possible to be academically very brainy and have no sense or ability to relate to the world around you at all, so you come across as rather thick. Classic example would be Niall Ferguson, who isn't possessed of a low IQ but comes across as an idiot because he has no idea how to relate to people around him or this funny thing called Planet Earth.
Braverman isn't I would say stupid, rather she is malign and totally without any sense of right and wrong or any regard for the law. Which means, given that her job is interpreting right and wrong and explaining the law, she comes across as rather stupid.
Braverman had far more real power as Attorney General than she will ever have as Home Secretary. On the basis that she cannot be any more malign or incompetent than Patel - and I don't think she can be - I am taking her moving on as a win.
Have just seen the list of Truss’ proposed ministers.
I mean, I know we’ve joked about it but - is she actually mad?
Braverman, Shapps, IDS, Buckland should all be exiled for good and all, and two at least would have an awkward time explaining their actions to a judge.
As for Rees-Mogg and Dorries, they would be out of their depth on a Village Hall committee. The former at least is also a seriously nasty and untrustworthy human being. To give him what’s about to become a vital department is genuine lunacy.
The Cabinet - as mooted - shows that Truss is not capable of engaging with the real world either politically or economically. That's why the bounce she gets from the huge energy price package she has no alternative but to announce is only likely to be temporary.
Truss and Kwarteng are both smart though. It’s just that Truss is smart and mad, and Kwarteng is smart and meh.
Cleverly and Braverman are both quite stupid. I’d say stupider than Raab and Patel, actually.
How does someone get all the qualifications that Braverman has while being stupid?
It's possible to be academically very brainy and have no sense or ability to relate to the world around you at all, so you come across as rather thick. Classic example would be Niall Ferguson, who isn't possessed of a low IQ but comes across as an idiot because he has no idea how to relate to people around him or this funny thing called Planet Earth.
Braverman isn't I would say stupid, rather she is malign and totally without any sense of right and wrong or any regard for the law. Which means, given that her job is interpreting right and wrong and explaining the law, she comes across as rather stupid.
Braverman had far more real power as Attorney General than she will ever have as Home Secretary. On the basis that she cannot be any more malign or incompetent than Patel - and I don't think she can be - I am taking her moving on as a win.
I am reminded of the Soviet-era conversation between a Russian pessimist and a Russian optimist.
The pessimist says: 'Things are terrible right now. Nothing works. The government is corrupt. Our shops are empty. Even vodka is in short supply. Things can't get worse.'
And the optimist replies, 'They will, they really will.'
Their ads are hilariously poorly targeted. Just had a quick check and today they are trying to sell me Tom Tom, a blockchain conference and some game about being a football manager.
All my cars have inbuilt nav, and Waze beats all comers anyway; and I have zero interest in either tech nerds or football.
Truss the only actually genuinely bonkers MP according to Dom.
Failed and clapped out ex leader IDS throwing his toys around.
Jacob 'bring back imperial measurement' wants to oversee the white heat of British technology.
I think I see a pattern.
Roll on 2024 and an end to this Late Stage Toryism.
I know its just a bit of nostalgia baiting for fogeys, but I really don't get the sentimental attachment to systems of measurements. I consider myself fairly patriotic but I don't think I could muster up more than mild irritation at temporary inconvenience if we switched from miles to kilometres.
It's familiarity and ease of use. Because of frequent use of miles I have an instinctive sense of how far a distance in miles is, how long it will take to walk, cycle or drive, which I simply don't have for kilometres.
That said, our new (fifth-hand) Irish-registered car is kilometres only and I'll embrace kilometres as best I can when we move to Ireland. Apart from anything else, our car will be able to do more than 1000km on a single tank of fuel, and that sounds cooler than more than 600 miles.
Am I correct in understanding that the Opinium methodology anticipates the many undecided former Tory voters, or voting for other parties will "swing back" to the Tories?
Which of the following will be the reason they swing back: their business closing? Their pub closing? Losing paid holiday? Fracking next door or a PM who polls only 20% approval?
Being told that Labour will give their daughters/granddaughters puberty-blocking drugs, tax their houses and submit to EU overlordship.
Their ads are hilariously poorly targeted. Just had a quick check and today they are trying to sell me Tom Tom, a blockchain conference and some game about being a football manager.
All my cars have inbuilt nav, and Waze beats all comers anyway; and I have zero interest in either tech nerds or football.
The Republicans seem to have very much the same problem with their digital advertising.
My deep dive on Rick Scott’s big bet on digital gone bad w/ internal docs, new $$$ ties revealed and a texting scheme so deceptive that WinRed cracked down.
Truss and Kwarteng are both smart though. It’s just that Truss is smart and mad, and Kwarteng is smart and meh.
Cleverly and Braverman are both quite stupid. I’d say stupider than Raab and Patel, actually.
How does someone get all the qualifications that Braverman has while being stupid?
It's possible to be academically very brainy and have no sense or ability to relate to the world around you at all, so you come across as rather thick. Classic example would be Niall Ferguson, who isn't possessed of a low IQ but comes across as an idiot because he has no idea how to relate to people around him or this funny thing called Planet Earth.
Braverman isn't I would say stupid, rather she is malign and totally without any sense of right and wrong or any regard for the law. Which means, given that her job is interpreting right and wrong and explaining the law, she comes across as rather stupid.
Probably what some people call a "Girly Swot" - good at memorising information and regurgitating it when needed, but not much good at thinking about what it actually means. If she had gone to a respectable university, they would have knocked her into shape.
Truss and Kwarteng are both smart though. It’s just that Truss is smart and mad, and Kwarteng is smart and meh.
Cleverly and Braverman are both quite stupid. I’d say stupider than Raab and Patel, actually.
How does someone get all the qualifications that Braverman has while being stupid?
It's possible to be academically very brainy and have no sense or ability to relate to the world around you at all, so you come across as rather thick. Classic example would be Niall Ferguson, who isn't possessed of a low IQ but comes across as an idiot because he has no idea how to relate to people around him or this funny thing called Planet Earth.
Braverman isn't I would say stupid, rather she is malign and totally without any sense of right and wrong or any regard for the law. Which means, given that her job is interpreting right and wrong and explaining the law, she comes across as rather stupid.
Braverman had far more real power as Attorney General than she will ever have as Home Secretary. On the basis that she cannot be any more malign or incompetent than Patel - and I don't think she can be - I am taking her moving on as a win.
I am reminded of the Soviet-era conversation between a Russian pessimist and a Russian optimist.
The pessimist says: 'Things are terrible right now. Nothing works. The government is corrupt. Our shops are empty. Even vodka is in short supply. Things can't get worse.'
And the optimist replies, 'They will, they really will.'
I've cast myself as the optimist here...
Am I a pessimist or optimist for having faith in your judgment ?
Truss and Kwarteng are both smart though. It’s just that Truss is smart and mad, and Kwarteng is smart and meh.
Cleverly and Braverman are both quite stupid. I’d say stupider than Raab and Patel, actually.
How does someone get all the qualifications that Braverman has while being stupid?
It's possible to be academically very brainy and have no sense or ability to relate to the world around you at all, so you come across as rather thick. Classic example would be Niall Ferguson, who isn't possessed of a low IQ but comes across as an idiot because he has no idea how to relate to people around him or this funny thing called Planet Earth.
Braverman isn't I would say stupid, rather she is malign and totally without any sense of right and wrong or any regard for the law. Which means, given that her job is interpreting right and wrong and explaining the law, she comes across as rather stupid.
Braverman had far more real power as Attorney General than she will ever have as Home Secretary. On the basis that she cannot be any more malign or incompetent than Patel - and I don't think she can be - I am taking her moving on as a win.
I am reminded of the Soviet-era conversation between a Russian pessimist and a Russian optimist.
The pessimist says: 'Things are terrible right now. Nothing works. The government is corrupt. Our shops are empty. Even vodka is in short supply. Things can't get worse.'
And the optimist replies, 'They will, they really will.'
I've cast myself as the optimist here...
Am I a pessimist or optimist for having faith in your judgment ?
You don't have to be either to know that my judgement never fails.
Just completely wrong...
However, I don't think I am in this, as it isn't a cricket match.
Have just seen the list of Truss’ proposed ministers.
I mean, I know we’ve joked about it but - is she actually mad?
Braverman, Shapps, IDS, Buckland should all be exiled for good and all, and two at least would have an awkward time explaining their actions to a judge.
As for Rees-Mogg and Dorries, they would be out of their depth on a Village Hall committee. The former at least is also a seriously nasty and untrustworthy human being. To give him what’s about to become a vital department is genuine lunacy.
I find the proposed cabinet changes incredible, in the sense of not being believable. Are there really no talented junior ministers or backbenchers to promote?
Same here. In particular, I do not believe James Cleverly is in line for Foreign Secretary, since his Cabinet experience is being Education Secretary for a whole eight weeks. I expect Cleverly is being used to hide a bigger name and that he will continue at Education, which was left open in Shippers' tweet.
If I had an SBK/Smarkets account (only they are betting on next Foreign Secretary) then I might look at Lord Frost (since we have had Foreign Secretaries in the Lords within living memory, depending how old you are) or even Rishi Sunak. But as I don't have an account, I shall just wait a couple of days and see.
Have just seen the list of Truss’ proposed ministers.
I mean, I know we’ve joked about it but - is she actually mad?
Braverman, Shapps, IDS, Buckland should all be exiled for good and all, and two at least would have an awkward time explaining their actions to a judge.
As for Rees-Mogg and Dorries, they would be out of their depth on a Village Hall committee. The former at least is also a seriously nasty and untrustworthy human being. To give him what’s about to become a vital department is genuine lunacy.
I find the proposed cabinet changes incredible, in the sense of not being believable. Are there really no talented junior ministers or backbenchers to promote?
Same here. In particular, I do not believe James Cleverly is in line for Foreign Secretary, since his Cabinet experience is being Education Secretary for a whole eight weeks. I expect Cleverly is being used to hide a bigger name and that he will continue at Education, which was left open in Shippers' tweet.
If I had an SBK/Smarkets account (only they are betting on next Foreign Secretary) then I might look at Lord Frost (since we have had Foreign Secretaries in the Lords within living memory, depending how old you are) or even Rishi Sunak. But as I don't have an account, I shall just wait a couple of days and see.
However, it's worth noting that's more cabinet experience than Grey, Eden, or Cook had before becoming Foreign Secretary. It is slightly unusual in that people can be and have been promoted straight to it without an apprenticeship elsewhere.
"Battery technology pioneer Britishvolt today [20 August 2022] announces a transition within its management team, aligned to the company’s growth plans and 2050 vision. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Orral Nadjari is to step down, with Dr Graham Hoare OBE appointed as Acting CEO."
"Battery technology pioneer Britishvolt today [20 August 2022] announces a transition within its management team, aligned to the company’s growth plans and 2050 vision. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Orral Nadjari is to step down, with Dr Graham Hoare OBE appointed as Acting CEO."
I’ve known this for a week - the issue is they need a suitably sized customer and there simply isn’t one in the UK.
Comments
It's now nothing more than a regular Cabinet post, by and large.
month short term proposal
I'm 58, a full time carer with a dodgy knee and a bad back.
@Leon's AI is a long time coming I think.
Boris fell because ultimately he asked too much of his MPs, constantly demanding they defend his poor conduct, and no longer appeared to be providing them anything in return in respect of being an obvious winner like he was in Summer 2019.
Now, it was potentially the case he could have recovered the position somewhat, better than others perhaps, but they lost confidence in that and so out he went. Partygate and other lies were therefore a bigger part of it than I think people accept, in that, yes, they lost patience because of electoral concern, but the electoral concern arose due to the lies.
Lacking as high a profile how does he reduce the toxicity? Sure, fading memory, but Boris always had pretty high unfavourables, he just also had high favourables, so he would need to not only become less unpopular, but become popular again. What platform does he have to do that, without slagging off a failing a Truss?
A splendid production; highly recommended.
https://msptucuman.gov.ar/vizzotti-confirmo-que-el-brote-de-neumonia-en-tucuman-fue-por-legionella
What they should do is up powers to halt small scale stuff, but outright remove the ability to hold up the larger stuff after a certain time (and, somehow, punish developers who currently can abuse the system re housebuilding delays).
I hope everyone has a good night's sleep as I leave my phone on by my bedside wondering if I will receive a call from our youngest son that baby number 3 has arrived, having been due of the 1st September
Good night folks
Do we have contingency plans for that ?
https://mobile.twitter.com/steverichards14/status/1566173873560748032
According to the legendary
@ShippersUnbound Lord Frosty Frost was holding out to be Foreign Sec having declared loftily he was unwilling to serve in a Sunak cabinet. I have followed closely courtiers that hover around govns.. there has been no one as delusional as @DavidGHFrost
@OpiniumResearch
/
@ObserverUK
poll 🚨
As we approach the end of the Conservative leadership contest, our latest poll shows Labour's lead halving to 4 points over the Conservatives.
Con 34% (+3)
Lab 38% (-1)
Lib Dem 12% (+2)
Green 6% (-1)
Truss the only actually genuinely bonkers MP according to Dom.
Failed and clapped out ex leader IDS throwing his toys around.
Jacob 'bring back imperial measurement' wants to oversee the white heat of British technology.
I think I see a pattern.
Roll on 2024 and an end to this Late Stage Toryism.
I mean, what defines such a thing?
Keen intellect? Not really, there are plenty of MPs who are intellectually very able (even if many are bad at demonstrating it), but this need not mean they would make competent ministers.
Significant ideological heft? Don't make me laugh, you either get a bunch of ossified farts locked into a rigid interpretation of out of date dogma like Corbyn or Cash, pragmatic automatons with no beliefs whatsoever, or a child's understanding of ideology based on the equivalent of reading a hypothetical twitter account of Margaret Thatcher.
Bucketloads of senior experience? The most experienced Cabinet Minister was Gove and he was out, and Truss is the next most experienced, with replacements being from the same old gang or the awkward squad with little experience.
https://www.rsc.org.uk/richard-iii/cast-and-creatives
Never heard of him before I saw him in the recent 'Wars of the Roses' production as the younger Richard. His soliloquy at the end of H. VI part 3, "I am myself alone...", was so good I booked tickets for this on the strength of it.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1566093827265404928
They can't vote in general elections, but these teen Tories get to pick their next party leader and new prime minister
And I am not prepared to have my face painted in the colours of the rainbows.
The nearest I ever got was seeing Alan Howard playing Richard III about a decade later.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSC_production_of_A_Midsummer_Night's_Dream_(1970)
Coldplay are rubbish.
And anyone who still thinks Python is a "toy" language, well... I wouldn't say much for their judgement.
@US_Stormwatch
·
2h
The worst of the ongoing heatwave is yet to come for California and surrounding states as one of the hottest air masses in recorded history develops over the region early next week.
Many places will record their hottest September day ever, possibly multiple days in a row.
https://twitter.com/US_Stormwatch/status/1566178437697458176
Is Truss - Kwarteng - Cleverly - Braverman even worse than Johnson - Sunak - Raab - Patel? What about Johnson - Zahawi - Truss - Patel?
One of these combos is the most dismal set of politicians to attain the offices of state since…well, since they invented the bloody things.
It’s just that Truss is smart and mad, and Kwarteng is smart and meh.
Cleverly and Braverman are both quite stupid.
I’d say stupider than Raab and Patel, actually.
Finland seems more f***ed than Sweden for the coming winter. And more people in Finland than in Sweden know what a "war winter" looks like.
How long until the Kenny Everett types in Britain start talking about Vyborg the same way they've been going red in the face and foaming at the mouth asserting that Crimea is forever Ukrainian?
Thought experiment: if the same were to happen tomorrow to the Vyborg East airbase as recently happened to the Saki base in Crimea, would Liz Truss adopt or not adopt a pro-Finnish position on the Karelian question?
Magdalena Andersson can say what she likes, but it's unlikely to be "We completely screwed up both on the intelligence front and strategically, and we don't give a sh*t."
Something like that.
Who, of rightful mind, would be born on Russian soil? It’s a failed state.
Quite incredible, really.
There’s an interesting dissertation in here about why, how, and the socio-cultural condition of leading ethic minority Tories - they are clearly of a different ilk to Labour ones.
Karelia is far too close to St Petersburg. It was never going to happen. Returning the whole of it wouldn't be a saleable idea in that city.
The Russians should hand it back, if not to the Finns then to someone who can govern it better, like Suella Braverman or Prince Andrew.
Same with Königsberg.
There are different use cases for different languages: there are even use cases for Lisp.
Python is a fantastic language for rapidly building complex systems. The flip side of this is that people often whack out 35 lines of code that is insufficiently tested, and which is prone to behave erratically around edge cases. But that is a problem with lack of testing, not the language itself.
His preferred solution to maintenance was a complete reimplementation of any function or module. This seems to be common to programmers these days, and we saw this during the early days of the Covid pandemic when experts approached about patching up the epidemiological models used would advocate rewriting them from scratch in C++ or whatever else was their favoured language, rather than to understand then fix existing programs.
F1: hard to say how difficult passing will be. Mostly been much improved this year, but then the French Grand Prix had it almost impossible.
The reasons against it (in most cases) are:
*) They spend less time thinking about what the code should be doing;
*) They often make the code less maintainable;
*) They guess wrongly about which bits need to be optimiised;
*) Their code sometimes is *less* efficient in which metric matters (e.g. speed, exe size) after optimisation.
The correct approach is to write code that works, and test it against the test harnesses (or whatever testing you are using). If it is inefficient in some way, profile the code, see which bits are problematic, then optimise those.
***SPOILER ALERT*** Hold this post up for the light of a crescent moon on midsummer, to reveal the hidden spoiler below
But what a last day of glorious summer.
Which of the following will be the reason they swing back: their business closing? Their pub closing? Losing paid holiday? Fracking next door or a PM who polls only 20% approval?
However, survival around Johnson and going along with all his nonsense would encourage atrophy of the spine, and shrivelling of the cullions.
I mean, I know we’ve joked about it but - is she actually mad?
Braverman, Shapps, IDS, Buckland should all be exiled for good and all, and two at least would have an awkward time explaining their actions to a judge.
As for Rees-Mogg and Dorries, they would be out of their depth on a Village Hall committee. The former at least is also a seriously nasty and untrustworthy human being. To give him what’s about to become a vital department is genuine lunacy.
https://mobile.twitter.com/bretterlich/status/1566235143584378880
Braverman isn't I would say stupid, rather she is malign and totally without any sense of right and wrong or any regard for the law. Which means, given that her job is interpreting right and wrong and explaining the law, she comes across as rather stupid.
It's a feature of governments after a few years. Major had Hamilton. Brown had Ainsworth. Truss has a full cabinet of them.
https://britastro.org/dark-skies/cfds_issues.php?topic=about
You heard it here first.
What's missing is the "step back and look at the overall shape of your answer" stage. If your planned government ends up looking like this, you've clearly made a really bad assumption somewhere in the planning. I'd go with thinking you should pick a government made of Singapore Brexiteers who were loyal to Boris.
But learning to ignore the inner voice that says "all my ideological allies are terrible human beings, what does that say about my ideology?" has always been a grim fact of politics, especially over the last decade.
Wow, what a situation: In the closely divided Arizona senate, Democrat Diego Espinoza was the sole candidate for a safe Dem seat.
But he has dropped out now to take a job — & that apparently means whomever gets most write-in votes will become state senator here, danger to Dems.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Taniel/status/1566225096817233921
Although if it was after the close of nominations, he would have been held elected under our rules, therefore he would have to resign the seat.
Betting PostF1: lots of betting thoughts and a few I could've gone for.
In the end, backed Hamilton each way at 8.5. When the Mercedes is competitive it tends to outdo Ferrari.
https://enormo-haddock.blogspot.com/2022/09/the-netherlands-pre-race-2022.html
It looks utterly desperate.
https://mobile.twitter.com/az_journalist/status/1566165791224975360
The pessimist says: 'Things are terrible right now. Nothing works. The government is corrupt. Our shops are empty. Even vodka is in short supply. Things can't get worse.'
And the optimist replies, 'They will, they really will.'
I've cast myself as the optimist here...
All my cars have inbuilt nav, and Waze beats all comers anyway; and I have zero interest in either tech nerds or football.
That said, our new (fifth-hand) Irish-registered car is kilometres only and I'll embrace kilometres as best I can when we move to Ireland. Apart from anything else, our car will be able to do more than 1000km on a single tank of fuel, and that sounds cooler than more than 600 miles.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ShaneGoldmacher/status/1566148687960621061
How the NRSC raised a record $181.5 million entering August — yet spent 95% of it.
My deep dive on Rick Scott’s big bet on digital gone bad w/ internal docs, new $$$ ties revealed and a texting scheme so deceptive that WinRed cracked down.
If she had gone to a respectable university, they would have knocked her into shape.
Probably.
Just completely wrong...
However, I don't think I am in this, as it isn't a cricket match.
If I had an SBK/Smarkets account (only they are betting on next Foreign Secretary) then I might look at Lord Frost (since we have had Foreign Secretaries in the Lords within living memory, depending how old you are) or even Rishi Sunak. But as I don't have an account, I shall just wait a couple of days and see.
Labour 42
Tories 31
Best PM …
Starmer 34
Johnson 23
Truss 11