The fact Truss won that election proves comprehensively the Tory Party needs to go into opposition and go back to being sensible.
It's like they looked at 5 years of Labour and said, yes please.
They are legitimately more crazy than Labour now - and what is impressive is that they seemed to do it all within a year
Problem was they didn’t have a Plan B. Plan A was Boris and boosterism and relying on his particular appeal to see them through.
Without Boris they had nothing left in the tank. This isn’t an endorsement of The Clown by the way, but he had a certain level of political celebrity that was keeping the life support switched on, at least until December 2021.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
Best thing you can say about Sunak is that he’s not Truss or Johnson or the rest of the freak show that is the modern freak show that is the Tory Party.
All of these events that lead to the inevitable thrashing of the Tories at the next election were started when the braindead end of the Tory membership thought it a good idea to someone who was a walking moral vacuum as leader because he is "popular". Member such as @HYUFD who continue to make excuses for him because he won a majority persist in overlooking that even with his majority he was a walking disaster area for party and country
I fear that the membership's collective stupidity will keep the Conservative Party out of office for years and we will be stuck with a Labour party that bloats the public sector and drives down our competitiveness year on year. I just hope they are not as bad as I fear they might be.
I fear the party will get madder with opposition.
Brexiteers like Casino Royale have observed the current Brexit settlement is unsustainable and that something will replace it.
Eventually Starmer will catch up to the polling and as de minimis we rejoin the Single Market, that will be another tipping point for the madness.
Though his offence was his failure to disclose his dispute with HMRC, rather than the dispute itself. All the enquiry did was reveal he had failed to disclose it on several more occasions.
I don't see he has any defence to that either before or after the enquiry.
Exactly it's the failure to disclose the dispute and penalty, which is relatively simple, that has brought him down. Not the dispute itself which is almost certainly too complicated for anyone who is not a tax expert.
The dispute isn't that complex
Zahawi received a large amount of money that rested in an offshore account.
He hoped that because the money was resting offshore if he let it rest there long enough he wouldn't have to pay tsx on it if / when he brought the money back to the UK.
We are in the realms of Father Ted aren't we?
Father Ted was funny this government and scandal are not.
Yep - unless I've missed something very fundamental in all the reporting of this case - it's not a complex case of tax avoidance / evasion - it really does appear to be as simple as Zahawi didn't think it needed to be mentioned or reported.
Best thing you can say about Sunak is that he’s not Truss or Johnson or the rest of the freak show that is the modern freak show that is the Tory Party.
All of these events that lead to the inevitable thrashing of the Tories at the next election were started when the braindead end of the Tory membership thought it a good idea to someone who was a walking moral vacuum as leader because he is "popular". Member such as @HYUFD who continue to make excuses for him because he won a majority persist in overlooking that even with his majority he was a walking disaster area for party and country
I fear that the membership's collective stupidity will keep the Conservative Party out of office for years and we will be stuck with a Labour party that bloats the public sector and drives down our competitiveness year on year. I just hope they are not as bad as I fear they might be.
I fear the party will get madder with opposition.
Brexiteers like Casino Royale have observed the current Brexit settlement is unsustainable and that something will replace it.
Eventually Starmer will catch up to the polling and as de minimis we rejoin the Single Market, that will be another tipping point for the madness.
You make it sound like it's up to the UK what happens de minimus and beyond. It's not, sadly.
If you offered Sunak 258 seats now, I think he'd be advised to accept before you changed your mind. It probably puts Labour on 290-300ish and just about makes the SNP irrelevant.
The underlying assumption behind the Sunak premiership may be false. Tories hope that he will deliver competent management and save Tory seats in the longer term. I am not sure that's what's playing out. If his mission is to minimise Tory loses, going early might be the best plan.
Many dozens of Tory MPs will lose their seats in an early general election. Another 12-18 months of receiving an MPs salary, and to create a new career plan, might be worth another couple of dozen lost seats. The incentives for individual MPs are not necessarily what we think they are.
That's no doubt correct, and applies in Downing Street too. Being PM must be interesting (and lucrative), not to be discarded lightly so as to lose by a smaller margin.
Is there an actual count somewhere of how many Tory MPs have decided not to stand again, vs. how many have announced they will stand? I recall that CCHQ asked them all to say by New Year, but I've not seen many more than a couple of dozen indicate one way or the other.
I'm convinced (or 'pretty' convinced as Rishi might say) this year will see neither an election nor a change of Con leadership and I've done those 2 bets now - laid Sunak exit and GE in 2023. It's value at the odds imo.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath probably deserves to be in box one for taking us into the Common Market as it was then known. Whether you are pro-Europe or a frothing reality denying Brexiteer (a dying breed), the reality is that it was a policy that changed Britain....
Actually screw all that. By the same token it means that the person who took us out ............... and that is just too ludicrous. No let's stick with your original ranking.
If you were a Tory MP, would you prefer to stick with Sunak or twist with Boris?
That's a difficult one. Johnson brings on board BJO "socialists", but does he not so repulse genteel Southern England? So that is six of one, half a dozen of the other. I was hearing on LBC that there is a groundswell of swivel-eyed support for Mogg. Can that be true?
I thought Mogg's wizard wheeze was to become King of the Rump when they lose the election. He's probably right that it is better to be Opposition Leader than have actual responsibility for the mess he's been instrumental in creating.
I would love to see Mogg as the leader of all 10 remaining Tory MPs....
Nice thought. Sadly for the odious creep he will not be among the remaining 10 Tory MPs.
Mistakes in filling in the form owing to mistranslation and misunderstanding? The authors might be right but it's a bit of a reach. Is there evidence of similar anomalies around other questions in those boroughs, for instance? And why not other places with large immigrant communities?
As you'll have seen, the authors asked the same question (p. 7): "My conjecture about the anomalies in returns is readily tested. The ONS just needs to cross-tabulate gender identity with language or with country of birth ..."
As I did see, that is a different question.
I see. And you decided, having thought about all that, not to mention any of it?
I won't say that what you say isn't true, but certainly it gave a misleading impression of your reading of the preprint.
Best thing you can say about Sunak is that he’s not Truss or Johnson or the rest of the freak show that is the modern freak show that is the Tory Party.
All of these events that lead to the inevitable thrashing of the Tories at the next election were started when the braindead end of the Tory membership thought it a good idea to someone who was a walking moral vacuum as leader because he is "popular". Member such as @HYUFD who continue to make excuses for him because he won a majority persist in overlooking that even with his majority he was a walking disaster area for party and country
I fear that the membership's collective stupidity will keep the Conservative Party out of office for years and we will be stuck with a Labour party that bloats the public sector and drives down our competitiveness year on year. I just hope they are not as bad as I fear they might be.
I fear the party will get madder with opposition.
Brexiteers like Casino Royale have observed the current Brexit settlement is unsustainable and that something will replace it.
Eventually Starmer will catch up to the polling and as de minimis we rejoin the Single Market, that will be another tipping point for the madness.
You make it sound like it's up to the UK what happens de minimus and beyond. It's not, sadly.
The EU will take us back, the prodigal son is back etc.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath probably deserves to be in box one for taking us into the Common Market as it was then known. Whether you are pro-Europe or a frothing reality denying Brexiteer (a dying breed), the reality is that it was a policy that changed Britain....
Actually screw all that. By the same token it means that the person who took us out ............... and that is just too ludicrous. No let's stick with your original ranking.
On interpreting national data, I'm put in mind of the group that wrote an article (might have been in bmj, I forget...) highlighting the poor quality of data collected from hospital admissions with the poster example of the many people of male sex recorded in maternity episode records.
They failed, of course, to do sufficient research to understand that it's not only mothers that appear in maternity records, but also babies.
Best thing you can say about Sunak is that he’s not Truss or Johnson or the rest of the freak show that is the modern freak show that is the Tory Party.
All of these events that lead to the inevitable thrashing of the Tories at the next election were started when the braindead end of the Tory membership thought it a good idea to someone who was a walking moral vacuum as leader because he is "popular". Member such as @HYUFD who continue to make excuses for him because he won a majority persist in overlooking that even with his majority he was a walking disaster area for party and country
I fear that the membership's collective stupidity will keep the Conservative Party out of office for years and we will be stuck with a Labour party that bloats the public sector and drives down our competitiveness year on year. I just hope they are not as bad as I fear they might be.
I fear the party will get madder with opposition.
Brexiteers like Casino Royale have observed the current Brexit settlement is unsustainable and that something will replace it.
Eventually Starmer will catch up to the polling and as de minimis we rejoin the Single Market, that will be another tipping point for the madness.
You make it sound like it's up to the UK what happens de minimus and beyond. It's not, sadly.
The EU will take us back, the prodigal son is back etc.
Mistakes in filling in the form owing to mistranslation and misunderstanding? The authors might be right but it's a bit of a reach. Is there evidence of similar anomalies around other questions in those boroughs, for instance? And why not other places with large immigrant communities?
Is there perhaps widespread under-reporting, with the head of household being less likely to report trans offspring, whereas single people completing their own forms can be more open?
I'd also like to see more exploration of this. The tone, which should not be important, but soes make me wonder, comes across as the author having a particular viewpoint, rather than just being interested in the anomaly. May be this is the explanation for the apparent anomaly or it may be that it's not.
I understand that the disquiet over the sex question may also have caused some to boycott the gender question too. It's not implausible that such a boycott would gain more traction in an area like Brighton with a larger (or at least more visible) transgender community through word of mouth etc than in some other places. Non-response would be a key thing to consider too, I think - which may be in the pre-print, I did not read it fully...
Yes, I think that's quite likely a fair number. The lack of trust in government (rational or not in respect if the census) is considerable. I don't know how you might estimate that number.
If you offered Sunak 258 seats now, I think he'd be advised to accept before you changed your mind. It probably puts Labour on 290-300ish and just about makes the SNP irrelevant.
The underlying assumption behind the Sunak premiership may be false. Tories hope that he will deliver competent management and save Tory seats in the longer term. I am not sure that's what's playing out. If his mission is to minimise Tory loses, going early might be the best plan.
Many dozens of Tory MPs will lose their seats in an early general election. Another 12-18 months of receiving an MPs salary, and to create a new career plan, might be worth another couple of dozen lost seats. The incentives for individual MPs are not necessarily what we think they are.
That's no doubt correct, and applies in Downing Street too. Being PM must be interesting (and lucrative), not to be discarded lightly so as to lose by a smaller margin.
Is there an actual count somewhere of how many Tory MPs have decided not to stand again, vs. how many have announced they will stand? I recall that CCHQ asked them all to say by New Year, but I've not seen many more than a couple of dozen indicate one way or the other.
I'm convinced (or 'pretty' convinced as Rishi might say) this year will see neither an election nor a change of Con leadership and I've done those 2 bets now - laid Sunak exit and GE in 2023. It's value at the odds imo.
I backed GE 2023 at I think 5.0 back in Boris's day. Letting it run but not expecting to collect.
Best thing you can say about Sunak is that he’s not Truss or Johnson or the rest of the freak show that is the modern freak show that is the Tory Party.
All of these events that lead to the inevitable thrashing of the Tories at the next election were started when the braindead end of the Tory membership thought it a good idea to someone who was a walking moral vacuum as leader because he is "popular". Member such as @HYUFD who continue to make excuses for him because he won a majority persist in overlooking that even with his majority he was a walking disaster area for party and country
I fear that the membership's collective stupidity will keep the Conservative Party out of office for years and we will be stuck with a Labour party that bloats the public sector and drives down our competitiveness year on year. I just hope they are not as bad as I fear they might be.
BBC impartiality at risk because journalists 'lack understanding of basic economics'
They said: “We think too many journalists lack understanding of basic economics or lack confidence in reporting it. This brings a high risk to impartiality.
No shit sherlock....as we saw during COVID, analysis of numbers, too confusing....
Not just the BBC either. Prof Peston was also famously no good with numbers.
It’s what happens when the vast majority of the TV media hacks are liberal arts majors, and the broadcasters themselves have a hierarchy that values arts above sciences - even when the big story is a massive science story.
How many media outlets sent a science or medical correspondent into Downing St, to ask questions of the PM and his medical advisors? None, they all sent political correspondents.
How dare you suggest that the esteemed Professor Peston is not up there with world leading experts in every field he turns his hand to.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
And Churchill was box 1 and box 3.
Depends which Churchill. His record outside wartime was pretty moderate but without his wartime performance would we even be here?
Mistakes in filling in the form owing to mistranslation and misunderstanding? The authors might be right but it's a bit of a reach. Is there evidence of similar anomalies around other questions in those boroughs, for instance? And why not other places with large immigrant communities?
Is there perhaps widespread under-reporting, with the head of household being less likely to report trans offspring, whereas single people completing their own forms can be more open?
I'd also like to see more exploration of this. The tone, which should not be important, but soes make me wonder, comes across as the author having a particular viewpoint, rather than just being interested in the anomaly. May be this is the explanation for the apparent anomaly or it may be that it's not.
I understand that the disquiet over the sex question may also have caused some to boycott the gender question too. It's not implausible that such a boycott would gain more traction in an area like Brighton with a larger (or at least more visible) transgender community through word of mouth etc than in some other places. Non-response would be a key thing to consider too, I think - which may be in the pre-print, I did not read it fully...
Yes, I think that's quite likely a fair number. The lack of trust in government (rational or not in respect if the census) is considerable. I don't know how you might estimate that number.
Extra census question on trust of government/census?
Mistakes in filling in the form owing to mistranslation and misunderstanding? The authors might be right but it's a bit of a reach. Is there evidence of similar anomalies around other questions in those boroughs, for instance? And why not other places with large immigrant communities?
As you'll have seen, the authors asked the same question (p. 7): "My conjecture about the anomalies in returns is readily tested. The ONS just needs to cross-tabulate gender identity with language or with country of birth ..."
As I did see, that is a different question.
I see. And you decided, having thought about all that, not to mention any of it?
I won't say that what you say isn't true, but certainly it gave a misleading impression of your reading of the preprint.
Is that what they call passive aggressive, or merely snide? Of course I read the pre-print or I would not have been able to suggest questions arising from it.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
And Churchill was box 1 and box 3.
Depends which Churchill. His record outside wartime was pretty moderate but without his wartime performance would we even be here?
A drunken but highly creative thug-genius who saved the country. You can't really think of anyone else like him.
The fact Truss won that election proves comprehensively the Tory Party needs to go into opposition and go back to being sensible.
It's like they looked at 5 years of Labour and said, yes please.
They are legitimately more crazy than Labour now - and what is impressive is that they seemed to do it all within a year
Problem was they didn’t have a Plan B. Plan A was Boris and boosterism and relying on his particular appeal to see them through.
Without Boris they had nothing left in the tank. This isn’t an endorsement of The Clown by the way, but he had a certain level of political celebrity that was keeping the life support switched on, at least until December 2021.
Yes but he was the political equivalent of Nick Leeson with the Tory Party playing the part of Barings Bank.
On interpreting national data, I'm put in mind of the group that wrote an article (might have been in bmj, I forget...) highlighting the poor quality of data collected from hospital admissions with the poster example of the many people of male sex recorded in maternity episode records.
They failed, of course, to do sufficient research to understand that it's not only mothers that appear in maternity records, but also babies.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
And Churchill was box 1 and box 3.
Depends which Churchill. His record outside wartime was pretty moderate but without his wartime performance would we even be here?
A drunken but highly creative thug-genius who saved the country. You can't really think of anyone else like him.
Life is full of paradoxes and politics has more than most.
BBC impartiality at risk because journalists 'lack understanding of basic economics'
They said: “We think too many journalists lack understanding of basic economics or lack confidence in reporting it. This brings a high risk to impartiality.
No shit sherlock....as we saw during COVID, analysis of numbers, too confusing....
Not just the BBC either. Prof Peston was also famously no good with numbers.
It’s what happens when the vast majority of the TV media hacks are liberal arts majors, and the broadcasters themselves have a hierarchy that values arts above sciences - even when the big story is a massive science story.
How many media outlets sent a science or medical correspondent into Downing St, to ask questions of the PM and his medical advisors? None, they all sent political correspondents.
How dare you suggest that the esteemed Professor Peston is not up there with world leading experts in every field he turns his hand to.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
And Churchill was box 1 and box 3.
Depends which Churchill. His record outside wartime was pretty moderate but without his wartime performance would we even be here?
A drunken but highly creative thug-genius who saved the country. You can't really think of anyone else like him.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
And Churchill was box 1 and box 3.
Depends which Churchill. His record outside wartime was pretty moderate but without his wartime performance would we even be here?
A drunken but highly creative thug-genius who saved the country. You can't really think of anyone else like him.
Oliver Reed?
Could be. I can imagine Oliver manning the battlements in 1940, bottle of wine in hand, but delivering some great speeches.
If you offered Sunak 258 seats now, I think he'd be advised to accept before you changed your mind. It probably puts Labour on 290-300ish and just about makes the SNP irrelevant.
The underlying assumption behind the Sunak premiership may be false. Tories hope that he will deliver competent management and save Tory seats in the longer term. I am not sure that's what's playing out. If his mission is to minimise Tory loses, going early might be the best plan.
Many dozens of Tory MPs will lose their seats in an early general election. Another 12-18 months of receiving an MPs salary, and to create a new career plan, might be worth another couple of dozen lost seats. The incentives for individual MPs are not necessarily what we think they are.
That's no doubt correct, and applies in Downing Street too. Being PM must be interesting (and lucrative), not to be discarded lightly so as to lose by a smaller margin.
Is there an actual count somewhere of how many Tory MPs have decided not to stand again, vs. how many have announced they will stand? I recall that CCHQ asked them all to say by New Year, but I've not seen many more than a couple of dozen indicate one way or the other.
Of those who have so far said they are standing down Nick, there are19 Tories including Hancock. 12 Labour, 1 Plaid. Doesn't yet seem to be an exceptional number of Tories, but the incentives for announcing early aren't that great, given that you can't change your mind later on.
Sunak has brought back a degree of normality to the Tory party, which is not too say they are not still in an awful polling position, mired in sleaze and a discredited talent pool from which to choose.
What is does say though is that the manner of any Sunak exit would likely be pretty normal, and not done in Truss time.
This would entail a number of things including, Sunak resisting any pressure on him and declaring himself up for the fight; malcontents, perhaps Boris supporters, ramping that they have 20-30 letters in and will bring Sunak down "soon" for months on end; if they do get to 53/4 letters having to then persuade their fellow MPs that an uncertain leadership process, likely with more normal rules and multiple candidates and doubts over whether Boris will even stand, is a good idea.
Even with a solid base of Boris supporters, at each stage there is a threshold, doubt, a reading of the wider room. All those protections that kept Boris in post for so long.
And the underlying question of whether changing yet again will really, this time, advance the cause, "no" being a highly plausible answer, or simply shred further their remaining tiny tissue of credibility.
If there is an air of resignation, it is not surprising.
Hope you are keeping well mate
Hi. Thanks for the concern Horse. I'm fine, I guess you saw me getting a bit reminiscency about my late father overnight and it was good to post that little bit of ongoing processing. It's good to see you back on here fighting the good cause.
On interpreting national data, I'm put in mind of the group that wrote an article (might have been in bmj, I forget...) highlighting the poor quality of data collected from hospital admissions with the poster example of the many people of male sex recorded in maternity episode records.
They failed, of course, to do sufficient research to understand that it's not only mothers that appear in maternity records, but also babies.
Don't tell me - 33% ?
In fairness (and I cannot find it now) it was quite a bit lower, I think, the kind of thing that could have looked like an error without an obvious explanation other than just bad data. May have been related to babies actually requiring extra care and generating a record when they wouldn't normally (or they'd filtered out the actual delivery records). It wasn't a completely simple, stupid error, but something that was readily apparent to - and pointed out - by people actually using those data frequently.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
I agree. Cameron resides in Box 2 until 2015 after which he firmly sits in Box 3. He was red carded mid way through the second half. Brown always was and always will be Box 3. Home is Box 3 too.
On interpreting national data, I'm put in mind of the group that wrote an article (might have been in bmj, I forget...) highlighting the poor quality of data collected from hospital admissions with the poster example of the many people of male sex recorded in maternity episode records.
They failed, of course, to do sufficient research to understand that it's not only mothers that appear in maternity records, but also babies.
Don't tell me - 33% ?
In fairness (and I cannot find it now) it was quite a bit lower, I think, the kind of thing that could have looked like an error without an obvious explanation other than just bad data. May have been related to babies actually requiring extra care and generating a record when they wouldn't normally (or they'd filtered out the actual delivery records). It wasn't a completely simple, stupid error, but something that was readily apparent to - and pointed out - by people actually using those data frequently.
Yes - it is one of those things that sounds ridiculous until someone points out the data includes....
If you offered Sunak 258 seats now, I think he'd be advised to accept before you changed your mind. It probably puts Labour on 290-300ish and just about makes the SNP irrelevant.
The underlying assumption behind the Sunak premiership may be false. Tories hope that he will deliver competent management and save Tory seats in the longer term. I am not sure that's what's playing out. If his mission is to minimise Tory loses, going early might be the best plan.
Many dozens of Tory MPs will lose their seats in an early general election. Another 12-18 months of receiving an MPs salary, and to create a new career plan, might be worth another couple of dozen lost seats. The incentives for individual MPs are not necessarily what we think they are.
That's no doubt correct, and applies in Downing Street too. Being PM must be interesting (and lucrative), not to be discarded lightly so as to lose by a smaller margin.
Is there an actual count somewhere of how many Tory MPs have decided not to stand again, vs. how many have announced they will stand? I recall that CCHQ asked them all to say by New Year, but I've not seen many more than a couple of dozen indicate one way or the other.
I'm convinced (or 'pretty' convinced as Rishi might say) this year will see neither an election nor a change of Con leadership and I've done those 2 bets now - laid Sunak exit and GE in 2023. It's value at the odds imo.
Careful. I am reminded of @Andy_JS and his confident post last September in which he speculated "Truss and Kwateng are going nowhere".
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
It's hard to argue against Johnson being in Tier 1 - the harm he's done to the UK via the form of Brexit he implemented is going to take decades to resolve...
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
I agree. Cameron resides in Box 2 until 2015 after which he firmly sits in Box 3. He was red carded mid way through the second half. Brown always was and always will be Box 3. Home is Box 3 too.
Home was not a weak PM if not a great one either. He left a reasonable economy in 1964 and won most seats in England against the odds in 1964 even if he lost across the UK very narrowly overall, he was also an outstanding diplomat and came back as Heath's Foreign Secretary
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I am not sure you understand this game. Johnson is in a category all on his own. If he comes back and finishes the job of crashing the nation into oblivion, you may have a point.
I suppose Sunak might have time to turn the supertanker around before it hits the rocks, although my money would be on a massive pollution incident.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
I agree. Cameron resides in Box 2 until 2015 after which he firmly sits in Box 3. He was red carded mid way through the second half. Brown always was and always will be Box 3.
Home was not a weak PM if not a great one either. He left a reasonable economy in 1964 and won most seats in England against the odds in 1964 even if he lost across the UK very narrowly overall, he was also an outstanding diplomat and came back as Heath's Foreign Secretary
If you offered Sunak 258 seats now, I think he'd be advised to accept before you changed your mind. It probably puts Labour on 290-300ish and just about makes the SNP irrelevant.
The underlying assumption behind the Sunak premiership may be false. Tories hope that he will deliver competent management and save Tory seats in the longer term. I am not sure that's what's playing out. If his mission is to minimise Tory loses, going early might be the best plan.
Many dozens of Tory MPs will lose their seats in an early general election. Another 12-18 months of receiving an MPs salary, and to create a new career plan, might be worth another couple of dozen lost seats. The incentives for individual MPs are not necessarily what we think they are.
That's no doubt correct, and applies in Downing Street too. Being PM must be interesting (and lucrative), not to be discarded lightly so as to lose by a smaller margin.
Is there an actual count somewhere of how many Tory MPs have decided not to stand again, vs. how many have announced they will stand? I recall that CCHQ asked them all to say by New Year, but I've not seen many more than a couple of dozen indicate one way or the other.
I'm convinced (or 'pretty' convinced as Rishi might say) this year will see neither an election nor a change of Con leadership and I've done those 2 bets now - laid Sunak exit and GE in 2023. It's value at the odds imo.
Careful. I am reminded of @Andy_JS and his confident post last September in which he speculated "Truss and Kwateng are going nowhere".
He's right - they didn't go anywhere and returned to the backbenches.
Does Scotland’s First Minister believe all trans women are women?
Scottish Gov has just implemented an effective ban on trans prisoners who’ve committed sexual & violent crimes against women being moved to a women-only prison. @itvnews[VIDEO]
Anyone who had to deal with a problem like Zahawi knows that it is difficult because of allegation & counter-allegation.
I personally favour all allegations against politicians being investigated quickly, then a report (& evidence) being made public and swift action taken.
So, Sunak does seem to me to have handled this OK. Just as the Labour Party did OK over the allegations regarding Chris Matheson, ex MP for Chester. They did not suspend him until after an independent report that confirmed that the sexual harassment allegations were true.
If you sack people just because there is an allegation, then you end up with instances like Conor Burns. He was cleared of all wrongdoing after a sexual harassment story was leaked to the public, but by then he had been sacked. The alleged victim hadn’t made a complaint & AIUI there was no evidence of misconduct.
Now in Zahawi's case, tax law is complex and his affairs were (probably) in the hands of a tax advisor. So, whether he was personally culpable did need a bit of time to investigate.
Though his offence was his failure to disclose his dispute with HMRC, rather than the dispute itself. All the enquiry did was reveal he had failed to disclose it on several more occasions.
I don't see he has any defence to that either before or after the enquiry.
Once upon a time, when I ran an organisation, I had to deal with a serious case of bullying.
Although it was pretty obvious to me that the alleged bully was likely guilty, it still took over 6 months.
The alleged bully's defence still actually needed to be examined.
And all the while, folks were saying: why has @YBarddCwsc not taken swift action against bullying?
Sharon Shoesmith says hello: It is worth reflecting that one of the key reasons why Ms Shoesmith was in such a strong legal position was due to the sheer trigger happy conduct of Mr Ed Balls who effectively removed Miss Shoesmith from her statutory role at Haringey with no warning and flouting the most basic legal procedures.
Mr Balls was Children's Secretary at the time of Ms Shoesmith's sacking.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
These aren't mutually exclusive categories. No doubt, like others here, to me Johnson is in Box 4, but also Box 1. Brexit, and especially the form chosen, has changed the country considerably, and will continue to do so.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I am not sure you understand this game. Johnson is in a category all on his own. If he comes back and finishes the job of crashing the nation into oblivion, you may have a point.
I suppose Sunak might have time to turn the supertanker around before it hits the rocks, although my money would be on a massive pollution incident.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
I agree. Cameron resides in Box 2 until 2015 after which he firmly sits in Box 3. He was red carded mid way through the second half. Brown always was and always will be Box 3.
Home was not a weak PM if not a great one either. He left a reasonable economy in 1964 and won most seats in England against the odds in 1964 even if he lost across the UK very narrowly overall, he was also an outstanding diplomat and came back as Heath's Foreign Secretary
Home is definitely Box 3 too.
No he isn't, I would in fact put Home as the second best PM between 1955 and 1979 after MacMillan, at least in terms of foreign policy and leaving relative prosperity and stability when they left office.
Though Wilson left a longer legacy admittedly with legal homosexuality and abortion and comprehensive schools and the Open University coming when he was PM
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
And Churchill was box 1 and box 3.
Depends which Churchill. His record outside wartime was pretty moderate but without his wartime performance would we even be here?
A drunken but highly creative thug-genius who saved the country. You can't really think of anyone else like him.
Oliver Reed?
Could be. I can imagine Oliver manning the battlements in 1940, bottle of wine in hand, but delivering some great speeches.
He apparently turned up pissed at my rugby club and plonked his manhood on the bar. Why, is anyone's guess. I was not there when the alleged incident occurred probably 30 yrs or more ago.
Before the 2015 general election, with IPSOS Mori, Cameron had a net +17% advantage over Miliband in terms of satisfaction with each of them on how they were doing their jobs as PM and LOTO respectively.
On exactly the same measure, in today's IPSOS Mori poll, Starmer has a net +26% advantage over Sunak.
As Martin Sandbu wrote (Financial Times, 8/01), the advantages of having your own currency are highly illusory: A devaluation makes your imports more expensive and your population poorer, without making your exports cheaper and more competitive, as they depend on imported raw materials, energy and intermediate goods. This was, after all, one of the main arguments why Grexit would not have solved (but would have indeed exacerbated) Greece’s economic predicament.
When the dust settles, the euro’s greatest advantage is clear to see: It is a shield behind which small and medium-sized economies can shelter together from the storms of international financial interdependence, in a world of geopolitical competition in which the dollar remains dominant and Europe not-exactly-a-superpower. Who would abandon this safe haven to venture out into the storm alone? That is the main argument for the euro, and it’s enough.
Anyone who had to deal with a problem like Zahawi knows that it is difficult because of allegation & counter-allegation.
I personally favour all allegations against politicians being investigated quickly, then a report (& evidence) being made public and swift action taken.
So, Sunak does seem to me to have handled this OK. Just as the Labour Party did OK over the allegations regarding Chris Matheson, ex MP for Chester. They did not suspend him until after an independent report that confirmed that the sexual harassment allegations were true.
If you sack people just because there is an allegation, then you end up with instances like Conor Burns. He was cleared of all wrongdoing after a sexual harassment story was leaked to the public, but by then he had been sacked. The alleged victim hadn’t made a complaint & AIUI there was no evidence of misconduct.
Now in Zahawi's case, tax law is complex and his affairs were (probably) in the hands of a tax advisor. So, whether he was personally culpable did need a bit of time to investigate.
Though his offence was his failure to disclose his dispute with HMRC, rather than the dispute itself. All the enquiry did was reveal he had failed to disclose it on several more occasions.
I don't see he has any defence to that either before or after the enquiry.
Once upon a time, when I ran an organisation, I had to deal with a serious case of bullying.
Although it was pretty obvious to me that the alleged bully was likely guilty, it still took over 6 months.
The alleged bully's defence still actually needed to be examined.
And all the while, folks were saying: why has @YBarddCwsc not taken swift action against bullying?
Sharon Shoesmith says hello: It is worth reflecting that one of the key reasons why Ms Shoesmith was in such a strong legal position was due to the sheer trigger happy conduct of Mr Ed Balls who effectively removed Miss Shoesmith from her statutory role at Haringey with no warning and flouting the most basic legal procedures.
Mr Balls was Children's Secretary at the time of Ms Shoesmith's sacking.
A very good point, and a pleasant diversion from the Joanne Rowling narrative, well done!
Sharon Shoesmith was lynched by the press and the Labour Government's defence of lets pick on a scapegoat. A personal vilification to smokescreen a wider failure.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
And Churchill was box 1 and box 3.
Depends which Churchill. His record outside wartime was pretty moderate but without his wartime performance would we even be here?
A drunken but highly creative thug-genius who saved the country. You can't really think of anyone else like him.
Oliver Reed?
Could be. I can imagine Oliver manning the battlements in 1940, bottle of wine in hand, but delivering some great speeches.
Before the 2015 general election, with IPSOS Mori, Cameron had a net +17% advantage over Miliband in terms of satisfaction with each of them on how they were doing their jobs as PM and LOTO respectively.
On exactly the same measure, in today's IPSOS Mori poll, Starmer has a net +26% advantage over Sunak.
"Before the 2015 general election"? Does that mean "immediately before"? If so, the comparison with a midterm poll is less valid than you would like.
Edit: oh, and comparing net with net is double-counting.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I am not sure you understand this game. Johnson is in a category all on his own. If he comes back and finishes the job of crashing the nation into oblivion, you may have a point.
I suppose Sunak might have time to turn the supertanker around before it hits the rocks, although my money would be on a massive pollution incident.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
I agree. Cameron resides in Box 2 until 2015 after which he firmly sits in Box 3. He was red carded mid way through the second half. Brown always was and always will be Box 3.
Home was not a weak PM if not a great one either. He left a reasonable economy in 1964 and won most seats in England against the odds in 1964 even if he lost across the UK very narrowly overall, he was also an outstanding diplomat and came back as Heath's Foreign Secretary
Home is definitely Box 3 too.
No he isn't, I would in fact put Home as the second best PM between 1955 and 1979 after MacMillan, at least in terms of foreign policy and leaving relative prosperity and stability when they left office.
Though Wilson left a longer legacy admittedly with legal homosexuality and abortion and comprehensive schools and the Open University coming when he was PM
So you pretty much only need boxes 1, which is now very crowded, 3 and 5.
Anyway I thought you wanted to replace Comprehensive Schools.
From the comments: The UK is just doomed because at some point they stopped being pragmatic and entrepreneurial…The idea in this environment a trillion dollar company will come out of the UK is ludicrous, what will happen is before an IPO they will likely move to the US.
Anyone who had to deal with a problem like Zahawi knows that it is difficult because of allegation & counter-allegation.
I personally favour all allegations against politicians being investigated quickly, then a report (& evidence) being made public and swift action taken.
So, Sunak does seem to me to have handled this OK. Just as the Labour Party did OK over the allegations regarding Chris Matheson, ex MP for Chester. They did not suspend him until after an independent report that confirmed that the sexual harassment allegations were true.
If you sack people just because there is an allegation, then you end up with instances like Conor Burns. He was cleared of all wrongdoing after a sexual harassment story was leaked to the public, but by then he had been sacked. The alleged victim hadn’t made a complaint & AIUI there was no evidence of misconduct.
Now in Zahawi's case, tax law is complex and his affairs were (probably) in the hands of a tax advisor. So, whether he was personally culpable did need a bit of time to investigate.
Though his offence was his failure to disclose his dispute with HMRC, rather than the dispute itself. All the enquiry did was reveal he had failed to disclose it on several more occasions.
I don't see he has any defence to that either before or after the enquiry.
Once upon a time, when I ran an organisation, I had to deal with a serious case of bullying.
Although it was pretty obvious to me that the alleged bully was likely guilty, it still took over 6 months.
The alleged bully's defence still actually needed to be examined.
And all the while, folks were saying: why has @YBarddCwsc not taken swift action against bullying?
Sharon Shoesmith says hello: It is worth reflecting that one of the key reasons why Ms Shoesmith was in such a strong legal position was due to the sheer trigger happy conduct of Mr Ed Balls who effectively removed Miss Shoesmith from her statutory role at Haringey with no warning and flouting the most basic legal procedures.
Mr Balls was Children's Secretary at the time of Ms Shoesmith's sacking.
Best thing you can say about Sunak is that he’s not Truss or Johnson or the rest of the freak show that is the modern freak show that is the Tory Party.
All of these events that lead to the inevitable thrashing of the Tories at the next election were started when the braindead end of the Tory membership thought it a good idea to someone who was a walking moral vacuum as leader because he is "popular". Member such as @HYUFD who continue to make excuses for him because he won a majority persist in overlooking that even with his majority he was a walking disaster area for party and country
I fear that the membership's collective stupidity will keep the Conservative Party out of office for years and we will be stuck with a Labour party that bloats the public sector and drives down our competitiveness year on year. I just hope they are not as bad as I fear they might be.
I fear the party will get madder with opposition.
Brexiteers like Casino Royale have observed the current Brexit settlement is unsustainable and that something will replace it.
Eventually Starmer will catch up to the polling and as de minimis we rejoin the Single Market, that will be another tipping point for the madness.
You make it sound like it's up to the UK what happens de minimus and beyond. It's not, sadly.
The EU will take us back, the prodigal son is back etc.
Any student of history knows that the entire thrust of English and then British foreign policy has been to avoid any one power dominating the continent.
So, big picture, our current position is, thanks to the Tories, one of epic and catastrophic failure.
Anyone who had to deal with a problem like Zahawi knows that it is difficult because of allegation & counter-allegation.
I personally favour all allegations against politicians being investigated quickly, then a report (& evidence) being made public and swift action taken.
So, Sunak does seem to me to have handled this OK. Just as the Labour Party did OK over the allegations regarding Chris Matheson, ex MP for Chester. They did not suspend him until after an independent report that confirmed that the sexual harassment allegations were true.
If you sack people just because there is an allegation, then you end up with instances like Conor Burns. He was cleared of all wrongdoing after a sexual harassment story was leaked to the public, but by then he had been sacked. The alleged victim hadn’t made a complaint & AIUI there was no evidence of misconduct.
Now in Zahawi's case, tax law is complex and his affairs were (probably) in the hands of a tax advisor. So, whether he was personally culpable did need a bit of time to investigate.
Though his offence was his failure to disclose his dispute with HMRC, rather than the dispute itself. All the enquiry did was reveal he had failed to disclose it on several more occasions.
I don't see he has any defence to that either before or after the enquiry.
Once upon a time, when I ran an organisation, I had to deal with a serious case of bullying.
Although it was pretty obvious to me that the alleged bully was likely guilty, it still took over 6 months.
The alleged bully's defence still actually needed to be examined.
And all the while, folks were saying: why has @YBarddCwsc not taken swift action against bullying?
Sharon Shoesmith says hello: It is worth reflecting that one of the key reasons why Ms Shoesmith was in such a strong legal position was due to the sheer trigger happy conduct of Mr Ed Balls who effectively removed Miss Shoesmith from her statutory role at Haringey with no warning and flouting the most basic legal procedures.
Mr Balls was Children's Secretary at the time of Ms Shoesmith's sacking.
A very good point, and a pleasant diversion from the Joanne Rowling narrative, well done!
Sharon Shoesmith was lynched by the press and the Labour Government's defence of lets pick on a scapegoat. A personal vilification to smokescreen a wider failure.
Not quite - she was clearly responsible for actively ignoring the concerns about the baby. And responsible for a bizarre vendetta against the junior employee trying to raise the concerns.
The wider system had its failings, yes. Shoesmith was definitely a failure, though.
His popularity is sinking amongst the same public that thought Boris Johnson was a good idea and that Liz Truss would be a suitable replacement.
Let it sink Rishi. Just do the job as well as you can. The Election will be lost whatever you do. There's nothing to be gained from appealing to the constituency which picked the previous two PMs.
Given Truss has set the bar down from 131 days to just 51, he doesn't need to worry about breaking any records anymore.
But you are right. It looks like he'll lose, and therefore join the ranks of the Lord Home, Callaghan and Brown in being PM but never winning an election. Thing is, he'll be what, 44? when he loses. Still twenty years (or more) in politics if he wanted it. At least Brown and Callaghan could and did just retire........ (well, Callaghan sort of).
Mistakes in filling in the form owing to mistranslation and misunderstanding? The authors might be right but it's a bit of a reach. Is there evidence of similar anomalies around other questions in those boroughs, for instance? And why not other places with large immigrant communities?
As you'll have seen, the authors asked the same question (p. 7): "My conjecture about the anomalies in returns is readily tested. The ONS just needs to cross-tabulate gender identity with language or with country of birth ..."
As I did see, that is a different question.
I see. And you decided, having thought about all that, not to mention any of it?
I won't say that what you say isn't true, but certainly it gave a misleading impression of your reading of the preprint.
Is that what they call passive aggressive, or merely snide? Of course I read the pre-print or I would not have been able to suggest questions arising from it.
What I'm saying is that your comment gave the misleading impression that the authors hadn't considered the question about language, when in fact they'd explicitly asked it. I think if you look at your comment again you'll see what I mean.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results
Best thing you can say about Sunak is that he’s not Truss or Johnson or the rest of the freak show that is the modern freak show that is the Tory Party.
All of these events that lead to the inevitable thrashing of the Tories at the next election were started when the braindead end of the Tory membership thought it a good idea to someone who was a walking moral vacuum as leader because he is "popular". Member such as @HYUFD who continue to make excuses for him because he won a majority persist in overlooking that even with his majority he was a walking disaster area for party and country
I fear that the membership's collective stupidity will keep the Conservative Party out of office for years and we will be stuck with a Labour party that bloats the public sector and drives down our competitiveness year on year. I just hope they are not as bad as I fear they might be.
I fear the party will get madder with opposition.
Brexiteers like Casino Royale have observed the current Brexit settlement is unsustainable and that something will replace it.
Eventually Starmer will catch up to the polling and as de minimis we rejoin the Single Market, that will be another tipping point for the madness.
You make it sound like it's up to the UK what happens de minimus and beyond. It's not, sadly.
The EU will take us back, the prodigal son is back etc.
Any student of history knows that the entire thrust of English and then British foreign policy has been to avoid any one power dominating the continent.
So, big picture, our current position is, thanks to the Tories, one of epic and catastrophic failure.
Hmm. Too early to say for sure. With Poland likely to become a major military power in Europe, its influence on the EU will grow. If the former eastern bloc and Scandinavian countries gain influence against that of France and Germany then all bets are off in terms of how the EU develops. It may be something we want to rejoin but it will be different from what we left.
Anyone who had to deal with a problem like Zahawi knows that it is difficult because of allegation & counter-allegation.
I personally favour all allegations against politicians being investigated quickly, then a report (& evidence) being made public and swift action taken.
So, Sunak does seem to me to have handled this OK. Just as the Labour Party did OK over the allegations regarding Chris Matheson, ex MP for Chester. They did not suspend him until after an independent report that confirmed that the sexual harassment allegations were true.
If you sack people just because there is an allegation, then you end up with instances like Conor Burns. He was cleared of all wrongdoing after a sexual harassment story was leaked to the public, but by then he had been sacked. The alleged victim hadn’t made a complaint & AIUI there was no evidence of misconduct.
Now in Zahawi's case, tax law is complex and his affairs were (probably) in the hands of a tax advisor. So, whether he was personally culpable did need a bit of time to investigate.
Though his offence was his failure to disclose his dispute with HMRC, rather than the dispute itself. All the enquiry did was reveal he had failed to disclose it on several more occasions.
I don't see he has any defence to that either before or after the enquiry.
Once upon a time, when I ran an organisation, I had to deal with a serious case of bullying.
Although it was pretty obvious to me that the alleged bully was likely guilty, it still took over 6 months.
The alleged bully's defence still actually needed to be examined.
And all the while, folks were saying: why has @YBarddCwsc not taken swift action against bullying?
Sharon Shoesmith says hello: It is worth reflecting that one of the key reasons why Ms Shoesmith was in such a strong legal position was due to the sheer trigger happy conduct of Mr Ed Balls who effectively removed Miss Shoesmith from her statutory role at Haringey with no warning and flouting the most basic legal procedures.
Mr Balls was Children's Secretary at the time of Ms Shoesmith's sacking.
A very good point, and a pleasant diversion from the Joanne Rowling narrative, well done!
Sharon Shoesmith was lynched by the press and the Labour Government's defence of lets pick on a scapegoat. A personal vilification to smokescreen a wider failure.
Not quite - she was clearly responsible for actively ignoring the concerns about the baby. And responsible for a bizarre vendetta against the junior employee trying to raise the concerns.
The wider system had its failings, yes. Shoesmith was definitely a failure, though.
Nevertheless, the moment you put a foot wrong in a disciplinary procedure, you lose. Basic, elementary, competence. Not to mention employment law.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I am not sure you understand this game. Johnson is in a category all on his own. If he comes back and finishes the job of crashing the nation into oblivion, you may have a point.
I suppose Sunak might have time to turn the supertanker around before it hits the rocks, although my money would be on a massive pollution incident.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
I agree. Cameron resides in Box 2 until 2015 after which he firmly sits in Box 3. He was red carded mid way through the second half. Brown always was and always will be Box 3.
Home was not a weak PM if not a great one either. He left a reasonable economy in 1964 and won most seats in England against the odds in 1964 even if he lost across the UK very narrowly overall, he was also an outstanding diplomat and came back as Heath's Foreign Secretary
Home is definitely Box 3 too.
No he isn't, I would in fact put Home as the second best PM between 1955 and 1979 after MacMillan, at least in terms of foreign policy and leaving relative prosperity and stability when they left office.
Though Wilson left a longer legacy admittedly with legal homosexuality and abortion and comprehensive schools and the Open University coming when he was PM
So you pretty much only need boxes 1, which is now very crowded, 3 and 5.
Anyway I thought you wanted to replace Comprehensive Schools.
HYUFD doesn't approve of the Open University either, one is forced to conclude. Not posh enough?
Anyone who had to deal with a problem like Zahawi knows that it is difficult because of allegation & counter-allegation.
I personally favour all allegations against politicians being investigated quickly, then a report (& evidence) being made public and swift action taken.
So, Sunak does seem to me to have handled this OK. Just as the Labour Party did OK over the allegations regarding Chris Matheson, ex MP for Chester. They did not suspend him until after an independent report that confirmed that the sexual harassment allegations were true.
If you sack people just because there is an allegation, then you end up with instances like Conor Burns. He was cleared of all wrongdoing after a sexual harassment story was leaked to the public, but by then he had been sacked. The alleged victim hadn’t made a complaint & AIUI there was no evidence of misconduct.
Now in Zahawi's case, tax law is complex and his affairs were (probably) in the hands of a tax advisor. So, whether he was personally culpable did need a bit of time to investigate.
Though his offence was his failure to disclose his dispute with HMRC, rather than the dispute itself. All the enquiry did was reveal he had failed to disclose it on several more occasions.
I don't see he has any defence to that either before or after the enquiry.
Once upon a time, when I ran an organisation, I had to deal with a serious case of bullying.
Although it was pretty obvious to me that the alleged bully was likely guilty, it still took over 6 months.
The alleged bully's defence still actually needed to be examined.
And all the while, folks were saying: why has @YBarddCwsc not taken swift action against bullying?
Sharon Shoesmith says hello: It is worth reflecting that one of the key reasons why Ms Shoesmith was in such a strong legal position was due to the sheer trigger happy conduct of Mr Ed Balls who effectively removed Miss Shoesmith from her statutory role at Haringey with no warning and flouting the most basic legal procedures.
Mr Balls was Children's Secretary at the time of Ms Shoesmith's sacking.
A very good point, and a pleasant diversion from the Joanne Rowling narrative, well done!
Sharon Shoesmith was lynched by the press and the Labour Government's defence of lets pick on a scapegoat. A personal vilification to smokescreen a wider failure.
Not quite - she was clearly responsible for actively ignoring the concerns about the baby. And responsible for a bizarre vendetta against the junior employee trying to raise the concerns.
The wider system had its failings, yes. Shoesmith was definitely a failure, though.
She presided over a chaotic children's services. My point was she was singled out and sacrificed for political expediency. I am not criticising your party I am condemning the last Labour Government.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I am not sure you understand this game. Johnson is in a category all on his own. If he comes back and finishes the job of crashing the nation into oblivion, you may have a point.
I suppose Sunak might have time to turn the supertanker around before it hits the rocks, although my money would be on a massive pollution incident.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
I agree. Cameron resides in Box 2 until 2015 after which he firmly sits in Box 3. He was red carded mid way through the second half. Brown always was and always will be Box 3.
Home was not a weak PM if not a great one either. He left a reasonable economy in 1964 and won most seats in England against the odds in 1964 even if he lost across the UK very narrowly overall, he was also an outstanding diplomat and came back as Heath's Foreign Secretary
Home is definitely Box 3 too.
No he isn't, I would in fact put Home as the second best PM between 1955 and 1979 after MacMillan, at least in terms of foreign policy and leaving relative prosperity and stability when they left office.
Though Wilson left a longer legacy admittedly with legal homosexuality and abortion and comprehensive schools and the Open University coming when he was PM
So you pretty much only need boxes 1, which is now very crowded, 3 and 5.
Anyway I thought you wanted to replace Comprehensive Schools.
HYUFD doesn't approve of the Open University either, one is forced to conclude. Not posh enough?
The quality of the course materials that the OU provides is outstanding. The trouble nowadays is the cost of the courses, which since education tuition became a charageable affair is often prohibitive.
Though his offence was his failure to disclose his dispute with HMRC, rather than the dispute itself. All the enquiry did was reveal he had failed to disclose it on several more occasions.
I don't see he has any defence to that either before or after the enquiry.
Exactly it's the failure to disclose the dispute and penalty, which is relatively simple, that has brought him down. Not the dispute itself which is almost certainly too complicated for anyone who is not a tax expert.
The dispute isn't that complex
Zahawi received a large amount of money that rested in an offshore account.
He hoped that because the money was resting offshore if he let it rest there long enough he wouldn't have to pay tsx on it if / when he brought the money back to the UK.
We are in the realms of Father Ted aren't we?
Father Ted was funny this government and scandal are not.
Graham Linehan was funny, now he’s not. He and the Tory culture warriors are a great fit.
Best thing you can say about Sunak is that he’s not Truss or Johnson or the rest of the freak show that is the modern freak show that is the Tory Party.
All of these events that lead to the inevitable thrashing of the Tories at the next election were started when the braindead end of the Tory membership thought it a good idea to someone who was a walking moral vacuum as leader because he is "popular". Member such as @HYUFD who continue to make excuses for him because he won a majority persist in overlooking that even with his majority he was a walking disaster area for party and country
I fear that the membership's collective stupidity will keep the Conservative Party out of office for years and we will be stuck with a Labour party that bloats the public sector and drives down our competitiveness year on year. I just hope they are not as bad as I fear they might be.
I fear the party will get madder with opposition.
Brexiteers like Casino Royale have observed the current Brexit settlement is unsustainable and that something will replace it.
Eventually Starmer will catch up to the polling and as de minimis we rejoin the Single Market, that will be another tipping point for the madness.
You make it sound like it's up to the UK what happens de minimus and beyond. It's not, sadly.
The EU will take us back, the prodigal son is back etc.
Any student of history knows that the entire thrust of English and then British foreign policy has been to avoid any one power dominating the continent.
So, big picture, our current position is, thanks to the Tories, one of epic and catastrophic failure.
Hmm. Too early to say for sure. With Poland likely to become a major military power in Europe, its influence on the EU will grow. If the former eastern bloc and Scandinavian countries gain influence against that of France and Germany then all bets are off in terms of how the EU develops. It may be something we want to rejoin but it will be different from what we left.
We were the visegrad countries’ natural ally and had a position of influence within the EU, which we have thrown away for no compensating benefit whatsoever.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results
Tier 3 has got a bit mashed by having to introduce Tiers 4 and 5 beyond it. Major was more substantial and plausible than May or Eden. Probably on a level with Brown and Callaghan.
This is why people marking essays come up with monstrosities like C+/B- or C+?+.
First detailed look by a parliamentary committee the issues here, in the light of the Bryson case, so worth following; the Bill's MSP supporters have not been as willing as supporters of selfID on this committee to subject their position to public scrutiny.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results
There is perhaps a fundamental divide between PMs who made the political weather, and those who were blown about by the political weather. Some of whom floundered on the rocks of course, while others managed to salvage some of the cargo and bring a damaged, limping ship into harbour.
On which score much as I hate to admit it, Johnson manages to sit in the first camp of those who made the political weather.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results
Tier 3 has got a bit mashed by having to introduce Tiers 4 and 5 beyond it. Major was more substantial and plausible than May or Eden. Probably on a level with Brown and Callaghan.
This is why people marking essays come up with monstrosities like C+/B- or C+?+.
@TimS was more-or-less on the money to start with, it was only when HY got involved that every Conservative (except May and Truss) and Wilson joined Box 1.
Though his offence was his failure to disclose his dispute with HMRC, rather than the dispute itself. All the enquiry did was reveal he had failed to disclose it on several more occasions.
I don't see he has any defence to that either before or after the enquiry.
Exactly it's the failure to disclose the dispute and penalty, which is relatively simple, that has brought him down. Not the dispute itself which is almost certainly too complicated for anyone who is not a tax expert.
Not complicated , if you said you robbed a bank it would be same as saying HMRC charged him millions in penalties, open and shut case of wrongdoing made even worse by fact he ahd expensive accountants for sure so no excuse to say it was an error.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results
There is perhaps a fundamental divide between PMs who made the political weather, and those who were blown about by the political weather. Some of whom floundered on the rocks of course, while others managed to salvage some of the cargo and bring a damaged, limping ship into harbour.
On which score much as I hate to admit it, Johnson manages to sit in the first camp of those who made the political weather.
That's as good an analysis as I've seen. On that metric, Brown is probably sui generis - as PM he was blown about by the weather, but it was the weather he had made as Chancellor.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results
There is perhaps a fundamental divide between PMs who made the political weather, and those who were blown about by the political weather. Some of whom floundered on the rocks of course, while others managed to salvage some of the cargo and bring a damaged, limping ship into harbour.
On which score much as I hate to admit it, Johnson manages to sit in the first camp of those who made the political weather.
Crashing and writing-off the nation would certainly be a seminal event.
Before the 2015 general election, with IPSOS Mori, Cameron had a net +17% advantage over Miliband in terms of satisfaction with each of them on how they were doing their jobs as PM and LOTO respectively.
On exactly the same measure, in today's IPSOS Mori poll, Starmer has a net +26% advantage over Sunak.
"Before the 2015 general election"? Does that mean "immediately before"? If so, the comparison with a midterm poll is less valid than you would like.
Edit: oh, and comparing net with net is double-counting.
It is anything but double counting. Satisfaction with Sunak is -29%, with Starmer -3%. Satisfaction with Cameron was -2%, with Miliband -19%. They are individual ratings.
Yes, those figures I quote were immediately before the 2015 general election and I accept that it's still midterm in terms of a general election now. It's not midterm though in terms of Sunak as PM. He is hardly out of his honeymoon period time wise. Sunak's ratings could improve. Initially though his satisfaction ratings have trended downwards, the same direction of overall trend as those of Johnson, May, Cameron and Major did over their first two years as PM.
Bear in mind though that I was not actually trying to use the ratings of Sunak and Starmer to debunk the opinion polls. I was replying to a post that made a risible attempt to do that. As far as I am concerned, at the moment I see nothing in the satisfaction ratings to contradict the opinion poll ratings that put Labour way out in front.
Before the 2015 general election, with IPSOS Mori, Cameron had a net +17% advantage over Miliband in terms of satisfaction with each of them on how they were doing their jobs as PM and LOTO respectively.
On exactly the same measure, in today's IPSOS Mori poll, Starmer has a net +26% advantage over Sunak.
"Before the 2015 general election"? Does that mean "immediately before"? If so, the comparison with a midterm poll is less valid than you would like.
Edit: oh, and comparing net with net is double-counting.
It is anything but double counting.
Sure it is. Almost nobody thinks both the PM and LOTO are doing a good job simultaneously.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results
Tier 3 has got a bit mashed by having to introduce Tiers 4 and 5 beyond it. Major was more substantial and plausible than May or Eden. Probably on a level with Brown and Callaghan.
This is why people marking essays come up with monstrosities like C+/B- or C+?+.
@TimS was more-or-less on the money to start with, it was only when HY got involved that every Conservative (except May and Truss) and Wilson joined Box 1.
Since when was Wilson a Conservative? I also moved Tory Heath from Tier 2 to Tier 3
I'm reminded of some great predictions over the last two years.
Johnson will be PM until 2030 Johnson won't resign Johnson will definitely lead the Tories into the next election Truss is better than Keir Starmer The polls will recover with Truss as leader Rishi Sunak will save the Tories Rishi Sunak will be more popular than Keir Starmer
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I am not sure you understand this game. Johnson is in a category all on his own. If he comes back and finishes the job of crashing the nation into oblivion, you may have a point.
I suppose Sunak might have time to turn the supertanker around before it hits the rocks, although my money would be on a massive pollution incident.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
I think you are generous to Cameron & Brown..... but like the idea (mainly agree)
I agree. Cameron resides in Box 2 until 2015 after which he firmly sits in Box 3. He was red carded mid way through the second half. Brown always was and always will be Box 3.
Home was not a weak PM if not a great one either. He left a reasonable economy in 1964 and won most seats in England against the odds in 1964 even if he lost across the UK very narrowly overall, he was also an outstanding diplomat and came back as Heath's Foreign Secretary
Home is definitely Box 3 too.
No he isn't, I would in fact put Home as the second best PM between 1955 and 1979 after MacMillan, at least in terms of foreign policy and leaving relative prosperity and stability when they left office.
Though Wilson left a longer legacy admittedly with legal homosexuality and abortion and comprehensive schools and the Open University coming when he was PM
So you pretty much only need boxes 1, which is now very crowded, 3 and 5.
Anyway I thought you wanted to replace Comprehensive Schools.
HYUFD doesn't approve of the Open University either, one is forced to conclude. Not posh enough?
I approve of the Open University rather more than I approve of comprehensive schools replacing grammar schools
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results
Callaghan left more strikes and higher inflation and lower growth and more inefficient industry in 1979 than Major did in 1979
Sunak has brought back a degree of normality to the Tory party, which is not too say they are not still in an awful polling position, mired in sleaze and a discredited talent pool from which to choose.
What is does say though is that the manner of any Sunak exit would likely be pretty normal, and not done in Truss time.
This would entail a number of things including, Sunak resisting any pressure on him and declaring himself up for the fight; malcontents, perhaps Boris supporters, ramping that they have 20-30 letters in and will bring Sunak down "soon" for months on end; if they do get to 53/4 letters having to then persuade their fellow MPs that an uncertain leadership process, likely with more normal rules and multiple candidates and doubts over whether Boris will even stand, is a good idea.
Even with a solid base of Boris supporters, at each stage there is a threshold, doubt, a reading of the wider room. All those protections that kept Boris in post for so long.
And the underlying question of whether changing yet again will really, this time, advance the cause, "no" being a highly plausible answer, or simply shred further their remaining tiny tissue of credibility.
If there is an air of resignation, it is not surprising.
Hope you are keeping well mate
Hi. Thanks for the concern Horse. I'm fine, I guess you saw me getting a bit reminiscency about my late father overnight and it was good to post that little bit of ongoing processing. It's good to see you back on here fighting the good cause.
Friends look out for friends, thank you for the kind words. I am sorry to hear you lost your father.
Notable that nobody is quibbling with Truss sitting in glitches in the matrix.
Pray for the history teachers yet to come, who are going to have to teach 2022 to teenagers. They're not going to believe a word of it.
It will just be seen as part of the decline of Britain during the period known as the Interregnum which occurred between the UK's memberships of the EU.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results
Callaghan left more strikes and higher inflation and lower growth and more inefficient industry in 1979 than Major did in 1979
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results
Callaghan left more strikes and higher inflation and lower growth and more inefficient industry in 1979 than Major did in 1979
Notable that nobody is quibbling with Truss sitting in glitches in the matrix.
Pray for the history teachers yet to come, who are going to have to teach 2022 to teenagers. They're not going to believe a word of it.
It will just be seen as part of the decline of Britain during the period known as the Interregnum which occurred between the UK's memberships of the EU.
The EU won’t let us back, other than that spot on.
[See what I did there, I edited out the substance of the case you made to make your point, just as you did mine. If you insist on being petty like that I will continue to follow suit.]
Oh no it isn't.
Had I quoted a 43% improvement (17%+26%), you would have been perfectly entitled to point out that the swing was only 21.5%, in terms of how of Starmer's satisfaction rating v Sunak has improved on that of Miliband compared to Cameron. But since I didn't quote any "swing", just the raw figures, you have invented a straw man.
Just had a presentation from a company we've invested in, 45% reduction in complaints due to automation of responses for common queries using an NLP parser and pattern matching for answers. Headcount pressure eased, they were previously looking at 10 new permanent hires in their customer service division, now holding steady and team being retrained to work on better automation and macros as well as rolling out a chatbot on site and being backup to the chatbot where it's necessary to have a real person.
Very impressive metrics as well, I wonder how much the NHS and other giant public sector orgs would benefit from this kind of approach. They mentioned around 80% of incoming emails/queries had some or all of their issues resolved by the NLP bot leaving the team to actually help the 20% of more complex problems that needed real human interaction and resolution, hence the massive reduction in complaints. Most common question from end users was "I ordered X items, can I cancel/return/change some" and the NLP parser just sends along a link to the amend order page for their latest order with some nice language that someone has pre-written.
In the NHS how many person hours are wasted manually responding to this kind of stuff around appointment booking, rebooking and cancelling, or even slightly more complex issues around repeat prescriptions timing.
@Leon is right about one thing, AI should greatly improve workplace productivity as fewer and fewer manual tasks such as these are necessary. This was a fairly simple bit of NLP and pattern matching, the scope for what is possible is huge and the government must force all of the public sector to utilise AI for productivity improvement so we can start shedding jobs, improving efficiency of service delivery and cutting tax/close the deficit.
Germany is facing a severe teacher shortage – at a time when schools are tasked with integrating more foreign students and training the skilled workers of tomorrow.
Recruiting teachers from abroad could help, but bureaucratic hurdles hinder efforts.
Best thing you can say about Sunak is that he’s not Truss or Johnson or the rest of the freak show that is the modern freak show that is the Tory Party.
All of these events that lead to the inevitable thrashing of the Tories at the next election were started when the braindead end of the Tory membership thought it a good idea to someone who was a walking moral vacuum as leader because he is "popular". Member such as @HYUFD who continue to make excuses for him because he won a majority persist in overlooking that even with his majority he was a walking disaster area for party and country
I fear that the membership's collective stupidity will keep the Conservative Party out of office for years and we will be stuck with a Labour party that bloats the public sector and drives down our competitiveness year on year. I just hope they are not as bad as I fear they might be.
I fear the party will get madder with opposition.
Brexiteers like Casino Royale have observed the current Brexit settlement is unsustainable and that something will replace it.
Eventually Starmer will catch up to the polling and as de minimis we rejoin the Single Market, that will be another tipping point for the madness.
You can draw a straight line between the Brexiteer takeover of the Tory Party and the state of the party five years down the line.
There are many downsides to Brexit but one of the greatest has been the third rate, incompetent politicians it has thrust into positions of power - Johnson, Raab, Braverman, Dorries, Rees-Mogg, Zahawi, Patel, Truss, Kwartang - the list goes on and on.
Anyone who believes the two are not connected hasn't been paying attention.
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results
Tier 3 has got a bit mashed by having to introduce Tiers 4 and 5 beyond it. Major was more substantial and plausible than May or Eden. Probably on a level with Brown and Callaghan.
This is why people marking essays come up with monstrosities like C+/B- or C+?+.
@TimS was more-or-less on the money to start with, it was only when HY got involved that every Conservative (except May and Truss) and Wilson joined Box 1.
Since when was Wilson a Conservative? I also moved Tory Heath from Tier 2 to Tier 3
"every Conservative (except May and Truss) AND Wilson". If only you had benefitted from a Grammar school education!
[See what I did there, I edited out the substance of the case you made to make your point, just as you did mine. If you insist on being petty like that I will continue to follow suit.]
Oh no it isn't.
Had I quoted a 43% improvement (17%+26%), you would have been perfectly entitled to point out that the swing was only 21.5%, in terms of how of Starmer's satisfaction rating v Sunak has improved on that of Miliband compared to Cameron. But since I didn't quote any "swing", just the raw figures, you have invented a straw man.
The problem is that net satisfaction is an incomplete measure. 40/45 giving -5 is better than 30/30 giving 0. And given that nearly everyone giving one leader a positive rating will be giving the other one a negative rating, you're definitely double counting.
What are the real satisfaction figures, not the net?
Sunak is securing his place in box 3 of the pantheon of PMs. It becomes ever harder for him to shift boxes as time goes on.
Box 1: important PMs. Love them or hate them, these PMs marked a political turning point and defined an epoch. Lloyd George, Churchill, Atlee, Thatcher, Blair
Box 2. Notable but second tier: MacMillan, Wilson, Heath, possibly Brown, Cameron
Box 3: weak PMs/ victims of forces outside their control: Chamberlain, Eden, Callaghan, Major, May, Sunak
Box 4 (new category) complete plonkers: Johnson
Box 5: glitches in the matrix. Truss
Heath should be 3rd tier as should Brown (in retrospect Major who left a growing economy, low inflation and a largely balanced budget in 1997, replaced the poll tax with council tax and won the Gulf War and began the NI peace process should be second tier).
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I'd disagree with Callaghan in Tier 3. He gets criticised for his decision not to go to the polls early and his "Crisis, what crisis" but he was a PM with no majority, an extremely militant trade union sector but one, who by the end of his time, was showing economically better results
He sabotaged Barbara Castle's In Place of Strife so he got his just desserts with the winter of discontent.
Chinese Foreign Ministry re-tweeting Pfizer “scoop”.
Interesting that the US government and media keep mum about this seemingly important relevation. Apparently "truth" and "transparency" are standards that the US holds other countries to.
Comments
Without Boris they had nothing left in the tank. This isn’t an endorsement of The Clown by the way, but he had a certain level of political celebrity that was keeping the life support switched on, at least until December 2021.
Brexiteers like Casino Royale have observed the current Brexit settlement is unsustainable and that something will replace it.
Eventually Starmer will catch up to the polling and as de minimis we rejoin the Single Market, that will be another tipping point for the madness.
Actually screw all that. By the same token it means that the person who took us out ............... and that is just too ludicrous. No let's stick with your original ranking.
I won't say that what you say isn't true, but certainly it gave a misleading impression of your reading of the preprint.
They failed, of course, to do sufficient research to understand that it's not only mothers that appear in maternity records, but also babies.
1) Officer gets investigated
2) Retirement because of stress
3) This terminates investigation
4) Gets job with another force.....
Why are you surprised?
That would give a hung parliament with the Tories over 250 seats, even if the headline voting intention gives a Labour landslide
https://twitter.com/JMagosh/status/1620018028825182208?s=20&t=WHs4TTCR8BaIiFJunOorrw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MPs_who_stood_down_at_the_2019_United_Kingdom_general_election
guess you saw me getting a bit reminiscency about my late father overnight and it was good to post that little bit of ongoing processing. It's good to see you back on here fighting the good cause.
Johnson should arguably be tier 1, having delivered Brexit and the vaccines.
Time will tell if Sunak is Tier 2 or 3
I suppose Sunak might have time to turn the supertanker around before it hits the rocks, although my money would be on a massive pollution incident. Home is definitely Box 3 too.
Does Scotland’s First Minister believe all trans women are women?
Scottish Gov has just implemented an effective ban on trans prisoners who’ve committed sexual & violent crimes against women being moved to a women-only prison. @itvnews[VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/peteradamsmith/status/1620051699900755970
It is worth reflecting that one of the key reasons why Ms Shoesmith was in such a strong legal position was due to the sheer trigger happy conduct of Mr Ed Balls who effectively removed Miss Shoesmith from her statutory role at Haringey with no warning and flouting the most basic legal procedures.
Mr Balls was Children's Secretary at the time of Ms Shoesmith's sacking.
https://www.human-law.co.uk/_cmroot/human-law.co.uk/blog/2014/07/how-did-sharon-shoesmith-obtain-so-much-damages.aspx
Though Wilson left a longer legacy admittedly with legal homosexuality and abortion and comprehensive schools and the Open University coming when he was PM
Before the 2015 general election, with IPSOS Mori, Cameron had a net +17% advantage over Miliband in terms of satisfaction with each of them on how they were doing their jobs as PM and LOTO respectively.
On exactly the same measure, in today's IPSOS Mori poll, Starmer has a net +26% advantage over Sunak.
When the dust settles, the euro’s greatest advantage is clear to see: It is a shield behind which small and medium-sized economies can shelter together from the storms of international financial interdependence, in a world of geopolitical competition in which the dollar remains dominant and Europe not-exactly-a-superpower. Who would abandon this safe haven to venture out into the storm alone? That is the main argument for the euro, and it’s enough.
Sharon Shoesmith was lynched by the press and the Labour Government's defence of lets pick on a scapegoat. A personal vilification to smokescreen a wider failure.
Edit: oh, and comparing net with net is double-counting.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-64451936
Anyway I thought you wanted to replace Comprehensive Schools.
https://www.ft.com/content/a2cb4877-c50e-4353-a697-cd5343eaae2d
Good article.
From the comments:
The UK is just doomed because at some point they stopped being pragmatic and entrepreneurial…The idea in this environment a trillion dollar company will come out of the UK is ludicrous, what will happen is before an IPO they will likely move to the US.
What possible circumstances could have exonerated Zahawi? He accepted his guilt when he paid the penalty charge.
So, big picture, our current position is, thanks to the Tories, one of epic and catastrophic failure.
The wider system had its failings, yes. Shoesmith was definitely a failure, though.
But you are right. It looks like he'll lose, and therefore join the ranks of the Lord Home, Callaghan and Brown in being PM but never winning an election.
Thing is, he'll be what, 44? when he loses. Still twenty years (or more) in politics if he wanted it. At least Brown and Callaghan could and did just retire........ (well, Callaghan sort of).
This is why people marking essays come up with monstrosities like C+/B- or C+?+.
First detailed look by a parliamentary committee the issues here, in the light of the Bryson case, so worth following; the Bill's MSP supporters have not been as willing as supporters of selfID on this committee to subject their position to public scrutiny.
https://twitter.com/LucyHunterB/status/1620069419245522944
Tomorrow @Commonswomequ will take evidence from a panel of lawyers on the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill and the Equality Act
https://twitter.com/mbmpolicy/status/1620063020759289857
On which score much as I hate to admit it, Johnson manages to sit in the first camp of those who made the political weather.
Yes, those figures I quote were immediately before the 2015 general election and I accept that it's still midterm in terms of a general election now. It's not midterm though in terms of Sunak as PM. He is hardly out of his honeymoon period time wise. Sunak's ratings could improve. Initially though his satisfaction ratings have trended downwards, the same direction of overall trend as those of Johnson, May, Cameron and Major did over their first two years as PM.
Bear in mind though that I was not actually trying to use the ratings of Sunak and Starmer to debunk the opinion polls. I was replying to a post that made a risible attempt to do that. As far as I am concerned, at the moment I see nothing in the satisfaction ratings to contradict the opinion poll ratings that put Labour way out in front.
Johnson will be PM until 2030
Johnson won't resign
Johnson will definitely lead the Tories into the next election
Truss is better than Keir Starmer
The polls will recover with Truss as leader
Rishi Sunak will save the Tories
Rishi Sunak will be more popular than Keir Starmer
Oh no it isn't.
Had I quoted a 43% improvement (17%+26%), you would have been perfectly entitled to point out that the swing was only 21.5%, in terms of how of Starmer's satisfaction rating v Sunak has improved on that of Miliband compared to Cameron. But since I didn't quote any "swing", just the raw figures, you have invented a straw man.
Very impressive metrics as well, I wonder how much the NHS and other giant public sector orgs would benefit from this kind of approach. They mentioned around 80% of incoming emails/queries had some or all of their issues resolved by the NLP bot leaving the team to actually help the 20% of more complex problems that needed real human interaction and resolution, hence the massive reduction in complaints. Most common question from end users was "I ordered X items, can I cancel/return/change some" and the NLP parser just sends along a link to the amend order page for their latest order with some nice language that someone has pre-written.
In the NHS how many person hours are wasted manually responding to this kind of stuff around appointment booking, rebooking and cancelling, or even slightly more complex issues around repeat prescriptions timing.
@Leon is right about one thing, AI should greatly improve workplace productivity as fewer and fewer manual tasks such as these are necessary. This was a fairly simple bit of NLP and pattern matching, the scope for what is possible is huge and the government must force all of the public sector to utilise AI for productivity improvement so we can start shedding jobs, improving efficiency of service delivery and cutting tax/close the deficit.
Germany is facing a severe teacher shortage – at a time when schools are tasked with integrating more foreign students and training the skilled workers of tomorrow.
Recruiting teachers from abroad could help, but bureaucratic hurdles hinder efforts.
https://twitter.com/dw_politics/status/1620078667656491008
There are many downsides to Brexit but one of the greatest has been the third rate, incompetent politicians it has thrust into positions of power - Johnson, Raab, Braverman, Dorries, Rees-Mogg, Zahawi, Patel, Truss, Kwartang - the list goes on and on.
Anyone who believes the two are not connected hasn't been paying attention.
What are the real satisfaction figures, not the net?
Interesting that the US government and media keep mum about this seemingly important relevation. Apparently "truth" and "transparency" are standards that the US holds other countries to.
https://twitter.com/SpokespersonCHN/status/1620080142495240195