One thing that won't happen is that on a signal received from RefUK a million or more voters who would otherwise vote Tory decide to vote RefUK instead with the result that Starmer becomes PM of a mostly Labour or wholly Labour government. Farage would do a Union Jack-flavoured deal with Sunak instead, or with whoever the Tory leader was at that time.
The (nearest) analogous thing could happen in USPE2024 though. If Trump stays out of jail and remains in good health, he'll have the power to smash the Republicans' chances, and being the worst deal-doer in the universe he may possibly exercise that power.
On topic it could happen but there’s more chance of me becoming the President of the Max Verstappen fan club watching Die Hard on Christmas Day.
Quite right. It's a day late. Die Hard is set on Christmas Eve (as I discovered when I watched it for the first time last month, on Christmas Day).
You can tell it's set in America. In Britain any Christmas party after about December 15th will be missing people because some people will have already left for Christmas or have prior engagements.
I note lots of Boris Johnson revival stories in his usual fanzines during the last 24 hours. Is BigDog on manouvres? The Sun says Johnson will be popular with voters.
God help us!
As Barnum said - you can fool some of the people all of the time.
So yep some people would be happy with Bozo returning as PM but a lot more people will be weary of him compared to 2019 so he won't be the great solution he was then.
And his reappearance would probably rejuvenate Farage more than anything else possibly could.
My fear is if the Conservative Party is daft enough to vote for him so might Joe Public.
I do apologise for my earlier rather foolish question, namely, "is Johnson on manouvres?" Of course, it is well known Johnson is always on manouvres.
I am 100% certain Boris would get a better result at next GE than Sunak. Sunak’s government is already struggling as thought of as out of touch with people.
But I am also certain Boris has 0% chance of ousting Sunak. Unfortunately for Boris, his political career ends in embarrassing failure. No chance of tackling what will forever be unfinished business in his mind.
There are people who would only vote Tory if Johnson were the leader, for sure. But there are people who will vote Tory provided Johnson isn't the leader. Big_G is an obvious example. The growing realisation that Brexit was snake oil is diminishing the former, while the latter got a big boost with all the scandal and shanagagins of this year, and it is far from obvious that time will help people forget. And that's before we get to the Parliamentary Inquiry and the vulnerability of his seat.
But what we don’t know, to what extent the vote of Big G is now meaningless, because it’s in the wrong place, to what extent Boris huge Red Wall appeal masked serious and long term problems for the Conservatives in Blue Wall Remania. That is what I based my “I am 100% certain Boris would get a better result at next GE than Sunak” statement on - his appeal in Labour area’s. It’s not just about votes, but where you have them, and have them where they matter. The idea Sunak getting a shellacking in the Red Wall but it will be okay becuase he is polling better in Blue Wall and London so will make up for it there, is that really jumping out at you from Sunak’s dire polling?
I note lots of Boris Johnson revival stories in his usual fanzines during the last 24 hours. Is BigDog on manouvres? The Sun says Johnson will be popular with voters.
God help us!
As Barnum said - you can fool some of the people all of the time.
So yep some people would be happy with Bozo returning as PM but a lot more people will be weary of him compared to 2019 so he won't be the great solution he was then.
And his reappearance would probably rejuvenate Farage more than anything else possibly could.
My fear is if the Conservative Party is daft enough to vote for him so might Joe Public.
I do apologise for my earlier rather foolish question, namely, "is Johnson on manouvres?" Of course, it is well known Johnson is always on manouvres.
I am 100% certain Boris would get a better result at next GE than Sunak. Sunak’s government is already struggling as thought of as out of touch with people.
But I am also certain Boris has 0% chance of ousting Sunak. Unfortunately for Boris, his political career ends in embarrassing failure. No chance of tackling what will forever be unfinished business in his mind.
Agree on both points. He probably would minimize the coming Con defeat but he won't be getting the chance. Sunak is safe for the GE.
There's one possibility re Johnson which I rate less outlandish than I think most people do - he returns as LOTO after the GE. I wouldn't rule that out.
Can't see that. He'll be 60 at the next election. Would he want 5 years as LOTO for an election at age 65 to be PM till he's 70? Maybe. But doesn't fit well with me.
But he is driven by “unfinished business”, and it’s either that or excepting retirement isn’t it?
Comeback King and Winston Churchill is the template. Churchill was just short of his 77th birthday when he became prime minister again.
Also the Tory right, the ERG not the Tory moderates, are coming alive after the election defeat, with Brexit and the governments war on woke in Starmers hands - that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
Defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour will not lead to a Tory revival though
I note lots of Boris Johnson revival stories in his usual fanzines during the last 24 hours. Is BigDog on manouvres? The Sun says Johnson will be popular with voters.
God help us!
As Barnum said - you can fool some of the people all of the time.
So yep some people would be happy with Bozo returning as PM but a lot more people will be weary of him compared to 2019 so he won't be the great solution he was then.
And his reappearance would probably rejuvenate Farage more than anything else possibly could.
My fear is if the Conservative Party is daft enough to vote for him so might Joe Public.
I do apologise for my earlier rather foolish question, namely, "is Johnson on manouvres?" Of course, it is well known Johnson is always on manouvres.
I am 100% certain Boris would get a better result at next GE than Sunak. Sunak’s government is already struggling as thought of as out of touch with people.
But I am also certain Boris has 0% chance of ousting Sunak. Unfortunately for Boris, his political career ends in embarrassing failure. No chance of tackling what will forever be unfinished business in his mind.
Agree on both points. He probably would minimize the coming Con defeat but he won't be getting the chance. Sunak is safe for the GE.
There's one possibility re Johnson which I rate less outlandish than I think most people do - he returns as LOTO after the GE. I wouldn't rule that out.
Can't see that. He'll be 60 at the next election. Would he want 5 years as LOTO for an election at age 65 to be PM till he's 70? Maybe. But doesn't fit well with me.
But he is driven by “unfinished business”, and it’s either that or excepting retirement isn’t it?
Winston Churchill is the template.
Also the Tory right, the ERG not the Tory moderates, are coming alive after the election defeat, with Brexit and the governments war on woke in Starmer hands - that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
Churchill desperately wanted to win an election. Johnson already has done.
If Churchill had won the 1945 election it's unlikely he would have returned from his first major stroke which I think was in 1949.
that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
Defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour will not lead to a Tory revival though
I noticed I beat you to post the good news on UK EU relations
A nine point Labour lead and still no majority? Are you prepared to put your money where your mouth is on a 9 point Labour lead and a hung parliament?
In 1992 the Tories had a lead of 7.6 percentage points and only just scraped a majority. If around 1,000 votes had gone differently in about 10 seats it would have been a hung parliament.
That’s a crossover poll. My prediction is, despite all the in built advantage PMs have in this measurement, this lead will grow. At least till the election campaign.
that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
Defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour will not lead to a Tory revival though
I note lots of Boris Johnson revival stories in his usual fanzines during the last 24 hours. Is BigDog on manouvres? The Sun says Johnson will be popular with voters.
God help us!
As Barnum said - you can fool some of the people all of the time.
So yep some people would be happy with Bozo returning as PM but a lot more people will be weary of him compared to 2019 so he won't be the great solution he was then.
And his reappearance would probably rejuvenate Farage more than anything else possibly could.
My fear is if the Conservative Party is daft enough to vote for him so might Joe Public.
I do apologise for my earlier rather foolish question, namely, "is Johnson on manouvres?" Of course, it is well known Johnson is always on manouvres.
I am 100% certain Boris would get a better result at next GE than Sunak. Sunak’s government is already struggling as thought of as out of touch with people.
But I am also certain Boris has 0% chance of ousting Sunak. Unfortunately for Boris, his political career ends in embarrassing failure. No chance of tackling what will forever be unfinished business in his mind.
Agree on both points. He probably would minimize the coming Con defeat but he won't be getting the chance. Sunak is safe for the GE.
There's one possibility re Johnson which I rate less outlandish than I think most people do - he returns as LOTO after the GE. I wouldn't rule that out.
Can't see that. He'll be 60 at the next election. Would he want 5 years as LOTO for an election at age 65 to be PM till he's 70? Maybe. But doesn't fit well with me.
But he is driven by “unfinished business”, and it’s either that or excepting retirement isn’t it?
Comeback King and Winston Churchill is the template. Churchill was just short of his 77th birthday when he became prime minister again.
Also the Tory right, the ERG not the Tory moderates, are coming alive after the election defeat, with Brexit and the governments war on woke in Starmers hands - that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
He's also no 91 on the Labour target list, probably a bit more vulnerable because of being in London. If Labour do get a majority, he's probably out unless he can chicken run.
Off topic: more DPD comedy. I have a parcel coming from Amazon, being delivered direct to my closest delivery store 16 miles away as DPD are anus. So I have a calling card from them, saying they tried to deliver and I wasn't in.
Check my parcel - still on track to be delivered to the Co-op. With a different tracking number than the one on this card. If I am in tomorrow when he calls, and its a parcel that should be delivered to a different village I will howl with laughter. Because it was always him trying to deliver my parcel in the wrong village so is this the same in reverse.
So Boris is going full Trump aided by the crazy Tory right. At what point do we actually start to worry?
Is this a story planted to remind us about Sunak’s usp?
Johnson has never gone away in the eyes of a few diehards not least Dorries, but then Corbyn still has his diehards
Sunak will lead into GE 24 for better or worse
He won't if it looks like the Tories will get an absolute tonking. Johnson may be the last throw of the dice,, but the party consider him to be a winner.
In some respects it would be nice to put that notion to the test in the hope that it would finally be proven wrong.
that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
Defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour will not lead to a Tory revival though
You hope, or know?
I predict.
Even Brexiteers now admit Brexit is a shitshow, so while defending it might get you the Tory leadership, it's not going to revive the party.
I don't think they are all strawmen, but I have sympathy for your argument and the cartoon - if policies pass the sniff test in all areas, yes, let's do them regardless.
However, some policies that are currently being operated in response to the global climate consensus don't work. The UK's wind farm policy is wholly uneconomical, constraint payment data for 2022 has just been released, and we paid £237 million to wind providers in constraint (up from £143 million the previous year). Wind farms are also harmful to wildlife and areas of outstanding natural beauty. They also need massive construction in these areas, often releasing vast pockets of carbon. They also provide intermittent and unpredictable energy, necessitating dirtier and more reliable forms of power to keep supply constant. They are also very difficult, costly, and environmentally damaging to decommission.
So yes, when a climate change policy represents a universal public good, let's do it. But when it is deleterious in every area except (possibly) making slightly less CO2, let's not do it.
You're seemingly obsessed with constraint payments. Let's put it into context.
Last year wind generated around a quarter of all UK electricity: that's about 75TWh. Or 75,000 million kWh.
So £237 million represents around 0.3p per kWh.
That's not "wholly uneconomical".
The £237 million on constraint is not why the system is wholly uneconomical, it is merely the most grotesque and egregious expense of the whole shitty shebang. I only learned the other day that wind farms are compensated automatically for their power generation losses (outside of the constraint payments system) when the National Grid asks them to switch off, and that constraint payments are actually there purely to make up for losses in subsidy, which goes some way to demonstrating how heavily wind farms are subsidised when the ARE actually providing power.
I offered mild criticism of Ydoethur's blog piece for using 'below the line' language - my own comments are below the line! If I were writing a header I would never use 'shitty shebang', though I might still call something grotesque if I felt it was warranted.
It has been widely discussed here that under contracts for difference, which provide a top up subsidy to reach an agreed strike price, if energy prices get to their current extraordinary levels, the Government gets paid 'the difference' above the agreed strike price, and that it was a shame that they hadn't taken the opportunity to make the 'green levy' a 'green bonus' on energy bills, but just decided to keep quiet and trouser it instead.
Perhaps this is because most (afaik) wind providers are on renewable obligation certificates, which only closed to new entrants in 2018, not cfds, and they get subsidy on top of what they get for selling electricity at the wholesale rate, a subsidy that rises with the retail price index (and has therefore risen a lot recently), and applies differentially to different projects. These contracts still have years to run.
It has the roc's received (on all wind generation) as 98,050,228, and if each was worth £52.88, that would make total subsidy under the roc, £5,177,052,038.40, which if my poor non-maths brain serves, is a little north of £5 billion. Not including constraint payments.
So Boris is going full Trump aided by the crazy Tory right. At what point do we actually start to worry?
Is this a story planted to remind us about Sunak’s usp?
Johnson has never gone away in the eyes of a few diehards not least Dorries, but then Corbyn still has his diehards
Sunak will lead into GE 24 for better or worse
He won't if it looks like the Tories will get an absolute tonking. Johnson may be the last throw of the dice,, but the party consider him to be a winner.
In some respects it would be nice to put that notion to the test in the hope that it would finally be proven wrong.
I just cannot see Johnson back, not least because a majority of his mps do not want him, he is still facing the privileges committee, he is unlikely to retain his seat, and his lifestyle demands millions that only speeches at £250,000 a time can afford
It is a pipe dream for a few disciples destined to fail
I note lots of Boris Johnson revival stories in his usual fanzines during the last 24 hours. Is BigDog on manouvres? The Sun says Johnson will be popular with voters.
God help us!
As Barnum said - you can fool some of the people all of the time.
So yep some people would be happy with Bozo returning as PM but a lot more people will be weary of him compared to 2019 so he won't be the great solution he was then.
And his reappearance would probably rejuvenate Farage more than anything else possibly could.
My fear is if the Conservative Party is daft enough to vote for him so might Joe Public.
I do apologise for my earlier rather foolish question, namely, "is Johnson on manouvres?" Of course, it is well known Johnson is always on manouvres.
I am 100% certain Boris would get a better result at next GE than Sunak. Sunak’s government is already struggling as thought of as out of touch with people.
But I am also certain Boris has 0% chance of ousting Sunak. Unfortunately for Boris, his political career ends in embarrassing failure. No chance of tackling what will forever be unfinished business in his mind.
Agree on both points. He probably would minimize the coming Con defeat but he won't be getting the chance. Sunak is safe for the GE.
There's one possibility re Johnson which I rate less outlandish than I think most people do - he returns as LOTO after the GE. I wouldn't rule that out.
Can't see that. He'll be 60 at the next election. Would he want 5 years as LOTO for an election at age 65 to be PM till he's 70? Maybe. But doesn't fit well with me.
But he is driven by “unfinished business”, and it’s either that or excepting retirement isn’t it?
Comeback King and Winston Churchill is the template. Churchill was just short of his 77th birthday when he became prime minister again.
Also the Tory right, the ERG not the Tory moderates, are coming alive after the election defeat, with Brexit and the governments war on woke in Starmers hands - that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
He's also no 91 on the Labour target list, probably a bit more vulnerable because of being in London. If Labour do get a majority, he's probably out unless he can chicken run.
WTF? you are talking about the most electorally potent Tory alive.
So Boris is going full Trump aided by the crazy Tory right. At what point do we actually start to worry?
Is this a story planted to remind us about Sunak’s usp?
Johnson has never gone away in the eyes of a few diehards not least Dorries, but then Corbyn still has his diehards
Sunak will lead into GE 24 for better or worse
He won't if it looks like the Tories will get an absolute tonking. Johnson may be the last throw of the dice,, but the party consider him to be a winner.
In some respects it would be nice to put that notion to the test in the hope that it would finally be proven wrong.
I just cannot see Johnson back, not least because a majority of his mps do not want him, he is still facing the privileges committee, he is unlikely to retain his seat, and his lifestyle demands millions that only speeches at £250,000 a time can afford
It is a pipe dream for a few disciples destined to fail
This is a key point. Isn't there a good chance the rising of the Messiah would lead to a number of defections?
So Boris is going full Trump aided by the crazy Tory right. At what point do we actually start to worry?
Is this a story planted to remind us about Sunak’s usp?
Johnson has never gone away in the eyes of a few diehards not least Dorries, but then Corbyn still has his diehards
Sunak will lead into GE 24 for better or worse
He won't if it looks like the Tories will get an absolute tonking. Johnson may be the last throw of the dice,, but the party consider him to be a winner.
In some respects it would be nice to put that notion to the test in the hope that it would finally be proven wrong.
I just cannot see Johnson back, not least because a majority of his mps do not want him, he is still facing the privileges committee, he is unlikely to retain his seat, and his lifestyle demands millions that only speeches at £250,000 a time can afford
It is a pipe dream for a few disciples destined to fail
I am not a fan of Bojo, still less a disciple, but I'd roll the dice on having him back vs. Rishi's repeat prescription of misery.
I note lots of Boris Johnson revival stories in his usual fanzines during the last 24 hours. Is BigDog on manouvres? The Sun says Johnson will be popular with voters.
God help us!
As Barnum said - you can fool some of the people all of the time.
So yep some people would be happy with Bozo returning as PM but a lot more people will be weary of him compared to 2019 so he won't be the great solution he was then.
And his reappearance would probably rejuvenate Farage more than anything else possibly could.
My fear is if the Conservative Party is daft enough to vote for him so might Joe Public.
I do apologise for my earlier rather foolish question, namely, "is Johnson on manouvres?" Of course, it is well known Johnson is always on manouvres.
I am 100% certain Boris would get a better result at next GE than Sunak. Sunak’s government is already struggling as thought of as out of touch with people.
But I am also certain Boris has 0% chance of ousting Sunak. Unfortunately for Boris, his political career ends in embarrassing failure. No chance of tackling what will forever be unfinished business in his mind.
Agree on both points. He probably would minimize the coming Con defeat but he won't be getting the chance. Sunak is safe for the GE.
There's one possibility re Johnson which I rate less outlandish than I think most people do - he returns as LOTO after the GE. I wouldn't rule that out.
Can't see that. He'll be 60 at the next election. Would he want 5 years as LOTO for an election at age 65 to be PM till he's 70? Maybe. But doesn't fit well with me.
But he is driven by “unfinished business”, and it’s either that or excepting retirement isn’t it?
Comeback King and Winston Churchill is the template. Churchill was just short of his 77th birthday when he became prime minister again.
Also the Tory right, the ERG not the Tory moderates, are coming alive after the election defeat, with Brexit and the governments war on woke in Starmers hands - that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
He's also no 91 on the Labour target list, probably a bit more vulnerable because of being in London. If Labour do get a majority, he's probably out unless he can chicken run.
WTF? you are talking about the most electorally potent Tory alive.
that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
Defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour will not lead to a Tory revival though
You hope, or know?
I predict.
Even Brexiteers now admit Brexit is a shitshow, so while defending it might get you the Tory leadership, it's not going to revive the party.
So Boris is going full Trump aided by the crazy Tory right. At what point do we actually start to worry?
Is this a story planted to remind us about Sunak’s usp?
Johnson has never gone away in the eyes of a few diehards not least Dorries, but then Corbyn still has his diehards
Sunak will lead into GE 24 for better or worse
He won't if it looks like the Tories will get an absolute tonking. Johnson may be the last throw of the dice,, but the party consider him to be a winner.
In some respects it would be nice to put that notion to the test in the hope that it would finally be proven wrong.
I just cannot see Johnson back, not least because a majority of his mps do not want him, he is still facing the privileges committee, he is unlikely to retain his seat, and his lifestyle demands millions that only speeches at £250,000 a time can afford
If is a pipe dream for a few disciples destined to fail
Sunak was the PMs Chancellor who knifed his boss and brought him down prematurely, mid mission, is the truth isn’t it? You asking Boris just to forget that and walk away?
if Boris wanted to criticise Sunak’s floundering premiership, Boris could have a field day. Just about everything Boris would day about Sunak’s mistakes would be more in touch and popular with voters, wouldn’t it?
that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
Defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour will not lead to a Tory revival though
You hope, or know?
I predict.
Even Brexiteers now admit Brexit is a shitshow, so while defending it might get you the Tory leadership, it's not going to revive the party.
Seems Starmer is doing OK as pro Brexit
😂 Everyone knows “Confirmatory Ref” Starmer isn’t PRO BREXIT. He is just saying what he needs to on this, to win an election.
So Boris is going full Trump aided by the crazy Tory right. At what point do we actually start to worry?
Is this a story planted to remind us about Sunak’s usp?
Johnson has never gone away in the eyes of a few diehards not least Dorries, but then Corbyn still has his diehards
Sunak will lead into GE 24 for better or worse
He won't if it looks like the Tories will get an absolute tonking. Johnson may be the last throw of the dice,, but the party consider him to be a winner.
In some respects it would be nice to put that notion to the test in the hope that it would finally be proven wrong.
I just cannot see Johnson back, not least because a majority of his mps do not want him, he is still facing the privileges committee, he is unlikely to retain his seat, and his lifestyle demands millions that only speeches at £250,000 a time can afford
If is a pipe dream for a few disciples destined to fail
Sunak was the PMs Chancellor who knifed his boss and brought him down prematurely, mid mission, is the truth isn’t it? You asking Boris just to forget that and walk away?
if Boris wanted to criticise Sunak’s floundering premiership, Boris could have a field day. Just about everything Boris would day about Sunak’s mistakes would be more in touch and popular with voters, wouldn’t it?
Knifed him? Don't be silly the whole party knifed him. Quite rightly.
So Boris is going full Trump aided by the crazy Tory right. At what point do we actually start to worry?
Is this a story planted to remind us about Sunak’s usp?
Johnson has never gone away in the eyes of a few diehards not least Dorries, but then Corbyn still has his diehards
Sunak will lead into GE 24 for better or worse
He won't if it looks like the Tories will get an absolute tonking. Johnson may be the last throw of the dice,, but the party consider him to be a winner.
In some respects it would be nice to put that notion to the test in the hope that it would finally be proven wrong.
I just cannot see Johnson back, not least because a majority of his mps do not want him, he is still facing the privileges committee, he is unlikely to retain his seat, and his lifestyle demands millions that only speeches at £250,000 a time can afford
If is a pipe dream for a few disciples destined to fail
Sunak was the PMs Chancellor who knifed his boss and brought him down prematurely, mid mission, is the truth isn’t it? You asking Boris just to forget that and walk away?
if Boris wanted to criticise Sunak’s floundering premiership, Boris could have a field day. Just about everything Boris would day about Sunak’s mistakes would be more in touch and popular with voters, wouldn’t it?
He would never do that himself (as Rishi didn't) his allies would (like Nadine Dorries). This appears to have started already.
So Boris is going full Trump aided by the crazy Tory right. At what point do we actually start to worry?
Is this a story planted to remind us about Sunak’s usp?
Johnson has never gone away in the eyes of a few diehards not least Dorries, but then Corbyn still has his diehards
Sunak will lead into GE 24 for better or worse
He won't if it looks like the Tories will get an absolute tonking. Johnson may be the last throw of the dice,, but the party consider him to be a winner.
In some respects it would be nice to put that notion to the test in the hope that it would finally be proven wrong.
I just cannot see Johnson back, not least because a majority of his mps do not want him, he is still facing the privileges committee, he is unlikely to retain his seat, and his lifestyle demands millions that only speeches at £250,000 a time can afford
If is a pipe dream for a few disciples destined to fail
Sunak was the PMs Chancellor who knifed his boss and brought him down prematurely, mid mission, is the truth isn’t it? You asking Boris just to forget that and walk away?
if Boris wanted to criticise Sunak’s floundering premiership, Boris could have a field day. Just about everything Boris would day about Sunak’s mistakes would be more in touch and popular with voters, wouldn’t it?
I note lots of Boris Johnson revival stories in his usual fanzines during the last 24 hours. Is BigDog on manouvres? The Sun says Johnson will be popular with voters.
God help us!
As Barnum said - you can fool some of the people all of the time.
So yep some people would be happy with Bozo returning as PM but a lot more people will be weary of him compared to 2019 so he won't be the great solution he was then.
And his reappearance would probably rejuvenate Farage more than anything else possibly could.
My fear is if the Conservative Party is daft enough to vote for him so might Joe Public.
I do apologise for my earlier rather foolish question, namely, "is Johnson on manouvres?" Of course, it is well known Johnson is always on manouvres.
I am 100% certain Boris would get a better result at next GE than Sunak. Sunak’s government is already struggling as thought of as out of touch with people.
But I am also certain Boris has 0% chance of ousting Sunak. Unfortunately for Boris, his political career ends in embarrassing failure. No chance of tackling what will forever be unfinished business in his mind.
Agree on both points. He probably would minimize the coming Con defeat but he won't be getting the chance. Sunak is safe for the GE.
There's one possibility re Johnson which I rate less outlandish than I think most people do - he returns as LOTO after the GE. I wouldn't rule that out.
Can't see that. He'll be 60 at the next election. Would he want 5 years as LOTO for an election at age 65 to be PM till he's 70? Maybe. But doesn't fit well with me.
But he is driven by “unfinished business”, and it’s either that or excepting retirement isn’t it?
Comeback King and Winston Churchill is the template. Churchill was just short of his 77th birthday when he became prime minister again.
Also the Tory right, the ERG not the Tory moderates, are coming alive after the election defeat, with Brexit and the governments war on woke in Starmers hands - that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
He's also no 91 on the Labour target list, probably a bit more vulnerable because of being in London. If Labour do get a majority, he's probably out unless he can chicken run.
I note lots of Boris Johnson revival stories in his usual fanzines during the last 24 hours. Is BigDog on manouvres? The Sun says Johnson will be popular with voters.
God help us!
As Barnum said - you can fool some of the people all of the time.
So yep some people would be happy with Bozo returning as PM but a lot more people will be weary of him compared to 2019 so he won't be the great solution he was then.
And his reappearance would probably rejuvenate Farage more than anything else possibly could.
My fear is if the Conservative Party is daft enough to vote for him so might Joe Public.
I do apologise for my earlier rather foolish question, namely, "is Johnson on manouvres?" Of course, it is well known Johnson is always on manouvres.
I am 100% certain Boris would get a better result at next GE than Sunak. Sunak’s government is already struggling as thought of as out of touch with people.
But I am also certain Boris has 0% chance of ousting Sunak. Unfortunately for Boris, his political career ends in embarrassing failure. No chance of tackling what will forever be unfinished business in his mind.
Agree on both points. He probably would minimize the coming Con defeat but he won't be getting the chance. Sunak is safe for the GE.
There's one possibility re Johnson which I rate less outlandish than I think most people do - he returns as LOTO after the GE. I wouldn't rule that out.
Can't see that. He'll be 60 at the next election. Would he want 5 years as LOTO for an election at age 65 to be PM till he's 70? Maybe. But doesn't fit well with me.
But he is driven by “unfinished business”, and it’s either that or excepting retirement isn’t it?
Comeback King and Winston Churchill is the template. Churchill was just short of his 77th birthday when he became prime minister again.
Also the Tory right, the ERG not the Tory moderates, are coming alive after the election defeat, with Brexit and the governments war on woke in Starmers hands - that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
He's also no 91 on the Labour target list, probably a bit more vulnerable because of being in London. If Labour do get a majority, he's probably out unless he can chicken run.
WTF? you are talking about the most electorally potent Tory alive.
No more drugs for MoonRabbit!
Boo. 😝
MoonRabbit don’t need drugs on day she sat on a horse AND held a piglet! 🐷
Marie-Ann Detests Tories 🇺🇦 🇪🇺 🇬🇧 @MarieAnnUK Oxford: That awesome moment when Boris Johnson wanted a quiet visit to his old college for lunch. Students found out and had other ideas.
Banner saying RACIST BORIS WHAT DEAD ANIMALS HAVE YOU FUCKED?
I worry about Oxford students, or do they know something we don't?
My vote is long-agonised-over. No party fits my preferences perfectly, all are, for me, flawed. There is regret, not pleasure, in voting for any of them. A least-bad option. (This is a deeply self-centred position of course; why should a party exist to serve, specifically, me?) But were I agonising over the Tory box, it's people like that who would convince me that yes, emotionally, I could vote Tory.
Worth noting that all the polling is now showing Tories and Reform combined on over 30%. That probably translates to at least 30% for the Tories at a GE. With DKs returning closer to the time, their actual minimum is probably closer to 35%. If tactical voting is not too savage, that would almost certainly deny Labour a majority. Get it closer to 40% and the Tories winning most seats gets feasible. An overall majority, though, looks very, very tough. Starmer should be favourite to be next PM. A hung Parliament should be favourite for next GE outcome.
that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
Defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour will not lead to a Tory revival though
You hope, or know?
I predict.
Even Brexiteers now admit Brexit is a shitshow, so while defending it might get you the Tory leadership, it's not going to revive the party.
Seems Starmer is doing OK as pro Brexit
😂 Everyone knows “Confirmatory Ref” Starmer isn’t PRO BREXIT. He is just saying what he needs to on this, to win an election.
Every word he says on it could be repeated by the ERG even on new years day with his vow not to bring back freedom of movement
So Boris is going full Trump aided by the crazy Tory right. At what point do we actually start to worry?
Is this a story planted to remind us about Sunak’s usp?
Johnson has never gone away in the eyes of a few diehards not least Dorries, but then Corbyn still has his diehards
Sunak will lead into GE 24 for better or worse
He won't if it looks like the Tories will get an absolute tonking. Johnson may be the last throw of the dice,, but the party consider him to be a winner.
In some respects it would be nice to put that notion to the test in the hope that it would finally be proven wrong.
I just cannot see Johnson back, not least because a majority of his mps do not want him, he is still facing the privileges committee, he is unlikely to retain his seat, and his lifestyle demands millions that only speeches at £250,000 a time can afford
If is a pipe dream for a few disciples destined to fail
Sunak was the PMs Chancellor who knifed his boss and brought him down prematurely, mid mission, is the truth isn’t it? You asking Boris just to forget that and walk away?
if Boris wanted to criticise Sunak’s floundering premiership, Boris could have a field day. Just about everything Boris would day about Sunak’s mistakes would be more in touch and popular with voters, wouldn’t it?
Boris brought down Boris
Nobody else full stop
That's true, but only in reality.
What the repeated rise, fall and resurrection of Boris shows us is that reality can be beaten by an untrue story told with enough gusto.
That’s a crossover poll. My prediction is, despite all the in built advantage PMs have in this measurement, this lead will grow. At least till the election campaign.
The wording for the R&W question - "At this moment ..." - makes it especially favourable to the incumbent. Starmer has bigger leads from other pollsters on this.
Backed Osasuna (this evening) and Manchester United versus City.
Man Utd Boss is doing a very good job this season. Their record against top sides is brilliant, beaten Liverpool, Arsenal, Tottenham, with points against Newcastle and Chelsea. This has got to mean something in placing bets and it’s means they are destined for a top two finish in my opinion.
Top 4 end of season - 1 Man City, 2 Man Utd, 3 Newcastle, 4 Arsenal.
If Liverpool had Rice screening their defence, they would become a top two side again immediately.
Arsenal have already blown it again by having so weak a bench they can’t use it - come those last ten games they will be out on their feet and struggling without rotation options.
Is this not driven by the EUs willingness to compromise and strike a deal on this though? And is it not destined to be torpedoed by the DUP unwillingness to actually have a deal - as DUP don’t know what they are for, only what they are against?
As an LAFC fan, it was fascinating to see him in the twilight of his career. He was far from match fit for his four or five months in LA, and started perhaps two games.
But he also scored the goal that led LAFC to the MLS Cup. So I will always be a fan.
That’s a crossover poll. My prediction is, despite all the in built advantage PMs have in this measurement, this lead will grow. At least till the election campaign.
The wording for the R&W question - "At this moment ..." - makes it especially favourable to the incumbent. Starmer has bigger leads from other pollsters on this.
Not from Opinium. Let’s see what they have to say.
Gordon Brown stopped a Tory majority; the victory has been, at best, deferred.
Gordon Brown stopped a Tory majority on just 29% of the vote for Labour in 2010, little different to what Sunak's Tories are now polling (and with RefUK to squeeze)
I would caveat these "Labour needs a 10% national lead on new boundaries" with "unless there is more tactical voting this time"
Not if offset by RefUK voters and DKs moving back to the Tories however.
Absent major gains in Scotland Labour still has a big task to get even a majority of 1, even if it likely wins most seats
We most definitely want different outcomes at the next GE, but we agree that labour have a mountain to climb, to win an overall majority, and insiders in the party are probably resigned to that fact
Express: Yvette Cooper, Wes Streeting and Dan Jarvis raked in hundreds of thousands of pounds from MPM Connect Ltd in the past two years. Overall the firm has dished out £345,217 to the three high-profile since February 2020.
MPM Connect has no internet presence and is owned by two low-profile millionaires, Peter Hearn and Simon Murphy.
Details of the colossal individual donations emerged after Sky News and the Tortoise news website launched a new database of MPs' outside earnings and donations.
MPM's company's accounts offer few clues as to what the firm does, although it does note that for the year ending December 2021, "the number of employees during the year was NIL". Its head office is an unremarkable semi-detached house in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire.
Is this not driven by the EUs willingness to compromise and strike a deal on this though? And is it not destined to be torpedoed by the DUP unwillingness to actually have a deal - as DUP don’t know what they are for, only what they are against?
It is driven by both sides wanting a resolution as commented on by Varadkar a few days ago
And it is good news and maybe why @Scott_xP choses to ignore it
Gordon Brown stopped a Tory majority; the victory has been, at best, deferred.
That's mostly because in opposition Labour went spiraling off into electoral oblivion, first with Ed Miliband and then with Jezza.
To be fair to Ed and Jezza they did improve Labour's voteshare relative to Brown, Miliband from 29% to 30% and then Jezza to 40% in 2017 and 32% in 2019. Jezza also got a hung parliament in 2017 like Brown in 2010 and despite not winning the vast majority of Scottish seats as Brown had.
Express: Yvette Cooper, Wes Streeting and Dan Jarvis raked in hundreds of thousands of pounds from MPM Connect Ltd in the past two years. Overall the firm has dished out £345,217 to the three high-profile since February 2020.
MPM Connect has no internet presence and is owned by two low-profile millionaires, Peter Hearn and Simon Murphy.
Details of the colossal individual donations emerged after Sky News and the Tortoise news website launched a new database of MPs' outside earnings and donations.
MPM's company's accounts offer few clues as to what the firm does, although it does note that for the year ending December 2021, "the number of employees during the year was NIL". Its head office is an unremarkable semi-detached house in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire.
I thought it was meant to be only conservative mps raking in hundreds of thousands, not labour's Shadow Health and Home Secretaries
Also their Foreign Secretary with over £200,000 apparently
Our village's Catholic priest has been campaigning for this since he assumed the job. His house (right opposite the church the Anglicans took from us 500 years ago) is now the only building in the village still displaying an external Christmas tree: till last Friday there were dozens.
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
Our village's Catholic priest has been campaigning for this since he assumed the job. His house (right opposite the church the Anglicans took from us 500 years ago) is now the only building in the village still displaying an external Christmas tree: till last Friday there were dozens.
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
Moving Christmas to the Orthodox 7 January would be a start; have it when the evenings are slightly brighter and knock 10% off the January February misery.
Our village's Catholic priest has been campaigning for this since he assumed the job. His house (right opposite the church the Anglicans took from us 500 years ago) is now the only building in the village still displaying an external Christmas tree: till last Friday there were dozens.
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
Christmas should still end at Ephiphany in my view, otherwise you cross over into Shrove Tuesday and then Lent.
As for Anglicans stealing their pre 16th century churches from the Roman Catholics, I think there is a case for allowing Catholic parishes to use and share village Medieval Anglican churches, especially in more remote rural areas if there is not a big enough Anglican congregation to use them alone for a service every Sunday. That would also reduce cases of ever more rural Church of England parishes being combined, certainly if more than 5 Church of England parishes would be combined otherwise
Am I a bad person for instinctively judging other people as less intelligent if they say th as f or v?
How many of those people couldn't say "They think that three things threaten the threads" properly if you paid them a thousand pounds to do it right?
Is it a speech impediment, or just laziness? I've never heard a name for it, unlike the lisp
You're not a bad person for it, but a lot of people (and I include myself) unfairly judge people's intellect by their accent, pronounciation, or other minor quirks. We do it the other way as well, and overestimate some people's intellect because they have a basic level of eloquence and a style which is considered proper.
Our village's Catholic priest has been campaigning for this since he assumed the job. His house (right opposite the church the Anglicans took from us 500 years ago) is now the only building in the village still displaying an external Christmas tree: till last Friday there were dozens.
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
Christmas should still end at Ephiphany in my view, otherwise you cross over into Shrove Tuesday and then Lent.
As for Anglicans stealing their pre 16th century churches from the Roman Catholics, I think there is a case for allowing Catholic parishes to use and share village Medieval Anglican churches, especially in more remote rural areas if there is not a big enough Anglican congregation to use them alone for a service every Sunday. That would also reduce cases of ever more rural Church of England parishes being combined, certainly if more than 5 Church of England parishes would be combined otherwise
They can't ever overlap. Candlemas is always 2 February, and the earliest Shrove Tuesday can be is 3 February.
40 days of Christmas feast, then 40 days of Lenten fast, it's elegant and symmetrical...
Would sharing buildings be that transformative for rural churches, though? I think the limiting factor is clergy rather than buildings, and we're some way from agreeing that CofE and RC ministers are interchangeable.
I note lots of Boris Johnson revival stories in his usual fanzines during the last 24 hours. Is BigDog on manouvres? The Sun says Johnson will be popular with voters.
God help us!
As Barnum said - you can fool some of the people all of the time.
So yep some people would be happy with Bozo returning as PM but a lot more people will be weary of him compared to 2019 so he won't be the great solution he was then.
And his reappearance would probably rejuvenate Farage more than anything else possibly could.
My fear is if the Conservative Party is daft enough to vote for him so might Joe Public.
I do apologise for my earlier rather foolish question, namely, "is Johnson on manouvres?" Of course, it is well known Johnson is always on manouvres.
I am 100% certain Boris would get a better result at next GE than Sunak. Sunak’s government is already struggling as thought of as out of touch with people.
But I am also certain Boris has 0% chance of ousting Sunak. Unfortunately for Boris, his political career ends in embarrassing failure. No chance of tackling what will forever be unfinished business in his mind.
Agree on both points. He probably would minimize the coming Con defeat but he won't be getting the chance. Sunak is safe for the GE.
There's one possibility re Johnson which I rate less outlandish than I think most people do - he returns as LOTO after the GE. I wouldn't rule that out.
Can't see that. He'll be 60 at the next election. Would he want 5 years as LOTO for an election at age 65 to be PM till he's 70? Maybe. But doesn't fit well with me.
I'm definitely not predicting it but I can see it assuming he's still an MP. Never been convinced by talk of him jacking in politics to earn squillions as some sort of superstar layabout. My sense of him is he's addicted to SW1.
Am I a bad person for instinctively judging other people as less intelligent if they say th as f or v?
How many of those people couldn't say "They think that three things threaten the threads" properly if you paid them a thousand pounds to do it right?
Is it a speech impediment, or just laziness? I've never heard a name for it, unlike the lisp
Posh supremacism. They aren't saying it wrong, just different. Vey fink vat is understandable English where Fey vink fat wouldn't be. So there's still rules, just not the ones which you were arbitrarily taught were the right ones.
Our village's Catholic priest has been campaigning for this since he assumed the job. His house (right opposite the church the Anglicans took from us 500 years ago) is now the only building in the village still displaying an external Christmas tree: till last Friday there were dozens.
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
Christmas should still end at Ephiphany in my view, otherwise you cross over into Shrove Tuesday and then Lent.
As for Anglicans stealing their pre 16th century churches from the Roman Catholics, I think there is a case for allowing Catholic parishes to use and share village Medieval Anglican churches, especially in more remote rural areas if there is not a big enough Anglican congregation to use them alone for a service every Sunday. That would also reduce cases of ever more rural Church of England parishes being combined, certainly if more than 5 Church of England parishes would be combined otherwise
What is a 'medieval' church? There are plenty of churches where the site has been occupied continuously since the Middle Ages but the building itself is Victorian.
Express: Yvette Cooper, Wes Streeting and Dan Jarvis raked in hundreds of thousands of pounds from MPM Connect Ltd in the past two years. Overall the firm has dished out £345,217 to the three high-profile since February 2020.
MPM Connect has no internet presence and is owned by two low-profile millionaires, Peter Hearn and Simon Murphy.
Details of the colossal individual donations emerged after Sky News and the Tortoise news website launched a new database of MPs' outside earnings and donations.
MPM's company's accounts offer few clues as to what the firm does, although it does note that for the year ending December 2021, "the number of employees during the year was NIL". Its head office is an unremarkable semi-detached house in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire.
Raked in is a judgey way to present things, but it does seem another example of why the rules on donations should be made vastly stricter and simpler - it should be immediately clear who has donated something, since by doing so they are seeking to support or influence a public official. It might be totally above board, but it is clearly hard to find out.
Just as a starter thought - No one person should be able to donate more than £1000, and no one group more than £10,000, per MP (to a maximum of £10,000 or £50,000 total).
Do they need more than that to get by and perform their role effectively? If not, then they don't need it. If they do, then we have big problems since they should not be reliant upon singular large donations from people or groups to operate.
I would be happy for MPs to be paid more or to provide for a basic level of staffing (not sinecures for family members) and sundries to compensate.
Our village's Catholic priest has been campaigning for this since he assumed the job. His house (right opposite the church the Anglicans took from us 500 years ago) is now the only building in the village still displaying an external Christmas tree: till last Friday there were dozens.
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
Christmas should still end at Ephiphany in my view, otherwise you cross over into Shrove Tuesday and then Lent.
As for Anglicans stealing their pre 16th century churches from the Roman Catholics, I think there is a case for allowing Catholic parishes to use and share village Medieval Anglican churches, especially in more remote rural areas if there is not a big enough Anglican congregation to use them alone for a service every Sunday. That would also reduce cases of ever more rural Church of England parishes being combined, certainly if more than 5 Church of England parishes would be combined otherwise
They can't ever overlap. Candlemas is always 2 February, and the earliest Shrove Tuesday can be is 3 February.
40 days of Christmas feast, then 40 days of Lenten fast, it's elegant and symmetrical...
Would sharing buildings be that transformative for rural churches, though? I think the limiting factor is clergy rather than buildings, and we're some way from agreeing that CofE and RC ministers are interchangeable.
Yes but they are right next to each other, as a Protestant rather than RC I am a bit wary of spending all winter feasting rather than working even as an Anglican rather than a Puritan evangelical I don't oppose Christmas and Epiphany and Shrove Tuesday celebrations.
In the C of E there are now half the number of clergy there were in the 1950s but multiple times the number of diocesan administrators. A bit of shift from latter to former would be helpful.
I am not saying C of E and RC share services but if a rural church does not have a big enough C of E congregation for a service every Sunday, then why not allow the local RC church to use it from time to time? In Oxbridge colleges for example the university RC priests normally hold a mass in college chapels once a month, even if most of the time the college chaplain uses it for Anglican services and it works fine
Am I a bad person for instinctively judging other people as less intelligent if they say th as f or v?
How many of those people couldn't say "They think that three things threaten the threads" properly if you paid them a thousand pounds to do it right?
Is it a speech impediment, or just laziness? I've never heard a name for it, unlike the lisp
Posh supremacism. They aren't saying it wrong, just different. Vey fink vat is understandable English where Fey vink fat wouldn't be. So there's still rules, just not the ones which you were arbitrarily taught were the right ones.
I've become much more forgiving of such things ever since the time my 5 year old nephew corrected my enunciation.
Am I a bad person for instinctively judging other people as less intelligent if they say th as f or v?
How many of those people couldn't say "They think that three things threaten the threads" properly if you paid them a thousand pounds to do it right?
Is it a speech impediment, or just laziness? I've never heard a name for it, unlike the lisp
It can be a speech impediment. I had a lisp as a kid, but also couldn't pronounce 'th' - tongue all wrong. 'R' was a nightmare too - e.g. Twuwo is in a largely wuwal county. Speech therapy did the trick. And of course I'm highly intelligent. So yes, you could be a bad person.
I note lots of Boris Johnson revival stories in his usual fanzines during the last 24 hours. Is BigDog on manouvres? The Sun says Johnson will be popular with voters.
God help us!
As Barnum said - you can fool some of the people all of the time.
So yep some people would be happy with Bozo returning as PM but a lot more people will be weary of him compared to 2019 so he won't be the great solution he was then.
And his reappearance would probably rejuvenate Farage more than anything else possibly could.
My fear is if the Conservative Party is daft enough to vote for him so might Joe Public.
I do apologise for my earlier rather foolish question, namely, "is Johnson on manouvres?" Of course, it is well known Johnson is always on manouvres.
I am 100% certain Boris would get a better result at next GE than Sunak. Sunak’s government is already struggling as thought of as out of touch with people.
But I am also certain Boris has 0% chance of ousting Sunak. Unfortunately for Boris, his political career ends in embarrassing failure. No chance of tackling what will forever be unfinished business in his mind.
Agree on both points. He probably would minimize the coming Con defeat but he won't be getting the chance. Sunak is safe for the GE.
There's one possibility re Johnson which I rate less outlandish than I think most people do - he returns as LOTO after the GE. I wouldn't rule that out.
Can't see that. He'll be 60 at the next election. Would he want 5 years as LOTO for an election at age 65 to be PM till he's 70? Maybe. But doesn't fit well with me.
I'm definitely not predicting it but I can see it assuming he's still an MP. Never been convinced by talk of him jacking in politics to earn squillions as some sort of superstar layabout. My sense of him is he's addicted to SW1.
Boris hates hard work but it is possible he could be a hands-off LotO, charging shadow ministers to produce policies in the same way Cameron did. It is possible being LotO would suit him better than being Prime Minister. LotO could be like editing the Spectator, chairing boozy lunches while others do the work.
Our village's Catholic priest has been campaigning for this since he assumed the job. His house (right opposite the church the Anglicans took from us 500 years ago) is now the only building in the village still displaying an external Christmas tree: till last Friday there were dozens.
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
Christmas should still end at Ephiphany in my view, otherwise you cross over into Shrove Tuesday and then Lent.
As for Anglicans stealing their pre 16th century churches from the Roman Catholics, I think there is a case for allowing Catholic parishes to use and share village Medieval Anglican churches, especially in more remote rural areas if there is not a big enough Anglican congregation to use them alone for a service every Sunday. That would also reduce cases of ever more rural Church of England parishes being combined, certainly if more than 5 Church of England parishes would be combined otherwise
What is a 'medieval' church? There are plenty of churches where the site has been occupied continuously since the Middle Ages but the building itself is Victorian.
If the building, or at least the majority of the building, is not Medieval then it is not a Medieval Church.
A Medieval church which burnt down for example and was rebuilt by the Victorians is not a Medieval Church even though there may originally have been a church there in Medieval times
Labour leads by 22%, up two points from last week.
Westminster VI (8 January):
Labour 48% (+1) Conservative 26% (-1) Liberal Democrat 9% (-3) Reform UK 6% (+1) Green 5% (+2) Scottish National Party 4% (–) Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 2-3 January
All within margin of error to be fair but Labour will be happy enough with that.
Among those likely to vote (including the Don't Knows), Labour leads 41-22 (among men ahead by 17, among women ahead by 20). 15% Don't Know. Conservatives ahead 32-29 among the 65+ age group - behind in all other age groups.
Of the 2019 Conservatives, 53% staying loyal, 18% Don't Know, 17% Labour and 7% Reform.
In Scotland, SNP leads Labour 35-29 - in London it's Labour 50%, Conservatives 18%.
The problem of the - quite proper - 40 day period from 24/25 December to 2 Feb is that the whole things starts so early. It's great as long as you don't start the stuff in mid-November. If you do, by 27 December you are ready for a 40 day penance and fast.
So loads of people take down their Christmas stuff well before 12th night.
Our approach is to keep all the bits of Christmas we want until 2 Feb.
Am I a bad person for instinctively judging other people as less intelligent if they say th as f or v?
How many of those people couldn't say "They think that three things threaten the threads" properly if you paid them a thousand pounds to do it right?
Is it a speech impediment, or just laziness? I've never heard a name for it, unlike the lisp
Posh supremacism. They aren't saying it wrong, just different. Vey fink vat is understandable English where Fey vink fat wouldn't be. So there's still rules, just not the ones which you were arbitrarily taught were the right ones.
Our village's Catholic priest has been campaigning for this since he assumed the job. His house (right opposite the church the Anglicans took from us 500 years ago) is now the only building in the village still displaying an external Christmas tree: till last Friday there were dozens.
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
Christmas should still end at Ephiphany in my view, otherwise you cross over into Shrove Tuesday and then Lent.
As for Anglicans stealing their pre 16th century churches from the Roman Catholics, I think there is a case for allowing Catholic parishes to use and share village Medieval Anglican churches, especially in more remote rural areas if there is not a big enough Anglican congregation to use them alone for a service every Sunday. That would also reduce cases of ever more rural Church of England parishes being combined, certainly if more than 5 Church of England parishes would be combined otherwise
What is a 'medieval' church? There are plenty of churches where the site has been occupied continuously since the Middle Ages but the building itself is Victorian.
If the building, or at least the majority of the building, is not Medieval then it is not a Medieval Church.
A Medieval church which burnt down for example and was rebuilt by the Victorians is not a Medieval Church even though there may originally have been a church there in Medieval times
In that case there are almost no medieval churches in this country. Most of them even where original features remain the majority of the fabric is eighteenth century or later, especially Victorian.
Our village's Catholic priest has been campaigning for this since he assumed the job. His house (right opposite the church the Anglicans took from us 500 years ago) is now the only building in the village still displaying an external Christmas tree: till last Friday there were dozens.
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
Christmas should still end at Ephiphany in my view, otherwise you cross over into Shrove Tuesday and then Lent.
As for Anglicans stealing their pre 16th century churches from the Roman Catholics, I think there is a case for allowing Catholic parishes to use and share village Medieval Anglican churches, especially in more remote rural areas if there is not a big enough Anglican congregation to use them alone for a service every Sunday. That would also reduce cases of ever more rural Church of England parishes being combined, certainly if more than 5 Church of England parishes would be combined otherwise
They can't ever overlap. Candlemas is always 2 February, and the earliest Shrove Tuesday can be is 3 February.
40 days of Christmas feast, then 40 days of Lenten fast, it's elegant and symmetrical...
Would sharing buildings be that transformative for rural churches, though? I think the limiting factor is clergy rather than buildings, and we're some way from agreeing that CofE and RC ministers are interchangeable.
For Shrove Tuesday on 3rd February you are going to have to wait till 2285. The last was 1818.
that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
Defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour will not lead to a Tory revival though
You hope, or know?
I predict.
Even Brexiteers now admit Brexit is a shitshow, so while defending it might get you the Tory leadership, it's not going to revive the party.
Seems Starmer is doing OK as pro Brexit
I doubt Starmer is pro-Brexit. I suspect he, like myself realises the game is up over Brexit and we have left and we are not going back. I suppose he could be EFTA, EEA minded, but if that frightens the horses, why bother?
Our village's Catholic priest has been campaigning for this since he assumed the job. His house (right opposite the church the Anglicans took from us 500 years ago) is now the only building in the village still displaying an external Christmas tree: till last Friday there were dozens.
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
Christmas should still end at Ephiphany in my view, otherwise you cross over into Shrove Tuesday and then Lent.
As for Anglicans stealing their pre 16th century churches from the Roman Catholics, I think there is a case for allowing Catholic parishes to use and share village Medieval Anglican churches, especially in more remote rural areas if there is not a big enough Anglican congregation to use them alone for a service every Sunday. That would also reduce cases of ever more rural Church of England parishes being combined, certainly if more than 5 Church of England parishes would be combined otherwise
What is a 'medieval' church? There are plenty of churches where the site has been occupied continuously since the Middle Ages but the building itself is Victorian.
If the building, or at least the majority of the building, is not Medieval then it is not a Medieval Church.
A Medieval church which burnt down for example and was rebuilt by the Victorians is not a Medieval Church even though there may originally have been a church there in Medieval times
In that case there are almost no medieval churches in this country. Most of them even where original features remain the majority of the fabric is eighteenth century or later, especially Victorian.
The fabric of the interior is not the building itself is it. About half of C of E churches, especially in rural areas, are Medieval and taken over from the original Roman Catholic churches at the Reformation, the rest are mainly Stuart, Georgian, Victorian or 20th century
Just to finish my quick analysis of the Redfield & Wilton numbers, the poll for England only (excluding Don't Knows) has Labour on 50%, the Conservatives on 28% and the LDs on 10%.
That's a swing of 17,5% from Conservative to Labour.
That takes down to the 238th most marginal Conservative seat - Bedfordshire South West - currently held with a majority of 18,583.
One scenario that needs to be considered is Sunak doing the grunt work for the next 18 months and then being ditched for Boris in the final few months for the campaign itself.
that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
Defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour will not lead to a Tory revival though
You hope, or know?
I predict.
Even Brexiteers now admit Brexit is a shitshow, so while defending it might get you the Tory leadership, it's not going to revive the party.
Seems Starmer is doing OK as pro Brexit
😂 Everyone knows “Confirmatory Ref” Starmer isn’t PRO BREXIT. He is just saying what he needs to on this, to win an election.
Plus Brexit is an event in the past, so I kind of see it like the Elgin Marbles. It’s possible to regret the fact they were taken in the first place whilst deciding against handing them back straight away (though I note there are now discussions happening on this).
Just to finish my quick analysis of the Redfield & Wilton numbers, the poll for England only (excluding Don't Knows) has Labour on 50%, the Conservatives on 28% and the LDs on 10%.
That's a swing of 17,5% from Conservative to Labour.
That takes down to the 238th most marginal Conservative seat - Bedfordshire South West - currently held with a majority of 18,583.
The geography of the next election could be fascinating. If England ex-London really is swinging away more from the government than London, Scotland or wales then all the assumptions we have on the new boundaries may be way out.
Just to finish my quick analysis of the Redfield & Wilton numbers, the poll for England only (excluding Don't Knows) has Labour on 50%, the Conservatives on 28% and the LDs on 10%.
That's a swing of 17,5% from Conservative to Labour.
That takes down to the 238th most marginal Conservative seat - Bedfordshire South West - currently held with a majority of 18,583.
The geography of the next election could be fascinating. If England ex-London really is swinging away more from the government than London, Scotland or wales then all the assumptions we have on the new boundaries may be way out.
What is clear is Rishi is more popular in London than Boris now (and in Scotland too so the Tories might save some seats there) and in the bluewall Home Counties but less popular than Boris in the North, the Midlands and Wales and redwall seats. So the latter is where the biggest swing to Labour will be.
The net result is the Tory MPs left will represent much posher areas on average under Rishi than they did under Boris
Our village's Catholic priest has been campaigning for this since he assumed the job. His house (right opposite the church the Anglicans took from us 500 years ago) is now the only building in the village still displaying an external Christmas tree: till last Friday there were dozens.
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
Christmas should still end at Ephiphany in my view, otherwise you cross over into Shrove Tuesday and then Lent.
As for Anglicans stealing their pre 16th century churches from the Roman Catholics, I think there is a case for allowing Catholic parishes to use and share village Medieval Anglican churches, especially in more remote rural areas if there is not a big enough Anglican congregation to use them alone for a service every Sunday. That would also reduce cases of ever more rural Church of England parishes being combined, certainly if more than 5 Church of England parishes would be combined otherwise
What is a 'medieval' church? There are plenty of churches where the site has been occupied continuously since the Middle Ages but the building itself is Victorian.
If the building, or at least the majority of the building, is not Medieval then it is not a Medieval Church.
A Medieval church which burnt down for example and was rebuilt by the Victorians is not a Medieval Church even though there may originally have been a church there in Medieval times
In that case there are almost no medieval churches in this country. Most of them even where original features remain the majority of the fabric is eighteenth century or later, especially Victorian.
Nearly all older churches are accretions over time with mixtures of bits perhaps from 1100 to recent times. The Victorians perhaps overdid it but without them many would have just fallen down to ruin. The accretion over time is a big bit of the charm. Bicker in Lincolnshire is a favourite for me in this respect.
Am I a bad person for instinctively judging other people as less intelligent if they say th as f or v?
How many of those people couldn't say "They think that three things threaten the threads" properly if you paid them a thousand pounds to do it right?
Is it a speech impediment, or just laziness? I've never heard a name for it, unlike the lisp
It's simply normal south London pronunciation, or sumfink. But you can judge me how you please and I will respond appropriately if you're a condescending twit as a result.
Our village's Catholic priest has been campaigning for this since he assumed the job. His house (right opposite the church the Anglicans took from us 500 years ago) is now the only building in the village still displaying an external Christmas tree: till last Friday there were dozens.
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
Christmas should still end at Ephiphany in my view, otherwise you cross over into Shrove Tuesday and then Lent.
As for Anglicans stealing their pre 16th century churches from the Roman Catholics, I think there is a case for allowing Catholic parishes to use and share village Medieval Anglican churches, especially in more remote rural areas if there is not a big enough Anglican congregation to use them alone for a service every Sunday. That would also reduce cases of ever more rural Church of England parishes being combined, certainly if more than 5 Church of England parishes would be combined otherwise
What is a 'medieval' church? There are plenty of churches where the site has been occupied continuously since the Middle Ages but the building itself is Victorian.
If the building, or at least the majority of the building, is not Medieval then it is not a Medieval Church.
A Medieval church which burnt down for example and was rebuilt by the Victorians is not a Medieval Church even though there may originally have been a church there in Medieval times
In that case there are almost no medieval churches in this country. Most of them even where original features remain the majority of the fabric is eighteenth century or later, especially Victorian.
Not so. Around half of all the churches in England are predominantly or wholly medieval structures. The most common later change is the replacement of the roof but if the main structure of the building remains then it is quite rightly considered to be medieval. The biggest change/crime committed by the Victorians was scouring the walls to remove a thin layer from the surface of the stone - usually to remove the dirt and graffiti that had built up over centuries of use.
There is a very good project being undertaken across Eastern England to record the remaining medieval graffiti.
Our village's Catholic priest has been campaigning for this since he assumed the job. His house (right opposite the church the Anglicans took from us 500 years ago) is now the only building in the village still displaying an external Christmas tree: till last Friday there were dozens.
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
Christmas should still end at Ephiphany in my view, otherwise you cross over into Shrove Tuesday and then Lent.
As for Anglicans stealing their pre 16th century churches from the Roman Catholics, I think there is a case for allowing Catholic parishes to use and share village Medieval Anglican churches, especially in more remote rural areas if there is not a big enough Anglican congregation to use them alone for a service every Sunday. That would also reduce cases of ever more rural Church of England parishes being combined, certainly if more than 5 Church of England parishes would be combined otherwise
They can't ever overlap. Candlemas is always 2 February, and the earliest Shrove Tuesday can be is 3 February.
40 days of Christmas feast, then 40 days of Lenten fast, it's elegant and symmetrical...
Would sharing buildings be that transformative for rural churches, though? I think the limiting factor is clergy rather than buildings, and we're some way from agreeing that CofE and RC ministers are interchangeable.
For Shrove Tuesday on 3rd February you are going to have to wait till 2285. The last was 1818.
I propose an update to the Easter Act 1928, to encompass all liturgical seasons and provide much more limited variation.
Comments
And even then, only maybe.
The (nearest) analogous thing could happen in USPE2024 though. If Trump stays out of jail and remains in good health, he'll have the power to smash the Republicans' chances, and being the worst deal-doer in the universe he may possibly exercise that power.
Happy New Year everyone! 🥳
Is this a story planted to remind us about Sunak’s usp?
BBC News - NI Protocol: UK and EU reach agreement on trade data sharing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-64214603
At this moment, which of the following do British voters think would be the better Prime Minister for the UK? (8 January)
Keir Starmer 38% (+2)
Rishi Sunak 37% (-1)
Changes +/- 2-3 January
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/latest-gb-voting-intention-8-january-2023 https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1612504524010262528/photo/1
Sunak will lead into GE 24 for better or worse
Comeback King and Winston Churchill is the template. Churchill was just short of his 77th birthday when he became prime minister again.
Also the Tory right, the ERG not the Tory moderates, are coming alive after the election defeat, with Brexit and the governments war on woke in Starmers hands - that’s a fact isn’t it, the next Tory Leadership Election is about who best to lead the Tory revival, defending Tory Brexit and taking the war on woke to Labour.
https://twitter.com/REWearmouth/status/1612507972499914754
https://twitter.com/wesstreeting/status/1612504460659462168
If Churchill had won the 1945 election it's unlikely he would have returned from his first major stroke which I think was in 1949.
BBC News - NI Protocol: UK and EU reach agreement on trade data sharing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-64214603
Check my parcel - still on track to be delivered to the Co-op. With a different tracking number than the one on this card. If I am in tomorrow when he calls, and its a parcel that should be delivered to a different village I will howl with laughter. Because it was always him trying to deliver my parcel in the wrong village so is this the same in reverse.
In some respects it would be nice to put that notion to the test in the hope that it would finally be proven wrong.
Even Brexiteers now admit Brexit is a shitshow, so while defending it might get you the Tory leadership, it's not going to revive the party.
It has been widely discussed here that under contracts for difference, which provide a top up subsidy to reach an agreed strike price, if energy prices get to their current extraordinary levels, the Government gets paid 'the difference' above the agreed strike price, and that it was a shame that they hadn't taken the opportunity to make the 'green levy' a 'green bonus' on energy bills, but just decided to keep quiet and trouser it instead.
Perhaps this is because most (afaik) wind providers are on renewable obligation certificates, which only closed to new entrants in 2018, not cfds, and they get subsidy on top of what they get for selling electricity at the wholesale rate, a subsidy that rises with the retail price index (and has therefore risen a lot recently), and applies differentially to different projects. These contracts still have years to run.
This excellent blog crunches the numbers for 2020, where there was an overall subsidy level (not including constraint payments, to offshore wind providers alone, of £4.3 billion.
https://www.ref.org.uk/ref-blog/370-offshore-wind-subsidies-per-mwh-generated-continue-to-rise
The latest figures I can find are for FY21/22, which are here without commentary:
https://www.ref.org.uk/generators/index.php
It has the roc's received (on all wind generation) as 98,050,228, and if each was worth £52.88, that would make total subsidy under the roc, £5,177,052,038.40, which if my poor non-maths brain serves, is a little north of £5 billion. Not including constraint payments.
It is a pipe dream for a few disciples destined to fail
Backed Osasuna (this evening) and Manchester United versus City.
Isn't there a good chance the rising of the Messiah would lead to a number of defections?
if Boris wanted to criticise Sunak’s floundering premiership, Boris could have a field day. Just about everything Boris would day about Sunak’s mistakes would be more in touch and popular with voters, wouldn’t it?
"But they can’t bring themselves to say it" (via @Opinion) https://trib.al/2KP6PDz https://twitter.com/BloombergUK/status/1612511697478066177/photo/1
Nobody else full stop
The latest Yougov has the swing to Labour just 9% in London since 2019 compared to 16% UK wide. That would still see Labour win Uxbridge but by just 3% so effectively too close to call
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election_in_England
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/nr27ysntzp/TheTimes_VI_230105_W.pdf
MoonRabbit don’t need drugs on day she sat on a horse AND held a piglet! 🐷
But were I agonising over the Tory box, it's people like that who would convince me that yes, emotionally, I could vote Tory.
What the repeated rise, fall and resurrection of Boris shows us is that reality can be beaten by an untrue story told with enough gusto.
Absent major gains in Scotland Labour still has a big task to get even a majority of 1, even if it likely wins most seats
You know, this article I posted especially for you
BBC News - NI Protocol: UK and EU reach agreement on trade data sharing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-64214603
Top 4 end of season - 1 Man City, 2 Man Utd, 3 Newcastle, 4 Arsenal.
If Liverpool had Rice screening their defence, they would become a top two side again immediately.
Arsenal have already blown it again by having so weak a bench they can’t use it - come those last ten games they will be out on their feet and struggling without rotation options.
Yay for Haz for enlivening a month so ghastly that Burns night is a thing
But he also scored the goal that led LAFC to the MLS Cup. So I will always be a fan.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2023/01/09/rite-and-reason-its-time-for-a-return-to-the-forgotten-tradition-of-long-christmas/
MPM Connect has no internet presence and is owned by two low-profile millionaires, Peter Hearn and Simon Murphy.
Details of the colossal individual donations emerged after Sky News and the Tortoise news website launched a new database of MPs' outside earnings and donations.
MPM's company's accounts offer few clues as to what the firm does, although it does note that for the year ending December 2021, "the number of employees during the year was NIL". Its head office is an unremarkable semi-detached house in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire.
At this moment, which of the following do British voters think would be the better Prime Minister for the UK? (8 January)
Keir Starmer 38% (+2)
Rishi Sunak 37% (-1)
Whomp whomp
And it is good news and maybe why @Scott_xP choses to ignore it
Westminster VI (8 January):
Labour 48% (+1)
Conservative 26% (-1)
Liberal Democrat 9% (-3)
Reform UK 6% (+1)
Green 5% (+2)
Scottish National Party 4% (–)
Other 2% (+1)
Changes +/- 2-3 January
Also their Foreign Secretary with over £200,000 apparently
With Lent almost always starting in February, there's lots of opportunity coming up for giving up booze and doing more exercise than you really need. Why add to the misery of this January by doing all than self-denial sooner than you have to?
As for Anglicans stealing their pre 16th century churches from the Roman Catholics, I think there is a case for allowing Catholic parishes to use and share village Medieval Anglican churches, especially in more remote rural areas if there is not a big enough Anglican congregation to use them alone for a service every Sunday. That would also reduce cases of ever more rural Church of England parishes being combined, certainly if more than 5 Church of England parishes would be combined otherwise
How many of those people couldn't say "They think that three things threaten the threads" properly if you paid them a thousand pounds to do it right?
Is it a speech impediment, or just laziness? I've never heard a name for it, unlike the lisp
40 days of Christmas feast, then 40 days of Lenten fast, it's elegant and symmetrical...
Would sharing buildings be that transformative for rural churches, though? I think the limiting factor is clergy rather than buildings, and we're some way from agreeing that CofE and RC ministers are interchangeable.
Just as a starter thought - No one person should be able to donate more than £1000, and no one group more than £10,000, per MP (to a maximum of £10,000 or £50,000 total).
Do they need more than that to get by and perform their role effectively? If not, then they don't need it. If they do, then we have big problems since they should not be reliant upon singular large donations from people or groups to operate.
I would be happy for MPs to be paid more or to provide for a basic level of staffing (not sinecures for family members) and sundries to compensate.
In the C of E there are now half the number of clergy there were in the 1950s but multiple times the number of diocesan administrators. A bit of shift from latter to former would be helpful.
I am not saying C of E and RC share services but if a rural church does not have a big enough C of E congregation for a service every Sunday, then why not allow the local RC church to use it from time to time? In Oxbridge colleges for example the university RC priests normally hold a mass in college chapels once a month, even if most of the time the college chaplain uses it for Anglican services and it works fine
Cheeky little sod.
A Medieval church which burnt down for example and was rebuilt by the Victorians is not a Medieval Church even though there may originally have been a church there in Medieval times
Among those likely to vote (including the Don't Knows), Labour leads 41-22 (among men ahead by 17, among women ahead by 20). 15% Don't Know. Conservatives ahead 32-29 among the 65+ age group - behind in all other age groups.
Of the 2019 Conservatives, 53% staying loyal, 18% Don't Know, 17% Labour and 7% Reform.
In Scotland, SNP leads Labour 35-29 - in London it's Labour 50%, Conservatives 18%.
So loads of people take down their Christmas stuff well before 12th night.
Our approach is to keep all the bits of Christmas we want until 2 Feb.
That's a swing of 17,5% from Conservative to Labour.
That takes down to the 238th most marginal Conservative seat - Bedfordshire South West - currently held with a majority of 18,583.
The net result is the Tory MPs left will represent much posher areas on average under Rishi than they did under Boris
This looks obviously sensible as a Lib Dem target list, though there must be easier ways of leaking it than sending it to the Daily Mirror;
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/10-election-target-seats-lib-28865837
There is a very good project being undertaken across Eastern England to record the remaining medieval graffiti.