If the DUP claim that their hard line has won, that will be interesting.
What would be even more interesting is them settling into Storming as second fiddle to Sinn Fein. Hell will have indeed frozen over and Sunak deserves a by for the next five GEs.
You assume that accepting the deal with the EU and reconvening Stormont are linked. Why is that?
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Hang on, I assumed it was the republicans who would be annoyed at the King hosting an EU leader - but its the royalists? Time for the AI or aliens to take over.....
The Queen lost all support when she agreed to Boris Johnson's unlawful prorogation.
The Queen also signed Hilary Benn's delay Brexit Bill, the monarch is neutral on Brexit
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
I tell you why he's moving towards the mainstream.
He's got a 4,000 vote majority in a seat that voted Remain, oh and Labour have 6,000 Lib Dem voters to squeeze.
Steve Baker is literally the ONLY Brexiteer that I have not seen make mendacious claims about Brexit.
That is an absurd situation. No sensible, small, private sector firm worth its salt would systematically use supply staff instead of permanent staff because of an accounting trick, as its their money at the end of the day either way.
In my experience it's quite common for private sector firms to use contractors instead of permanent staff for some work, or to contract out catering or cleaning rather than employing cooks and janitors as would likely have been done in the distant past; in both cases essentially as an "accounting trick", since they pay for the work to be done either way.
Many private firms are moving away from “Permanent Contractors” - partly from IR35. But mostly from realising that is more expensive.
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
Too religious.
Baker is an evangelical Baptist I believe yes
Thank you - couldn’t find the right words myself and I know “too religious” is a bit crude.
DavidL brings this up on occasion; I think there is a chance it blows up by the next GE.
And yet the voting public will continue to vote for the politician that promises the harshest sentences, not the ones that provide adequate resources.
At some point we need have a proper debate about restructuring the police (far fewer forces) and getting bang for our buck. Numbers are now more or less back where they were, so they can’t blame that. They need to get more efficient.
We add new laws and make existing legislation more complex every year.
We need the opposite, politicians willing to reduce and simplify the system. Alongside better education and more meritocracy which are the best ways to reduce crime and make a cohesive society.
The energy regulator has cut its price cap by £999 but households are still expected to see a rise of up to £500 in their bills from April.
Ofgem has reduced the cap on the amount that energy suppliers would be able to charge a dual-fuel household from £4,279 to £3,280 from April 1. However, at the same time the government’s energy price guarantee, which determines the price households are actually charged at present, is becoming less generous.
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Von Der Leyen is effectively Head of State of the EU, so the King is merely meeting a fellow Head of State.
Sunak actually did the Deal with her, not the King, in terms of their roles as Heads of Government. The King as a constitutional monarch is only Head of State however, not Head of Government
Yes. It looks like Rishi Sunak is about to Get Brexit Done. Ok, so I bet many in the party will be deeply disturbed about the ongoing role in our affairs of the ... my fingers tremble as I type the dreaded words ... European Court of Justice, but no matter. For his PMship to mean anything he had to face them down and act in the national interest. He has. Hats off.
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Hang on, I assumed it was the republicans who would be annoyed at the King hosting an EU leader - but its the royalists? Time for the AI or aliens to take over.....
The Queen lost all support when she agreed to Boris Johnson's unlawful prorogation.
The Queen also signed Hilary Benn's delay Brexit Bill, the monarch is neutral on Brexit
One was lawful and the will of our sovereign Parliament, the other was unlawful.
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
Too religious.
Really? Rev Blair did ok. TMay is a devout Christian, I believe.
And who could forget that famously pious Catholic Boris Johnson?
The energy regulator has cut its price cap by £999 but households are still expected to see a rise of up to £500 in their bills from April.
Ofgem has reduced the cap on the amount that energy suppliers would be able to charge a dual-fuel household from £4,279 to £3,280 from April 1. However, at the same time the government’s energy price guarantee, which determines the price households are actually charged at present, is becoming less generous.
Between 1981 and 1987 Betty Boothroyd was a member of the Labour National Executive. She was an aggressive figure in the right-wing faction who were fighting the Bennite left and also Militant.
The energy regulator has cut its price cap by £999 but households are still expected to see a rise of up to £500 in their bills from April.
Ofgem has reduced the cap on the amount that energy suppliers would be able to charge a dual-fuel household from £4,279 to £3,280 from April 1. However, at the same time the government’s energy price guarantee, which determines the price households are actually charged at present, is becoming less generous.
The energy regulator has cut its price cap by £999 but households are still expected to see a rise of up to £500 in their bills from April.
Ofgem has reduced the cap on the amount that energy suppliers would be able to charge a dual-fuel household from £4,279 to £3,280 from April 1. However, at the same time the government’s energy price guarantee, which determines the price households are actually charged at present, is becoming less generous.
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
Too religious.
Really? Rev Blair did ok. TMay is a devout Christian, I believe.
And who could forget that famously pious Catholic Boris Johnson?
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
Too religious.
Really? Rev Blair did ok. TMay is a devout Christian, I believe.
And who could forget that famously pious Catholic Boris Johnson?
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Von Der Leyen is effectively Head of State of the EU, so the King is merely meeting a fellow Head of State.
Sunak actually did the Deal with her, not the King, in terms of their roles as Heads of Government. The King as a constitutional monarch is only Head of State however, not Head of Government
Von der Leyen is closer to a Head of Government than a Head of State.
The Council head (whose name I have forgotten) is closer to “Head of State” for the EU, albeit an effectively powerless one.
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
Sideways seats. Not enough of them. It thinks it is the tube, but running from Reading.
Mind, it did get me from Ealing to Farringdon a fair bit quicker than in pre-Crossrail days. Probably boosted the value of our old flat, but I don't really want to look at that...
The energy regulator has cut its price cap by £999 but households are still expected to see a rise of up to £500 in their bills from April.
Ofgem has reduced the cap on the amount that energy suppliers would be able to charge a dual-fuel household from £4,279 to £3,280 from April 1. However, at the same time the government’s energy price guarantee, which determines the price households are actually charged at present, is becoming less generous.
The energy regulator has cut its price cap by £999 but households are still expected to see a rise of up to £500 in their bills from April.
Ofgem has reduced the cap on the amount that energy suppliers would be able to charge a dual-fuel household from £4,279 to £3,280 from April 1. However, at the same time the government’s energy price guarantee, which determines the price households are actually charged at present, is becoming less generous.
I'm hoping that Hunt/whoever is just letting this become headline news for a little bit, before announcing that they're saving the day. Just so they get some credit for it.
But then I've hoped many things and it's fair to say I've been disappointed more than once.
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Von Der Leyen is effectively Head of State of the EU, so the King is merely meeting a fellow Head of State.
Sunak actually did the Deal with her, not the King, in terms of their roles as Heads of Government. The King as a constitutional monarch is only Head of State however, not Head of Government
Von der Leyen is closer to a Head of Government than a Head of State.
The Council head (whose name I have forgotten) is closer to “Head of State” for the EU, albeit an effectively powerless one.
The EU Council is becoming increasingly less relevant to the EU relative to the EU Commission Von Der Leyen is President of and the EU Parliament as it moves further to becoming a Federal Superstate.
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
Europhobes
I quite like that, but I think they’ll evolve into a school of thought on all treaties.
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
Too religious.
Really? Rev Blair did ok. TMay is a devout Christian, I believe.
And who could forget that famously pious Catholic Boris Johnson?
Religion's not a bar for PMship.
Blair and May were Church of England when PM and Boris is Christian in name only. All are pro homosexual marriage.
Baker on the other hand is an evangelical Baptist, that includes opposition to homosexual marriage and most abortions like evangelical Forbes and that is likely a bar to him becoming PM
It's odd that so many here on a political betting site describe the DUP and ERG as bonkers. They are far from that, being quite rational, calculating and disciplined in their political positioning. Where they differ from those calling them bonkers is in their values and aspirations for NI.
It helps to be bonkers. The ERG seems to have been pretty successful in terms of obtaining political goals over the last decades. (True, the DUP are both bonkers and been unsuccessful ).
Let's, e.g., compare it to politicians who are keen on reducing wealth inequality. This is a political goal that has gone backwards over the last decades (or at best stagnated). No matter who is in power, there has been pretty meagre progress.
As we are (probably) coming to an end of a period of Tory rule, it is instructive to consider how Tory Governments (first Thatcher and then the Brexiteers) have changed the UK very dramatically.
By comparison, the Labour Governments of my lifetime -- though sometimes competent and sometimes incompetent -- have not achieved any comparably lasting changes in the UK.
I'm no fan of the last Labour government, but the last Labour Government achieved some lasting changes in the UK. Notably more equality for homosexuality, although that was a global phenomenon and they fell short of legalising equality in marriage itself which fell to David Cameron to achieve.
Devolution and BoE independence too, and the Minimum Wage.
What's remarkable though is that almost everything that the last Labour Government achieved was done in 1997/98. I'd be curious if even the most ardent of Labour supporters can name any lasting changes that were introduced from 1999 onwards?
Minimum wage -- I grant you. The Tories would never introduced that. But, it has not had much effect in reducing wealth inequality. So, in my book, it falls into the category of tinkering at the edges.
Devolution has been a disaster for Wales. It is poorer now that it was before 1999. The standard of Government has been abysmally low.
I will leave our Scottish posters to describe whether devolution has been good for Scotland.
You didn't ask for changes for the better, just lasting changes. Devolution certainly is a lasting change, even if it hasn't improved things.
On the same basis, perhaps you could include our indebtedness now as a lasting change brought about by Labour, but I don't know anyone from Labour who admits that was intentional, unlike devolution.
Increase in debt under last Labour government: £681bn. Increase in debt under current Tory government: £1,543bn. And counting.
That's a legacy of the deficit that Labour bequeathed.
Unless you think the Tories could or should have implemented a form of austerity so severe they ran a neutral budget from year one?
It was a legacy of the worst global financial crisis since WW2.
Which thanks to Brown's decade of preparation we were uniquely well-placed to weather?
You think Gordon Brown should have shut down the City and dug a big hole in the Midlands to sell commodities to China? Well, it worked for Australia.
If he'd been running a budget surplus as he should have for that stage of the economic cycle, then the deficit spending would have been far less significant afterwards and purely cyclical.
I’d say that Labour’s biggest long-term failure was letting house prices rip from 1999 to 2007.
2007 was the year that levels of home ownership began falling.
Not sure Labour could have donw much about it.
Banks shifted their lending criteria from 3x+1x earnings to 4x joint earnings and prices across the country increased to reflect the additional money people could borrow (for good and bad).I watched it happen down south in 2001/2 and then up north between 2003/4....
Brown wasn't shy about regulating the banks.
The problem is, he regulated all the wrong things...
Every CDO trader had lodged a photocopy of their passport with HR.
They had all completed their multiple choice exams (or got the desk junior to do it for them) - in how not to commit fraud. “An Orc from Mordor emails you, claiming to have a large stash of Mithril, following the fall of the Barad- Dur. Do you (a) help him sell it on the metals exchange, bypassing all regulations…. (e) call compliance”
And that's who to primarily blame for crashing the financial system. Those who did it, not those who supposedly provoked it by being lax or complacent. Similar to Putin and Ukraine.
In the case of my profession, it's a company based in the Republic of Cyrpus, whose holding company is based in Panama, wants to buy an expensive property in Barnet. The directors are too busy to meet you face to face, and they are not interested in you performing the usual searches and enquiries on the property they want to buy.
The blame lies both with the solicitor who takes on that business, but also with the regulatory system that treats white collar crime in this country as a pecadillo.
Yep. But imo there's generally a little too much straining to blame 'the system' for a Crash caused primarily by cultural and behavioural not structural factors. The implied notion is that bankers are intrinsically wild beasts whose nature is to misbehave and so the real blame lies with those meant to police them - I don't like this way of thinking.
The problem was those in charge of the whole system thinking they’d abolished the economic cycle - so that when the inevitable recession did arrive, the country’s finances were utterly screwed.
It is surprising that the king will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the prime minister needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the king in a matter of immediate political controversy.
...says Jacob Rees-Mogg, the man who embroiled the Queen in political controversy by making her prorogue parliament illegally.
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Hang on, I assumed it was the republicans who would be annoyed at the King hosting an EU leader - but its the royalists? Time for the AI or aliens to take over.....
The Queen lost all support when she agreed to Boris Johnson's unlawful prorogation.
The Queen also signed Hilary Benn's delay Brexit Bill, the monarch is neutral on Brexit
One was lawful and the will of our sovereign Parliament, the other was unlawful.
The energy regulator has cut its price cap by £999 but households are still expected to see a rise of up to £500 in their bills from April.
Ofgem has reduced the cap on the amount that energy suppliers would be able to charge a dual-fuel household from £4,279 to £3,280 from April 1. However, at the same time the government’s energy price guarantee, which determines the price households are actually charged at present, is becoming less generous.
Shouldn't matter for the summer: bills will be lower anyway. It's what situation we're in for next winter that matters.
Don't most people do the averaging over the year thing, if only because it's too much hassle to persuade the energy supplier to do anything different?
They do, and I think quite soon you’ll begin to see some long term fixes below the Government mandated price level based on minimal losses in the summer and a punt on sustained lower prices into next winter.
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
Europhobes
I quite like that, but I think they’ll evolve into a school of thought on all treaties.
The energy regulator has cut its price cap by £999 but households are still expected to see a rise of up to £500 in their bills from April.
Ofgem has reduced the cap on the amount that energy suppliers would be able to charge a dual-fuel household from £4,279 to £3,280 from April 1. However, at the same time the government’s energy price guarantee, which determines the price households are actually charged at present, is becoming less generous.
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
Europhobes
I quite like that, but I think they’ll evolve into a school of thought on all treaties.
DavidL brings this up on occasion; I think there is a chance it blows up by the next GE.
And yet the voting public will continue to vote for the politician that promises the harshest sentences, not the ones that provide adequate resources.
At some point we need have a proper debate about restructuring the police (far fewer forces) and getting bang for our buck. Numbers are now more or less back where they were, so they can’t blame that. They need to get more efficient.
There’s also the perception (which may be true or false, but it’s the perception), that the police are way more interested in crimes like minor speeding and mis-speaking on Twitter, than they are on personal fraud, car theft, or burglary.
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
Europhobes
Meanwhile Sunak is revealing himself to be euro-curious.
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
Potential bounce for Sunak if he gets the DUP on board, they are key for it to be a really meaningful Deal
Why? How many people in the rest of the UK give a tuppenny toss about anything to do with Northern Ireland?
The media (and of course the government) are bigging this up, but I reckon that most folk will see it as an irrelevance.
Yes, I agree. The government got almost no discredit (from the wider electorate) when NI was going badly and will get almost no credit for NI going well.
The energy regulator has cut its price cap by £999 but households are still expected to see a rise of up to £500 in their bills from April.
Ofgem has reduced the cap on the amount that energy suppliers would be able to charge a dual-fuel household from £4,279 to £3,280 from April 1. However, at the same time the government’s energy price guarantee, which determines the price households are actually charged at present, is becoming less generous.
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
Europhobes
I quite like that, but I think they’ll evolve into a school of thought on all treaties.
Sovereignty fundamentalists? Too long.
Just call them Isolationists?
Constitutionalists?
Hard line unionists?
Brit Nats nails it best for me.
I thought about British Nationalist but I do think “nationalist” has some unfair nazi connotations.
It's odd that so many here on a political betting site describe the DUP and ERG as bonkers. They are far from that, being quite rational, calculating and disciplined in their political positioning. Where they differ from those calling them bonkers is in their values and aspirations for NI.
It helps to be bonkers. The ERG seems to have been pretty successful in terms of obtaining political goals over the last decades. (True, the DUP are both bonkers and been unsuccessful ).
Let's, e.g., compare it to politicians who are keen on reducing wealth inequality. This is a political goal that has gone backwards over the last decades (or at best stagnated). No matter who is in power, there has been pretty meagre progress.
As we are (probably) coming to an end of a period of Tory rule, it is instructive to consider how Tory Governments (first Thatcher and then the Brexiteers) have changed the UK very dramatically.
By comparison, the Labour Governments of my lifetime -- though sometimes competent and sometimes incompetent -- have not achieved any comparably lasting changes in the UK.
I'm no fan of the last Labour government, but the last Labour Government achieved some lasting changes in the UK. Notably more equality for homosexuality, although that was a global phenomenon and they fell short of legalising equality in marriage itself which fell to David Cameron to achieve.
Devolution and BoE independence too, and the Minimum Wage.
What's remarkable though is that almost everything that the last Labour Government achieved was done in 1997/98. I'd be curious if even the most ardent of Labour supporters can name any lasting changes that were introduced from 1999 onwards?
Minimum wage -- I grant you. The Tories would never introduced that. But, it has not had much effect in reducing wealth inequality. So, in my book, it falls into the category of tinkering at the edges.
Devolution has been a disaster for Wales. It is poorer now that it was before 1999. The standard of Government has been abysmally low.
I will leave our Scottish posters to describe whether devolution has been good for Scotland.
You didn't ask for changes for the better, just lasting changes. Devolution certainly is a lasting change, even if it hasn't improved things.
On the same basis, perhaps you could include our indebtedness now as a lasting change brought about by Labour, but I don't know anyone from Labour who admits that was intentional, unlike devolution.
Increase in debt under last Labour government: £681bn. Increase in debt under current Tory government: £1,543bn. And counting.
That's a legacy of the deficit that Labour bequeathed.
Unless you think the Tories could or should have implemented a form of austerity so severe they ran a neutral budget from year one?
It was a legacy of the worst global financial crisis since WW2.
Which thanks to Brown's decade of preparation we were uniquely well-placed to weather?
You think Gordon Brown should have shut down the City and dug a big hole in the Midlands to sell commodities to China? Well, it worked for Australia.
If he'd been running a budget surplus as he should have for that stage of the economic cycle, then the deficit spending would have been far less significant afterwards and purely cyclical.
I’d say that Labour’s biggest long-term failure was letting house prices rip from 1999 to 2007.
2007 was the year that levels of home ownership began falling.
Not sure Labour could have donw much about it.
Banks shifted their lending criteria from 3x+1x earnings to 4x joint earnings and prices across the country increased to reflect the additional money people could borrow (for good and bad).I watched it happen down south in 2001/2 and then up north between 2003/4....
Brown wasn't shy about regulating the banks.
The problem is, he regulated all the wrong things...
Every CDO trader had lodged a photocopy of their passport with HR.
They had all completed their multiple choice exams (or got the desk junior to do it for them) - in how not to commit fraud. “An Orc from Mordor emails you, claiming to have a large stash of Mithril, following the fall of the Barad- Dur. Do you (a) help him sell it on the metals exchange, bypassing all regulations…. (e) call compliance”
And that's who to primarily blame for crashing the financial system. Those who did it, not those who supposedly provoked it by being lax or complacent. Similar to Putin and Ukraine.
Not really, since there isn't anybody whose job it really was to stop Putin invading Ukraine in the way that it was J. Gordon Brown's job to regulate the City,
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
Too religious.
Really? Rev Blair did ok. TMay is a devout Christian, I believe.
And who could forget that famously pious Catholic Boris Johnson?
Labour pledges to help young people buy homes by relaxing planning rules
All parties promise this in opposition and ditch it in government when NIMBYs wear them down.
Starmer is the last person to face down determined opposition, so I imagine this proposal will face the same fate as all the previous ones.
There are fewer NIMBYS in inner city Labour heartlands than rural areas and suburban areas and commuter towns.
So Labour don't need the votes of NIMBYS as much as the Tories and LDs
I think most have continually underestimated Starmers ability to “get on” and make a impact. It’ll be the same here.
The devil will be in the details. "Protections for renters" will surely constrain rental supply - will that really be outweighed by a massive housebuilding programme - and how do people who can't afford to save for a deposit because they have to rent get to buy the new houses?
The government appears to be doing a pretty good job already of constraining rental supply, with policies around mortgage interest allowance and capital depreciation.
The answer is build more houses. Build More Houses. BUILD. LOTS. MORE. HOUSES.
Nothing else will work, except perhaps banning immigration until more houses are built.
We need immigrants to build the new houses........
Loads of industries are already heavily short of workers so can't "just raise wages".
Raise wages and let unproductive jobs that can't, die.
Given a large chunk of those jobs that we are short of are in the public sector (and possibly the new turbo charged house building too?) then that requires increasing taxes by several %. Whilst I may be in favour I know the electorate won't be and so do the politicians.
No, it requires culling unproductive jobs and letting productive ones get a higher wage.
No need to increase taxes to do that.
Or do you think the UK's public sector is emblematic of the best of productivity in recent years?
And how do you determine productive and unproductive public sector jobs? Goodness knows folk have tried. Does raising a Social Workers case load from 30 to 100 make them more or less productive?
One of the fallouts of Thatcherism is that the roles where there was money to be made from automation and reducing headcount have been privatised. The state is largely left with the roles that nobody has worked out how to do that for. And then we end up with...
Baumol’s cost disease, a bit of economics jargon that means sectors that aren’t getting more productive, often one’s involving a lot of human contact, see costs going up because they have to compete for staff against sectors that are. Of course healthcare can be made more productive through technology, and because of capital underinvestment the NHS IT systems are dire, but ultimately caring professions are just going to keep sucking up an ever greater part of our collective income.
To make it concrete, if pay goes up for other physics graduate jobs, physics teachers are likely to become more expensive, because otherwise physics teachers become physics something-else-ers. And that's true even if there's nothing you can do to make physics teachers become more productive.
Abolish national pay scales and let the market decide pay rates instead.
If physics teachers are in high demand, then pay them more. If there's an overabundance of people available to teach say English* instead, then pay them proportionately less.
Why pay English and Physics teachers the same, if they're not in the same demand and supply?
* Replace English with any other subject as appropriate, if this answer is not appropriate.
Academy chains can pay staff more than the national pay scales.
The fact they don't should tell you everything you need to know..
Oh and you could pay less but even in areas where house prices are low - many good schools can't get decent teachers at the moment because to many former teachers a job outside teaching looks far more attractive,
Key thing is that the government decides how much it is prepared to pay per pupil. And there's reasonable evidence that the amount is currently "not enough".
(And be careful what you wish for with individual schools negotiating. Leaving aside the extra work created by doing that, and the observation that some of us put a value on taking that off the table, consider what happened with train drivers. Rail unions played one firm off against another, which is one reason why train drivers are paid so much.)
Talking of which:
February ITT application stats for England are so bad that this year is now looking worse than last year, which is quite something 😲 - primary 15% lower than same time last year - secondary 2% higher despite big bursary uplifts
The bursary thing confuses me. As far as I understand it for in-demand subjects there's a bursary for teach training, but then post-training the initial pay is the same for in-demand and out of demand subjects? Or have I got that wrong.
Presumably those who are able to work for an in-demand subject are educated enough to look past the bursary alone and look at what the follow-on wage is and think that it isn't enough to tempt them?
Schools should have a per-pupil budget then spend that as they see fit. If they need to spend more to fill a Maths vacancy, than an English* vacancy, then they should have that freedom.
* Replace as appropriate.
But. If you are advocating a pure free market, then. Schools should have a per pupil budget which enables them to fill vacancies at the market rate. As I said earlier. This requires loads more cash from you. We've had a £550+ per pupil reduction this year. So. Over half the staff every day are on supply. Which is tempting everyone else onto supply. We've lost 13 permanent staff this year. Only one vacancy filled. That's a market failure.
That’s one hell of a market failure.
You need to have a budget per pupil, multiplied by a local cost-of-living index, and have sufficient slack in the system to allow successful schools to expand.
I’d also have the government pay off student loans, for anyone who completes 10 years as a teacher in the public sector.
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
Europhobes
I quite like that, but I think they’ll evolve into a school of thought on all treaties.
The energy regulator has cut its price cap by £999 but households are still expected to see a rise of up to £500 in their bills from April.
Ofgem has reduced the cap on the amount that energy suppliers would be able to charge a dual-fuel household from £4,279 to £3,280 from April 1. However, at the same time the government’s energy price guarantee, which determines the price households are actually charged at present, is becoming less generous.
Predictions are that by summer prices could be returning toward ‘normal’. So surely the government will bridge the gap by extending support for a few more months?
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
Europhobes
Meanwhile Sunak is revealing himself to be euro-curious.
Does the 2010 Equality Act allow him to self-identify as a europhile without fear of losing his job?
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
Too religious.
Really? Rev Blair did ok. TMay is a devout Christian, I believe.
And who could forget that famously pious Catholic Boris Johnson?
Religion's not a bar for PMship.
Though the next GE is likely a bar to any Tory.
Is this where a Corbynite says “that’s not right - Starmer looks quids in”?
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Hang on, I assumed it was the republicans who would be annoyed at the King hosting an EU leader - but its the royalists? Time for the AI or aliens to take over.....
The Queen lost all support when she agreed to Boris Johnson's unlawful prorogation.
The Queen also signed Hilary Benn's delay Brexit Bill, the monarch is neutral on Brexit
One was lawful and the will of our sovereign Parliament, the other was unlawful.
So she wasn't neutral on Brexit.
One was incorrectly deemed unlawful by a partisan court after the event, in possibly the most egregious case of "this is what we want to happen, now let's find some legal argument to support that" since Roe...
The idea this will move votes is ridiculous. The public were told Brexit was done.
Not directly. But it may limit to an extent the “this lot are completely useless” perception and reduce the severity of the thumping they get at the GE.
Potential bounce for Sunak if he gets the DUP on board, they are key for it to be a really meaningful Deal
Why? How many people in the rest of the UK give a tuppenny toss about anything to do with Northern Ireland?
The media (and of course the government) are bigging this up, but I reckon that most folk will see it as an irrelevance.
If the UK and the EU can come up with an acceptable agreement to sort out an obvious problem then it bodes well that the same may happen in other areas where one side or the other has been playing silly beggars. Even if this specific change only affects NI.
The mood music may be more important than the actual deal.
Are they going to sort out Horizon, for instance? It benefits nobody to keep the UK out of it.
It's odd that so many here on a political betting site describe the DUP and ERG as bonkers. They are far from that, being quite rational, calculating and disciplined in their political positioning. Where they differ from those calling them bonkers is in their values and aspirations for NI.
It helps to be bonkers. The ERG seems to have been pretty successful in terms of obtaining political goals over the last decades. (True, the DUP are both bonkers and been unsuccessful ).
Let's, e.g., compare it to politicians who are keen on reducing wealth inequality. This is a political goal that has gone backwards over the last decades (or at best stagnated). No matter who is in power, there has been pretty meagre progress.
As we are (probably) coming to an end of a period of Tory rule, it is instructive to consider how Tory Governments (first Thatcher and then the Brexiteers) have changed the UK very dramatically.
By comparison, the Labour Governments of my lifetime -- though sometimes competent and sometimes incompetent -- have not achieved any comparably lasting changes in the UK.
I'm no fan of the last Labour government, but the last Labour Government achieved some lasting changes in the UK. Notably more equality for homosexuality, although that was a global phenomenon and they fell short of legalising equality in marriage itself which fell to David Cameron to achieve.
Devolution and BoE independence too, and the Minimum Wage.
What's remarkable though is that almost everything that the last Labour Government achieved was done in 1997/98. I'd be curious if even the most ardent of Labour supporters can name any lasting changes that were introduced from 1999 onwards?
Minimum wage -- I grant you. The Tories would never introduced that. But, it has not had much effect in reducing wealth inequality. So, in my book, it falls into the category of tinkering at the edges.
Devolution has been a disaster for Wales. It is poorer now that it was before 1999. The standard of Government has been abysmally low.
I will leave our Scottish posters to describe whether devolution has been good for Scotland.
You didn't ask for changes for the better, just lasting changes. Devolution certainly is a lasting change, even if it hasn't improved things.
On the same basis, perhaps you could include our indebtedness now as a lasting change brought about by Labour, but I don't know anyone from Labour who admits that was intentional, unlike devolution.
Increase in debt under last Labour government: £681bn. Increase in debt under current Tory government: £1,543bn. And counting.
That's a legacy of the deficit that Labour bequeathed.
Unless you think the Tories could or should have implemented a form of austerity so severe they ran a neutral budget from year one?
It was a legacy of the worst global financial crisis since WW2.
Which thanks to Brown's decade of preparation we were uniquely well-placed to weather?
You think Gordon Brown should have shut down the City and dug a big hole in the Midlands to sell commodities to China? Well, it worked for Australia.
If he'd been running a budget surplus as he should have for that stage of the economic cycle, then the deficit spending would have been far less significant afterwards and purely cyclical.
I’d say that Labour’s biggest long-term failure was letting house prices rip from 1999 to 2007.
2007 was the year that levels of home ownership began falling.
Not sure Labour could have donw much about it.
Banks shifted their lending criteria from 3x+1x earnings to 4x joint earnings and prices across the country increased to reflect the additional money people could borrow (for good and bad).I watched it happen down south in 2001/2 and then up north between 2003/4....
Brown wasn't shy about regulating the banks.
The problem is, he regulated all the wrong things...
Every CDO trader had lodged a photocopy of their passport with HR.
They had all completed their multiple choice exams (or got the desk junior to do it for them) - in how not to commit fraud. “An Orc from Mordor emails you, claiming to have a large stash of Mithril, following the fall of the Barad- Dur. Do you (a) help him sell it on the metals exchange, bypassing all regulations…. (e) call compliance”
And that's who to primarily blame for crashing the financial system. Those who did it, not those who supposedly provoked it by being lax or complacent. Similar to Putin and Ukraine.
In the case of my profession, it's a company based in the Republic of Cyrpus, whose holding company is based in Panama, wants to buy an expensive property in Barnet. The directors are too busy to meet you face to face, and they are not interested in you performing the usual searches and enquiries on the property they want to buy.
The blame lies both with the solicitor who takes on that business, but also with the regulatory system that treats white collar crime in this country as a pecadillo.
Yep. But imo there's generally a little too much straining to blame 'the system' for a Crash caused primarily by cultural and behavioural not structural factors. The implied notion is that bankers are intrinsically wild beasts whose nature is to misbehave and so the real blame lies with those meant to police them - I don't like this way of thinking.
The problem was those in charge of the whole system thinking they’d abolished the economic cycle - so that when the inevitable recession did arrive, the country’s finances were utterly screwed.
A common-or-garden recession would have been fine. Unfortunately we got a big special multi-facetted affair with the global financial system imploding.
The energy regulator has cut its price cap by £999 but households are still expected to see a rise of up to £500 in their bills from April.
Ofgem has reduced the cap on the amount that energy suppliers would be able to charge a dual-fuel household from £4,279 to £3,280 from April 1. However, at the same time the government’s energy price guarantee, which determines the price households are actually charged at present, is becoming less generous.
Predictions are that by summer prices could be returning toward ‘normal’. So surely the government will bridge the gap by extending support for a few more months?
Commentators were over pessimistic on wholesale gas prices last Autumn but I think they may be over-optimistic now. There's a potentially cold March to come which will deplete reserves, and a big challenge to refill storage during the summer and autumn fast enough with LNG. I don't think we're out of the woods just yet.
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
Too religious.
Really? Rev Blair did ok. TMay is a devout Christian, I believe.
And who could forget that famously pious Catholic Boris Johnson?
Religion's not a bar for PMship.
Though the next GE is likely a bar to any Tory.
Is this where a Corbynite says “that’s not right - Starmer looks quids in”?
That would mean their acknowledging the painful idea.
Steve Baker saying live from Downing Street on Sky just now
'The PM is on the cusp of securing a fantastic result for everyone involved'
Significant endorsement
As I've posted two or three times on here - Chris Heaton-Harris, Steve Baker and James Cleverley have all been integral to sorting this out. All three are brexiteers and ERG members.
Steve Baker does seem to have been consciously moving towards the mainstream. Next leader material, despite not going to Oxford?
Too religious.
Baker is an evangelical Baptist I believe yes
So who is Steve the Baptist preparing a way for ?
St Jacob, or Kemi and Suella and Priti the Martyrs?
DUP sources are pushing back hard against claims that they are preparing to accept the Northern Ireland Protocol deal. They say the party will spend the next few days reading the legal text and command paper before making a decision
I think that will enable most potential Tory rebels to hold fire and enable any semi-vote to pass without much fuss. If the DUP come up with a "maybe, but..." a week later, the moment will have past.
Belarusian anti-war partisans claim to have severely damaged a Russian military aircraft in what an opposition leader has called the “most successful diversion” since the beginning of the war.
Apparently the Russian AF only have nine of these specialised AWACS aircraft. If that’s correct, then losing one is a big deal for them. They’re 1970s vintage, based on IL-76, and must be a right pain to keep serviceable at the best of times. Well done to the saboteurs.
Not cheap, either. I think they sold a couple to India for somewhere around $1bn.
*If* this was done by partisans, it'd be interesting to know how it was done (when the war's over, obvs.). If it had been an attack on the airfield, I might have expected to see more planes or infrastructure damaged. I do wonder if someone was given access to the aircraft to do some work, and left a few presents inside...
Whatever, it's an action that complicates things for Russian and Belarus. Every man, every SAM system, every tank, they leave outside Ukraine to guard infrastructure is one that cannot be used in Ukraine.
The previous post said it was by drones, so assuem they flew drones over it and either dropped explosives or did kamikaze by drones.
The claim was further that it was a U model IL-76 - the modernised one, which has a useful look down capability (looking for low flying aircraft and missiles from above).
The older models are much less capable.
Russia has 7 of these U models, I believe. You’d need 4 to maintain a 24/7 patrol (might manage with 3). So losing even one is a chunk of capability.
They are supposed to work in conjunction with MIg-31 interceptors. Apparently a lot of he Russian suppression of the Ukrainian airforce has been from Mig-31 lobbing ultra long range AAMs at low flying Ukrainian planes, from Russian airspace. Low hit rate, but the attrition rate adds up, over time.
The Mig-31 can use its own radar to find targets - but this would be much less effective than getting data from an IL-76U
Even better if it was one of the U models. One down, six to go!
One of those modified DJI drones carrying a grenade, that were used in Ukraine early in the war, would be enough to make one hell of a mess of an aircraft if dropped close by.
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
Europhobes
I quite like that, but I think they’ll evolve into a school of thought on all treaties.
The energy regulator has cut its price cap by £999 but households are still expected to see a rise of up to £500 in their bills from April.
Ofgem has reduced the cap on the amount that energy suppliers would be able to charge a dual-fuel household from £4,279 to £3,280 from April 1. However, at the same time the government’s energy price guarantee, which determines the price households are actually charged at present, is becoming less generous.
Predictions are that by summer prices could be returning toward ‘normal’. So surely the government will bridge the gap by extending support for a few more months?
They need to be careful about next winter, though, surely. Logically support would be less in summer than in winter.
The DUP want rid of the Good Friday Agreement, and won’t work under an SF first minister; kicking up a fuss about the protocol is merely a means to an end.
That NI voters are tiring of their never-ending negativity and student politics is the silver lining.
It's odd that so many here on a political betting site describe the DUP and ERG as bonkers. They are far from that, being quite rational, calculating and disciplined in their political positioning. Where they differ from those calling them bonkers is in their values and aspirations for NI.
It helps to be bonkers. The ERG seems to have been pretty successful in terms of obtaining political goals over the last decades. (True, the DUP are both bonkers and been unsuccessful ).
Let's, e.g., compare it to politicians who are keen on reducing wealth inequality. This is a political goal that has gone backwards over the last decades (or at best stagnated). No matter who is in power, there has been pretty meagre progress.
As we are (probably) coming to an end of a period of Tory rule, it is instructive to consider how Tory Governments (first Thatcher and then the Brexiteers) have changed the UK very dramatically.
By comparison, the Labour Governments of my lifetime -- though sometimes competent and sometimes incompetent -- have not achieved any comparably lasting changes in the UK.
I'm no fan of the last Labour government, but the last Labour Government achieved some lasting changes in the UK. Notably more equality for homosexuality, although that was a global phenomenon and they fell short of legalising equality in marriage itself which fell to David Cameron to achieve.
Devolution and BoE independence too, and the Minimum Wage.
What's remarkable though is that almost everything that the last Labour Government achieved was done in 1997/98. I'd be curious if even the most ardent of Labour supporters can name any lasting changes that were introduced from 1999 onwards?
Minimum wage -- I grant you. The Tories would never introduced that. But, it has not had much effect in reducing wealth inequality. So, in my book, it falls into the category of tinkering at the edges.
Devolution has been a disaster for Wales. It is poorer now that it was before 1999. The standard of Government has been abysmally low.
I will leave our Scottish posters to describe whether devolution has been good for Scotland.
You didn't ask for changes for the better, just lasting changes. Devolution certainly is a lasting change, even if it hasn't improved things.
On the same basis, perhaps you could include our indebtedness now as a lasting change brought about by Labour, but I don't know anyone from Labour who admits that was intentional, unlike devolution.
Increase in debt under last Labour government: £681bn. Increase in debt under current Tory government: £1,543bn. And counting.
That's a legacy of the deficit that Labour bequeathed.
Unless you think the Tories could or should have implemented a form of austerity so severe they ran a neutral budget from year one?
It was a legacy of the worst global financial crisis since WW2.
Which thanks to Brown's decade of preparation we were uniquely well-placed to weather?
You think Gordon Brown should have shut down the City and dug a big hole in the Midlands to sell commodities to China? Well, it worked for Australia.
If he'd been running a budget surplus as he should have for that stage of the economic cycle, then the deficit spending would have been far less significant afterwards and purely cyclical.
I’d say that Labour’s biggest long-term failure was letting house prices rip from 1999 to 2007.
2007 was the year that levels of home ownership began falling.
Not sure Labour could have donw much about it.
Banks shifted their lending criteria from 3x+1x earnings to 4x joint earnings and prices across the country increased to reflect the additional money people could borrow (for good and bad).I watched it happen down south in 2001/2 and then up north between 2003/4....
Brown wasn't shy about regulating the banks.
The problem is, he regulated all the wrong things...
Every CDO trader had lodged a photocopy of their passport with HR.
They had all completed their multiple choice exams (or got the desk junior to do it for them) - in how not to commit fraud. “An Orc from Mordor emails you, claiming to have a large stash of Mithril, following the fall of the Barad- Dur. Do you (a) help him sell it on the metals exchange, bypassing all regulations…. (e) call compliance”
And that's who to primarily blame for crashing the financial system. Those who did it, not those who supposedly provoked it by being lax or complacent. Similar to Putin and Ukraine.
Not really, since there isn't anybody whose job it really was to stop Putin invading Ukraine in the way that it was J. Gordon Brown's job to regulate the City,
WTF is J. Gordon Brown?
Chancellor 1997-2007, PM 2007-2010.
Ah ok. You should have said that in the first place. Nobody uses the J - makes him sound like one of the Gettys.
Belarusian anti-war partisans claim to have severely damaged a Russian military aircraft in what an opposition leader has called the “most successful diversion” since the beginning of the war.
Apparently the Russian AF only have nine of these specialised AWACS aircraft. If that’s correct, then losing one is a big deal for them. They’re 1970s vintage, based on IL-76, and must be a right pain to keep serviceable at the best of times. Well done to the saboteurs.
Not cheap, either. I think they sold a couple to India for somewhere around $1bn.
*If* this was done by partisans, it'd be interesting to know how it was done (when the war's over, obvs.). If it had been an attack on the airfield, I might have expected to see more planes or infrastructure damaged. I do wonder if someone was given access to the aircraft to do some work, and left a few presents inside...
Whatever, it's an action that complicates things for Russian and Belarus. Every man, every SAM system, every tank, they leave outside Ukraine to guard infrastructure is one that cannot be used in Ukraine.
The previous post said it was by drones, so assuem they flew drones over it and either dropped explosives or did kamikaze by drones.
The claim was further that it was a U model IL-76 - the modernised one, which has a useful look down capability (looking for low flying aircraft and missiles from above).
The older models are much less capable.
Russia has 7 of these U models, I believe. You’d need 4 to maintain a 24/7 patrol (might manage with 3). So losing even one is a chunk of capability.
They are supposed to work in conjunction with MIg-31 interceptors. Apparently a lot of he Russian suppression of the Ukrainian airforce has been from Mig-31 lobbing ultra long range AAMs at low flying Ukrainian planes, from Russian airspace. Low hit rate, but the attrition rate adds up, over time.
The Mig-31 can use its own radar to find targets - but this would be much less effective than getting data from an IL-76U
Even better if it was one of the U models. One down, six to go!
One of those modified DJI drones carrying a grenade, that were used in Ukraine early in the war, would be enough to make one hell of a mess of an aircraft if dropped close by.
Yes - a friend in the drone hobby stuff has one that can carry a DSLR, complete with a big lens. For miles.
Doesn’t take much imagination to replace x kilos of camera with, say, thermite….
DUP sources are pushing back hard against claims that they are preparing to accept the Northern Ireland Protocol deal. They say the party will spend the next few days reading the legal text and command paper before making a decision
Oh no, imagine wanting to actually read something and come to your own conclusion, rather than make a knee-jerk reaction based on what others are saying about it.
Ukraine's General Staff says that Russian proxies in Oleshky and Skadovsk in Kherson are preparing to flee to Crimea
Russian war hawks have debated the efficacy of fortifications and now they might be taking extra precautions ahead a spring Ukrainian counter-offensive
Ukraine says that the spring counter-offensive will feature more strikes on Russian arms depots and military equipment
Vadym Skibitsky singled out Belgorod as an area for more intense Ukrainian attacks …
With these remarks, Skibitsky is framing the spring counter-offensive as a potential turning point that will liberate Ukraine and expel an estimated 370,000 Russian forces from its territory
Ukraine is downplaying fears of a long war, while Russia is ramping that expectation up
The DUP want rid of the Good Friday Agreement, and won’t work under an SF first minister; kicking up a fuss about the protocol is merely a means to an end.
That NI voters are tiring of their never-ending negativity and student politics is the silver lining.
They are fine with the GFA - and are using it to block an SF first minister.
Many unionist voters are actually moderately impressed that the DUP haven't folded for the convenience of others, the way unionist politicians are supposed to do. According to outsiders.
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Von Der Leyen is effectively Head of State of the EU, so the King is merely meeting a fellow Head of State.
Sunak actually did the Deal with her, not the King, in terms of their roles as Heads of Government. The King as a constitutional monarch is only Head of State however, not Head of Government
Von der Leyen is closer to a Head of Government than a Head of State.
The Council head (whose name I have forgotten) is closer to “Head of State” for the EU, albeit an effectively powerless one.
Somewhat pertinent. This is the story of how the EU went to war.
Three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the EU took a decision that had previously been considered impossible: to send weapons to a conflict.
The DUP want rid of the Good Friday Agreement, and won’t work under an SF first minister; kicking up a fuss about the protocol is merely a means to an end.
That NI voters are tiring of their never-ending negativity and student politics is the silver lining.
They are fine with the GFA - and are using it to block an SF first minister.
Many unionist voters are actually moderately impressed that the DUP haven't folded for the convenience of others, the way unionist politicians are supposed to do. According to outsiders.
Paisley's DUP opposed the GFA in 1998 unlike Trimble's UUP
The DUP want rid of the Good Friday Agreement, and won’t work under an SF first minister; kicking up a fuss about the protocol is merely a means to an end.
That NI voters are tiring of their never-ending negativity and student politics is the silver lining.
They are fine with the GFA - and are using it to block an SF first minister.
Many unionist voters are actually moderately impressed that the DUP haven't folded for the convenience of others, the way unionist politicians are supposed to do. According to outsiders.
Belarusian anti-war partisans claim to have severely damaged a Russian military aircraft in what an opposition leader has called the “most successful diversion” since the beginning of the war.
Apparently the Russian AF only have nine of these specialised AWACS aircraft. If that’s correct, then losing one is a big deal for them. They’re 1970s vintage, based on IL-76, and must be a right pain to keep serviceable at the best of times. Well done to the saboteurs.
Not cheap, either. I think they sold a couple to India for somewhere around $1bn.
*If* this was done by partisans, it'd be interesting to know how it was done (when the war's over, obvs.). If it had been an attack on the airfield, I might have expected to see more planes or infrastructure damaged. I do wonder if someone was given access to the aircraft to do some work, and left a few presents inside...
Whatever, it's an action that complicates things for Russian and Belarus. Every man, every SAM system, every tank, they leave outside Ukraine to guard infrastructure is one that cannot be used in Ukraine.
The previous post said it was by drones, so assuem they flew drones over it and either dropped explosives or did kamikaze by drones.
The claim was further that it was a U model IL-76 - the modernised one, which has a useful look down capability (looking for low flying aircraft and missiles from above).
The older models are much less capable.
Russia has 7 of these U models, I believe. You’d need 4 to maintain a 24/7 patrol (might manage with 3). So losing even one is a chunk of capability.
They are supposed to work in conjunction with MIg-31 interceptors. Apparently a lot of he Russian suppression of the Ukrainian airforce has been from Mig-31 lobbing ultra long range AAMs at low flying Ukrainian planes, from Russian airspace. Low hit rate, but the attrition rate adds up, over time.
The Mig-31 can use its own radar to find targets - but this would be much less effective than getting data from an IL-76U
Even better if it was one of the U models. One down, six to go!
One of those modified DJI drones carrying a grenade, that were used in Ukraine early in the war, would be enough to make one hell of a mess of an aircraft if dropped close by.
Yes - a friend in the drone hobby stuff has one that can carry a DSLR, complete with a big lens. For miles.
Doesn’t take much imagination to replace x kilos of camera with, say, thermite….
Yep. There’s a six-rotor DJI that comes in around £10k, that can carry a DSLR on a three-axis gimbal, up to 6kg payload. https://www.dji.com/ae/mobile/matrice600
5kg of anything explosive, plus a release mechanism, can render any aircraft permanently unserviceable.
Another good reason to ditch the unelected monarchy.
The King is to meet the president of the European Commission today, a decision that was immediately criticised by unionists and Brexiteer Conservatives as crass, tone deaf and antagonistic.
Buckingham Palace said the decision had been made on the advice of the prime minister and insisted that the King and Ursula von der Leyen would discuss “a range of topics” not simply the Brexit deal that she is expected to seal with Rishi Sunak in Windsor today.
“The King is pleased to meet any world leader if they are visiting Britain and it is the government’s advice that he should do so,” the palace said.
Charles and Von der Leyen will sit down to tea late this afternoon during their meeting in which a range of topics are expected to be discussed, including climate change and the situation in Ukraine.
But Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, tweeted: “I cannot quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one. It’s crass and will go down very badly in NI. We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who it appears are tone deaf.”
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former cabinet minister, told Sky News: “It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen today as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate. It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy.”
Downing Street insisted the meeting with von der Leyen was a matter for Buckingham Palace. “He firmly believes it’s for the King to make those decisions,” Sunak’s spokesman said.
“It’s not uncommon for his majesty to accept invitations to meet certain leaders, he has met President Duda and President Zelensky recently. He is meeting with the president of the EU today.”
Hang on, I assumed it was the republicans who would be annoyed at the King hosting an EU leader - but its the royalists? Time for the AI or aliens to take over.....
The Queen lost all support when she agreed to Boris Johnson's unlawful prorogation.
The Queen also signed Hilary Benn's delay Brexit Bill, the monarch is neutral on Brexit
One was lawful and the will of our sovereign Parliament, the other was unlawful.
So she wasn't neutral on Brexit.
One was incorrectly deemed unlawful by a partisan court after the event, in possibly the most egregious case of "this is what we want to happen, now let's find some legal argument to support that" since Roe...
Can we all agree that we need a better term than “eurosceptic” which was just all over the 1pm Radio 4 news? Having left the EU the way we did, the term makes little sense.
Europhobes
I quite like that, but I think they’ll evolve into a school of thought on all treaties.
Sovereignty fundamentalists? Too long.
Just call them Isolationists?
Constitutionalists?
Hard line unionists?
Brit Nats nails it best for me.
I thought about British Nationalist but I do think “nationalist” has some unfair nazi connotations.
Ok - we do want to be fair, I suppose.
One of yours then - Isolationists. The core feeltone being that Britain is strong and rather special, stands alone, walks alone, drinks alone, needs nobody telling it what to do.
It's odd that so many here on a political betting site describe the DUP and ERG as bonkers. They are far from that, being quite rational, calculating and disciplined in their political positioning. Where they differ from those calling them bonkers is in their values and aspirations for NI.
It helps to be bonkers. The ERG seems to have been pretty successful in terms of obtaining political goals over the last decades. (True, the DUP are both bonkers and been unsuccessful ).
Let's, e.g., compare it to politicians who are keen on reducing wealth inequality. This is a political goal that has gone backwards over the last decades (or at best stagnated). No matter who is in power, there has been pretty meagre progress.
As we are (probably) coming to an end of a period of Tory rule, it is instructive to consider how Tory Governments (first Thatcher and then the Brexiteers) have changed the UK very dramatically.
By comparison, the Labour Governments of my lifetime -- though sometimes competent and sometimes incompetent -- have not achieved any comparably lasting changes in the UK.
I'm no fan of the last Labour government, but the last Labour Government achieved some lasting changes in the UK. Notably more equality for homosexuality, although that was a global phenomenon and they fell short of legalising equality in marriage itself which fell to David Cameron to achieve.
Devolution and BoE independence too, and the Minimum Wage.
What's remarkable though is that almost everything that the last Labour Government achieved was done in 1997/98. I'd be curious if even the most ardent of Labour supporters can name any lasting changes that were introduced from 1999 onwards?
Minimum wage -- I grant you. The Tories would never introduced that. But, it has not had much effect in reducing wealth inequality. So, in my book, it falls into the category of tinkering at the edges.
Devolution has been a disaster for Wales. It is poorer now that it was before 1999. The standard of Government has been abysmally low.
I will leave our Scottish posters to describe whether devolution has been good for Scotland.
You didn't ask for changes for the better, just lasting changes. Devolution certainly is a lasting change, even if it hasn't improved things.
On the same basis, perhaps you could include our indebtedness now as a lasting change brought about by Labour, but I don't know anyone from Labour who admits that was intentional, unlike devolution.
Increase in debt under last Labour government: £681bn. Increase in debt under current Tory government: £1,543bn. And counting.
That's a legacy of the deficit that Labour bequeathed.
Unless you think the Tories could or should have implemented a form of austerity so severe they ran a neutral budget from year one?
It was a legacy of the worst global financial crisis since WW2.
Which thanks to Brown's decade of preparation we were uniquely well-placed to weather?
You think Gordon Brown should have shut down the City and dug a big hole in the Midlands to sell commodities to China? Well, it worked for Australia.
If he'd been running a budget surplus as he should have for that stage of the economic cycle, then the deficit spending would have been far less significant afterwards and purely cyclical.
I’d say that Labour’s biggest long-term failure was letting house prices rip from 1999 to 2007.
2007 was the year that levels of home ownership began falling.
Not sure Labour could have donw much about it.
Banks shifted their lending criteria from 3x+1x earnings to 4x joint earnings and prices across the country increased to reflect the additional money people could borrow (for good and bad).I watched it happen down south in 2001/2 and then up north between 2003/4....
Brown wasn't shy about regulating the banks.
The problem is, he regulated all the wrong things...
Every CDO trader had lodged a photocopy of their passport with HR.
They had all completed their multiple choice exams (or got the desk junior to do it for them) - in how not to commit fraud. “An Orc from Mordor emails you, claiming to have a large stash of Mithril, following the fall of the Barad- Dur. Do you (a) help him sell it on the metals exchange, bypassing all regulations…. (e) call compliance”
And that's who to primarily blame for crashing the financial system. Those who did it, not those who supposedly provoked it by being lax or complacent. Similar to Putin and Ukraine.
Not really, since there isn't anybody whose job it really was to stop Putin invading Ukraine in the way that it was J. Gordon Brown's job to regulate the City,
WTF is J. Gordon Brown?
Chancellor 1997-2007, PM 2007-2010.
Ah ok. You should have said that in the first place. Nobody uses the J - makes him sound like one of the Gettys.
Gordon Brown not only presided over a huge increase in government debt and bank debt. He also saw household debt increase massively. We are still paying for his mistakes.
Comments
I like him.
How many are left?
If teachers are striking, accademies separately employ staff, so does that require separate approvals and votes under the trade union law?
We need the opposite, politicians willing to reduce and simplify the system. Alongside better education and more meritocracy which are the best ways to reduce crime and make a cohesive society.
The energy regulator has cut its price cap by £999 but households are still expected to see a rise of up to £500 in their bills from April.
Ofgem has reduced the cap on the amount that energy suppliers would be able to charge a dual-fuel household from £4,279 to £3,280 from April 1. However, at the same time the government’s energy price guarantee, which determines the price households are actually charged at present, is becoming less generous.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ofgem-cuts-energy-price-cap-but-bills-are-still-set-to-rise-hvnjfx73d
Sunak actually did the Deal with her, not the King, in terms of their roles as Heads of Government. The King as a constitutional monarch is only Head of State however, not Head of Government
So she wasn't neutral on Brexit.
And who could forget that famously pious Catholic Boris Johnson?
Religion's not a bar for PMship.
Between 1981 and 1987 Betty Boothroyd was a member of the Labour National Executive. She was an aggressive figure in the right-wing faction who were fighting the Bennite left and also Militant.
The Council head (whose name I have forgotten) is closer to “Head of State” for the EU, albeit an effectively powerless one.
Mind, it did get me from Ealing to Farringdon a fair bit quicker than in pre-Crossrail days. Probably boosted the value of our old flat, but I don't really want to look at that...
But then I've hoped many things and it's fair to say I've been disappointed more than once.
Sovereignty fundamentalists? Too long.
Just call them Isolationists?
Constitutionalists?
Hard line unionists?
Baker on the other hand is an evangelical Baptist, that includes opposition to homosexual marriage and most abortions like evangelical Forbes and that is likely a bar to him becoming PM
https://www.stevebaker.info/2013/02/why-i-voted-against-the-marriage-same-sex-couples-bill/
It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the king in a matter of immediate political controversy.
...says Jacob Rees-Mogg, the man who embroiled the Queen in political controversy by making her prorogue parliament illegally.
The media (and of course the government) are bigging this up, but I reckon that most folk will see it as an irrelevance.
They will take time to read the text .
https://twitter.com/StephenNolan/status/1630204182161498113?s=20
@RishiSunak greets EU Commission President @vonderleyen at a hotel in Windsor with hopes of agreeing a deal on the Northern Ireland Protocol https://itv.com/news/2023-02-27/uk-and-eu-on-verge-of-protocol-deal-as-sunak-meets-von-der-leyen…[VIDEO]
https://twitter.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1630203697455046657?s=20
You need to have a budget per pupil, multiplied by a local cost-of-living index, and have sufficient slack in the system to allow successful schools to expand.
I’d also have the government pay off student loans, for anyone who completes 10 years as a teacher in the public sector.
(It's a shame 'euphobia' is already spoken for.)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ4SC-zDJfQ
The mood music may be more important than the actual deal.
Are they going to sort out Horizon, for instance? It benefits nobody to keep the UK out of it.
Pathetic attempt to create a cliffhanger out of some staged bureaucracy.
Edit: Mind, if Ursula jilted Rishi at the altar it would be rather funny.
https://twitter.com/adampayne26/status/1630206386578620418?s=20
The idea they would agree without having nit picked it to death read it struck me as optimistic.
One of those modified DJI drones carrying a grenade, that were used in Ukraine early in the war, would be enough to make one hell of a mess of an aircraft if dropped close by.
That NI voters are tiring of their never-ending negativity and student politics is the silver lining.
Doesn’t take much imagination to replace x kilos of camera with, say, thermite….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxpYW_w5pgo
Russian war hawks have debated the efficacy of fortifications and now they might be taking extra precautions ahead a spring Ukrainian counter-offensive
https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1630207376333717506?s=20
Ukraine says that the spring counter-offensive will feature more strikes on Russian arms depots and military equipment
Vadym Skibitsky singled out Belgorod as an area for more intense Ukrainian attacks
…
With these remarks, Skibitsky is framing the spring counter-offensive as a potential turning point that will liberate Ukraine and expel an estimated 370,000 Russian forces from its territory
Ukraine is downplaying fears of a long war, while Russia is ramping that expectation up
https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1630208279774216195?s=20
Many unionist voters are actually moderately impressed that the DUP haven't folded for the convenience of others, the way unionist politicians are supposed to do. According to outsiders.
Do I take the prize for "least surprising correction"?
This is the story of how the EU went to war.
Three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the EU took a decision that had previously been considered impossible: to send weapons to a conflict.
My inside account of how, why & what it means for the continent
https://twitter.com/HenryJFoy/status/1630107143478165510
No surprise there
In the old days they'd simply have rejected it out of hand.
https://www.dji.com/ae/mobile/matrice600
5kg of anything explosive, plus a release mechanism, can render any aircraft permanently unserviceable.
One of yours then - Isolationists. The core feeltone being that Britain is strong and rather special, stands alone, walks alone, drinks alone, needs nobody telling it what to do.
Agreement reached - deal done