I repeat that putting Sunak's signature on it makes them problematic. Campaigning on the Tories' poor record on crime would be okay. But this is tawdry.
It also appears to be making the point: "look at those dangerously woke Tories. Not like the nice robust anto-woke Labour Party." Which is a novel stance. Some of us may think the Tories are dangerously woke. But it's offering an, unusual perspective of the Labour Party.
It's crude. Most of us hoped Starmer would show a bit more class. This is what you'd expect from Johnson. It's crass and it deflects from the awfulness of Braverman
(Stopped for a pint at the Swan with Two Nicks at Little Bollington. This really is an exceptionally pleasant Good Friday. Reminds me of Easter 2009. I'd meant to go up to the Yorkshire Dales today but the M6 defeated me. But Cheshire is a very pleasant second best.)
(Stopped for a pint at the Swan with Two Nicks at Little Bollington. This really is an exceptionally pleasant Good Friday. Reminds me of Easter 2009. I'd meant to go up to the Yorkshire Dales today but the M6 defeated me. But Cheshire is a very pleasant second best.)
The other day I mentioned that a rail bridge over the Thames to the south of Oxford has suffered problems. The view from trackside shows just a little dip...
(Stopped for a pint at the Swan with Two Nicks at Little Bollington. This really is an exceptionally pleasant Good Friday. Reminds me of Easter 2009. I'd meant to go up to the Yorkshire Dales today but the M6 defeated me. But Cheshire is a very pleasant second best.)
That angle suggests more than a pint!
Haha - yes, sorry about that! Not sure why that has happened.
A few months ago now I did a prosecution of a daft laddie who had got a taser from someone and ran around a public park showing it off like something out of Star Wars. I was prosecuting this because it was in the High Court and the taser looked like a torch, in fact it even operated as a torch. The problem is that our legislation regards a taser as a gun. And the minimum sentence for carrying a disguised firearm is 5 years. Which is what he ended up getting.
This is the sort of idiocy you get when politicians muck about with minimum sentences and these sorts of posters, there is already a second one out about firearms, are exactly the kind of nonsense that encourages witless legislation like that. It is frankly embarrassing that a former DPP doesn't know or more likely doesn't care about that.
Bank holiday bike ride. Which famous event from political history took place here?
(About to get back on my bike so any speculation will have to remain just that for a bit).
Ron Davies receiving fellatio?
He'll be badgered about that for ever.
Aren't you Oop North somewhere?
Someone made a speech.
Yes, it's cyclable from Greater Manchester. Not a speech as such - not a planned one at any rate. It was in the build up to the 1997 GE.
Hmmm./ The build up?
Martin Bell standing for Tatton? First Independent for nearly half a century.
Struggling with why he would do it in a field.
Yes! Battle of Knutsford Heath - scene of a confrontation between Martin Bell and some hangers-on and Neil and Christine Hamilton and the bloke who played Ken Barlow from Coronation Street. 'Battle' overstated the drama a tad.
Bank holiday bike ride. Which famous event from political history took place here?
(About to get back on my bike so any speculation will have to remain just that for a bit).
Ron Davies receiving fellatio?
He'll be badgered about that for ever.
Aren't you Oop North somewhere?
Someone made a speech.
Yes, it's cyclable from Greater Manchester. Not a speech as such - not a planned one at any rate. It was in the build up to the 1997 GE.
Hmmm./ The build up?
Martin Bell standing for Tatton? First Independent for nearly half a century.
Struggling with why he would do it in a field.
Yes! Battle of Knutsford Heath - scene of a confrontation between Martin Bell and some hangers-on and Neil and Christine Hamilton and the bloke who played Ken Barlow from Coronation Street. 'Battle' overstated the drama a tad.
What do you mean played? He’s still going, isn’t he?
A few months ago now I did a prosecution of a daft laddie who had got a taser from someone and ran around a public park showing it off like something out of Star Wars. I was prosecuting this because it was in the High Court and the taser looked like a torch, in fact it even operated as a torch. The problem is that our legislation regards a taser as a gun. And the minimum sentence for carrying a disguised firearm is 5 years. Which is what he ended up getting.
This is the sort of idiocy you get when politicians muck about with minimum sentences and these sorts of posters, there is already a second one out about firearms, are exactly the kind of nonsense that encourages witless legislation like that. It is frankly embarrassing that a former DPP doesn't know or more likely doesn't care about that.
What does that translate to?
Minus 1/3 for a guilty plea and minus half for good behaviour? Or are firearms offences different?
The other day I mentioned that a rail bridge over the Thames to the south of Oxford has suffered problems. The view from trackside shows just a little dip...
On topic.... I am in the position of also being an undecided voter in a marginal seat and I also find this very off putting. It is a form of misrepresentation - like a fake twitter account purporting to be a real person set up with the aim of destroying their credibility. The tories have done similar things in the past, but Labour would do well to start leading by example.
No-one believes for a second that SKS is a hard-liner on law & order.
Starmer appears to stand for nothing at all, or perhaps at most a commitment to manage decline slightly more competently - continuity Toryism, disguised with a tiny little state electricity company and a few other pieces of cosmetic tinkering, to convince the gullible that a wonderful changey hopey new era has dawned.
The man won't be able to sell it on two grounds: he has the charisma of a doorstop and it will be completely obvious to his voters within weeks of the election that the transfer of the nation's ever-shrinking pool of wealth to well-off over 50s and the outright rich is going to continue almost exactly as it did under the previous administration.
Labour's polling numbers will be in the toilet within the first six months. We then have a further four-and-a-half years of decay to look forward to before whatever abomination comes next. Not that I'm a total cynic with absolutely zero faith in the ability of the British political class, of course.
A few months ago now I did a prosecution of a daft laddie who had got a taser from someone and ran around a public park showing it off like something out of Star Wars. I was prosecuting this because it was in the High Court and the taser looked like a torch, in fact it even operated as a torch. The problem is that our legislation regards a taser as a gun. And the minimum sentence for carrying a disguised firearm is 5 years. Which is what he ended up getting.
This is the sort of idiocy you get when politicians muck about with minimum sentences and these sorts of posters, there is already a second one out about firearms, are exactly the kind of nonsense that encourages witless legislation like that. It is frankly embarrassing that a former DPP doesn't know or more likely doesn't care about that.
What does that translate to?
Minis 1/3 for guilty and minus half for good behaviour? Or are firearms offences different?
I am not completely up to speed on this (sentence is not my department) but my understanding is that for a sentence of 4 years or under you normally get 50% off but for a sentence of more than that the discount is only 1/3 so I would expect him to spend 40 months inside, possibly some of it on a tag outside.
HuffPost: "Labour officials are unrepentant and are willing to repeat the stunt as the countdown continues next year’s general election. One source said: “Sunak never condemned Johnson when he accused Keir of letting Jimmy Savile off - so f**k him"".
A few months ago now I did a prosecution of a daft laddie who had got a taser from someone and ran around a public park showing it off like something out of Star Wars. I was prosecuting this because it was in the High Court and the taser looked like a torch, in fact it even operated as a torch. The problem is that our legislation regards a taser as a gun. And the minimum sentence for carrying a disguised firearm is 5 years. Which is what he ended up getting.
This is the sort of idiocy you get when politicians muck about with minimum sentences and these sorts of posters, there is already a second one out about firearms, are exactly the kind of nonsense that encourages witless legislation like that. It is frankly embarrassing that a former DPP doesn't know or more likely doesn't care about that.
What does that translate to?
Minus 1/3 for a guilty plea and minus half for good behaviour? Or are firearms offences different?
I remember one where the courts were tied up for years. A chap a had shotgun (registered). The prosecutors were claiming the barrel was too short. By 1/4 inch. All the firearms experts who examined it, said no, it’s longer than the law requires. So he won every case/appeal.
Turned out the police/prosecution was trying for their own definition of barrel length - where the chamber ends and the barrel begins - used by literally no one else on Earth.
This shows me that Starmer wants to win and will do everything in his power to win.
He wants to paint the Tories as soft on crime.
He has a point.
He may have a point overall but to pick a specific example that he himself was partly responsible for and which the Tory Government at the time had no influence over strikes me as a fucking stupid way to go about it. All he has done is allow the Tories to redirect the fire onto his own record.
As someone who will be glad to see the back of the Tories this really just makes me think that Labour are no more competent or sensible than the present incumbents.
This is the second one, which is quite a technical claim. I'd need to unpack that, and find out whether such people qualify in my view as "gunmen"; it's not an offence I've even heard of before, and I though I was au fait with firearms laws to an extent.
On topic.... I am in the position of also being an undecided voter in a marginal seat and I also find this very off putting. It is a form of misrepresentation - like a fake twitter account purporting to be a real person set up with the aim of destroying their credibility. The tories have done similar things in the past, but Labour would do well to start leading by example.
To me it just reinforces the impression that they're all alike.
This shows me that Starmer wants to win and will do everything in his power to win.
He wants to paint the Tories as soft on crime.
He has a point.
He may have a point overall but to pick a specific example that he himself was partly responsible for and which the Tory Government at the time had no influence over strikes me as a fucking stupid way to go about it. All he has done is allow the Tories to redirect the fire onto his own record.
As someone who will be glad to see the back of the Tories this really just makes me think that Labour are no more competent or sensible than the present incumbents.
It’s a response to the Savile smear/Tory focus on grooming gangs.
Cynical and unpleasant but the only response to Tory smears.
This has got a Michael Howard vibe to it. My guess is that Starmer's advisers -not advertising people- listened to the focus group referred to on the previous thread without any understanding of how to read focus groups and which ones to ignore...
The focus group had seven people. One half 2019 Labour voters who were now undecided the other half 2019 Tory voters who are now undecided. These seven people represented the voters of three named constituencies.
Managing to find three and a half Labour voters who had become undecided must have taken some doing. Let alone three and a half who represented hundreds of thousands of voters.
Apparently they did a previous one which suggested being heavy handed on Law and Order was the way to go. I really wouldn't recommend reading anything into the findings of this most bizarrely put together focus group
I've looked at the both the Labour Ads today and still can't see what the problem is with them. If you're the Opposition you call out the Government's failures. The only people who seem not to like them are the Twitter wokerati, Corbynistas, and Tory client journalists.
Let me get this right: you are not allowed to like and link to posts that contain Substack links, because Musk thinks it might be a competitor to Twitter*, but Putin and Russian government accounts are OK? (And bear in mind that there are sanctions on businesses operating in Russia, so Twitter is presumably recieving money for the cherished "Blue Tick")
I've looked at the both the Labour Ads today and still can't still what the problem is with them. If you're the Opposition you call out the Government's failures. The only people who seem not to like them are the Twitter wokerati, Corbynistas, and Tory client journalists.
The problem is they are simply wrong referring to a period from 2010 to 2014 when Sunak was not even in parliament but ironically Starmer was on the sentencing Council agreeing the laws on this
Frankly I am astonished he allowed such an advertisement and is no better than Braverman in this respect
This is Labour descending into gutter politics when with 20% leads they had no need
My wife has listened to the report just now on Sky and is astonished and livid about it and she is not political
A few months ago now I did a prosecution of a daft laddie who had got a taser from someone and ran around a public park showing it off like something out of Star Wars. I was prosecuting this because it was in the High Court and the taser looked like a torch, in fact it even operated as a torch. The problem is that our legislation regards a taser as a gun. And the minimum sentence for carrying a disguised firearm is 5 years. Which is what he ended up getting.
This is the sort of idiocy you get when politicians muck about with minimum sentences and these sorts of posters, there is already a second one out about firearms, are exactly the kind of nonsense that encourages witless legislation like that. It is frankly embarrassing that a former DPP doesn't know or more likely doesn't care about that.
What's the correct long-term, consistent, solution?
If politicians take sentencing authority away from Judges, and you get absurdly harsh sentences like this.
And if they don't, you have situations like the other trial you prosecuted, where the guy who raped a 13 year old, and didn't get a prison sentence.
Could you (or do you) have a process where Judges have authority, but there are regular reviews to make sure that sentences are 90% of the time falling within guidelines?
The other day I mentioned that a rail bridge over the Thames to the south of Oxford has suffered problems. The view from trackside shows just a little dip...
I've looked at the both the Labour Ads today and still can't still what the problem is with them. If you're the Opposition you call out the Government's failures. The only people who seem not to like them are the Twitter wokerati, Corbynistas, and Tory client journalists.
The problem is they are simply wrong referring to a period from 2010 to 2014 when Sunak was not even in parliament but ironically Starmer was on the sentencing Council agreeing the laws on this
Frankly I am astonished he allowed such an advertisement and is no better than Braverman in this respect
This is Labour descending into gutter politics when with 20% leads they had no need
My wife has listened to the report just now on Sky and is astonished and livid about it and she is not political
So what? Sunak is the Prime Minister and therefore the front-man of the Tory government that has been in power for 13 years. In a year or so he will seek to re-elect a Tory government on the basis of its record, which includes a woeful record on crime. Two murders this year in my part of Hampshire this year, and drug related crime is rife. Fair game for Labour in my view.
No-one believes for a second that SKS is a hard-liner on law & order.
Starmer appears to stand for nothing at all, or perhaps at most a commitment to manage decline slightly more competently - continuity Toryism, disguised with a tiny little state electricity company and a few other pieces of cosmetic tinkering, to convince the gullible that a wonderful changey hopey new era has dawned.
The man won't be able to sell it on two grounds: he has the charisma of a doorstop and it will be completely obvious to his voters within weeks of the election that the transfer of the nation's ever-shrinking pool of wealth to well-off over 50s and the outright rich is going to continue almost exactly as it did under the previous administration.
Labour's polling numbers will be in the toilet within the first six months. We then have a further four-and-a-half years of decay to look forward to before whatever abomination comes next. Not that I'm a total cynic with absolutely zero faith in the ability of the British political class, of course.
Well, you've sold me. I'll be 50 at the time of the next election, so that looks like exactly the kind of government I want.
I've looked at the both the Labour Ads today and still can't see what the problem is with them. If you're the Opposition you call out the Government's failures. The only people who seem not to like them are the Twitter wokerati, Corbynistas, and Tory client journalists.
Labour are criticising the result of sentencing guidelines - with a personal, signed agreement by Sunak even though he wasn't even an MP for the first five years of the figures they use
And Labour's leader was on the committee that changed those sentencing guidelines to imprison fewer offenders
Sir Keir has boxed himself in to a shit ton of new wallpaper
A few months ago now I did a prosecution of a daft laddie who had got a taser from someone and ran around a public park showing it off like something out of Star Wars. I was prosecuting this because it was in the High Court and the taser looked like a torch, in fact it even operated as a torch. The problem is that our legislation regards a taser as a gun. And the minimum sentence for carrying a disguised firearm is 5 years. Which is what he ended up getting.
This is the sort of idiocy you get when politicians muck about with minimum sentences and these sorts of posters, there is already a second one out about firearms, are exactly the kind of nonsense that encourages witless legislation like that. It is frankly embarrassing that a former DPP doesn't know or more likely doesn't care about that.
What does that translate to?
Minus 1/3 for a guilty plea and minus half for good behaviour? Or are firearms offences different?
I remember one where the courts were tied up for years. A chap a had shotgun (registered). The prosecutors were claiming the barrel was too short. By 1/4 inch. All the firearms experts who examined it, said no, it’s longer than the law requires. So he won every case/appeal.
Turned out the police/prosecution was trying for their own definition of barrel length - where the chamber ends and the barrel begins - used by literally no one else on Earth.
Surely double jeopardy applies (given the impossibility of new evidence arriving): how can he be tried twice for the possession of the same registered shotgun?
The thing that annoys me about the ads is the unsophisticated appeal to the “even one is too many” political framing of criminality.
I know it works, and that’s why they do it, but when I hear otherwise smart MPs spout this kind of garbage about whatever crime particularly exercises them, I just see it as cynical.
These kind of binaries rarely survive contact with the actual criminal justice system.
The exercising of justice has to be nuanced.
I do wonder if this, in part, is down to negative feedback in labour focus groups from Keir’s commitment to reduce violence against women by 50%.
“Why only 50%?”
I’d guess was a common response.
So that has been at the back of their mind when framing these attack ads.
Just a guess as to the thought process behind them.
This shows me that Starmer wants to win and will do everything in his power to win.
He wants to paint the Tories as soft on crime.
He has a point.
He may have a point overall but to pick a specific example that he himself was partly responsible for and which the Tory Government at the time had no influence over strikes me as a fucking stupid way to go about it. All he has done is allow the Tories to redirect the fire onto his own record.
As someone who will be glad to see the back of the Tories this really just makes me think that Labour are no more competent or sensible than the present incumbents.
It’s a response to the Savile smear/Tory focus on grooming gangs.
Cynical and unpleasant but the only response to Tory smears.
But don't you believe this sort of campaign, like Starmer/Savile works very well for the Tories, but very badly for Labour, and the sort of voter they are trying to attract? RedWall bigots know Suella is a million times harder than Starmer anyway.
If voters want b****** trolls from hell government, they might as well vote for the real thing. OGH has made the point very succinctly.
Let me get this right: you are not allowed to like and link to posts that contain Substack links, because Musk thinks it might be a competitor to Twitter*, but Putin and Russian government accounts are OK? (And bear in mind that there are sanctions on businesses operating in Russia, so Twitter is presumably recieving money for the cherished "Blue Tick")
Musk is really fucking up Twitter. It’s a notably degraded service now. Even my “Following” tab is being swamped with junk and I can sense my usage declining week on week.
No-one believes for a second that SKS is a hard-liner on law & order.
Starmer appears to stand for nothing at all, or perhaps at most a commitment to manage decline slightly more competently - continuity Toryism, disguised with a tiny little state electricity company and a few other pieces of cosmetic tinkering, to convince the gullible that a wonderful changey hopey new era has dawned.
The man won't be able to sell it on two grounds: he has the charisma of a doorstop and it will be completely obvious to his voters within weeks of the election that the transfer of the nation's ever-shrinking pool of wealth to well-off over 50s and the outright rich is going to continue almost exactly as it did under the previous administration.
Labour's polling numbers will be in the toilet within the first six months. We then have a further four-and-a-half years of decay to look forward to before whatever abomination comes next. Not that I'm a total cynic with absolutely zero faith in the ability of the British political class, of course.
Well, you've sold me. I'll be 50 at the time of the next election, so that looks like exactly the kind of government I want.
I've looked at the both the Labour Ads today and still can't see what the problem is with them. If you're the Opposition you call out the Government's failures. The only people who seem not to like them are the Twitter wokerati, Corbynistas, and Tory client journalists.
Labour are criticising the result of sentencing guidelines - with a personal, signed agreement by Sunak even though he wasn't even an MP for the first five years of the figures they use
And Labour's leader was on the committee that changed those sentencing guidelines to imprison fewer offenders
Sir Keir has boxed himself in to a shit ton of new wallpaper
The next time he appears in the media he is facing very uncomfortable questions
Let me get this right: you are not allowed to like and link to posts that contain Substack links, because Musk thinks it might be a competitor to Twitter*, but Putin and Russian government accounts are OK? (And bear in mind that there are sanctions on businesses operating in Russia, so Twitter is presumably recieving money for the cherished "Blue Tick")
Musk is really fucking up Twitter. It’s a notably degraded service now. Even my “Following” tab is being swamped with junk and I can sense my usage declining week on week.
I deleted my account as soon as he took over back in November.
A few months ago now I did a prosecution of a daft laddie who had got a taser from someone and ran around a public park showing it off like something out of Star Wars. I was prosecuting this because it was in the High Court and the taser looked like a torch, in fact it even operated as a torch. The problem is that our legislation regards a taser as a gun. And the minimum sentence for carrying a disguised firearm is 5 years. Which is what he ended up getting.
This is the sort of idiocy you get when politicians muck about with minimum sentences and these sorts of posters, there is already a second one out about firearms, are exactly the kind of nonsense that encourages witless legislation like that. It is frankly embarrassing that a former DPP doesn't know or more likely doesn't care about that.
What does that translate to?
Minis 1/3 for guilty and minus half for good behaviour? Or are firearms offences different?
I am not completely up to speed on this (sentence is not my department) but my understanding is that for a sentence of 4 years or under you normally get 50% off but for a sentence of more than that the discount is only 1/3 so I would expect him to spend 40 months inside, possibly some of it on a tag outside.
England is probably different.
Actually, since 2016 someone who is sentenced for more than 4 years will only be released when they have 6 months of the sentence left so in this case he would serve 54 months but he is eligible to apply for parole after half the sentence, 30 months.
I've looked at the both the Labour Ads today and still can't see what the problem is with them. If you're the Opposition you call out the Government's failures. The only people who seem not to like them are the Twitter wokerati, Corbynistas, and Tory client journalists.
Labour are criticising the result of sentencing guidelines - with a personal, signed agreement by Sunak even though he wasn't even an MP for the first five years of the figures they use
And Labour's leader was on the committee that changed those sentencing guidelines to imprison fewer offenders
Sir Keir has boxed himself in to a shit ton of new wallpaper
Would be surprised in Labour are worried about the nuance. It's campaigning, the advert has got over 15 million views on Twitter and everyone is talking about crime and the government's record. Job done.
This shows me that Starmer wants to win and will do everything in his power to win.
He wants to paint the Tories as soft on crime.
He has a point.
Think that the point may be even sharper: that alarming number of top Tories are themselves criminals, or at least culpable in wide range of misconduct.
Echoes of the way that, in lead-up to 1997, Labour benefited from the that era's Tory sleaze, culminating in the Battle of Knutsford Heath, the site & subject of Cookie's timely posting & photo.
A few months ago now I did a prosecution of a daft laddie who had got a taser from someone and ran around a public park showing it off like something out of Star Wars. I was prosecuting this because it was in the High Court and the taser looked like a torch, in fact it even operated as a torch. The problem is that our legislation regards a taser as a gun. And the minimum sentence for carrying a disguised firearm is 5 years. Which is what he ended up getting.
This is the sort of idiocy you get when politicians muck about with minimum sentences and these sorts of posters, there is already a second one out about firearms, are exactly the kind of nonsense that encourages witless legislation like that. It is frankly embarrassing that a former DPP doesn't know or more likely doesn't care about that.
What does that translate to?
Minus 1/3 for a guilty plea and minus half for good behaviour? Or are firearms offences different?
I remember one where the courts were tied up for years. A chap a had shotgun (registered). The prosecutors were claiming the barrel was too short. By 1/4 inch. All the firearms experts who examined it, said no, it’s longer than the law requires. So he won every case/appeal.
Turned out the police/prosecution was trying for their own definition of barrel length - where the chamber ends and the barrel begins - used by literally no one else on Earth.
Surely double jeopardy applies (given the impossibility of new evidence arriving): how can he be tried twice for the possession of the same registered shotgun?
Didn't blair and his cronies remove double jeopardy due to the stephen lawrence case?
As well as being utterly repellant and the worst sort of gutter politics that you might see in America ...
... isn't it the case that these stats (starting in 2010) include 3.5 years when Rishi Sunak wasn't even an MP, while Keir Starmer was the Director of Public Prosecutions?
Seems an odd thing to concentrate on, but either way this sort of gutter politics faking the signature of your opposite number etc and putting the independence of the judiciary in dispute has no place in politics in the United Kingdom.
Let me get this right: you are not allowed to like and link to posts that contain Substack links, because Musk thinks it might be a competitor to Twitter*, but Putin and Russian government accounts are OK? (And bear in mind that there are sanctions on businesses operating in Russia, so Twitter is presumably recieving money for the cherished "Blue Tick")
Musk is really fucking up Twitter. It’s a notably degraded service now. Even my “Following” tab is being swamped with junk and I can sense my usage declining week on week.
I deleted my account as soon as he took over back in November.
I decided to be pre-emptive about it and never had one in the first place.
A few months ago now I did a prosecution of a daft laddie who had got a taser from someone and ran around a public park showing it off like something out of Star Wars. I was prosecuting this because it was in the High Court and the taser looked like a torch, in fact it even operated as a torch. The problem is that our legislation regards a taser as a gun. And the minimum sentence for carrying a disguised firearm is 5 years. Which is what he ended up getting.
This is the sort of idiocy you get when politicians muck about with minimum sentences and these sorts of posters, there is already a second one out about firearms, are exactly the kind of nonsense that encourages witless legislation like that. It is frankly embarrassing that a former DPP doesn't know or more likely doesn't care about that.
What does that translate to?
Minus 1/3 for a guilty plea and minus half for good behaviour? Or are firearms offences different?
I remember one where the courts were tied up for years. A chap a had shotgun (registered). The prosecutors were claiming the barrel was too short. By 1/4 inch. All the firearms experts who examined it, said no, it’s longer than the law requires. So he won every case/appeal.
Turned out the police/prosecution was trying for their own definition of barrel length - where the chamber ends and the barrel begins - used by literally no one else on Earth.
Surely double jeopardy applies (given the impossibility of new evidence arriving): how can he be tried twice for the possession of the same registered shotgun?
Maybe the new evidence was a photo of the gun taken from further away proving the barrel was smaller.
Although I think the ad is ill-judged, Rishi cannot be absolved of any blame. He’s totally complicit in the serial underfunding of the justice system, and he appointed Raab and Braverman to key roles.
To the extent he has any interest in criminal justice, it’s only as a dog whistle to attack others. He has no concrete, workable plans himself, and is not likely to put forward any.
If I was being bitchy, I’d add that he is personally responsible for one of the biggest frauds seen in modern governance, ie PPE.
Let me get this right: you are not allowed to like and link to posts that contain Substack links, because Musk thinks it might be a competitor to Twitter*, but Putin and Russian government accounts are OK? (And bear in mind that there are sanctions on businesses operating in Russia, so Twitter is presumably recieving money for the cherished "Blue Tick")
Musk is really fucking up Twitter. It’s a notably degraded service now. Even my “Following” tab is being swamped with junk and I can sense my usage declining week on week.
When Musk took over, my Twitter usage initially went up a fair amount.
Of late, it's dropped meaningfully. Why? I don't know. It's not because of Musk's actions as CEO, but mostly, I think because I now only use the Following tab (which means I don't get angry so much), but also means I don't see that many intersting things.
There's an irony here. The reason that people thought their views* were being ignored is because Twitter's algorithm thrived on "engagement". I.e., people arguing.
Musk implemented Following, so you'd only see things you agreed with. The voices complaining about censorship dried up. But so did the engagement.
A few months ago now I did a prosecution of a daft laddie who had got a taser from someone and ran around a public park showing it off like something out of Star Wars. I was prosecuting this because it was in the High Court and the taser looked like a torch, in fact it even operated as a torch. The problem is that our legislation regards a taser as a gun. And the minimum sentence for carrying a disguised firearm is 5 years. Which is what he ended up getting.
This is the sort of idiocy you get when politicians muck about with minimum sentences and these sorts of posters, there is already a second one out about firearms, are exactly the kind of nonsense that encourages witless legislation like that. It is frankly embarrassing that a former DPP doesn't know or more likely doesn't care about that.
What does that translate to?
Minus 1/3 for a guilty plea and minus half for good behaviour? Or are firearms offences different?
I remember one where the courts were tied up for years. A chap a had shotgun (registered). The prosecutors were claiming the barrel was too short. By 1/4 inch. All the firearms experts who examined it, said no, it’s longer than the law requires. So he won every case/appeal.
Turned out the police/prosecution was trying for their own definition of barrel length - where the chamber ends and the barrel begins - used by literally no one else on Earth.
Surely double jeopardy applies (given the impossibility of new evidence arriving): how can he be tried twice for the possession of the same registered shotgun?
Didn't blair and his cronies remove double jeopardy due to the stephen lawrence case?
On the subject of sentencing, I think it is a horse that has been flogged to death, and it is going to just lead to perverse outcomes. If you look at recent cases, like the Couzens case, and many others; the offender pleaded guilty and still got a whole life sentence. Lots of cases have come through where it is 'life', often with a ridiculously long minimum term. What will happen next is that dangerous criminals won't co-operate at all with the police or the justice system at all and then, because of this, it will be more difficult to prosecute them because of the lack of evidence from the defendent, and more will ultimately escape justice, because when something goes to court it has to be proved 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
This seems to be a lesson that has been learned in the past and will now need to be very painfully learned again, it is just history repeating itself.
HuffPost: "Labour officials are unrepentant and are willing to repeat the stunt as the countdown continues next year’s general election. One source said: “Sunak never condemned Johnson when he accused Keir of letting Jimmy Savile off - so f**k him"".
It's pretty hilarious reading some of the vitriol aimed at Labour on here and elsewhere today. Personally I'm not keen on this law and order campaign. But given the Tories' desperate efforts to equate Labour with turning a blind eye to "British Pakistani grooming gangs", and to tell us all that Labour would open our borders to any criminals who could be arsed to cross them, along with frequent pronouncements from Sunak, Braverman and others about Labour being soft on crime, it's a bit rich for them to moan about Labour attacking back.
I've looked at the both the Labour Ads today and still can't see what the problem is with them. If you're the Opposition you call out the Government's failures. The only people who seem not to like them are the Twitter wokerati, Corbynistas, and Tory client journalists.
Labour are criticising the result of sentencing guidelines - with a personal, signed agreement by Sunak even though he wasn't even an MP for the first five years of the figures they use
And Labour's leader was on the committee that changed those sentencing guidelines to imprison fewer offenders
Sir Keir has boxed himself in to a shit ton of new wallpaper
Would be surprised in Labour are worried about the nuance. It's campaigning, the advert has got over 15 million views on Twitter and everyone is talking about crime and the government's record. Job done.
If that's true, then it might work for the same reason the £350m did.
As well as being utterly repellant and the worst sort of gutter politics that you might see in America ...
... isn't it the case that these stats (starting in 2010) include 3.5 years when Rishi Sunak wasn't even an MP, while Keir Starmer was the Director of Public Prosecutions?
Seems an odd thing to concentrate on, but either way this sort of gutter politics faking the signature of your opposite number etc and putting the independence of the judiciary in dispute has no place in politics in the United Kingdom.
A Labour campaign strategist has just commented on Sky that for a poster to be successful it has to be believable and these two posters are not believable especially now as Sunak is PM, and that the believability of the message negates the underlying message that Labour wanted to cut through with
HuffPost: "Labour officials are unrepentant and are willing to repeat the stunt as the countdown continues next year’s general election. One source said: “Sunak never condemned Johnson when he accused Keir of letting Jimmy Savile off - so f**k him"".
It's pretty hilarious reading some of the vitriol aimed at Labour on here and elsewhere today. Personally I'm not keen on this law and order campaign. But given the Tories' desperate efforts to equate Labour with turning a blind eye to "British Pakistani grooming gangs", and to tell us all that Labour would open our borders to any criminals who could be arsed to cross them, along with frequent pronouncements from Sunak, Braverman and others about Labour being soft on crime, it's a bit rich for them to moan about Labour attacking back.
This shows me that Starmer wants to win and will do everything in his power to win.
He wants to paint the Tories as soft on crime.
He has a point.
He may have a point overall but to pick a specific example that he himself was partly responsible for and which the Tory Government at the time had no influence over strikes me as a fucking stupid way to go about it. All he has done is allow the Tories to redirect the fire onto his own record.
As someone who will be glad to see the back of the Tories this really just makes me think that Labour are no more competent or sensible than the present incumbents.
It’s a response to the Savile smear/Tory focus on grooming gangs.
Cynical and unpleasant but the only response to Tory smears.
Immaterial. It has opened up a new attack line for the Tories on Starmer and one that shows signs of sticking. It is a line of attack that would not have been available to the Tories for exactly the reasons Labour were being criticised for using it. But Labour have done it to themselves.
How many people actually knew before today that sentencing guidelines were produced by an independent committee and that Starmer was part of that decision making process? Now everyone knows it.
It's pretty hilarious reading some of the vitriol aimed at Labour on here and elsewhere today. Personally I'm not keen on this law and order campaign. But given the Tories' desperate efforts to equate Labour with turning a blind eye to "British Pakistani grooming gangs", and to tell us all that Labour would open our borders to any criminals who could be arsed to cross them, along with frequent pronouncements from Sunak, Braverman and others about Labour being soft on crime, it's a bit rich for them to moan about Labour attacking back.
Methinks the Tories doth protest too much.
CasinoRoyale in particular is quite risible. The “British Pakistani gangs” is/was an astonishing low point in British public debate and Rishi was all too happy to line up behind it with his “slideware”.
HuffPost: "Labour officials are unrepentant and are willing to repeat the stunt as the countdown continues next year’s general election. One source said: “Sunak never condemned Johnson when he accused Keir of letting Jimmy Savile off - so f**k him"".
It's pretty hilarious reading some of the vitriol aimed at Labour on here and elsewhere today. Personally I'm not keen on this law and order campaign. But given the Tories' desperate efforts to equate Labour with turning a blind eye to "British Pakistani grooming gangs", and to tell us all that Labour would open our borders to any criminals who could be arsed to cross them, along with frequent pronouncements from Sunak, Braverman and others about Labour being soft on crime, it's a bit rich for them to moan about Labour attacking back.
Methinks the Tories doth protest too much.
The problem is the complaints come from within Labour and not least the guardian
I expect the conservative counter to these adverts is going to raise many difficult questions for Starmer himself
Bank holiday bike ride. Which famous event from political history took place here?
(About to get back on my bike so any speculation will have to remain just that for a bit).
Ron Davies receiving fellatio?
He'll be badgered about that for ever.
Aren't you Oop North somewhere?
Someone made a speech.
Yes, it's cyclable from Greater Manchester. Not a speech as such - not a planned one at any rate. It was in the build up to the 1997 GE.
Hmmm./ The build up?
Martin Bell standing for Tatton? First Independent for nearly half a century.
Struggling with why he would do it in a field.
Yes! Battle of Knutsford Heath - scene of a confrontation between Martin Bell and some hangers-on and Neil and Christine Hamilton and the bloke who played Ken Barlow from Coronation Street. 'Battle' overstated the drama a tad.
What do you mean played? He’s still going, isn’t he?
I've looked at the both the Labour Ads today and still can't see what the problem is with them. If you're the Opposition you call out the Government's failures. The only people who seem not to like them are the Twitter wokerati, Corbynistas, and Tory client journalists.
Labour are criticising the result of sentencing guidelines - with a personal, signed agreement by Sunak even though he wasn't even an MP for the first five years of the figures they use
And Labour's leader was on the committee that changed those sentencing guidelines to imprison fewer offenders
Sir Keir has boxed himself in to a shit ton of new wallpaper
Would be surprised in Labour are worried about the nuance. It's campaigning, the advert has got over 15 million views on Twitter and everyone is talking about crime and the government's record. Job done.
If that's true, then it might work for the same reason the £350m did.
Remember how the terrorist attacks in the run up to GE 2017 actually damaged the Tories against Corbyn and Abbott?
This is that. Then the focus became Tory police number cuts.
On the subject of sentencing, I think it is a horse that has been flogged to death, and it is going to just lead to perverse outcomes. If you look at recent trials, like the Couzens trial, and many others; the offender pleaded guilty and still got a whole life sentence. Lots of cases have come through where it is 'life', often with a ridiculously long minimum term. What will happen next is that dangerous criminals won't co-operate at all with the police or the justice system at all and then, because of this, it will be more difficult to prosecute them because of the lack of evidence from the defendent, and more will ultimately escape justice, because something has to be proved 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
This seems to be a lesson that has been learned in the past and will now need to be very painfully learned again, it is just history repeating itself.
The same issue has happened in California with the "Three Strikes and You're Out" rule. Nobody pleads out their third felony. And it gums up the criminal justice system, and means more people get away with crimes.
I appreciate not doing so would be an attempt to maintain the moral high ground, but I'm fairly sure that smears being fought with smears is how it usually goes.
HuffPost: "Labour officials are unrepentant and are willing to repeat the stunt as the countdown continues next year’s general election. One source said: “Sunak never condemned Johnson when he accused Keir of letting Jimmy Savile off - so f**k him"".
The other issue for Labour is that it did seem like Sunak had moved on from the Johnson era of personal attacks on Starmer. It seems particularly unfortunate and ill judged for Labour to initiate another round of personal attacks dragging the debate back in to the gutter.
Bank holiday bike ride. Which famous event from political history took place here?
(About to get back on my bike so any speculation will have to remain just that for a bit).
Ron Davies receiving fellatio?
He'll be badgered about that for ever.
Aren't you Oop North somewhere?
Someone made a speech.
Yes, it's cyclable from Greater Manchester. Not a speech as such - not a planned one at any rate. It was in the build up to the 1997 GE.
Hmmm./ The build up?
Martin Bell standing for Tatton? First Independent for nearly half a century.
Struggling with why he would do it in a field.
Yes! Battle of Knutsford Heath - scene of a confrontation between Martin Bell and some hangers-on and Neil and Christine Hamilton and the bloke who played Ken Barlow from Coronation Street. 'Battle' overstated the drama a tad.
What do you mean played? He’s still going, isn’t he?
Is he? SURELY he's dead by now?!
You tell me, mate! I had you down as a Corrie-holic.
I haven’t seen it since about 1991. I was gladdened though to discover that it was one of Bob Dylan’s favourite shows.
HuffPost: "Labour officials are unrepentant and are willing to repeat the stunt as the countdown continues next year’s general election. One source said: “Sunak never condemned Johnson when he accused Keir of letting Jimmy Savile off - so f**k him"".
I've looked at the both the Labour Ads today and still can't see what the problem is with them. If you're the Opposition you call out the Government's failures. The only people who seem not to like them are the Twitter wokerati, Corbynistas, and Tory client journalists.
Labour are criticising the result of sentencing guidelines - with a personal, signed agreement by Sunak even though he wasn't even an MP for the first five years of the figures they use
And Labour's leader was on the committee that changed those sentencing guidelines to imprison fewer offenders
Sir Keir has boxed himself in to a shit ton of new wallpaper
Would be surprised in Labour are worried about the nuance. It's campaigning, the advert has got over 15 million views on Twitter and everyone is talking about crime and the government's record. Job done.
If that's true, then it might work for the same reason the £350m did.
Remember how the terrorist attacks in the run up to GE 2017 actually damaged the Tories against Corbyn and Abbott?
This is that. Then the focus became Tory police number cuts.
Bank holiday bike ride. Which famous event from political history took place here?
(About to get back on my bike so any speculation will have to remain just that for a bit).
Ron Davies receiving fellatio?
He'll be badgered about that for ever.
Aren't you Oop North somewhere?
Someone made a speech.
Yes, it's cyclable from Greater Manchester. Not a speech as such - not a planned one at any rate. It was in the build up to the 1997 GE.
Hmmm./ The build up?
Martin Bell standing for Tatton? First Independent for nearly half a century.
Struggling with why he would do it in a field.
Yes! Battle of Knutsford Heath - scene of a confrontation between Martin Bell and some hangers-on and Neil and Christine Hamilton and the bloke who played Ken Barlow from Coronation Street. 'Battle' overstated the drama a tad.
What do you mean played? He’s still going, isn’t he?
Is he? SURELY he's dead by now?!
You tell me, mate! I had you down as a Corrie-holic.
I haven’t seen it since about 1991. I was gladdened though to discover that it was one of Bob Dylan’s favourite shows.
Never watched Corrie but according to Wiki he is still going strong.
It's pretty hilarious reading some of the vitriol aimed at Labour on here and elsewhere today. Personally I'm not keen on this law and order campaign. But given the Tories' desperate efforts to equate Labour with turning a blind eye to "British Pakistani grooming gangs", and to tell us all that Labour would open our borders to any criminals who could be arsed to cross them, along with frequent pronouncements from Sunak, Braverman and others about Labour being soft on crime, it's a bit rich for them to moan about Labour attacking back.
Methinks the Tories doth protest too much.
CasinoRoyale in particular is quite risible. The “British Pakistani gangs” is/was an astonishing low point in British public debate and Rishi was all too happy to line up behind it with his “slideware”.
Yes, and Sunak and Braverman have been noticeably reticent to offer their views on recent convictions for appalling CSE crimes in Walsall and Bolton that didn't, as far as I can see, have anything whatsoever to do with British Pakistanis.
Bank holiday bike ride. Which famous event from political history took place here?
(About to get back on my bike so any speculation will have to remain just that for a bit).
Ron Davies receiving fellatio?
He'll be badgered about that for ever.
Aren't you Oop North somewhere?
Someone made a speech.
Yes, it's cyclable from Greater Manchester. Not a speech as such - not a planned one at any rate. It was in the build up to the 1997 GE.
Hmmm./ The build up?
Martin Bell standing for Tatton? First Independent for nearly half a century.
Struggling with why he would do it in a field.
Yes! Battle of Knutsford Heath - scene of a confrontation between Martin Bell and some hangers-on and Neil and Christine Hamilton and the bloke who played Ken Barlow from Coronation Street. 'Battle' overstated the drama a tad.
What do you mean played? He’s still going, isn’t he?
Is he? SURELY he's dead by now?!
You tell me, mate! I had you down as a Corrie-holic.
I haven’t seen it since about 1991. I was gladdened though to discover that it was one of Bob Dylan’s favourite shows.
Never watched Corrie but according to Wiki he is still going strong.
You missed out. I genuinely believe that until the early 90s (when it went to three, and then five days a week) it was meaningful cultural treasure.
I recall an entire episode which was a sly homage to Harold Pinter.
No-one believes for a second that SKS is a hard-liner on law & order.
Starmer appears to stand for nothing at all, or perhaps at most a commitment to manage decline slightly more competently - continuity Toryism, disguised with a tiny little state electricity company and a few other pieces of cosmetic tinkering, to convince the gullible that a wonderful changey hopey new era has dawned.
The man won't be able to sell it on two grounds: he has the charisma of a doorstop and it will be completely obvious to his voters within weeks of the election that the transfer of the nation's ever-shrinking pool of wealth to well-off over 50s and the outright rich is going to continue almost exactly as it did under the previous administration.
Labour's polling numbers will be in the toilet within the first six months. We then have a further four-and-a-half years of decay to look forward to before whatever abomination comes next. Not that I'm a total cynic with absolutely zero faith in the ability of the British political class, of course.
Well, you've sold me. I'll be 50 at the time of the next election, so that looks like exactly the kind of government I want.
The problem with the "I don't care if the country burns, so long as I get to be rich" attitude is that the fire will spread and, eventually, engulf everything. The plutocrats can always run away to Monaco but most of the olds will then be immolated along with everybody else.
Ongoing support for more of the same is a gamble on the rotten national edifice collapsing only after one is safely dead, essentially.
HuffPost: "Labour officials are unrepentant and are willing to repeat the stunt as the countdown continues next year’s general election. One source said: “Sunak never condemned Johnson when he accused Keir of letting Jimmy Savile off - so f**k him"".
The other issue for Labour is that it did seem like Sunak had moved on from the Johnson era of personal attacks on Starmer. It seems particularly unfortunate and ill judged for Labour to initiate another round of personal attacks dragging the debate back in to the gutter.
No. Sunak spends the second half of every PMQs making personal attacks on Starmer - particularly on immigration, asylum seekers, and the fact that Starmer lives in and represents a North London seat, the metropolitan bastard.
BTW, did anyone on here notice that, earlier this week, in the great Swing State of Wisconsin, the progressive, liberal, pro-choice candidate for state supreme court justice, was elected by landslide-margin of +11% versus her pro-Trump, conservative, anti-abortion opponent?
Result of this election, replaces conservative majority on the court, with progressive one, which will have many local impacts including the likely-overturning of Republican legislative AND congressional gerrymanders.
PLUS the implications for 2024 presidential AND congressional races, in Wisconsin AND beyond.
FYI, Trump blamed (fellow) loser for NOT campaigning as full-blown MAGA-maniac. In fact, one of the nails in his coffin, was his advocacy of Trump's attempted 2020 election steal, including attempting to overturn the vote of the people of . . . wait for it . . . Wisconsin.
However, that was only one nail. The other being repeal of Roe v. Wade.
And, regardless of whom Republican Party nominates in 2024 for President, THAT is a nail that Democrats will keep on pounding home with voters.
Comments
My view is that this will pick up no red wall voters and slightly deter blue wall prospects.
No-one believes for a second that SKS is a hard-liner on law & order.
Some of us may think the Tories are dangerously woke. But it's offering an, unusual perspective of the Labour Party.
https://twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1644339059215548416
Martin Bell standing for Tatton? First Independent for nearly half a century.
Struggling with why he would do it in a field.
The other day I mentioned that a rail bridge over the Thames to the south of Oxford has suffered problems. The view from trackside shows just a little dip...
https://twitter.com/PaulCliftonBBC/status/1644354152779198464
This is the sort of idiocy you get when politicians muck about with minimum sentences and these sorts of posters, there is already a second one out about firearms, are exactly the kind of nonsense that encourages witless legislation like that. It is frankly embarrassing that a former DPP doesn't know or more likely doesn't care about that.
'Battle' overstated the drama a tad.
He’s still going, isn’t he?
Elon Musk’s social media site lifts restrictions on Kremlin-linked tweets
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2023/04/07/elon-musk-twitter-lifts-restrictions-putin-kremlin-russia/ (£££)
"Do you think Keir Starmer represents the best hope for a modern progressive Britain? Rishi Sunak doesn't."
Minus 1/3 for a guilty plea and minus half for good behaviour? Or are firearms offences different?
He wants to paint the Tories as soft on crime.
He has a point.
The man won't be able to sell it on two grounds: he has the charisma of a doorstop and it will be completely obvious to his voters within weeks of the election that the transfer of the nation's ever-shrinking pool of wealth to well-off over 50s and the outright rich is going to continue almost exactly as it did under the previous administration.
Labour's polling numbers will be in the toilet within the first six months. We then have a further four-and-a-half years of decay to look forward to before whatever abomination comes next. Not that I'm a total cynic with absolutely zero faith in the ability of the British political class, of course.
After all, if you actually wanted to deal with crime, would you put Suella Braverman and Dominic Raab in charge?
Really?
England is probably different.
The irony is Starmer was on the sentencing council responsible for these laws
@DPJHodges
HuffPost: "Labour officials are unrepentant and are willing to repeat the stunt as the countdown continues next year’s general election. One source said: “Sunak never condemned Johnson when he accused Keir of letting Jimmy Savile off - so f**k him"".
Have they lost their marbles.
10:26 am · 7 Apr 2023"
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1644270343865892864
Turned out the police/prosecution was trying for their own definition of barrel length - where the chamber ends and the barrel begins - used by literally no one else on Earth.
As someone who will be glad to see the back of the Tories this really just makes me think that Labour are no more competent or sensible than the present incumbents.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65211469
This is the second one, which is quite a technical claim. I'd need to unpack that, and find out whether such people qualify in my view as "gunmen"; it's not an offence I've even heard of before, and I though I was au fait with firearms laws to an extent.
To clarify, this is not meant as a compliment.
Cynical and unpleasant but the only response to Tory smears.
The focus group had seven people. One half 2019 Labour voters who were now undecided the other half 2019 Tory voters who are now undecided. These seven people represented the voters of three named constituencies.
Managing to find three and a half Labour voters who had become undecided must have taken some doing. Let alone three and a half who represented hundreds of thousands of voters.
Apparently they did a previous one which suggested being heavy handed on Law and Order was the way to go. I really wouldn't recommend reading anything into the findings of this most bizarrely put together focus group
Frankly I am astonished he allowed such an advertisement and is no better than Braverman in this respect
This is Labour descending into gutter politics when with 20% leads they had no need
My wife has listened to the report just now on Sky and is astonished and livid about it and she is not political
https://twitter.com/TLDRNewsUK/status/1644308699911974914?t=nQ_PrEzLSzAf3cAQbVQKrw&s=19
If politicians take sentencing authority away from Judges, and you get absurdly harsh sentences like this.
And if they don't, you have situations like the other trial you prosecuted, where the guy who raped a 13 year old, and didn't get a prison sentence.
Could you (or do you) have a process where Judges have authority, but there are regular reviews to make sure that sentences are 90% of the time falling within guidelines?
And Labour's leader was on the committee that changed those sentencing guidelines to imprison fewer offenders
Sir Keir has boxed himself in to a shit ton of new wallpaper
I know it works, and that’s why they do it, but when I hear otherwise smart MPs spout this kind of garbage about whatever crime particularly exercises them, I just see it as cynical.
These kind of binaries rarely survive contact with the actual criminal justice system.
The exercising of justice has to be nuanced.
I do wonder if this, in part, is down to negative feedback in labour focus groups from Keir’s commitment to reduce violence against women by 50%.
“Why only 50%?”
I’d guess was a common response.
So that has been at the back of their mind when framing these attack ads.
Just a guess as to the thought process behind them.
If voters want b****** trolls from hell government, they might as well vote for the real thing. OGH has made the point very succinctly.
It’s a notably degraded service now.
Even my “Following” tab is being swamped with junk and I can sense my usage declining week on week.
Echoes of the way that, in lead-up to 1997, Labour benefited from the that era's Tory sleaze, culminating in the Battle of Knutsford Heath, the site & subject of Cookie's timely posting & photo.
... isn't it the case that these stats (starting in 2010) include 3.5 years when Rishi Sunak wasn't even an MP, while Keir Starmer was the Director of Public Prosecutions?
Seems an odd thing to concentrate on, but either way this sort of gutter politics faking the signature of your opposite number etc and putting the independence of the judiciary in dispute has no place in politics in the United Kingdom.
I think he's going to struggle in a GE campaign against a more competent opponent
To the extent he has any interest in criminal justice, it’s only as a dog whistle to attack others. He has no concrete, workable plans himself, and is not likely to put forward any.
If I was being bitchy, I’d add that he is personally responsible for one of the biggest frauds seen in modern governance, ie PPE.
Of late, it's dropped meaningfully. Why? I don't know. It's not because of Musk's actions as CEO, but mostly, I think because I now only use the Following tab (which means I don't get angry so much), but also means I don't see that many intersting things.
There's an irony here. The reason that people thought their views* were being ignored is because Twitter's algorithm thrived on "engagement". I.e., people arguing.
Musk implemented Following, so you'd only see things you agreed with. The voices complaining about censorship dried up. But so did the engagement.
Of course, if I'd been included in the list of most influential people on Twitter over the age of Fifty, I might have a different opinion.
* i.e. views from people who agreed with them
If you look at recent cases, like the Couzens case, and many others; the offender pleaded guilty and still got a whole life sentence. Lots of cases have come through where it is 'life', often with a ridiculously long minimum term.
What will happen next is that dangerous criminals won't co-operate at all with the police or the justice system at all and then, because of this, it will be more difficult to prosecute them because of the lack of evidence from the defendent, and more will ultimately escape justice, because when something goes to court it has to be proved 'beyond reasonable doubt'.
This seems to be a lesson that has been learned in the past and will now need to be very painfully learned again, it is just history repeating itself.
Methinks the Tories doth protest too much.
He would not have signed off these posters
How many people actually knew before today that sentencing guidelines were produced by an independent committee and that Starmer was part of that decision making process? Now everyone knows it.
It is a stupid and unnecessary own goal.
The “British Pakistani gangs” is/was an astonishing low point in British public debate and Rishi was all too happy to line up behind it with his “slideware”.
I expect the conservative counter to these adverts is going to raise many difficult questions for Starmer himself
This is that. Then the focus became Tory police number cuts.
It doesn’t matter that the Tories used similar smears against Starmer, you do not fight smears with smears.
https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1644295498700840960?cxt=HHwWgICzneqC29EtAAAA
Edit
This MP is bold though.
Lee Anderson lecturing about dogwhistle politics is just too much. I am dead 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
https://twitter.com/residentadviser/status/1644255378312396800?cxt=HHwWgICwhcLjyNEtAAAA
I had you down as a Corrie-holic.
I haven’t seen it since about 1991.
I was gladdened though to discover that it was one of Bob Dylan’s favourite shows.
The left will love that
Come and join the Tory party!
https://youtu.be/dhtZ1zMEKyI
I genuinely believe that until the early 90s (when it went to three, and then five days a week) it was meaningful cultural treasure.
I recall an entire episode which was a sly homage to Harold Pinter.
Ongoing support for more of the same is a gamble on the rotten national edifice collapsing only after one is safely dead, essentially.
"New Labour, New Danger!" and the "Demon Eyes"
Result of this election, replaces conservative majority on the court, with progressive one, which will have many local impacts including the likely-overturning of Republican legislative AND congressional gerrymanders.
PLUS the implications for 2024 presidential AND congressional races, in Wisconsin AND beyond.
FYI, Trump blamed (fellow) loser for NOT campaigning as full-blown MAGA-maniac. In fact, one of the nails in his coffin, was his advocacy of Trump's attempted 2020 election steal, including attempting to overturn the vote of the people of . . . wait for it . . . Wisconsin.
However, that was only one nail. The other being repeal of Roe v. Wade.
And, regardless of whom Republican Party nominates in 2024 for President, THAT is a nail that Democrats will keep on pounding home with voters.