Can I just say that 1883, the prequel to Yelllowstone, is excellent
A simple old fashioned western. The male lead is handsome, white, dependable, honourable, and reliably homicidal in a likeable way. Villains are simply shot dead on sight with no faff about stupid Woke concepts like “justice”
Animals are gutted. Germans are mocked. The women are beautiful and kneel as they serve food to the men. It’s great
It is indeed and the followup 1923 looks like it will be interesting as well, episodes just started coming out. The English was not bad as well, not as good as 1883 but watchable for sure.
I couldn’t get on with The English. I love 1883. Best TV western for decades. Shows there is a huge yearning for straight up non-lecturing drama
It has got criticisms from lefty journalists that it perpetuates stereotypes and the cast is not diverse and representative and OH FUCK OFF SHUT UP SIT DOWN
Wokeness is the death of art
Ironically, if the Woke journalists could take off their Outrage Goggles, they’d notice that the taciturn black character Thomas is one of the most compelling, sympathetic performances on any show at the moment. And the writers absolutely touch on his race. The difference is the writers don’t shove the sermon down your throat.
Shoving the sermon down your throat seems to be the only point of new drama at the moment.
It's hardly surprising that audiences take against it.
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
On topic, I think the Tories are toast and Sunak cannot revive them. A further change of PM would be a further farce. They are just going through the motions now before a long period of opposition.
Not that I am optomistic for a Starmer government, and I don't expect a landslide victory.
None of them has articulated anything much more than a shuffling of the deckchairs, or a re-slicing of the pie, Starmer included.
As you suggest in your last line, it would take a good optometrist to distinguish between them.
I think a Labour government - if we get one - will be a lot bolder and more radical than is currently being signalled. I don’t think there will be much choice.
I think it’s fair to say that after an election we mostly don’t end up with the politicians that are presented to us before said election, but it seems brave to bet the house on Starmer surprising on the bold & radical upside.
I think that the SNP will be part of why he will surprise on the upside. He’ll want to make it very hard for them to vote against a minority Labour government in Parliament. I’m expecting quite a bold approach to tax and redistribution, as well as a far closer relationship with the EU than is currently being eluded to.
In that case those Redwallers are going to be dreadfully disappointed when Sir Keir doesn't follow through on electronic tagging of asylum seekers and naming & shaming of drug users; good God, there may even be backsliding on not going back to the EU, to the single market, to the customs union or freedom of movement!
I do wonder if SKS has the chutzpah to pull off such a volte-face. With Tone such slipperiness was part of the package and he was good at it, perhaps not so endearing if your USP is stolid, boring dependability.
Starmer is a proven liar (not necessarily a bad thing in a politician); he is lying about the EU. He will take us far back in as he can - the bigger the Labour majority the closer to Brussels we will go. He needs the EU to play ball tho (no certainty). He will need a new name for “Free Movement” - some tiny tweak that enables him to pretend it’s not Free Movement
If he gets that we will go back in to the SM/CU in all but name and might well rejoin within the decade
He can sell all this as dire necessity, due to the desperate times. Could work
After the advertures of Boris the Liar, are people bothered by politicians being liars any more? This is post-truth politics where it no longer matters what the facts or realities on the ground are. All that matters is that the repeated lie upsets the other side.
Starmer is a liar - lets all be very clear about that. But he lied to secure the votes of anti-semite trot cultists so that he could drive them out of the Labour party. There are good lies and bad lies, I'd say those were good ones.
Starmer's problem is this. So far, he's benefitted from his 'opponents' being seen as nasty and vile. His dissemblance is therefore not really called out because people are so focused on getting his opponents out that they have given Starmer a free pass. That was the case with Corbyn, with Starmer being the anti-Johnson etc. Put simply, Starmer is someone who benefits immensely when his opponents are unlikeable.
Sunak is not that sort of an opponent. Yes, he doesn't have a common touch, he's rich, he's a geek etc but he's not hateable. In that situation, people start to pay a lot more attention about whom they are being asked to choose rather than just voting for x because they are not y.
Give it as we start to get into 2024. Starmer is going to be coming under a huge barrage to explain his positions on a whole range of issues - Europe, tax, trans issues etc. The more issues he is questioned on, the greater the chances he slips up. And gets hammered for it.
I think Sunak is a far nicer person than Starmer.
Public school veneer =/= nice.
Quite the opposite in fact.
That's your prejudice showing.
Very Labour.
Your advocating public school polish and veneer equates to niceness? Curious.
No, I said I thought Sunak was a nicer person than Starmer.
It was you that brought public schools into it.
The election of a Labour government will simply see Tory prejudices replaced with Labour ones.
I think both Starmer and Sunak are "nice" people who don't frighten the horses, and could be relied upon to be polite to mother.
I’m in the seaside village of Mousehole, which is pretty much all like this. Solid four square granite houses for fishermen (and smugglers and wreckers). There are ancient photos on the walls of this place (the Ship Inn) showing the village in the 1880s etc. Even though the people are obviously poor and life is hard, there are no cheap nasty buildings to be seen. Quite striking
A good place to visit at any time and especially so at Christmas with the decorations round the harbour. It gets manic in the evenings and of course you have to park on the road from Newlyn and walk the last bit.
Did you sample any of the Stary Gazey pie? I think that's just before Christmas.
Stary Gazey pie is delicious. Quite something when you first see it - but on a cold winters evening with a decent pint - boy.
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
Look at the thickness of that wall. Built to withstand Cornish storms and autumn gales. And thick enough to hide smuggled brandy from the Revenue
Built 200 years ago of proper Cornish granite and it will last another 200 years, possibly 2000, given the chance. And it is beautiful
Why can’t we do this any more?
Our walls are that thick. And a few decades older...
What we don’t see, for obvious reasons, are all the cheaply put together homes built back then that surrounded the solidly constructed stuff.
I’m in the seaside village of Mousehole, which is pretty much all like this. Solid four square granite houses for fishermen (and smugglers and wreckers). There are ancient photos on the walls of this place (the Ship Inn) showing the village in the 1880s etc. Even though the people are obviously poor and life is hard, there are no cheap nasty buildings to be seen. Quite striking
I know Mousehole. It was originally built at a time when granite and slate were the only options beyond wood and cobbing. The granite buildings are still there, the wooden ones have all gone. If you go up the hills behind the old village around the harbour the houses change quite quickly. Go down the road to Newlyn and Penzance and it’s a similar story. As I say, though, I do totally take your point. We should be building a lot better than we do.
Whether wittingly or not, they built for the future. They built handsome sturdy things that look good - even better - as the years pass. Must have been expensive and difficult, but worth it
It reminds me of excellent advice I got as a young man. “Always spend as much as you can on shoes. Women notice shoes. And expensive shoes are cheaper in the long run because you don’t have to replace them”
So true. As a nation we keep buying cheap shoes, then we look down aghast as we realise we are wearing tatty trainers from Tesco that need to be replaced AGAIN
It is time for Britain to buy Jermyn street brogues
On that note I thought you might like these lads which recently came into my possession. They're Crockett & Jones therefore some of the best brogues you can buy, and yet...they are blue. Hoping I can punt them to a Rangers supporter.
Reminds me of the Skye brogues the local place does :
My mid life crisis is demonstrated in two clear ways, marrying somebody nearly twenty years younger than me and secondly wearing loafers.
My most recent purchase.
Makes my midlife crisis project (becoming a YouTuber) seem mild in comparison. Maybe I should buy a pair of those to drive the Tesla in! Are they vegan...?
I know Louis Vuitton are transitioning towards a vegan future.
I don't think these particular loafers are vegan but some of their trainers are.
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
Because Cornwall house prices have gone off sale in the areas you see, the houses being built are architect designed to appeal to people. Who are paying the architect directly, often.
Bit like in Wiltshire. Malmesbury is all very nice. The shit is hidden, literally, over the hill.
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
Because Cornwall house prices have gone off sale in the areas you see, the houses being built are architect designed to appeal to people. Who are paying the architect directly, often.
Bit like in Wiltshire. Malmesbury is all very nice. The shit is hidden, literally, over the hill.
But this is bollocks. I’m here in Cornwall, visiting all my extended and large Cornish family, I am Cornish, I come to Cornwall all the time
I can see what I can see, right in front of my eyes
There are a few hideous redbrick nightmares but not many at all. Most are pleasant, a few are excellent
I do wonder if King Chas is subtly at work. One of the biggest housing developments in the county is Nansledan in Newquay. It’s quite Poundbury. It’s on Duchy of Cornwall land
If King Charles can single-handedly raise the standard of British domestic architecture and make our towns beautiful again, I suggest we get rid of democracy altogether and let him decide everything
On topic, I think the Tories are toast and Sunak cannot revive them. A further change of PM would be a further farce. They are just going through the motions now before a long period of opposition.
Not that I am optomistic for a Starmer government, and I don't expect a landslide victory.
None of them has articulated anything much more than a shuffling of the deckchairs, or a re-slicing of the pie, Starmer included.
As you suggest in your last line, it would take a good optometrist to distinguish between them.
I think a Labour government - if we get one - will be a lot bolder and more radical than is currently being signalled. I don’t think there will be much choice.
I think it’s fair to say that after an election we mostly don’t end up with the politicians that are presented to us before said election, but it seems brave to bet the house on Starmer surprising on the bold & radical upside.
I think that the SNP will be part of why he will surprise on the upside. He’ll want to make it very hard for them to vote against a minority Labour government in Parliament. I’m expecting quite a bold approach to tax and redistribution, as well as a far closer relationship with the EU than is currently being eluded to.
In that case those Redwallers are going to be dreadfully disappointed when Sir Keir doesn't follow through on electronic tagging of asylum seekers and naming & shaming of drug users; good God, there may even be backsliding on not going back to the EU, to the single market, to the customs union or freedom of movement!
I do wonder if SKS has the chutzpah to pull off such a volte-face. With Tone such slipperiness was part of the package and he was good at it, perhaps not so endearing if your USP is stolid, boring dependability.
Starmer is a proven liar (not necessarily a bad thing in a politician); he is lying about the EU. He will take us far back in as he can - the bigger the Labour majority the closer to Brussels we will go. He needs the EU to play ball tho (no certainty). He will need a new name for “Free Movement” - some tiny tweak that enables him to pretend it’s not Free Movement
If he gets that we will go back in to the SM/CU in all but name and might well rejoin within the decade
He can sell all this as dire necessity, due to the desperate times. Could work
Yep - I am expecting something along the lines of: “We knew the Tory Brexit deal was bad but now we’ve seen the books it’s turned out to be even worse than that. We’ll need to take radical action to improve things.” As no-one beyond what will have become the entirely irrelevant ERG will care that much, it’s pretty much an open goal.
Yes. Never forget that Starmer is not just a Remainer he was a 2nd voter - he led the campaign to overturn the referendum (shocking and unforgivable - but that’s a different argument). He’s as Remainery as it is possible to get. He is quite likely to have an historically sizeable majority - one that will be severely reduced or eliminated in the next GE but one. The temptation to seize the moment will be too much
He can also point to the utterly inept handling of immigration by the Tories - from the 500,000 migrants in one year to the Dinghy People - and say “immigration is out of control anyway”
And he will be right. He will have an open goal and the open goal will be a result of crass Tory incompetence and infighting. The ERG - and others in the Tory party - will only have themselves to blame
It's hard to disagree with this.
The trouble is that one presumes Starmer wants to be re-elected after 4-5 years.
When is better than the first term for Starmer to do what he wants to do?
I personally have some doubts about both his nerve and his passion.
But he will never be as powerful as he will be at that time. The Tory Civil War that will rage through the 2020s will be at its hottest (the Sunak era will be seen historically as merely a brief respite for new and old Tories to re-group and re-arm), Corbynites will have been humiliated, Sturgeon's sunset will be on the horizon, and the Lib Dems will remain relatively weak even if they are back to having a reasonable clutch of MPs.
He's very, very likely to be re-elected in 2028, and it's never going to get better in terms of doing things he wants to do politically.
I'm not so sure.
The electorate is far more volatile these days and I can't see further than 6 months ahead, yet alone 6 years.
Starmer could rapidly shed votes in all directions, to the Greens, the Liberal Democrats, DNK/WNVs and even some Reform and the Tories.
Andrew Neil is of the view (which I agree with) that Starmer won't overturn Brexit in his first term, but instead will make absolutely no effort to make it a success. We won't diverge from the EU in terms of regulations or standards, we won't join TPP, the prospect of a US trade deal will be even more dead than it currently is etc... Labour can then say that after ten years Brexit is failure, and that we need to think about rejoining. So it's after the 2028/9 election, I'd expect there to be any serious attempt by a Starmer government to open any negotiations with the EU about rejoining it or the single market.
On topic, I think the Tories are toast and Sunak cannot revive them. A further change of PM would be a further farce. They are just going through the motions now before a long period of opposition.
Not that I am optomistic for a Starmer government, and I don't expect a landslide victory.
None of them has articulated anything much more than a shuffling of the deckchairs, or a re-slicing of the pie, Starmer included.
As you suggest in your last line, it would take a good optometrist to distinguish between them.
I think a Labour government - if we get one - will be a lot bolder and more radical than is currently being signalled. I don’t think there will be much choice.
I think it’s fair to say that after an election we mostly don’t end up with the politicians that are presented to us before said election, but it seems brave to bet the house on Starmer surprising on the bold & radical upside.
Starmer has already said he will continue New Labour's work and further wreck our constitution by replacing the House of Lords with a US style elected upper house.
He has also said he wants the same Gender Recognition Bill as Sturgeon has in Scotland so you can self declare a sex change before even medical confirmation.
Gordon Brown wants a new Federal UK.
Plus there will no doubt be a wealth tax etc
One of the recent political videos that went viral was a damning speech by this guy Welby who rightly eviscerated the government's shameful and immoral approach to migration.
Or, the Archbishop of Canterbury, head of an established Church speaking from the House of Lords which he is a legislator in by right of his job.
"wreck our constitution" you say? Its ALREADY wrecked. An anachronistic joke where all you need to get a seat for life as a legislator is to have the right job or friends or a large enough chequebook.
No it isn't, the Lords is made up of not just religious leaders but leading academics, businesspeople, scientists, lawyers, figures from culture and sport, ex politicians and the few remaining hereditaries. They offer expert scrutiny of legislation while still giving way to the elected Commons.
If Starmer gets his way and replaces the Lords with a fully elected upper house most of them won't bother to stand for election to it.
However the one good thing is the Conservative opposition could take control of the upper house on a midterm protest vote. Then with their elected mandate they could seek to block and delay every piece of legislation put forward by the Starmer government in the House of Commons. Hopefully stopping the worst legislation from it
I'm in favour of retaining the Lords, but it isn't working right.
People buy peerages through political donations and cronyism, I don't think anyone seriously disputes that, and they don't then bother to attend to conribute to the Chamber, they just wanted a title (Lord Lebedev being an example). They aren't adding any value, its just pure political corruption.
Too many MPs and ex-MPs get appointed as compared to leading people who might not generally stand for parliament but have expertise worth contributing. Something like 150 of them used to be MPs I think, and their impact will probably be disproportionate as they are probably amongst those who turn up more often (only about half attend regularly).
The Tories should have done some minor tweaks to curb the worst aspects of the Lords*, which would have obviated any obvious need (besides 'principle') for Labour to radically alter it. They've missed their shot, and so now the need to do something falls on the party who intend to do more rather than less.
* as mentioned ad naseum these could be very straightforward and have immediate effect, like preventing ex-MPs from appointment straight away, limiting the overall size, attendance requirements, doners not being appointed etc.
It could still be reformed not replaced altogether.
However if Starmer wants a fully elected Senate and US style deadlock between the Upper House and Lower House if different parties are elected to control them that is up to him
It could be, but it won't be. The Tories could have gotten ahead of this issue, and they decided to do nothing. That was their choice, but the risk was somone for whom it was a matter of interest, like Brown, would get in a position to push things, and that has happened. Starmer might well water it all down yet, it won't be a priority despite keeping things in, but something is going to happen now.
Fine, then as soon as the Tories take control of the elected upper house they will seek to wreck Starmer's legislative agenda
This is why you are your own worst enemy. Rather than manage change so it suits you, like Conservatives traditionally have done, you just resist and resist, then throw a tantrum if you lose out.
The Reform Act of 1832? Home Rule in the late 19th century? The Lloyd George Budget of 1909 and subsequent Parliament Act entrenching Commons supremacy? The abolition of most of the hereditary peers in 1999 ( though eventually leading to the Cranborne Blair deal)? Even devolution to Scotland and Wales in the 1997 referendums which the Conservatives opposed?
The Tories and then the Conservatives have normally opposed most major constitutional reforms, after all they are supposed to be traditionalist conservatives. Even if they have then reluctantly accepted them
On topic, I think the Tories are toast and Sunak cannot revive them. A further change of PM would be a further farce. They are just going through the motions now before a long period of opposition.
Not that I am optomistic for a Starmer government, and I don't expect a landslide victory.
None of them has articulated anything much more than a shuffling of the deckchairs, or a re-slicing of the pie, Starmer included.
As you suggest in your last line, it would take a good optometrist to distinguish between them.
I think a Labour government - if we get one - will be a lot bolder and more radical than is currently being signalled. I don’t think there will be much choice.
I think it’s fair to say that after an election we mostly don’t end up with the politicians that are presented to us before said election, but it seems brave to bet the house on Starmer surprising on the bold & radical upside.
I think that the SNP will be part of why he will surprise on the upside. He’ll want to make it very hard for them to vote against a minority Labour government in Parliament. I’m expecting quite a bold approach to tax and redistribution, as well as a far closer relationship with the EU than is currently being eluded to.
In that case those Redwallers are going to be dreadfully disappointed when Sir Keir doesn't follow through on electronic tagging of asylum seekers and naming & shaming of drug users; good God, there may even be backsliding on not going back to the EU, to the single market, to the customs union or freedom of movement!
I do wonder if SKS has the chutzpah to pull off such a volte-face. With Tone such slipperiness was part of the package and he was good at it, perhaps not so endearing if your USP is stolid, boring dependability.
Starmer is a proven liar (not necessarily a bad thing in a politician); he is lying about the EU. He will take us far back in as he can - the bigger the Labour majority the closer to Brussels we will go. He needs the EU to play ball tho (no certainty). He will need a new name for “Free Movement” - some tiny tweak that enables him to pretend it’s not Free Movement
If he gets that we will go back in to the SM/CU in all but name and might well rejoin within the decade
He can sell all this as dire necessity, due to the desperate times. Could work
After the advertures of Boris the Liar, are people bothered by politicians being liars any more? This is post-truth politics where it no longer matters what the facts or realities on the ground are. All that matters is that the repeated lie upsets the other side.
Starmer is a liar - lets all be very clear about that. But he lied to secure the votes of anti-semite trot cultists so that he could drive them out of the Labour party. There are good lies and bad lies, I'd say those were good ones.
Starmer's problem is this. So far, he's benefitted from his 'opponents' being seen as nasty and vile. His dissemblance is therefore not really called out because people are so focused on getting his opponents out that they have given Starmer a free pass. That was the case with Corbyn, with Starmer being the anti-Johnson etc. Put simply, Starmer is someone who benefits immensely when his opponents are unlikeable.
Sunak is not that sort of an opponent. Yes, he doesn't have a common touch, he's rich, he's a geek etc but he's not hateable. In that situation, people start to pay a lot more attention about whom they are being asked to choose rather than just voting for x because they are not y.
Give it as we start to get into 2024. Starmer is going to be coming under a huge barrage to explain his positions on a whole range of issues - Europe, tax, trans issues etc. The more issues he is questioned on, the greater the chances he slips up. And gets hammered for it.
I think Sunak is a far nicer person than Starmer.
Agreed.
Starmer is my MP. First of all, he is very unresponsive (my wife has written to him on several occasions with no reply - yes he is LOTO but still).
But what really got me was his first election leaflet in 2015. He had three endorsements - one was from Frank Dobson and the second from Glenda Jackson. Fair enough, the retiring MP plus the MP for the constituency over
The third thought was from the Chair of the King's Cross Mosque. Why the appeal to religion? Why not Father Ted? To me, that was how he was willing to turn to faction groups to boost his position. That's not a great stance in a national al leader.
Politics boils down to collecting up factional groups and herding them together. I’m trying to remember which politician likened it to herding cats - American I think.
Joe Biden got the job because that is one of his core skills - coalition building.
This may seem old fashioned and rather tacky. But it brings people together and builds consensus. As opposed to the Only The Pure And Faithful zealotry.
You are right, successful leaderships are built with coalitions.
But Starmer wasn't hearing a coalition of groups, he was appealing to one. The others didn't get a look in nor were mentioned.
Fair enough, you may say, in the constituency, that block vote is very significant. But it gives an impression that only one group counts.
That’s exactly how classic politics works. Because constituencies contain large lumps of a few groups, not a perfect national average of all. Only a few groups count in each constituency. One of the key political tricks is for the politician to convince people that he is looking out for *you* - for a very specific value of “you”.
There was a rather good series of explanations of this in the series “Boss” with Kelsey Grammer as Mayor of Chicago
Absolutely, I know how it works. This is what it leads to.
40 years ago, the equivalent would be to play the Irish vote in N London constituencies.
That led to several MPs who were, let's say, sympathetic to the IRA view of the world. That may have been their original views but no doubt they were influenced by their constituencies.
Appealing to only one part of your constituents not all leads to problems.
No, they were pro-PIRA because that is what they wanted to be.
Hence a certain ex-Mayor of London. He would would spend time and effort trying to blacken the names of PIRA victims, if their deaths caused the wrong kind of outrage.
Actually, that's not correct. In the 70s and early 80s, those seats tended to be represented by Labour MPs of Irish heritage but who were right-wing in the party.
The left wanted them out. They had control of the CLPs in many cases but they also recognised that getting rid of an Irish MP in such constituencies risked an electoral backlash from the irish community. Especially as their replacements were not Irish (Corbyn, for example).
Thus the play to PIRA. It 'showed' the Irish community the left was on their side while getting rid of MPs from the communities at the same time.
On topic, I think the Tories are toast and Sunak cannot revive them. A further change of PM would be a further farce. They are just going through the motions now before a long period of opposition.
Not that I am optomistic for a Starmer government, and I don't expect a landslide victory.
None of them has articulated anything much more than a shuffling of the deckchairs, or a re-slicing of the pie, Starmer included.
As you suggest in your last line, it would take a good optometrist to distinguish between them.
I think a Labour government - if we get one - will be a lot bolder and more radical than is currently being signalled. I don’t think there will be much choice.
I think it’s fair to say that after an election we mostly don’t end up with the politicians that are presented to us before said election, but it seems brave to bet the house on Starmer surprising on the bold & radical upside.
I think that the SNP will be part of why he will surprise on the upside. He’ll want to make it very hard for them to vote against a minority Labour government in Parliament. I’m expecting quite a bold approach to tax and redistribution, as well as a far closer relationship with the EU than is currently being eluded to.
In that case those Redwallers are going to be dreadfully disappointed when Sir Keir doesn't follow through on electronic tagging of asylum seekers and naming & shaming of drug users; good God, there may even be backsliding on not going back to the EU, to the single market, to the customs union or freedom of movement!
I do wonder if SKS has the chutzpah to pull off such a volte-face. With Tone such slipperiness was part of the package and he was good at it, perhaps not so endearing if your USP is stolid, boring dependability.
Starmer is a proven liar (not necessarily a bad thing in a politician); he is lying about the EU. He will take us far back in as he can - the bigger the Labour majority the closer to Brussels we will go. He needs the EU to play ball tho (no certainty). He will need a new name for “Free Movement” - some tiny tweak that enables him to pretend it’s not Free Movement
If he gets that we will go back in to the SM/CU in all but name and might well rejoin within the decade
He can sell all this as dire necessity, due to the desperate times. Could work
After the advertures of Boris the Liar, are people bothered by politicians being liars any more? This is post-truth politics where it no longer matters what the facts or realities on the ground are. All that matters is that the repeated lie upsets the other side.
Starmer is a liar - lets all be very clear about that. But he lied to secure the votes of anti-semite trot cultists so that he could drive them out of the Labour party. There are good lies and bad lies, I'd say those were good ones.
Starmer's problem is this. So far, he's benefitted from his 'opponents' being seen as nasty and vile. His dissemblance is therefore not really called out because people are so focused on getting his opponents out that they have given Starmer a free pass. That was the case with Corbyn, with Starmer being the anti-Johnson etc. Put simply, Starmer is someone who benefits immensely when his opponents are unlikeable.
Sunak is not that sort of an opponent. Yes, he doesn't have a common touch, he's rich, he's a geek etc but he's not hateable. In that situation, people start to pay a lot more attention about whom they are being asked to choose rather than just voting for x because they are not y.
Give it as we start to get into 2024. Starmer is going to be coming under a huge barrage to explain his positions on a whole range of issues - Europe, tax, trans issues etc. The more issues he is questioned on, the greater the chances he slips up. And gets hammered for it.
I think Sunak is a far nicer person than Starmer.
Agreed.
Starmer is my MP. First of all, he is very unresponsive (my wife has written to him on several occasions with no reply - yes he is LOTO but still).
But what really got me was his first election leaflet in 2015. He had three endorsements - one was from Frank Dobson and the second from Glenda Jackson. Fair enough, the retiring MP plus the MP for the constituency over
The third thought was from the Chair of the King's Cross Mosque. Why the appeal to religion? Why not Father Ted? To me, that was how he was willing to turn to faction groups to boost his position. That's not a great stance in a national al leader.
Politics boils down to collecting up factional groups and herding them together. I’m trying to remember which politician likened it to herding cats - American I think.
Joe Biden got the job because that is one of his core skills - coalition building.
This may seem old fashioned and rather tacky. But it brings people together and builds consensus. As opposed to the Only The Pure And Faithful zealotry.
You are right, successful leaderships are built with coalitions.
But Starmer wasn't hearing a coalition of groups, he was appealing to one. The others didn't get a look in nor were mentioned.
Fair enough, you may say, in the constituency, that block vote is very significant. But it gives an impression that only one group counts.
That’s exactly how classic politics works. Because constituencies contain large lumps of a few groups, not a perfect national average of all. Only a few groups count in each constituency. One of the key political tricks is for the politician to convince people that he is looking out for *you* - for a very specific value of “you”.
There was a rather good series of explanations of this in the series “Boss” with Kelsey Grammer as Mayor of Chicago
Absolutely, I know how it works. This is what it leads to.
40 years ago, the equivalent would be to play the Irish vote in N London constituencies.
That led to several MPs who were, let's say, sympathetic to the IRA view of the world. That may have been their original views but no doubt they were influenced by their constituencies.
Appealing to only one part of your constituents not all leads to problems.
No, they were pro-PIRA because that is what they wanted to be.
Hence a certain ex-Mayor of London. He would would spend time and effort trying to blacken the names of PIRA victims, if their deaths caused the wrong kind of outrage.
Actually, that's not correct. In the 70s and early 80s, those seats tended to be represented by Labour MPs of Irish heritage but who were right-wing in the party.
The left wanted them out. They had control of the CLPs in many cases but they also recognised that getting rid of an Irish MP in such constituencies risked an electoral backlash from the irish community. Especially as their replacements were not Irish (Corbyn, for example).
Thus the play to PIRA. It 'showed' the Irish community the left was on their side while getting rid of MPs from the communities at the same time.
I’ve never seen any sign that the PIRA support was anything other than a true belief.
Politically convenient in a context, sure. But Corbyn et al weren’t acting
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
Because Cornwall house prices have gone off sale in the areas you see, the houses being built are architect designed to appeal to people. Who are paying the architect directly, often.
Bit like in Wiltshire. Malmesbury is all very nice. The shit is hidden, literally, over the hill.
But this is bollocks. I’m here in Cornwall, visiting all my extended and large Cornish family, I am Cornish, I come to Cornwall all the time
I can see what I can see, right in front of my eyes
There are a few hideous redbrick nightmares but not many at all. Most are pleasant, a few are excellent
I do wonder if King Chas is subtly at work. One of the biggest housing developments in the county is Nansledan in Newquay. It’s quite Poundbury. It’s on Duchy of Cornwall land
Again, it’s nice
That’s the front of house nice stuff. Look deeper.
Bit like Venice. I’m always impressed how people manage not to see the poverty there.
On topic, I think the Tories are toast and Sunak cannot revive them. A further change of PM would be a further farce. They are just going through the motions now before a long period of opposition.
Not that I am optomistic for a Starmer government, and I don't expect a landslide victory.
None of them has articulated anything much more than a shuffling of the deckchairs, or a re-slicing of the pie, Starmer included.
As you suggest in your last line, it would take a good optometrist to distinguish between them.
I think a Labour government - if we get one - will be a lot bolder and more radical than is currently being signalled. I don’t think there will be much choice.
I think it’s fair to say that after an election we mostly don’t end up with the politicians that are presented to us before said election, but it seems brave to bet the house on Starmer surprising on the bold & radical upside.
I think that the SNP will be part of why he will surprise on the upside. He’ll want to make it very hard for them to vote against a minority Labour government in Parliament. I’m expecting quite a bold approach to tax and redistribution, as well as a far closer relationship with the EU than is currently being eluded to.
In that case those Redwallers are going to be dreadfully disappointed when Sir Keir doesn't follow through on electronic tagging of asylum seekers and naming & shaming of drug users; good God, there may even be backsliding on not going back to the EU, to the single market, to the customs union or freedom of movement!
I do wonder if SKS has the chutzpah to pull off such a volte-face. With Tone such slipperiness was part of the package and he was good at it, perhaps not so endearing if your USP is stolid, boring dependability.
Starmer is a proven liar (not necessarily a bad thing in a politician); he is lying about the EU. He will take us far back in as he can - the bigger the Labour majority the closer to Brussels we will go. He needs the EU to play ball tho (no certainty). He will need a new name for “Free Movement” - some tiny tweak that enables him to pretend it’s not Free Movement
If he gets that we will go back in to the SM/CU in all but name and might well rejoin within the decade
He can sell all this as dire necessity, due to the desperate times. Could work
After the advertures of Boris the Liar, are people bothered by politicians being liars any more? This is post-truth politics where it no longer matters what the facts or realities on the ground are. All that matters is that the repeated lie upsets the other side.
Starmer is a liar - lets all be very clear about that. But he lied to secure the votes of anti-semite trot cultists so that he could drive them out of the Labour party. There are good lies and bad lies, I'd say those were good ones.
Starmer's problem is this. So far, he's benefitted from his 'opponents' being seen as nasty and vile. His dissemblance is therefore not really called out because people are so focused on getting his opponents out that they have given Starmer a free pass. That was the case with Corbyn, with Starmer being the anti-Johnson etc. Put simply, Starmer is someone who benefits immensely when his opponents are unlikeable.
Sunak is not that sort of an opponent. Yes, he doesn't have a common touch, he's rich, he's a geek etc but he's not hateable. In that situation, people start to pay a lot more attention about whom they are being asked to choose rather than just voting for x because they are not y.
Give it as we start to get into 2024. Starmer is going to be coming under a huge barrage to explain his positions on a whole range of issues - Europe, tax, trans issues etc. The more issues he is questioned on, the greater the chances he slips up. And gets hammered for it.
I think Sunak is a far nicer person than Starmer.
Agreed.
Starmer is my MP. First of all, he is very unresponsive (my wife has written to him on several occasions with no reply - yes he is LOTO but still).
But what really got me was his first election leaflet in 2015. He had three endorsements - one was from Frank Dobson and the second from Glenda Jackson. Fair enough, the retiring MP plus the MP for the constituency over
The third thought was from the Chair of the King's Cross Mosque. Why the appeal to religion? Why not Father Ted? To me, that was how he was willing to turn to faction groups to boost his position. That's not a great stance in a national al leader.
Politics boils down to collecting up factional groups and herding them together. I’m trying to remember which politician likened it to herding cats - American I think.
Joe Biden got the job because that is one of his core skills - coalition building.
This may seem old fashioned and rather tacky. But it brings people together and builds consensus. As opposed to the Only The Pure And Faithful zealotry.
You are right, successful leaderships are built with coalitions.
But Starmer wasn't hearing a coalition of groups, he was appealing to one. The others didn't get a look in nor were mentioned.
Fair enough, you may say, in the constituency, that block vote is very significant. But it gives an impression that only one group counts.
That’s exactly how classic politics works. Because constituencies contain large lumps of a few groups, not a perfect national average of all. Only a few groups count in each constituency. One of the key political tricks is for the politician to convince people that he is looking out for *you* - for a very specific value of “you”.
There was a rather good series of explanations of this in the series “Boss” with Kelsey Grammer as Mayor of Chicago
Absolutely, I know how it works. This is what it leads to.
40 years ago, the equivalent would be to play the Irish vote in N London constituencies.
That led to several MPs who were, let's say, sympathetic to the IRA view of the world. That may have been their original views but no doubt they were influenced by their constituencies.
Appealing to only one part of your constituents not all leads to problems.
No, they were pro-PIRA because that is what they wanted to be.
Hence a certain ex-Mayor of London. He would would spend time and effort trying to blacken the names of PIRA victims, if their deaths caused the wrong kind of outrage.
Actually, that's not correct. In the 70s and early 80s, those seats tended to be represented by Labour MPs of Irish heritage but who were right-wing in the party.
The left wanted them out. They had control of the CLPs in many cases but they also recognised that getting rid of an Irish MP in such constituencies risked an electoral backlash from the irish community. Especially as their replacements were not Irish (Corbyn, for example).
Thus the play to PIRA. It 'showed' the Irish community the left was on their side while getting rid of MPs from the communities at the same time.
I’ve never seen any sign that the PIRA support was anything other than a true belief.
Politically convenient in a context, sure. But Corbyn et al weren’t acting
Maybe not. But support for PIRA helped stave off potential issues with support - look at the 83 election result got Islington North.
If King Charles can single-handedly raise the standard of British domestic architecture and make our towns beautiful again, I suggest we get rid of democracy altogether and let him decide everything
Good call. We wouldn't have Brexited. Democracy is overated.
Two years is an eternity in politics. The short-lived Truss premiership will be ancient history by then.
It's the highly likely squeeze in living standards over the next couple of years that is worrying for the Party. Of course it's China's and Putin's fault, not theirs, and Labour have absolutely no idea what to do anything about it (most of their plans would make it rather worse) but that won't cut much ice.
Also Sunak is not at all charismatic. Neither is Starmer, of course, but he's not 20 points behind.
I would say Sunak is more charismatic than Starmer
It's like choosing between a breezeblock and a can of spam.
If King Charles can single-handedly raise the standard of British domestic architecture and make our towns beautiful again, I suggest we get rid of democracy altogether and let him decide everything
Good call. We wouldn't have Brexited. Democracy is overated.
It says something about the planning process and architecture in the U.K., that the King is the one in touch with reality and what people want.
Two years is an eternity in politics. The short-lived Truss premiership will be ancient history by then.
It's the highly likely squeeze in living standards over the next couple of years that is worrying for the Party. Of course it's China's and Putin's fault, not theirs, and Labour have absolutely no idea what to do anything about it (most of their plans would make it rather worse) but that won't cut much ice.
Also Sunak is not at all charismatic. Neither is Starmer, of course, but he's not 20 points behind.
I would say Sunak is more charismatic than Starmer
It's like choosing between a breezeblock and a can of spam.
Look at the thickness of that wall. Built to withstand Cornish storms and autumn gales. And thick enough to hide smuggled brandy from the Revenue
Built 200 years ago of proper Cornish granite and it will last another 200 years, possibly 2000, given the chance. And it is beautiful
Why can’t we do this any more?
Our walls are that thick. And a few decades older...
What we don’t see, for obvious reasons, are all the cheaply put together homes built back then that surrounded the solidly constructed stuff.
I’m in the seaside village of Mousehole, which is pretty much all like this. Solid four square granite houses for fishermen (and smugglers and wreckers). There are ancient photos on the walls of this place (the Ship Inn) showing the village in the 1880s etc. Even though the people are obviously poor and life is hard, there are no cheap nasty buildings to be seen. Quite striking
I know Mousehole. It was originally built at a time when granite and slate were the only options beyond wood and cobbing. The granite buildings are still there, the wooden ones have all gone. If you go up the hills behind the old village around the harbour the houses change quite quickly. Go down the road to Newlyn and Penzance and it’s a similar story. As I say, though, I do totally take your point. We should be building a lot better than we do.
Whether wittingly or not, they built for the future. They built handsome sturdy things that look good - even better - as the years pass. Must have been expensive and difficult, but worth it
It reminds me of excellent advice I got as a young man. “Always spend as much as you can on shoes. Women notice shoes. And expensive shoes are cheaper in the long run because you don’t have to replace them”
So true. As a nation we keep buying cheap shoes, then we look down aghast as we realise we are wearing tatty trainers from Tesco that need to be replaced AGAIN
It is time for Britain to buy Jermyn street brogues
On that note I thought you might like these lads which recently came into my possession. They're Crockett & Jones therefore some of the best brogues you can buy, and yet...they are blue. Hoping I can punt them to a Rangers supporter.
That's a little unimaginative. With some tippex and a steady hand you could have some lovely saltire brogues for your next political shindig.
On topic, I think the Tories are toast and Sunak cannot revive them. A further change of PM would be a further farce. They are just going through the motions now before a long period of opposition.
Not that I am optomistic for a Starmer government, and I don't expect a landslide victory.
None of them has articulated anything much more than a shuffling of the deckchairs, or a re-slicing of the pie, Starmer included.
As you suggest in your last line, it would take a good optometrist to distinguish between them.
I think a Labour government - if we get one - will be a lot bolder and more radical than is currently being signalled. I don’t think there will be much choice.
I think it’s fair to say that after an election we mostly don’t end up with the politicians that are presented to us before said election, but it seems brave to bet the house on Starmer surprising on the bold & radical upside.
I think that the SNP will be part of why he will surprise on the upside. He’ll want to make it very hard for them to vote against a minority Labour government in Parliament. I’m expecting quite a bold approach to tax and redistribution, as well as a far closer relationship with the EU than is currently being eluded to.
In that case those Redwallers are going to be dreadfully disappointed when Sir Keir doesn't follow through on electronic tagging of asylum seekers and naming & shaming of drug users; good God, there may even be backsliding on not going back to the EU, to the single market, to the customs union or freedom of movement!
I do wonder if SKS has the chutzpah to pull off such a volte-face. With Tone such slipperiness was part of the package and he was good at it, perhaps not so endearing if your USP is stolid, boring dependability.
Starmer is a proven liar (not necessarily a bad thing in a politician); he is lying about the EU. He will take us far back in as he can - the bigger the Labour majority the closer to Brussels we will go. He needs the EU to play ball tho (no certainty). He will need a new name for “Free Movement” - some tiny tweak that enables him to pretend it’s not Free Movement
If he gets that we will go back in to the SM/CU in all but name and might well rejoin within the decade
He can sell all this as dire necessity, due to the desperate times. Could work
After the advertures of Boris the Liar, are people bothered by politicians being liars any more? This is post-truth politics where it no longer matters what the facts or realities on the ground are. All that matters is that the repeated lie upsets the other side.
Starmer is a liar - lets all be very clear about that. But he lied to secure the votes of anti-semite trot cultists so that he could drive them out of the Labour party. There are good lies and bad lies, I'd say those were good ones.
Starmer's problem is this. So far, he's benefitted from his 'opponents' being seen as nasty and vile. His dissemblance is therefore not really called out because people are so focused on getting his opponents out that they have given Starmer a free pass. That was the case with Corbyn, with Starmer being the anti-Johnson etc. Put simply, Starmer is someone who benefits immensely when his opponents are unlikeable.
Sunak is not that sort of an opponent. Yes, he doesn't have a common touch, he's rich, he's a geek etc but he's not hateable. In that situation, people start to pay a lot more attention about whom they are being asked to choose rather than just voting for x because they are not y.
Give it as we start to get into 2024. Starmer is going to be coming under a huge barrage to explain his positions on a whole range of issues - Europe, tax, trans issues etc. The more issues he is questioned on, the greater the chances he slips up. And gets hammered for it.
I think Sunak is a far nicer person than Starmer.
Agreed.
Starmer is my MP. First of all, he is very unresponsive (my wife has written to him on several occasions with no reply - yes he is LOTO but still).
But what really got me was his first election leaflet in 2015. He had three endorsements - one was from Frank Dobson and the second from Glenda Jackson. Fair enough, the retiring MP plus the MP for the constituency over
The third thought was from the Chair of the King's Cross Mosque. Why the appeal to religion? Why not Father Ted? To me, that was how he was willing to turn to faction groups to boost his position. That's not a great stance in a national al leader.
Politics boils down to collecting up factional groups and herding them together. I’m trying to remember which politician likened it to herding cats - American I think.
Joe Biden got the job because that is one of his core skills - coalition building.
This may seem old fashioned and rather tacky. But it brings people together and builds consensus. As opposed to the Only The Pure And Faithful zealotry.
You are right, successful leaderships are built with coalitions.
But Starmer wasn't hearing a coalition of groups, he was appealing to one. The others didn't get a look in nor were mentioned.
Fair enough, you may say, in the constituency, that block vote is very significant. But it gives an impression that only one group counts.
That’s exactly how classic politics works. Because constituencies contain large lumps of a few groups, not a perfect national average of all. Only a few groups count in each constituency. One of the key political tricks is for the politician to convince people that he is looking out for *you* - for a very specific value of “you”.
There was a rather good series of explanations of this in the series “Boss” with Kelsey Grammer as Mayor of Chicago
Absolutely, I know how it works. This is what it leads to.
40 years ago, the equivalent would be to play the Irish vote in N London constituencies.
That led to several MPs who were, let's say, sympathetic to the IRA view of the world. That may have been their original views but no doubt they were influenced by their constituencies.
Appealing to only one part of your constituents not all leads to problems.
No, they were pro-PIRA because that is what they wanted to be.
Hence a certain ex-Mayor of London. He would would spend time and effort trying to blacken the names of PIRA victims, if their deaths caused the wrong kind of outrage.
On topic, I think the Tories are toast and Sunak cannot revive them. A further change of PM would be a further farce. They are just going through the motions now before a long period of opposition.
Not that I am optomistic for a Starmer government, and I don't expect a landslide victory.
None of them has articulated anything much more than a shuffling of the deckchairs, or a re-slicing of the pie, Starmer included.
As you suggest in your last line, it would take a good optometrist to distinguish between them.
I think a Labour government - if we get one - will be a lot bolder and more radical than is currently being signalled. I don’t think there will be much choice.
I think it’s fair to say that after an election we mostly don’t end up with the politicians that are presented to us before said election, but it seems brave to bet the house on Starmer surprising on the bold & radical upside.
I think that the SNP will be part of why he will surprise on the upside. He’ll want to make it very hard for them to vote against a minority Labour government in Parliament. I’m expecting quite a bold approach to tax and redistribution, as well as a far closer relationship with the EU than is currently being eluded to.
In that case those Redwallers are going to be dreadfully disappointed when Sir Keir doesn't follow through on electronic tagging of asylum seekers and naming & shaming of drug users; good God, there may even be backsliding on not going back to the EU, to the single market, to the customs union or freedom of movement!
I do wonder if SKS has the chutzpah to pull off such a volte-face. With Tone such slipperiness was part of the package and he was good at it, perhaps not so endearing if your USP is stolid, boring dependability.
Starmer is a proven liar (not necessarily a bad thing in a politician); he is lying about the EU. He will take us far back in as he can - the bigger the Labour majority the closer to Brussels we will go. He needs the EU to play ball tho (no certainty). He will need a new name for “Free Movement” - some tiny tweak that enables him to pretend it’s not Free Movement
If he gets that we will go back in to the SM/CU in all but name and might well rejoin within the decade
He can sell all this as dire necessity, due to the desperate times. Could work
After the advertures of Boris the Liar, are people bothered by politicians being liars any more? This is post-truth politics where it no longer matters what the facts or realities on the ground are. All that matters is that the repeated lie upsets the other side.
Starmer is a liar - lets all be very clear about that. But he lied to secure the votes of anti-semite trot cultists so that he could drive them out of the Labour party. There are good lies and bad lies, I'd say those were good ones.
Starmer's problem is this. So far, he's benefitted from his 'opponents' being seen as nasty and vile. His dissemblance is therefore not really called out because people are so focused on getting his opponents out that they have given Starmer a free pass. That was the case with Corbyn, with Starmer being the anti-Johnson etc. Put simply, Starmer is someone who benefits immensely when his opponents are unlikeable.
Sunak is not that sort of an opponent. Yes, he doesn't have a common touch, he's rich, he's a geek etc but he's not hateable. In that situation, people start to pay a lot more attention about whom they are being asked to choose rather than just voting for x because they are not y.
Give it as we start to get into 2024. Starmer is going to be coming under a huge barrage to explain his positions on a whole range of issues - Europe, tax, trans issues etc. The more issues he is questioned on, the greater the chances he slips up. And gets hammered for it.
I think Sunak is a far nicer person than Starmer.
Agreed.
Starmer is my MP. First of all, he is very unresponsive (my wife has written to him on several occasions with no reply - yes he is LOTO but still).
But what really got me was his first election leaflet in 2015. He had three endorsements - one was from Frank Dobson and the second from Glenda Jackson. Fair enough, the retiring MP plus the MP for the constituency over
The third thought was from the Chair of the King's Cross Mosque. Why the appeal to religion? Why not Father Ted? To me, that was how he was willing to turn to faction groups to boost his position. That's not a great stance in a national al leader.
Politics boils down to collecting up factional groups and herding them together. I’m trying to remember which politician likened it to herding cats - American I think.
Joe Biden got the job because that is one of his core skills - coalition building.
This may seem old fashioned and rather tacky. But it brings people together and builds consensus. As opposed to the Only The Pure And Faithful zealotry.
You are right, successful leaderships are built with coalitions.
But Starmer wasn't hearing a coalition of groups, he was appealing to one. The others didn't get a look in nor were mentioned.
Fair enough, you may say, in the constituency, that block vote is very significant. But it gives an impression that only one group counts.
That’s exactly how classic politics works. Because constituencies contain large lumps of a few groups, not a perfect national average of all. Only a few groups count in each constituency. One of the key political tricks is for the politician to convince people that he is looking out for *you* - for a very specific value of “you”.
There was a rather good series of explanations of this in the series “Boss” with Kelsey Grammer as Mayor of Chicago
Absolutely, I know how it works. This is what it leads to.
40 years ago, the equivalent would be to play the Irish vote in N London constituencies.
That led to several MPs who were, let's say, sympathetic to the IRA view of the world. That may have been their original views but no doubt they were influenced by their constituencies.
Appealing to only one part of your constituents not all leads to problems.
No, they were pro-PIRA because that is what they wanted to be.
Hence a certain ex-Mayor of London. He would would spend time and effort trying to blacken the names of PIRA victims, if their deaths caused the wrong kind of outrage.
My mid life crisis is demonstrated in two clear ways, marrying somebody nearly twenty years younger than me and secondly wearing loafers.
My most recent purchase.
Makes my midlife crisis project (becoming a YouTuber) seem mild in comparison. Maybe I should buy a pair of those to drive the Tesla in! Are they vegan...?
I know Louis Vuitton are transitioning towards a vegan future.
I don't think these particular loafers are vegan but some of their trainers are.
Their luggage already has a fairly brittle plasticcy look to it.
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
Because Cornwall house prices have gone off sale in the areas you see, the houses being built are architect designed to appeal to people. Who are paying the architect directly, often.
Bit like in Wiltshire. Malmesbury is all very nice. The shit is hidden, literally, over the hill.
But this is bollocks. I’m here in Cornwall, visiting all my extended and large Cornish family, I am Cornish, I come to Cornwall all the time
I can see what I can see, right in front of my eyes
There are a few hideous redbrick nightmares but not many at all. Most are pleasant, a few are excellent
I do wonder if King Chas is subtly at work. One of the biggest housing developments in the county is Nansledan in Newquay. It’s quite Poundbury. It’s on Duchy of Cornwall land
Again, it’s nice
That’s the front of house nice stuff. Look deeper.
Bit like Venice. I’m always impressed how people manage not to see the poverty there.
Are you saying the Doge's Palace isn't representative?
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
Because Cornwall house prices have gone off sale in the areas you see, the houses being built are architect designed to appeal to people. Who are paying the architect directly, often.
Bit like in Wiltshire. Malmesbury is all very nice. The shit is hidden, literally, over the hill.
But this is bollocks. I’m here in Cornwall, visiting all my extended and large Cornish family, I am Cornish, I come to Cornwall all the time
I can see what I can see, right in front of my eyes
There are a few hideous redbrick nightmares but not many at all. Most are pleasant, a few are excellent
I do wonder if King Chas is subtly at work. One of the biggest housing developments in the county is Nansledan in Newquay. It’s quite Poundbury. It’s on Duchy of Cornwall land
Again, it’s nice
That’s the front of house nice stuff. Look deeper.
Bit like Venice. I’m always impressed how people manage not to see the poverty there.
Are you saying the Doge's Palace isn't representative?
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
To build any kind of power station takes years.
Interestingly, one guarantee of gas supply is the me fact we are importing it for Europe, and burning it to generate levy for them to sell via the interconnectors.
Off-topic, but I finally got round to sealing all the little gaps round my front door and by a loose window seal. Also got a wind-proof letterbox. What a difference a few quid of sticky foam tape can make! Putting up with 'oh, it's just a tiny, tiny draft' for ages and then having it gone and realising that it was actually a really quite significant all this time.
Not sure it makes a difference in the grand scheme of a 19th century sandstone building with no insulation, but it certainly feels nicer.
Can I just say that 1883, the prequel to Yelllowstone, is excellent
A simple old fashioned western. The male lead is handsome, white, dependable, honourable, and reliably homicidal in a likeable way. Villains are simply shot dead on sight with no faff about stupid Woke concepts like “justice”
Animals are gutted. Germans are mocked. The women are beautiful and kneel as they serve food to the men. It’s great
It is indeed and the followup 1923 looks like it will be interesting as well, episodes just started coming out. The English was not bad as well, not as good as 1883 but watchable for sure.
I couldn’t get on with The English. I love 1883. Best TV western for decades. Shows there is a huge yearning for straight up non-lecturing drama
It has got criticisms from lefty journalists that it perpetuates stereotypes and the cast is not diverse and representative and OH FUCK OFF SHUT UP SIT DOWN
Wokeness is the death of art
Ironically, if the Woke journalists could take off their Outrage Goggles, they’d notice that the taciturn black character Thomas is one of the most compelling, sympathetic performances on any show at the moment. And the writers absolutely touch on his race. The difference is the writers don’t shove the sermon down your throat.
Shoving the sermon down your throat seems to be the only point of new drama at the moment.
It's hardly surprising that audiences take against it.
Yellowstone itself is just shoving a different one.
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
Because Cornwall house prices have gone off sale in the areas you see, the houses being built are architect designed to appeal to people. Who are paying the architect directly, often.
Bit like in Wiltshire. Malmesbury is all very nice. The shit is hidden, literally, over the hill.
But this is bollocks. I’m here in Cornwall, visiting all my extended and large Cornish family, I am Cornish, I come to Cornwall all the time
I can see what I can see, right in front of my eyes
There are a few hideous redbrick nightmares but not many at all. Most are pleasant, a few are excellent
I do wonder if King Chas is subtly at work. One of the biggest housing developments in the county is Nansledan in Newquay. It’s quite Poundbury. It’s on Duchy of Cornwall land
Again, it’s nice
That’s the front of house nice stuff. Look deeper.
Bit like Venice. I’m always impressed how people manage not to see the poverty there.
I just did. To REALLY make sure I’m not hallucinating I just drove around Persimmon’s starter-home bargain-housing Copperfields development in Truro
It’s on a windy hillside and there are bleak corners. Some of the cheaper houses are staining already. It’s not the Nash Terraces and it’s not downtown Siena. And yet for whatever reason the developers have used granite grace notes throughout, there is an apparent attempt at proper quoining, there are nice leafy bits and even a kind of village green - with playground
It’s not for me but I can imagine others liking it - especially families - and it definitely says YOU ARE IN CORNWALL
In short it looks like they’ve taken a bit of care. Which is not the sensation you get in so many new housing estates around Britain. Why? My guess really is King Charles watching over them. His own neo-Georgian housing estate (where I am now in Waitrose) is 3 minutes drive from Copperfields
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't, in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
The Republicans have a few more issues to rally round culturally than the Tories, which resonate in ways that don't work so well here.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
The radical anti-establishment fervour of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Give me a break.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
Nonsense, the ERG are establishment to their bones, they are just more inclined to rebel than the average Tory MP.
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
If you call 'resurgence' losing the last Presidential election, failing to win the Senate in the midterms and scraping home in the House
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't, in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
Corbyn, MP since 1983, is not remotely anti establishment. He’s part of the furniture.
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
Because Cornwall house prices have gone off sale in the areas you see, the houses being built are architect designed to appeal to people. Who are paying the architect directly, often.
Bit like in Wiltshire. Malmesbury is all very nice. The shit is hidden, literally, over the hill.
But this is bollocks. I’m here in Cornwall, visiting all my extended and large Cornish family, I am Cornish, I come to Cornwall all the time
I can see what I can see, right in front of my eyes
There are a few hideous redbrick nightmares but not many at all. Most are pleasant, a few are excellent
I do wonder if King Chas is subtly at work. One of the biggest housing developments in the county is Nansledan in Newquay. It’s quite Poundbury. It’s on Duchy of Cornwall land
Again, it’s nice
That’s the front of house nice stuff. Look deeper.
Bit like Venice. I’m always impressed how people manage not to see the poverty there.
I just did. To REALLY make sure I’m not hallucinating I just drove around Persimmon’s starter-home bargain-housing Copperfields development in Truro
It’s on a windy hillside and there are bleak corners. Some of the cheaper houses are staining already. It’s not the Nash Terraces and it’s not downtown Siena. And yet for whatever reason the developers have used granite grace notes throughout, there is an apparent attempt at proper quoining, there are nice leafy bits and even a kind of village green - with playground
It’s not for me but I can imagine others liking it - especially families - and it definitely says YOU ARE IN CORNWALL
In short it looks like they’ve taken a bit of care. Which is not the sensation you get in so many new housing estates around Britain. Why? My guess really is King Charles watching over them. His own neo-Georgian housing estate (where I am now in Waitrose) is 3 minutes drive from Copperfields
Neo Georgian Waitrose, 2 minutes ago:
High quality design can occur for a number of reasons, landowner, developer, local planning authority - but you need to swallow the increased build cost that comes from deviating from the usual standard house types, so the local housing market (and prices) is a big factor.
Barking riverside in east London is an interesting example, the new flats there are built in intricate brickwork and have large windows and high ceilings, they are impressive for 250k - 400k flats. The plots are sold off to developers with design codes that they have to follow and the developers bid accordingly. So that way Bellway homes end up building decent looking apartment buildings.
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
Because Cornwall house prices have gone off sale in the areas you see, the houses being built are architect designed to appeal to people. Who are paying the architect directly, often.
Bit like in Wiltshire. Malmesbury is all very nice. The shit is hidden, literally, over the hill.
But this is bollocks. I’m here in Cornwall, visiting all my extended and large Cornish family, I am Cornish, I come to Cornwall all the time
I can see what I can see, right in front of my eyes
There are a few hideous redbrick nightmares but not many at all. Most are pleasant, a few are excellent
I do wonder if King Chas is subtly at work. One of the biggest housing developments in the county is Nansledan in Newquay. It’s quite Poundbury. It’s on Duchy of Cornwall land
Again, it’s nice
That’s the front of house nice stuff. Look deeper.
Bit like Venice. I’m always impressed how people manage not to see the poverty there.
I just did. To REALLY make sure I’m not hallucinating I just drove around Persimmon’s starter-home bargain-housing Copperfields development in Truro
It’s on a windy hillside and there are bleak corners. Some of the cheaper houses are staining already. It’s not the Nash Terraces and it’s not downtown Siena. And yet for whatever reason the developers have used granite grace notes throughout, there is an apparent attempt at proper quoining, there are nice leafy bits and even a kind of village green - with playground
It’s not for me but I can imagine others liking it - especially families - and it definitely says YOU ARE IN CORNWALL
In short it looks like they’ve taken a bit of care. Which is not the sensation you get in so many new housing estates around Britain. Why? My guess really is King Charles watching over them. His own neo-Georgian housing estate (where I am now in Waitrose) is 3 minutes drive from Copperfields
Neo Georgian Waitrose, 2 minutes ago:
Have to agree with you here. In the main, UK house builders make the smallest, cheapest shit they can get away with, and give no thought whatsoever to those who will have to live in it.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
Nonsense, the ERG are establishment to their bones, they are just more inclined to rebel than the average Tory MP.
No they aren't, they are not even establishment in Sunak's Tory party now. They certainly won't be establishment once Starmer's government gets in either, even the SNP and Corbynites will be more establishment than the ERG then (though they might retake control of the Conservative Party in opposition)
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
The radical anti-establishment fervour of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Give me a break.
The anti abortion, anti gay marriage, tough on immigration social conservative JRM is certainly not part of the liberal establishment
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
If you call 'resurgence' losing the last Presidential election, failing to win the Senate in the midterms and scraping home in the House
If under 30K in total in GA, WI and AZ had voted GOP instead of Dems, the. it would have been a dead-heat.
Re the Senate, the GOP lost a seat but kept a seat they lost in the 2020 Presidential election (WI). The Dems barely scrapped home in Nevada.
With the House, the GOP came 3% ahead in the popular vote.
Labour should offer 35h free per week of childcare for up to three kids per family from age 1. I get the feeling the Tories are going to do it to get families back on side as Dave did with free childcare for 3 and 4 year old kids. It's an absolute no brainer of a policy.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't, in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
We’ve seen battles between different parts (or generations ) of the establishment these past few years, but no genuine outsiders or fresh thinking. Farage, enjoys presenting himself as an outsider on account of his never winning enough votes to get elected, but he’s as much is a product of an establishment as any of them.
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
The Republicans have a few more issues to rally round culturally than the Tories, which resonate in ways that don't work so well here.
I remember hearing/reading a little piece about Frank Dobson when he was running for London mayor (bless). He was chatting to an elderly lady about his politics, views on South Africa - whatever. And after a while she interrupted him to say "That's nice dear, but what about my bins?".
I sometimes think about that when I see people on either side of the world-of-woke arguing their case and claiming it'll make all the difference at an election.
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
If you go up the hill from the fishing port at Newlyn you get some very low grade housing, though it’s 60s and 70s, I think, rather than newer stuff. There are also needle drops in the public toilets by the port. Now that I live in the South-West I understand just how poorly served it has been by central government. It’s definitely not the affluent south. That stops at the Dorset border!
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't, in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
Corbyn, MP since 1983, is not remotely anti establishment. He’s part of the furniture.
True, but he's a token voice nodding towards being anti establishment. Truth is he's never seemed as happy as when he can rail against the front benches, and they're happy to have him there to point to.
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
Because Cornwall house prices have gone off sale in the areas you see, the houses being built are architect designed to appeal to people. Who are paying the architect directly, often.
Bit like in Wiltshire. Malmesbury is all very nice. The shit is hidden, literally, over the hill.
But this is bollocks. I’m here in Cornwall, visiting all my extended and large Cornish family, I am Cornish, I come to Cornwall all the time
I can see what I can see, right in front of my eyes
There are a few hideous redbrick nightmares but not many at all. Most are pleasant, a few are excellent
I do wonder if King Chas is subtly at work. One of the biggest housing developments in the county is Nansledan in Newquay. It’s quite Poundbury. It’s on Duchy of Cornwall land
Again, it’s nice
That’s the front of house nice stuff. Look deeper.
Bit like Venice. I’m always impressed how people manage not to see the poverty there.
I just did. To REALLY make sure I’m not hallucinating I just drove around Persimmon’s starter-home bargain-housing Copperfields development in Truro
It’s on a windy hillside and there are bleak corners. Some of the cheaper houses are staining already. It’s not the Nash Terraces and it’s not downtown Siena. And yet for whatever reason the developers have used granite grace notes throughout, there is an apparent attempt at proper quoining, there are nice leafy bits and even a kind of village green - with playground
It’s not for me but I can imagine others liking it - especially families - and it definitely says YOU ARE IN CORNWALL
In short it looks like they’ve taken a bit of care. Which is not the sensation you get in so many new housing estates around Britain. Why? My guess really is King Charles watching over them. His own neo-Georgian housing estate (where I am now in Waitrose) is 3 minutes drive from Copperfields
Neo Georgian Waitrose, 2 minutes ago:
Have to agree with you here. In the main, UK house builders make the smallest, cheapest shit they can get away with, and give no thought whatsoever to those who will have to live in it.
It's good to see even small improvements.
And builders build those houses because they can (and sell them successfully afterwards).
Speculative Metroland suburbia of 100 years ago was bland (though it's more interesting after a century of incremental changes) but not mean or shoddy.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
Nonsense, the ERG are establishment to their bones, they are just more inclined to rebel than the average Tory MP.
No they aren't, they are not even establishment in Sunak's Tory party now. They certainly won't be establishment once Starmer's government gets in either, even the SNP and Corbynites will be more establishment than the ERG then (though they might retake control of the Conservative Party in opposition)
They are of utterly traditional background and utterly traditional views. They may disagree with the government of the day from time to time, but they were in the ascendency before, and there's nothing to say they won't be again, they have zero interest in rocking the boat systemically. They are as establishment as they come.
Your idea they are not because they don't like Sunak is stupid, and I can prove it - would you have said Sunak was not an establishment figure when he was out of the Cabinet? Bollocks you would have.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't, in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
Corbyn, MP since 1983, is not remotely anti establishment. He’s part of the furniture.
True, but he's a token voice nodding towards being anti establishment. Truth is he's never seemed as happy as when he can rail against the front benches, and they're happy to have him there to point to.
He’s a useful establishment idiot. So as long as radicalism is channeled through people like Corbyn , it will remain blunted, impotent and harmless.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't, in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
We’ve seen battles between different parts (or generations ) of the establishment these past few years, but no genuine outsiders or fresh thinking. Farage, enjoys presenting himself as an outsider on account of his never winning enough votes to get elected, but he’s as much is a product of an establishment as any of them.
It is a hard thing to define, the Establishment. But what we had was a debate where sure the majority of MPs were remainers, for example, but there were plenty of Leavers too, and on both sides were people of traditional background for MPs, and traditional paths to power, and absent that policy fairly indistinguishable views from those of their party on the other side.
It was a bitter period of politics, but there was no surge of atypical MPs, and there won't be when Labour win in 2024 either.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
The radical anti-establishment fervour of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Give me a break.
The anti abortion, anti gay marriage, tough on immigration social conservative JRM is certainly not part of the liberal establishment
He’s part of the conservative establishment, no shortage of money, connections and power. A nepo baby.
"Dutch central bank president Klaas Knot has called on companies to increase wages, saying their profits are enough to merit a decent pay rise. A pay rise of between 5% and 7%, coupled with the government’s price ceiling on energy, would be enough to head off the impact of rising prices, Knot told television programme Nieuwsuur on Thursday evening.
‘We have done the calculations and we don’t want wages to decline further. If you want to keep wages at the same level, then you need a pay rise of between 5% and 7%. It is an average at a macro-economic level,’ he said."
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
The radical anti-establishment fervour of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Give me a break.
The anti abortion, anti gay marriage, tough on immigration social conservative JRM is certainly not part of the liberal establishment
He’s part of the conservative establishment, no shortage of money, connections and power. A nepo baby.
You may as well say Corbyn is part of the socialist establishment.
Yet the UK is now run by a liberal establishment of economic and social liberals on the whole. Indeed there are now more left leaning figures in the judiciary, media, academia, parliament etc than traditional social conservatives
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
The radical anti-establishment fervour of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Give me a break.
The anti abortion, anti gay marriage, tough on immigration social conservative JRM is certainly not part of the liberal establishment
He’s part of the conservative establishment, no shortage of money, connections and power. A nepo baby.
You may as well say Corbyn is part of the socialist establishment.
Yet the UK is now run by a liberal establishment of economic and social liberals on the whole. Indeed there are now more left leaning figures in the judiciary, media, academia, parliament etc than traditional social conservatives
Nah, that’s a lie that conservatives tell themselves to justify bad behaviour. There are conservative parts of the establishment and liberal parts of the establishment.
If daddy edited the Times, you are part of the establishment.
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
If you call 'resurgence' losing the last Presidential election, failing to win the Senate in the midterms and scraping home in the House
The Republicans are a more successful party, in general, than the Conservatives are. In large measure because they play dirty and won’t give up.
It’s heartening to read (and see) Leon’s comments on Cornish development.
Worth a Speccy article if he can figure out why and how Cornwall seems to be getting this right.
I am not sure the gentrification of Cornwall will scale nationally.
"How I learned to stop wanting a place to live and love the Emmet's" - a heart-warming piece on the Cornish new affection for rich incomers and their expensive houses.
It’s heartening to read (and see) Leon’s comments on Cornish development.
Worth a Speccy article if he can figure out why and how Cornwall seems to be getting this right.
I am not sure the gentrification of Cornwall will scale nationally.
"How I learned to stop wanting a place to live and love the Emmet's" - a heart-warming piece on the Cornish new affection for rich incomers and their expensive houses.
Caught up with a chap at work before Xmas. Lovely chap. Commutes into London from his place in the Lizzard. Flies in via Newquay, stays overnight, flies back after work the next day.
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
If you call 'resurgence' losing the last Presidential election, failing to win the Senate in the midterms and scraping home in the House
If under 30K in total in GA, WI and AZ had voted GOP instead of Dems, the. it would have been a dead-heat.
Re the Senate, the GOP lost a seat but kept a seat they lost in the 2020 Presidential election (WI). The Dems barely scrapped home in Nevada.
With the House, the GOP came 3% ahead in the popular vote.
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
I'm a civil servant, getting a 0% pay rise this year. The Tories can be as "woke" or as "anti-woke" as they like, they aren't getting my vote.
On topic, I think the Tories are toast and Sunak cannot revive them. A further change of PM would be a further farce. They are just going through the motions now before a long period of opposition.
Not that I am optomistic for a Starmer government, and I don't expect a landslide victory.
None of them has articulated anything much more than a shuffling of the deckchairs, or a re-slicing of the pie, Starmer included.
As you suggest in your last line, it would take a good optometrist to distinguish between them.
I think a Labour government - if we get one - will be a lot bolder and more radical than is currently being signalled. I don’t think there will be much choice.
I think it’s fair to say that after an election we mostly don’t end up with the politicians that are presented to us before said election, but it seems brave to bet the house on Starmer surprising on the bold & radical upside.
I think that the SNP will be part of why he will surprise on the upside. He’ll want to make it very hard for them to vote against a minority Labour government in Parliament. I’m expecting quite a bold approach to tax and redistribution, as well as a far closer relationship with the EU than is currently being eluded to.
In that case those Redwallers are going to be dreadfully disappointed when Sir Keir doesn't follow through on electronic tagging of asylum seekers and naming & shaming of drug users; good God, there may even be backsliding on not going back to the EU, to the single market, to the customs union or freedom of movement!
I do wonder if SKS has the chutzpah to pull off such a volte-face. With Tone such slipperiness was part of the package and he was good at it, perhaps not so endearing if your USP is stolid, boring dependability.
Starmer is a proven liar (not necessarily a bad thing in a politician); he is lying about the EU. He will take us far back in as he can - the bigger the Labour majority the closer to Brussels we will go. He needs the EU to play ball tho (no certainty). He will need a new name for “Free Movement” - some tiny tweak that enables him to pretend it’s not Free Movement
If he gets that we will go back in to the SM/CU in all but name and might well rejoin within the decade
He can sell all this as dire necessity, due to the desperate times. Could work
After the advertures of Boris the Liar, are people bothered by politicians being liars any more? This is post-truth politics where it no longer matters what the facts or realities on the ground are. All that matters is that the repeated lie upsets the other side.
Starmer is a liar - lets all be very clear about that. But he lied to secure the votes of anti-semite trot cultists so that he could drive them out of the Labour party. There are good lies and bad lies, I'd say those were good ones.
Starmer's problem is this. So far, he's benefitted from his 'opponents' being seen as nasty and vile. His dissemblance is therefore not really called out because people are so focused on getting his opponents out that they have given Starmer a free pass. That was the case with Corbyn, with Starmer being the anti-Johnson etc. Put simply, Starmer is someone who benefits immensely when his opponents are unlikeable.
Sunak is not that sort of an opponent. Yes, he doesn't have a common touch, he's rich, he's a geek etc but he's not hateable. In that situation, people start to pay a lot more attention about whom they are being asked to choose rather than just voting for x because they are not y.
Give it as we start to get into 2024. Starmer is going to be coming under a huge barrage to explain his positions on a whole range of issues - Europe, tax, trans issues etc. The more issues he is questioned on, the greater the chances he slips up. And gets hammered for it.
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
If you call 'resurgence' losing the last Presidential election, failing to win the Senate in the midterms and scraping home in the House
If under 30K in total in GA, WI and AZ had voted GOP instead of Dems, the. it would have been a dead-heat.
Re the Senate, the GOP lost a seat but kept a seat they lost in the 2020 Presidential election (WI). The Dems barely scrapped home in Nevada.
With the House, the GOP came 3% ahead in the popular vote.
Gotta look at the details.
If you looked at the details you'd have to adjust the House vote for those places where the Democrats didn't stand.
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
If you call 'resurgence' losing the last Presidential election, failing to win the Senate in the midterms and scraping home in the House
The Republicans are a more successful party, in general, than the Conservatives are. In large measure because they play dirty and won’t give up.
Are they? Since 2000 the Conservatives have won 4 general elections and won the popular vote in all 4 and lost only 2.
By contrast the Republicans have won only 3 Presidential elections since 2000 and the popular vote in just one of those while losing 3 Presidential elections too.
They also don't control the Senate either and just scraped a midterm win in the House
It’s heartening to read (and see) Leon’s comments on Cornish development.
Worth a Speccy article if he can figure out why and how Cornwall seems to be getting this right.
I am not sure the gentrification of Cornwall will scale nationally.
"How I learned to stop wanting a place to live and love the Emmet's" - a heart-warming piece on the Cornish new affection for rich incomers and their expensive houses.
Caught up with a chap at work before Xmas. Lovely chap. Commutes into London from his place in the Lizzard. Flies in via Newquay, stays overnight, flies back after work the next day.
Yup, that's how I do it when I need to be in that London. From Aberdeen though not Newquay. And the fare is usually way cheaper than the train fare used to be when I lived on Teesside.
I see the Russians have dispersed their bombers at the Saratov air base, supposedly amongst their premier bases. Not showing a lot of faith in their air defence systems.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
To build any kind of power station takes years.
Interestingly, one guarantee of gas supply is the me fact we are importing it for Europe, and burning it to generate levy for them to sell via the interconnectors.
Turns out having LNG ports is really useful….
Yes, but he could reform the taxes, incentives and regulation around North Sea Oil and bring forward the new licensing round with very unequivocal signals that the Government is invested in domestic hydrocarbon production. He could use emergency powers to speed any power stations (such as Energy from Waste) through the planning process to bring them on stream. He could introduce reforms to taper off constraint payments for wind, forcing wind producers to invest in storage or face collapsing profits. And he could fire the starting gun on tidal in Wales, which whilst it wouldn't provide any power for a long time, would provide a feel good factor in time for the GE.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
The radical anti-establishment fervour of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Give me a break.
The anti abortion, anti gay marriage, tough on immigration social conservative JRM is certainly not part of the liberal establishment
He’s part of the conservative establishment, no shortage of money, connections and power. A nepo baby.
You may as well say Corbyn is part of the socialist establishment.
Yet the UK is now run by a liberal establishment of economic and social liberals on the whole. Indeed there are now more left leaning figures in the judiciary, media, academia, parliament etc than traditional social conservatives
Nah, that’s a lie that conservatives tell themselves to justify bad behaviour. There are conservative parts of the establishment and liberal parts of the establishment.
If daddy edited the Times, you are part of the establishment.
And yes Corbyn is definitely part of the club.
The Times is part of the liberal establishment too now however, all the social conservatives left are in the Daily Mail or Daily Telegraph
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
I'm a civil servant, getting a 0% pay rise this year. The Tories can be as "woke" or as "anti-woke" as they like, they aren't getting my vote.
American conservative voters are fed a constant diet of outrage about social liberalism gone mad. And many of them are evangelical Christians who tend to get more outraged by deviation from the heterosexual cisgender norm and like social conformity. In Britain, we are not religious enough to care and have long had a "live and let live" culture anyway.
The only social conservatism that will work here is around criminal justice and immigration, because the public can see the effect of those two things over the long term.
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
Because Cornwall house prices have gone off sale in the areas you see, the houses being built are architect designed to appeal to people. Who are paying the architect directly, often.
Bit like in Wiltshire. Malmesbury is all very nice. The shit is hidden, literally, over the hill.
But this is bollocks. I’m here in Cornwall, visiting all my extended and large Cornish family, I am Cornish, I come to Cornwall all the time
I can see what I can see, right in front of my eyes
There are a few hideous redbrick nightmares but not many at all. Most are pleasant, a few are excellent
I do wonder if King Chas is subtly at work. One of the biggest housing developments in the county is Nansledan in Newquay. It’s quite Poundbury. It’s on Duchy of Cornwall land
Again, it’s nice
That’s the front of house nice stuff. Look deeper.
Bit like Venice. I’m always impressed how people manage not to see the poverty there.
I just did. To REALLY make sure I’m not hallucinating I just drove around Persimmon’s starter-home bargain-housing Copperfields development in Truro
It’s on a windy hillside and there are bleak corners. Some of the cheaper houses are staining already. It’s not the Nash Terraces and it’s not downtown Siena. And yet for whatever reason the developers have used granite grace notes throughout, there is an apparent attempt at proper quoining, there are nice leafy bits and even a kind of village green - with playground
It’s not for me but I can imagine others liking it - especially families - and it definitely says YOU ARE IN CORNWALL
In short it looks like they’ve taken a bit of care. Which is not the sensation you get in so many new housing estates around Britain. Why? My guess really is King Charles watching over them. His own neo-Georgian housing estate (where I am now in Waitrose) is 3 minutes drive from Copperfields
Neo Georgian Waitrose, 2 minutes ago:
Have to agree with you here. In the main, UK house builders make the smallest, cheapest shit they can get away with, and give no thought whatsoever to those who will have to live in it.
It's good to see even small improvements.
Housing design and build quality is a vicious/virtuous circle because people make what they are familiar with. If an anchor development ups its game, it sets the standard for everyone else.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
The radical anti-establishment fervour of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Give me a break.
The anti abortion, anti gay marriage, tough on immigration social conservative JRM is certainly not part of the liberal establishment
He’s part of the conservative establishment, no shortage of money, connections and power. A nepo baby.
You may as well say Corbyn is part of the socialist establishment.
Yet the UK is now run by a liberal establishment of economic and social liberals on the whole. Indeed there are now more left leaning figures in the judiciary, media, academia, parliament etc than traditional social conservatives
Nah, that’s a lie that conservatives tell themselves to justify bad behaviour. There are conservative parts of the establishment and liberal parts of the establishment.
If daddy edited the Times, you are part of the establishment.
And yes Corbyn is definitely part of the club.
No, it's not a lie, you just don't like being 'the baddies'. The 'liberal' (an abuse of the term) establishment is opposed to Brexit, openly dismissive of democratic oversight, anti-economic growth, authoritarian, dedicated to the growth of an engorged state at the expense of the productive sector, committed to a perverse version of greenery which usually means whatever is worse for the UK, whether or not it results in a net decrease in emissions, 'anti-racist' in a way that is often effectively racist in outcome (such as expecting lower educational attainment from black pupils), internationalist - as in committed to world Government, and needs flushing from every part of our public services.
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
I'm a civil servant, getting a 0% pay rise this year. The Tories can be as "woke" or as "anti-woke" as they like, they aren't getting my vote.
American conservative voters are fed a constant diet of outrage about social liberalism gone mad. And many of them are evangelical Christians who tend to get more outraged by deviation from the heterosexual cisgender norm and like social conformity. In Britain, we are not religious enough to care and have long had a "live and let live" culture anyway.
The only social conservatism that will work here is around criminal justice and immigration, because the public can see the effect of those two things over the long term.
On abortion and gay marriage maybe (though even in the US most non evangelical Christians support both).
On trans rights however Brits are just as sceptical as Americans, certainly without a doctors diagnosis
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
Because Cornwall house prices have gone off sale in the areas you see, the houses being built are architect designed to appeal to people. Who are paying the architect directly, often.
Bit like in Wiltshire. Malmesbury is all very nice. The shit is hidden, literally, over the hill.
But this is bollocks. I’m here in Cornwall, visiting all my extended and large Cornish family, I am Cornish, I come to Cornwall all the time
I can see what I can see, right in front of my eyes
There are a few hideous redbrick nightmares but not many at all. Most are pleasant, a few are excellent
I do wonder if King Chas is subtly at work. One of the biggest housing developments in the county is Nansledan in Newquay. It’s quite Poundbury. It’s on Duchy of Cornwall land
Again, it’s nice
That’s the front of house nice stuff. Look deeper.
Bit like Venice. I’m always impressed how people manage not to see the poverty there.
I just did. To REALLY make sure I’m not hallucinating I just drove around Persimmon’s starter-home bargain-housing Copperfields development in Truro
It’s on a windy hillside and there are bleak corners. Some of the cheaper houses are staining already. It’s not the Nash Terraces and it’s not downtown Siena. And yet for whatever reason the developers have used granite grace notes throughout, there is an apparent attempt at proper quoining, there are nice leafy bits and even a kind of village green - with playground
It’s not for me but I can imagine others liking it - especially families - and it definitely says YOU ARE IN CORNWALL
In short it looks like they’ve taken a bit of care. Which is not the sensation you get in so many new housing estates around Britain. Why? My guess really is King Charles watching over them. His own neo-Georgian housing estate (where I am now in Waitrose) is 3 minutes drive from Copperfields
Neo Georgian Waitrose, 2 minutes ago:
Have to agree with you here. In the main, UK house builders make the smallest, cheapest shit they can get away with, and give no thought whatsoever to those who will have to live in it.
It's good to see even small improvements.
Housing design and build quality is a vicious/virtuous circle because people make what they are familiar with. If an anchor development ups its game, it sets the standard for everyone else.
Yes. I think that’s exactly what’s happening in Cornwall
I’m chatting with a good friend who is a senior county councillor here and he concurs with what I’m seeing. And he agrees it is partly Charles
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
The radical anti-establishment fervour of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Give me a break.
The anti abortion, anti gay marriage, tough on immigration social conservative JRM is certainly not part of the liberal establishment
He’s part of the conservative establishment, no shortage of money, connections and power. A nepo baby.
You may as well say Corbyn is part of the socialist establishment.
Yet the UK is now run by a liberal establishment of economic and social liberals on the whole. Indeed there are now more left leaning figures in the judiciary, media, academia, parliament etc than traditional social conservatives
Nah, that’s a lie that conservatives tell themselves to justify bad behaviour. There are conservative parts of the establishment and liberal parts of the establishment.
If daddy edited the Times, you are part of the establishment.
And yes Corbyn is definitely part of the club.
No, it's not a lie, you just don't like being 'the baddies'. The 'liberal' (an abuse of the term) establishment is opposed to Brexit, openly dismissive of democratic oversight, anti-economic growth, authoritarian, dedicated to the growth of an engorged state at the expense of the productive sector, committed to a perverse version of greenery which usually means whatever is worse for the UK, whether or not it results in a net decrease in emissions, 'anti-racist' in a way that is often effectively racist in outcome (such as expecting lower educational attainment from black pupils), internationalist - as in committed to world Government, and needs flushing from every part of our public services.
Yes the liberal establishment is quite anti liberal in many ways and increasingly authoritarian on matters of free speech
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
I'm a civil servant, getting a 0% pay rise this year. The Tories can be as "woke" or as "anti-woke" as they like, they aren't getting my vote.
American conservative voters are fed a constant diet of outrage about social liberalism gone mad. And many of them are evangelical Christians who tend to get more outraged by deviation from the heterosexual cisgender norm and like social conformity. In Britain, we are not religious enough to care and have long had a "live and let live" culture anyway.
The only social conservatism that will work here is around criminal justice and immigration, because the public can see the effect of those two things over the long term.
On abortion and gay marriage maybe (though even in the US most non evangelical Christians support both).
On trans rights however Brits are just as sceptical as Americans, certainly without a doctors diagnosis
i actually think many in britain are uncomfortable with gay marriage but fear expressing their views on this. I agree though that abortion is a non issue in the uk.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
The radical anti-establishment fervour of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Give me a break.
The anti abortion, anti gay marriage, tough on immigration social conservative JRM is certainly not part of the liberal establishment
He’s part of the conservative establishment, no shortage of money, connections and power. A nepo baby.
You may as well say Corbyn is part of the socialist establishment.
Yet the UK is now run by a liberal establishment of economic and social liberals on the whole. Indeed there are now more left leaning figures in the judiciary, media, academia, parliament etc than traditional social conservatives
Nah, that’s a lie that conservatives tell themselves to justify bad behaviour. There are conservative parts of the establishment and liberal parts of the establishment.
If daddy edited the Times, you are part of the establishment.
And yes Corbyn is definitely part of the club.
No, it's not a lie, you just don't like being 'the baddies'. The 'liberal' (an abuse of the term) establishment is opposed to Brexit, openly dismissive of democratic oversight, anti-economic growth, authoritarian, dedicated to the growth of an engorged state at the expense of the productive sector, committed to a perverse version of greenery which usually means whatever is worse for the UK, whether or not it results in a net decrease in emissions, 'anti-racist' in a way that is often effectively racist in outcome (such as expecting lower educational attainment from black pupils), internationalist - as in committed to world Government, and needs flushing from every part of our public services.
Baddies? Are you six years old? There’s little more pitiful than conservatives (or indeed liberals etc) cultivating victim status and trying to put things back to a natural order.
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
I'm a civil servant, getting a 0% pay rise this year. The Tories can be as "woke" or as "anti-woke" as they like, they aren't getting my vote.
American conservative voters are fed a constant diet of outrage about social liberalism gone mad. And many of them are evangelical Christians who tend to get more outraged by deviation from the heterosexual cisgender norm and like social conformity. In Britain, we are not religious enough to care and have long had a "live and let live" culture anyway.
The only social conservatism that will work here is around criminal justice and immigration, because the public can see the effect of those two things over the long term.
On abortion and gay marriage maybe (though even in the US most non evangelical Christians support both).
On trans rights however Brits are just as sceptical as Americans, certainly without a doctors diagnosis
i actually think many in britain are uncomfortable with gay marriage but fear expressing their views on this. I agree though that abortion is a non issue in the uk.
New poster. Feels there is an undercurrent of unease about gay marriage which is repressed through the terror of the queer liberal establishment? Mmm.
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
I'm a civil servant, getting a 0% pay rise this year. The Tories can be as "woke" or as "anti-woke" as they like, they aren't getting my vote.
American conservative voters are fed a constant diet of outrage about social liberalism gone mad. And many of them are evangelical Christians who tend to get more outraged by deviation from the heterosexual cisgender norm and like social conformity. In Britain, we are not religious enough to care and have long had a "live and let live" culture anyway.
The only social conservatism that will work here is around criminal justice and immigration, because the public can see the effect of those two things over the long term.
On abortion and gay marriage maybe (though even in the US most non evangelical Christians support both).
On trans rights however Brits are just as sceptical as Americans, certainly without a doctors diagnosis
i actually think many in britain are uncomfortable with gay marriage but fear expressing their views on this. I agree though that abortion is a non issue in the uk.
New poster. Feels there is an undercurrent of unease about gay marriage which is repressed through the terror of the queer liberal establishment? Mmm.
I give it an hour maximum before we hear some pro-Russian opinions on the invasion of Ukraine.
I’m driving around west Cornwall for work purposes, and what has struck me - to my total surprise - is the HIGH quality - at least visually - of many new developments (there are a lot, Cornwall is growing fast)
The developers are using elements of local stone - granite and slate. Nice elegant proportions, mixing classical and modern. The houses that are completely modern are sleek
There is very little of that horrible shoebox redbrick cul de saccy Barratt Home shite you see elsewhere in middle Britain
I wonder why. More money from incomers? The influence of the King (ex Duke of Cornwall - he has a nice Poundbury ish development on the edge of Truro)? A sensible council? All three?
Dunno. But it is encouraging. The rest of the country should look to Cornwall
The places you are seeing are being custom built for those spending big money.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
I’m really not sure that’s true. I’ve just spent 3 hours driving all round newlyn, Penzance, Redruth, ponsanooth, Truro, and now I’m in Falmouth
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
Because Cornwall house prices have gone off sale in the areas you see, the houses being built are architect designed to appeal to people. Who are paying the architect directly, often.
Bit like in Wiltshire. Malmesbury is all very nice. The shit is hidden, literally, over the hill.
But this is bollocks. I’m here in Cornwall, visiting all my extended and large Cornish family, I am Cornish, I come to Cornwall all the time
I can see what I can see, right in front of my eyes
There are a few hideous redbrick nightmares but not many at all. Most are pleasant, a few are excellent
I do wonder if King Chas is subtly at work. One of the biggest housing developments in the county is Nansledan in Newquay. It’s quite Poundbury. It’s on Duchy of Cornwall land
Again, it’s nice
That’s the front of house nice stuff. Look deeper.
Bit like Venice. I’m always impressed how people manage not to see the poverty there.
I just did. To REALLY make sure I’m not hallucinating I just drove around Persimmon’s starter-home bargain-housing Copperfields development in Truro
It’s on a windy hillside and there are bleak corners. Some of the cheaper houses are staining already. It’s not the Nash Terraces and it’s not downtown Siena. And yet for whatever reason the developers have used granite grace notes throughout, there is an apparent attempt at proper quoining, there are nice leafy bits and even a kind of village green - with playground
It’s not for me but I can imagine others liking it - especially families - and it definitely says YOU ARE IN CORNWALL
In short it looks like they’ve taken a bit of care. Which is not the sensation you get in so many new housing estates around Britain. Why? My guess really is King Charles watching over them. His own neo-Georgian housing estate (where I am now in Waitrose) is 3 minutes drive from Copperfields
Neo Georgian Waitrose, 2 minutes ago:
Have to agree with you here. In the main, UK house builders make the smallest, cheapest shit they can get away with, and give no thought whatsoever to those who will have to live in it.
It's good to see even small improvements.
Housing design and build quality is a vicious/virtuous circle because people make what they are familiar with. If an anchor development ups its game, it sets the standard for everyone else.
Yes. I think that’s exactly what’s happening in Cornwall
I’m chatting with a good friend who is a senior county councillor here and he concurs with what I’m seeing. And he agrees it is partly Charles
It usually takes some rules - seem to recall someone if this parish was railing against the rules about not dumping broken cars etc in front of your house in Poundbury.
It’s heartening to read (and see) Leon’s comments on Cornish development.
Worth a Speccy article if he can figure out why and how Cornwall seems to be getting this right.
I am not sure the gentrification of Cornwall will scale nationally.
It’s not solely gentrification. @williamglenn is surely on to something. King Charles is responsible for two major developments in Cornwall - waitroseland in Truro and the new town outside Newquay. They are high quality, respectful of Cornishness, use granite and slate etc
So house buyers have that alternative if they want a new build. Ergo, other developers have to compete with that. Therefore everyone raises their game
Gentrification does help of course. You’ve got rich people moving in demanding really nice houses/conversions so that also elevates tastes and desires
It’s heartening to read (and see) Leon’s comments on Cornish development.
Worth a Speccy article if he can figure out why and how Cornwall seems to be getting this right.
I am not sure the gentrification of Cornwall will scale nationally.
"How I learned to stop wanting a place to live and love the Emmet's" - a heart-warming piece on the Cornish new affection for rich incomers and their expensive houses.
Well i never understand myself why people want to holiday in cornwall....rubbish weather and expensive prices is a bad combination. Give me a greek island any day.
It’s heartening to read (and see) Leon’s comments on Cornish development.
Worth a Speccy article if he can figure out why and how Cornwall seems to be getting this right.
I am not sure the gentrification of Cornwall will scale nationally.
"How I learned to stop wanting a place to live and love the Emmet's" - a heart-warming piece on the Cornish new affection for rich incomers and their expensive houses.
Well i never understand myself why people want to holiday in cornwall....rubbish weather and expensive prices is a bad combination. Give me a greek island any day.
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
I'm a civil servant, getting a 0% pay rise this year. The Tories can be as "woke" or as "anti-woke" as they like, they aren't getting my vote.
American conservative voters are fed a constant diet of outrage about social liberalism gone mad. And many of them are evangelical Christians who tend to get more outraged by deviation from the heterosexual cisgender norm and like social conformity. In Britain, we are not religious enough to care and have long had a "live and let live" culture anyway.
The only social conservatism that will work here is around criminal justice and immigration, because the public can see the effect of those two things over the long term.
On abortion and gay marriage maybe (though even in the US most non evangelical Christians support both).
On trans rights however Brits are just as sceptical as Americans, certainly without a doctors diagnosis
i actually think many in britain are uncomfortable with gay marriage but fear expressing their views on this. I agree though that abortion is a non issue in the uk.
New poster. Feels there is an undercurrent of unease about gay marriage which is repressed through the terror of the queer liberal establishment? Mmm.
Christmas was too overrated and commercialised now. Starts at halloween with a ridiculously long run up then by xmas day afternoon ads are all for the boxing day sales. Sadly our society has lost the true meaning of Christmas due to corporate capitalism using it for its own purposes and dragging many good people into debt. A simpler festival such as they have in other countries would be preferable.
Christmas was too overrated and commercialised now. Starts at halloween with a ridiculously long run up then by xmas day afternoon ads are all for the boxing day sales. Sadly our society has lost the true meaning of Christmas due to corporate capitalism using it for its own purposes and dragging many good people into debt. A simpler festival such as they have in other countries would be preferable.
"Dutch central bank president Klaas Knot has called on companies to increase wages, saying their profits are enough to merit a decent pay rise. A pay rise of between 5% and 7%, coupled with the government’s price ceiling on energy, would be enough to head off the impact of rising prices, Knot told television programme Nieuwsuur on Thursday evening.
‘We have done the calculations and we don’t want wages to decline further. If you want to keep wages at the same level, then you need a pay rise of between 5% and 7%. It is an average at a macro-economic level,’ he said."
Slightly off topic but I was at Schipol airport recently, 5 euros for a Douwe egberts machine instant coffee. A 'flat white' apparently.
On topic, I don't think it's too late for Sunak's Tories, but to be successful politically, he'll have to stab the political establishment in the front and put some pro-Britain policies in place, and fast. I mean radical support to increase domestic energy production (not just windmills everywhere) ensuring next winter doesn't look like this winter, sorting out NI, solving the migrant crisis, and perhaps toward the end some smart easing of taxes/tax simplification. There isn't time for anything else.
Sunak is not going to ‘stab the political establishment’ , he is the political establishment.
Who isn't in Parliament? Corbyn and the nutters, the SNP (at least as it applies to Westminster), and who else?
The ERG, certainly not with Sunak PM now and Starmer Leader of the Opposition
The radical anti-establishment fervour of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Give me a break.
The anti abortion, anti gay marriage, tough on immigration social conservative JRM is certainly not part of the liberal establishment
He’s part of the conservative establishment, no shortage of money, connections and power. A nepo baby.
You may as well say Corbyn is part of the socialist establishment.
Yet the UK is now run by a liberal establishment of economic and social liberals on the whole. Indeed there are now more left leaning figures in the judiciary, media, academia, parliament etc than traditional social conservatives
Nah, that’s a lie that conservatives tell themselves to justify bad behaviour. There are conservative parts of the establishment and liberal parts of the establishment.
If daddy edited the Times, you are part of the establishment.
And yes Corbyn is definitely part of the club.
No, it's not a lie, you just don't like being 'the baddies'. The 'liberal' (an abuse of the term) establishment is opposed to Brexit, openly dismissive of democratic oversight, anti-economic growth, authoritarian, dedicated to the growth of an engorged state at the expense of the productive sector, committed to a perverse version of greenery which usually means whatever is worse for the UK, whether or not it results in a net decrease in emissions, 'anti-racist' in a way that is often effectively racist in outcome (such as expecting lower educational attainment from black pupils), internationalist - as in committed to world Government, and needs flushing from every part of our public services.
Baddies? Are you six years old? There’s little more pitiful than conservatives (or indeed liberals etc) cultivating victim status and trying to put things back to a natural order.
It's a reference to a Mitchell and Webb sketch. The fact remains that big state 'liberalism' is about as anti-establishment as the police federation ball, and the rebellion is on the right.
Christmas was too overrated and commercialised now. Starts at halloween with a ridiculously long run up then by xmas day afternoon ads are all for the boxing day sales. Sadly our society has lost the true meaning of Christmas due to corporate capitalism using it for its own purposes and dragging many good people into debt. A simpler festival such as they have in other countries would be preferable.
Moscow?
Dont know if anyone has seen that christmas ad in Russia where Putin comes dressed as Santa to rescue the young from the terror of lgbt and trans. Russians truly believe they are fighting satanism in the west something to bear in mind.
If you look at the Republican party in the USA, its resurgence has been based on culture war issues. And the tories could still do the same thing in the UK. People always think that the 'culture war' is an irrelevant, fringe thing; but the tories could really do an immense amount of damage to labour and the SNP by exploiting their associations with, for instance, extreme positions in the trans debate. The issue for the tories is that they have a outdated mindset which assumes that, to be modern and forward looking, you have to be 'woke'.
I'm a civil servant, getting a 0% pay rise this year. The Tories can be as "woke" or as "anti-woke" as they like, they aren't getting my vote.
American conservative voters are fed a constant diet of outrage about social liberalism gone mad. And many of them are evangelical Christians who tend to get more outraged by deviation from the heterosexual cisgender norm and like social conformity. In Britain, we are not religious enough to care and have long had a "live and let live" culture anyway.
The only social conservatism that will work here is around criminal justice and immigration, because the public can see the effect of those two things over the long term.
On abortion and gay marriage maybe (though even in the US most non evangelical Christians support both).
On trans rights however Brits are just as sceptical as Americans, certainly without a doctors diagnosis
i actually think many in britain are uncomfortable with gay marriage but fear expressing their views on this. I agree though that abortion is a non issue in the uk.
New poster. Feels there is an undercurrent of unease about gay marriage which is repressed through the terror of the queer liberal establishment? Mmm.
Arooga!!!, arooga!!, Bot Alarm, Bot Alarm!!!
I think Uncle Vlad is wasting his time trying to foment anti-gay marriage sentiment. Perhaps our friendly frequently-banned friend could pass that up the chain.
Comments
It's hardly surprising that audiences take against it.
In the town of Par, which isn’t so fashionable there are empty building plots. The houses are uninspiring, rendered terraces/semis. And one house that was abandoned as blockwork.
It's their politics that I don't like.
Some of these places are affluent - Truro, parts of Falmouth. No one would accuse newlyn or Redruth of being affluent. Yet the buildings are definitely better to look at than the shit you get in, say, Bedfordshire or Kent
Par is a law unto itself. The entire town used to be covered in a thin white layer of China clay from the kaolin pits. Like a ghost town haunting its own streets
https://www.buchananbespoke.com/stock-range/skye-brogues
I think my justification for buying a G-Wagen as a people carrier is another sign of the male menopause.
I don't think these particular loafers are vegan but some of their trainers are.
It’s…. Nice. It acknowledges that it’s in Cornwall. It might actually age well. They’ve incorporated old stuff. Yay Cornwall
Bit like in Wiltshire. Malmesbury is all very nice. The shit is hidden, literally, over the hill.
I can see what I can see, right in front of my eyes
There are a few hideous redbrick nightmares but not many at all. Most are pleasant, a few are excellent
I do wonder if King Chas is subtly at work. One of the biggest housing developments in the county is Nansledan in Newquay. It’s quite Poundbury. It’s on Duchy of Cornwall land
Again, it’s nice
Labour can then say that after ten years Brexit is failure, and that we need to think about rejoining. So it's after the 2028/9 election, I'd expect there to be any serious attempt by a Starmer government to open any negotiations with the EU about rejoining it or the single market.
The Tories and then the Conservatives have normally opposed most major constitutional reforms, after all they are supposed to be traditionalist conservatives. Even if they have then reluctantly accepted them
The left wanted them out. They had control of the CLPs in many cases but they also recognised that getting rid of an Irish MP in such constituencies risked an electoral backlash from the irish community. Especially as their replacements were not Irish (Corbyn, for example).
Thus the play to PIRA. It 'showed' the Irish community the left was on their side while getting rid of MPs from the communities at the same time.
Politically convenient in a context, sure. But Corbyn et al weren’t acting
Bit like Venice. I’m always impressed how people manage not to see the poverty there.
https://twitter.com/GColleyLDLA/status/1607700737496346624?s=20&t=nJ1-9QzZdDB06uVJC7hLkQ
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-64101556
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/12/27/putin-presents-rings-to-his-fellow-cis-leaders-during-summit-a79810
Interestingly, one guarantee of gas supply is the me fact we are importing it for Europe, and burning it to generate levy for them to sell via the interconnectors.
Turns out having LNG ports is really useful….
Not sure it makes a difference in the grand scheme of a 19th century sandstone building with no insulation, but it certainly feels nicer.
Just as blatant, but Republicans love it.
It’s on a windy hillside and there are bleak corners. Some of the cheaper houses are staining already. It’s not the Nash Terraces and it’s not downtown Siena. And yet for whatever reason the developers have used granite grace notes throughout, there is an apparent attempt at proper quoining, there are nice leafy bits and even a kind of village green - with playground
It’s not for me but I can imagine others liking it - especially families - and it definitely says YOU ARE IN CORNWALL
In short it looks like they’ve taken a bit of care. Which is not the sensation you get in so many new housing estates around Britain. Why? My guess really is King Charles watching over them. His own neo-Georgian housing estate (where I am now in Waitrose) is 3 minutes drive from Copperfields
Neo Georgian Waitrose, 2 minutes ago:
Barking riverside in east London is an interesting example, the new flats there are built in intricate brickwork and have large windows and high ceilings, they are impressive for 250k - 400k flats. The plots are sold off to developers with design codes that they have to follow and the developers bid accordingly. So that way Bellway homes end up building decent looking apartment buildings.
In the main, UK house builders make the smallest, cheapest shit they can get away with, and give no thought whatsoever to those who will have to live in it.
It's good to see even small improvements.
Re the Senate, the GOP lost a seat but kept a seat they lost in the 2020 Presidential election (WI). The Dems barely scrapped home in Nevada.
With the House, the GOP came 3% ahead in the popular vote.
Gotta look at the details.
I sometimes think about that when I see people on either side of the world-of-woke arguing their case and claiming it'll make all the difference at an election.
Speculative Metroland suburbia of 100 years ago was bland (though it's more interesting after a century of incremental changes) but not mean or shoddy.
Your idea they are not because they don't like Sunak is stupid, and I can prove it - would you have said Sunak was not an establishment figure when he was out of the Cabinet? Bollocks you would have.
It was a bitter period of politics, but there was no surge of atypical MPs, and there won't be when Labour win in 2024 either.
Worth a Speccy article if he can figure out why and how Cornwall seems to be getting this right.
"Dutch central bank president Klaas Knot has called on companies to increase wages, saying their profits are enough to merit a decent pay rise. A pay rise of between 5% and 7%, coupled with the government’s price ceiling on energy, would be enough to head off the impact of rising prices, Knot told television programme Nieuwsuur on Thursday evening.
‘We have done the calculations and we don’t want wages to decline further. If you want to keep wages at the same level, then you need a pay rise of between 5% and 7%. It is an average at a macro-economic level,’ he said."
Yet the UK is now run by a liberal establishment of economic and social liberals on the whole. Indeed there are now more left leaning figures in the judiciary, media, academia, parliament etc than traditional social conservatives
If daddy edited the Times, you are part of the establishment.
And yes Corbyn is definitely part of the club.
Trump 74 million votes
By contrast the Republicans have won only 3 Presidential elections since 2000 and the popular vote in just one of those while losing 3 Presidential elections too.
They also don't control the Senate either and just scraped a midterm win in the House
https://twitter.com/Hromadske/status/1607719567538675713?t=l8QdqY8-MrTv7sR0Ae1C3w&s=19
The only social conservatism that will work here is around criminal justice and immigration, because the public can see the effect of those two things over the long term.
On trans rights however Brits are just as sceptical as Americans, certainly without a doctors diagnosis
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1607746335075340289?t=zfwL_zADGEqqh2BVPrGvmw&s=19
I’m chatting with a good friend who is a senior county councillor here and he concurs with what I’m seeing. And he agrees it is partly Charles
Feels there is an undercurrent of unease about gay marriage which is repressed through the terror of the queer liberal establishment?
Mmm.
So house buyers have that alternative if they want a new build. Ergo, other developers have to compete with that. Therefore everyone raises their game
Gentrification does help of course. You’ve got rich people moving in demanding really nice houses/conversions so that also elevates tastes and desires
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1607711499220570113?t=ls4sccdd4IKDuuTUKySWkg&s=19