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With four days to go the Republicans edge back into the lead – politicalbetting.com
With four days to go the Republicans edge back into the lead – politicalbetting.com
We are just 4 days off the November 8th Midterm elections in the United States when the Democrats will be defending their majority in the House of Representatives and hoping to maintain the edge in the Senate. There are also hundreds of state and local contests taking place.
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Abolish the Home Office and replace it with what? A vacuum?
The solution is to extend employee NI to all income, then roll NI into Income Tax a year or so later.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-election-forecast/senate/
"Since 1998, polls of U.S. Senate elections conducted within three weeks of Election Day have had a weighted-average error of 5.4 percentage points, and polls of U.S. House elections have had a weighted-average error of 6.3 points."
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-polling-error/
“USA - Biden - “So the economy is up, price inflation is down, real incomes are up, gas prices are down!"
This is called misinformation.”
https://twitter.com/berniespofforth/status/1588436074074091520?s=61&t=Bt0uQJdxBPeY_ewD0LQujA
If the Dems are sincere about stopping Trump, perhaps they could get a wiggle on, and dump this geriatric twit and propose a serious, younger candidate. Then they can stop Trump
But, and it’s a very big but, they do still have a large pile of WMDs, and it only takes a few of these to turn the world upside-down.
I suspect that, when this war is over, the supervised nuclear disarmament of Russia will be their price for being accepted back into the world under a new leader.
I think it will be a close win in the Senate, a big win in the House - but with a lot of results not following the trend, because of good and bad candidates.
Based on bitter personal experience that if you abolished the DfE things would probably dramatically improve. Similarly the DfT, the DoH and whatever they call the department for Local Government this week.
A young candidate with a measured sense of change and optimism would be the way to go. They're nuts if they keep Biden.
Australia will still win though.
But he needs to be defeated democratically. So for that the Dems need a good strong centrist candidate. Anything else is defeatist decadence at a time of maximum peril. Someone has to tell Sleepy Uncle Joe: not this time
"Cricket laws change: New batter on strike even if players 'cross' on catch from October"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/60665829
That being said, I suspect they would rather see sanctions left in place so Russia has to trade only through them.
The one thing we can definitely say is Russia is in a position where they have no good options left.
As the saying goes, karma's a bitch.
You never know, the race for first female leader could be a close thing between Labour and Russia
https://www.france24.com/en/china/20221104-german-chancellor-s-visit-to-china-tests-ties-expected-to-discuss-ukraine
About Russia's military strength.
I've wittered on in the past about how Russia's military strength does not seem to match its expenditure. In 2020 Russia spent $61.71B on its military, on a GDP of $2.1 trillion. With that, it fields a massive number of tanks, planes, SAM systems, men, and other things - not least thousands of nuclear warheads.
In comparison, the Euro area spent $194.71B on its military in the same year, with a GDP of $13.3 trillion.
So the Euro area spends much more on its military, from a much larger GDP, and has a military that is much smaller in some metrics (e.g. number of tanks) and larger in others (e.g. number of planes), whilst also not having to maintain a massive number of nuclear weapons.
You PPP is a thing, and you can pay men a pittance. But when it comes to technology, if you do not do things right, effectiveness falls off a cliff. There are corners that can be cut, and we in the west certainly overspend,
The figures for Russian military strength, in terms of numbers, just do not make sense. Or if they are real, large amounts of the kit will be cr@p.
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/mil_spend/European-union/
http://www.aalep.eu/eu-vs-russia-military-strengths
I wonder if America knew.
But his presidency was inescapably malign for the USA, and January 6th was an outrage. And remember I abhor Woke Democrats. Trump is much worse than THEM
I knew he was a previous winner of the show and had done well in other shows, but until I looked at his Wikipedia page I had no idea how well he had done. It is clear we do have some very bright MPs.
Nukes are - sadly - going to proliferate after this war. South Korea and Japan will overtly or covertly acquire them, and they are probably taking steps already. Russia will not stand for a world where it can be bullied by South Korea
Edit - of course, that's almost a separate question. Lots of incredibly bright people have poor judgement (exhibit A - yours truly)! Winston Churchill and Lloyd George would be good examples. Wrong on so many major issues, but not stupid. Kwarteng is a clear warning in our own times.
Not just politicians either. Simon Case is also clearly highly intelligent, but his judgement is appalling.
Perhaps we should remember Lord Liverpool, the only PM since 1783 younger than Sunak, who was anything but bright but was very shrewd at reading a situation.
The vast majority of the Russian kit is cold-war Soviet stuff in various states of serviceability - great for counting equipment numbers, but a rubbish way of measuring actual capability on the battlefield.
Oh, and most of the people tasked with using it, don’t want to be in this war. Conscripts haven’t been paid, and neither have casualties. Even before the war started, the soldiers “training” in Belarus were selling diesel to buy vodka.
Russia tries to use passenger jet engines for its heavy helicopters reliant on Ukrainian engines - Defense24
Russians failed to produce their engine in the last 6-8 yrs, now it may go into production not early than 2025 if its development would succeed
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1588467410549592064
Which, of course, is why they've stopped publishing economic figures....
#Belize is not in negotiations with the #UK or any other country to accept #migrants. We will not agree to accept exported migrants. That is inhumane and contrary to #InternationalLaw.
https://twitter.com/ecourtbzeeamon/status/1587956771750137856?s=46&t=0gmgzEFNaR4p_Lta4d39UQ
https://twitter.com/HenryPryor/status/1588442617196564480
Not for very many years, I suspect.
Latest @JLPartnersPolls @TimesRadio swing voter focus group on immigration:
🔵 All said Britain is ‘full’ and ‘at capacity’, politicians ‘don’t get it’
🔵 Blame on immigration for problems with NHS, housing
🔵 Said Braverman’s description of ‘invasion’ was accurate
🔵 Felt that PM was wrong to appoint ‘naughty’ Braverman but she ‘has good ideas’
🔵 Current Channel situation ‘unfair’ with Brits in poverty
🔵 Tories handling it badly - but most said they would trust them more on immigration than Labour
Russia has almost no standalone capability to make military avionics systems for planes and missiles, nor the similar electronic warfare systems required for modern tanks.
Question is - does this mean a wealth tax or house value tax is going to be implemented. Remember that changing council tax bands is both a political nightmare, is seriously overdue and isn’t going to raise much
Oh
“The BBC has heard evidence that Albanian drug gangs are using the migrant camps of northern France as a recruitment ground, offering to pay the passage of those prepared to work in the UK drugs industry on arrival
.
Albanians account for around a third of the almost 40,000 people who have arrived in small boats so far this year, according to UK government figures.
The UK government says 12,000 Albanians have arrived by small boat this year, almost all of them young men travelling alone.
He estimates that a majority of the young men he met in the Dunkirk camp planned to work in the Albanian cannabis and cocaine networks in the UK.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63488070
From that BBC report
“Laknas lies on the flight path from Albania to France. Passenger jets zoom over the still and empty town: over its small mosque framed by half-built blocks and shuttered houses; over its deserted café.
Shopkeepers gather in the quiet road to complain that their business is unviable.
A pair of cows mumble away at the grass by the still main road.
"They're all I have left," their owner says. "My children have gone to England."
Residents here say 70% of the local population has already left for the UK. And the departures haven't stopped.”
By the way, there’s currently a 6-8 week wait for ‘fast track’ tourist visas to the UK - something that’s rather disrupting my Christmas planning at the moment. Only a £1k ‘emergency’ visa is available at shorter notice.
Broad popular support for simply turning the boats round to France (At a minimum) & summary detention, x-rays for those claiming to be children with the great and the good who run the stuff generally are far too full of sensibilities to do much about it (Jenrick is much more typical than Braverman of our politicians on the matters).
Braverman knows this, understands it and actually on a practical level is a KC and fluent (I'd guess) in French so might actually be able to get the practical things done to sort the situation.
Looking at Wikipedia, it looks as though the financing for it was never properly sorted.
...In January 2022, the UK government invested £100 million towards continued development of the project.[40] In March 2022, it was announced that the UK government and EDF would each take a 20% stake in the project, with infrastructure investors and pension funds expected to take up the remaining 60%.[41]
In August 2022, The Guardian reported expected costs were £20 billion to be paid with £1.7 billion of taxpayer money and a surcharge on customer energy bills through the Regulated Asset Base model. Barclays had been hired to find new financial backing.
But yes, his faculties were pretty limited in 2020, they will be unsellable by 2024 and he needs replaced as the nominee. Buttigeig seems by far the most obvious replacement.
If he did it is, as you say, about as toxic as it gets for Tory voters (and most others!)
Unless he slaps a minimum on it of 750,000 or so.........
Is there a single issue where left wing people instinctively side with Britain and the British people, rather than Anyone Else?
You guys are contemptible and I hope you contrive to lose the next election despite being 20 points ahead of a clown troupe. Ugh
https://twitter.com/petewishart/status/1588448853102952449?s=46&t=8WjlJnwCVuje7_aMi-Bjaw
Is it only a year?!? Seems like an eternity.
https://xlinks.co/octopus-energy-partnership/
I'd also throw some cash at First Light Fusion. They look as though they might have a workable concept for actually generating power, and it wouldn't cost a huge amount of money to find out.
Far better economics than the conventional nukes, if it does.
Anyway, back to my tofu.
The optics are driving this. The power of the media at work. If 5x as many refugees were making it to Britain through a European resettlement scheme and being assessed in source countries, there would be no pictures of boats on beaches, no overcrowded Manston centre, and probably little or no public attention paid to the issue.
Politicians and established Liberati absolutely don't get it.
You just can’t help it. You hate your own country and your own people. The British are inferior and they voted for Brexit and they deserve to have 900,000 illegal Albanians hosted in every one of their stupid Brexity towns. That’s what you think, deep down.
You're daft.
If only you could censor this as fake news, or something
“Look, we’ve utterly messed up our asylum system just like we messed up health, education and policing. We are outraged at this and so should you be. It’s all Labour’s fault”. And it works.
They’ll do the same on the economy: “we f*cked up big time and left you poorer and more insecure. So you’d better vote for us because Labour won’t transform the economy for the better overnight”.
The primary objective of almost any senior professional you care to mention in law, the media, the civil service or politics is to loudly signal their compassion about refugees to each other out of social anxiety about themselves and a fear of appearing BNP-like.
This trumps everything.
It's how Wokery has real world effects.
If it’s to be cancelled, then at least announcing what will replace it at the same time, might be seen as good politics at a time of record high energy bills!